Mixing Red and Green to form Eco-Religion

Prof. Philip Stott has posted an excellent comment based on an article published by Charles Moore on the UK Telegraph Newspaper.

"If I am right, the politics of climate change are bad. They attract the self-righteous and the self-flagellating, the controlling, the life-denying, the people who don't like people, the people who, like Private Fraser in Dad's Army, think we're 'all DOOMED'. And when I listen to many of the scientists who join in the argument, I often hear in what they say not the voice of science itself, but of the bad politics, thinly disguised by a white coat."

Climate change has become a religion and its high priests the people in the white coats.

Worryingly "The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, went further. He told the BBC's Today programme that we must support government "coercion" over enforcing "international protocols" and speed limits on motorways "if we want the global economy not to collapse and millions, billions of people to die"."

Here we have it as naked truth - climate change or global warming is nothing more than the latest basis for imposing a totalitarian state.

Climate sceptics have always recognised this hidden agenda of the climate alarmists and hence continue to be ritually stoned by the devout on various blogs.

But do read Philip Stott's excellent post as well as Moore's column linked here

Scientific Maypoles

"The big obstacle is getting off the so-called 'mainstream's' maypole, and still be able to publish.

Today's 'science' will tolerate no threats, real or potential." Anon.

And here we have the problem dissenting scientists face today - rock the boat and you don't get published.

DDT and thin eggshells

J. Bitman demonstrated this effect by feeding test birds some DDT but also reduced the calcium level in the bird's diet. This did produce thinner shells,. Bitman then redid the experiment retaining the DDT but restoring the missing calcium. This time the eggshells were normal thickness.

"Unfortunately ," J. Gordon Edwards wrote in a review of the general malfeasance surrounding DDT "the editor of Science refused to publish the results of the later research. Editor Philip Abelson had already told Dr. Thomas Jukes of the University of California in Berkeley that Science would never publish anything that was not antagonistic towards DDT. Bitman therefore had to publish the results of his legitimate feeding experiments in an obscure speciality journal (Poultry Science), and many readers of Science continued to believe that DDT caused birds to lay thin-shelled eggs" (Ref: J. Gordon Edwards. "DDT: A case study in Scientific Fraud," Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, v. 9, no 3, fall 2004, 83-88.)

Hot air at the Poles

Heat sources in the earth’s atmosphere include lightning but science always assumed lighting descended from clouds down to the earth. What about lightning from the earth to space?

These are now known as sprites though little is known of them.

For those who see the earth as an electrically charged sphere in a plasma, such phenomena are obvious but not so obvious is the effect these electric currents have on the atmosphere’s temperature.

Any electric current passing through a resistance generates heat, and lightning bolts, whether to earth or to space, are essentially short circuits or overloaded currents. This raises the possibility that the recently discovered warming of the atmosphere over the Antarctic might well be due to a electrical effects in the polar region than anything else.

The earth’s polar auroras are also produced by electric currents connecting the earth to the sun, and as we know from experience, electric currents passing through a resistive medium, like the atmosphere, generate heat.

Is it possible that the measured increase in atmosphere temperature over Antarctica has a source in these electric currents?

New Diamond Exploration Tool

CONFIDENTIAL – LEVEL 1

Distribution: DG, IC, RH, CB, GT, RM, MM, SS, SV.

The DRC-RTC™ Kimberlite Detector
Preliminary Field Tests - WA

Stewart A. Humphreys Phd.

Consultant Research Geologist – DRC (Division 5) – Field Operations

Introduction

As consultant to the DRC Research and Technical Services, (RATS), one of my tasks is to bring new technologies and/or ideas to the attention of the other DRC section members so that we can decide if DRC should support research into new exploration ideas. One of the latest which may seem a bit strange is to use rats to detect kimberlites and lamproites. However this is not as bizarre as it seems as rats have proved their worth in detecting landmines in various parts of Africa as shown by the follow news story:

Maryann Mott for National Geographic News - February 10, 2004. In Mozambique, an African country littered with land mines from decades of civil war, 20 rats were recently used to search for explosives. So far, they've been successful. In November, the animals found nine mines in one day along the Limpopo Railway, says Bart Weetjens, director of APOPO, the Belgian research company that trains the animals. The Mozambique National Demining Institute accredited the technology in late September, allowing for the work to take place. Weetjens notes this is the first time the African giant pouch rats have been deployed in real mine fields. The rats combed three minefields along a rail line that connects the port city of Maputo with neighboring Zimbabwe. Despite the railway's economic importance, few trains travel this dangerous stretch. People fear vibrations caused by trains will trigger the instable explosives. APOPO came up with the idea of using rats while searching for a cheap and efficient way to detect mines. A trained rat costs about U.S. $2,000—about $10,000 less than a mine-sniffing dog. Other advantages include the rats' relatively small size (15 inches/40 centimeters), which make them easy to maintain and transport; their resistance to most tropical diseases; and their highly developed sense of smell.

"Rats are able to detect most types of mines," said Weetjens. "In principle they could detect all mines because of the explosive content, if it weren't that some devices have been manufactured with accurate sealing, which leaves no escape for explosive trace vapors. But these can easily be found with a metal detector." Rats conditioned to TNT odors are trained to walk on a leash, which is attached to a bar that moves forward into a suspected field. When the animals smell explosive material they scratch or bite at the location. The rat's light weight—one-and-a-half to three pounds (0.7 to 1.5 kilograms)—does not trigger the mine. A rat and handler can search 180 square yards (150 square meters) in about half an hour. "After that, reliability of concentration for rats as well as trainers goes down," Weetjens said.

This isn't a problem, he notes, since well-rested, replacement rats are available. Currently the company has more than 100 rats in different stages of training at its facility in Tanzania, north of Mozambique.

Rats begin training at the age of five weeks when juveniles are weaned from their mothers. A positive reinforcement method known as clicker training is used. When the animal does something right, the trainer clicks a small, handheld noisemaker before giving the rat a piece of banana or peanut as a reward. (The same method is often used in America to train dogs in obedience schools.) The company says the rats learn the desired task relatively quickly—between six to ten months. "We now have some fourth-generation domestic animals. And generation after generation, the animals learn faster," said Weetjens. "It is too early, though, to conclude if this is due to selective breeding or to a more established training method and [increased] skills of the trainers." After an animal has been fully trained, a series of blind tests are conducted during a six-week period. If the rat passes, it is then licensed for de-mining operations. APOPO plans to use its trained rats elsewhere, including Angola, Cambodia, and Bosnia.

Following the success of this land mine detection program, in mid-2004 DRC approached APOPO which agreed to sell DRC 10 rats in return for a substantial donation to their training program. The rats were imported into Australia and underwent the usual quarantine processes; two had to be euthanized leaving eight for field testing.

We have approached the LIME division of CSIRO, as they have had significant success in quantifying the minute bacterial residues within the regolith profiles over much of mineralized areas of West Australia, and which has subsequently been proven a successful technique in base metals and gold exploration in WA. LIME have also agreed to participate in the proposed JV.

However our targets, kimberlites, are far less chemically reactive, but as some contain significant quantities of diamond (vis. Carbon), and sometimes sulphides, it was thought that regolith processes could have modified this primary carbon into chemically detectable forms, hence the interest in the rats which, as shown in the NG article, have heightened sensitivity to low level chemical residues. There is some suggestion from the nickel division that bacterial action in the regolith might affect diamond. We have learnt from WMC experience that kimberlites also produce a somewhat expansive mineral haloe if the right regolith material is sampled and correctly analysed. These are proprietary techniques which DRC is not willing to divulge at this point in time.

This project is of crucial importance to us as the diamond majors have decided to focus their exploration out of Australia, the main reason being the difficulty in dealing with the extensive highly weathered surficial regolith mantle covering most of West Australia. As our exploration section does not have the financial backing that the diamond majors have, urgent research is being directed to discovering alternative methods of detecting subtle bacteriological produced chemical haloes around the kimberlites. We have the means of detecting the kimberlite clusters down to a few hundred square kilometres, but this technique is not suitable for detailed follow up.

Progress to date

The project’s first phase required verification of the identification of existing metaliferous deposits, and this was done by testing the rats on known deposits not yet mined. (This was done within the auspices of the LIME section of the CSIRO and involved training the rats to recognize the low level chemical signatures; LIME will publish the results in due course. Conclusion – as expected, locating ordnance chemically was little different to locating metaliferous deposits – both had low-level, but significant, chemical signatures at ground level and the rats were successful in detecting both signals.

The second phase was to test the animals over the known kimberlites and lamproites. We consider this to be a more difficult phase of the research project as these rock types, while occasionally hosting diamond which, as far as we know, is chemically un-reactive in the regolith.
Two type areas were chosen – a typical Kimberley location and the north-west Yilgarn where we have quite a few kimberlites that are not generally known, allowing us some security that our field work would not attract undue attention.

Kimberley area

DRC employed local community people during the 2005 field testing over some small lamproites discovered on Liveringa Station in the West Kimberley by a junior company. Those tests were reasonably successful but we are not sure whether the rats reacted in response to the focussed magnetic field, or to subtle bio-chemical signals. LIME are analysing the soil samples and results are expected during the end of 2005 financial to clarify this. Further testing of magnetic field sensitivity is underway during the first half of 2006. (See Figure 1 below).

Figure 1: Patrick Williams (Nookanbah community), running the “DRC_RTC™” trial at the Marsink Lamproite, Liveringa Station, WA, during Dry Season 2004.

Yilgarn Testing

Quite a few kimberlites have been discovered on the Leonora 250,000 topographic sheet by the diamond majors and juniors, though none were economically viable. All occurrences were in bedrock or saprock, and considered useful as calibration examples. One buried pipe was discovered under Lake Ballard near Menzies, under 40 metres of lacustrine sediment but it is considered that this occurrence is not of the type-regolith target DRC have been commissioned to research. Hence, the Lake Ballard occurrence will not be field tested with the RTC method.

Problems

Weetjen’s comments above in the use of “clicker” training has proven correct, though we have discovered that span of attention time of both handler and rat is increased during colder weather. Rate of coverage was similar to that for mine detection, vis 150 square metres per half hour.

We did find that attrition rate was slightly higher than APOPO’s experience, and this needs to be factored into proposed breeding programs to ensure a commercially viable support population.

Conclusion

Clearly we have had some success in using this somewhat innovative exploration technique, with qualified success over the Kimberley lamproites. Positive responses have been obtained from the Yilgarn kimberlites, but LIME has yet to locate a suitable target under colluvial material. It was noticed that the rats were sensitive to magnetic fields, (if associated with small intrusives) and that led to the need of redesigning the restraining wires to cope with the extra length required for diamond exploration. This was due to the fact we used the existing harnesses used for mine-detection in Africa, which are of a shorter length.

Competitors – we note that SAM (sub audio magnetics) is a competitive technology in this area, but to date their data acquisition costs are greater than a factor of 5, and in addition need post acquisition data processing with the usual industry standard cost escalations.

We feel it prudent to involve local communities as much as possible, as the technique will allow them to develop low technology business stratagems to improve their incomes.

We feel this project could make a significant contribution to empowering indigenous communities and at the same time introduce them, in a positive way, to meaningful cooperation with the mining industry.

Recommendations

Continue existing program until Dec 2006.

• Establish viability of breeding and training the rats in conjunction with WA Agriculture Department.
• Negotiate with diamond majors for any data pertaining to source rocks hidden under regolith.
• Investigate suitability of marsupial rats/animals for purpose in conjunction with CALM.
  
• Project review in December 2006.

Yobbo Science

Previously I remarked on some inanities in which Yobbos assert that CO2’s greenhouse properties are essentially the stuff of quantum mechanics etc.

Quantum Physics is concerned with the sub-atomic domain – but CO2 is in the molecular domain in which quantum physics isn’t applicable. It is a strange world, isn’t it, when Yobbos pontificate from their post modernist podium.

O2 has no greenhouse effect but combine it with Carbon to produce CO2 which does. So Carbon might be the crucial atom which causes greenhouse properties at the Quantum level? But carbon as diamond has very interesting thermal properties but as graphite doesn’t. So what has Quantum mechanics or physics got to do with it one wonders.

Yobbos have a problem understanding physics and chemistry and a sign of the times of course. So they use important sounding words like “Quantum Physics or Mechanics” to show their scientific skill.

Now Yobbos are also devout Keynesians but apparently Keynes’ total economic grounding stretched to attending two months of lectures in economics only, according to a personal note received in my email today (Thanks Douglas and Gerry). One therefore suspects that a Yobbo’s grounding in science is based on a comprehensive period of study as Lord Keynes’s grounding in economics, say two months of relevant lectures.

And as our universities are also afflicted with the disease of Post-Modernism, in which there are no objective facts, one could then argue that it is not possible to know there is global warming, and the view of climate change but one of many equally valid narratives. Under this philosophy climate scepticism is another valid narrative. So why the hysterics amongst Yobbos when their cherished narrative is questioned?

Unable to counter argument with reasoned counter argument, Yobbos resort to personal vilification of their debating adversaries to win the game.

Some common vilifications are shown below thanks to Dr Gerrit van der Lingen, quoted by James P. Hogan here

"I have been collecting some of the insults levelled at AGW sceptics: cash-amplified flat-earth pseudo-scientists; the carbon cartel; villains; refuseniks lobby; polluters; a powerful and devious enemy; deniers; profligates; crank scientists. The list is endless. I remember the reaction of a Canadian scientist who dared to ask critical questions at a meeting on global warming. He was totally taken aback by the virulent reaction, "it was as if I was back in the Middle Ages and had denied the Virgin Birth". A common slur is also that all sceptics are in the pockets of the oil industry.”

“The global warming debate has left the realm of science a long time ago. It has become totally politicised. Any scientific criticism is not met with a scientific response, but with name-calling and a stepping up of the scare tactics."

Further examples of Yobbo phrases can be read in the reasoned deliberations of some of Jenny Marohasy’s commentators, many writing under pseudonyms.  Write a comment expressing reservation over anthropogenic global warming theories and one is immediately subjected to ritual stoning by the Yobbos.

And beware when Yobbos become pleasant and cease their vilifications – because as Sir Humphrey in the memorable Yes Minister TV series pointed out, in order to stab someone in the back, you must first become their friend.

Physics and Chemistry

In the previous post I made the distinction between the physical properties of CO2, N2 H2 and O2, and H2O, and then briefly the “CHEMICAL” composition of air.

The physical properties of CO2 are not disputed, whether on the molecular or macro scale.

What the Yobbos seem not to understand is the difference between physical and chemical properties.

Air is the physical entity we are immersed in and breathe. It has ONE unique physical property.  It is the greenhouse effect of air that is important. Not those of its constituents.  And so far I have not found any data at all on the “greenhouse” factor of air, implying that no one has actually measured it, (a simple enough exercise).

Such is the nature of science these days that intellectual persuasion is more important than the collection of rude, rough, physical data.

Welcome back Sir Charles Lyell.

Yobbo Baloney

I received a note from my mate at Mangled Thoughts about some inanities posted at a blog named “Yobbo” (an apt name if there ever was one) about my argument that as CO2 does not exist as a physically separate and distinct phase in air, then its physical properties could be ignored.  

Their argument put was that CO2’s Greenhouse effect occurs at the molecular level, and thus disproves my argument.  Quantum mechanics was also invoked though I doubt Yobbo’s would have studied David Bohm’s seminal book on Quantum Mechanics; I found it hard going at the time many years back.

So I am not denying these facts but merely point out that the physical (molecular) properties of hydrogen and oxygen, two gases which constitute part of the air we breathe, are absent when combined in the ratio of 2H to 1 O to form water, H2O.

Air is primarily Nitrogen and Oxygen with barely detectable quantities of CO2 and other minor gases. This is a chemical definition. Physically it is called “air”, not Nitrogen, or Oxygen or CO2. etc.  So the properties of CO2 in isolation are indeed what the Yobbo’s state them to be but air is not CO2, but a distinct gas of specific composition.  It is much like the relationship between H2O and H2 and O2.

The assertions of the AGW band involve phenomena at the molecular level which is not directly observable in the first place but it is a physical level ripe for intellectual speculation, however, as Quantum mechanics is.

I suspect the Yobbos don’t understand much physics and chemistry.

Electric Field and Insects and Cyclones

An interesting field observation was made a few days before Cyclone Larry wreaked its havoc on Queensland at Lake Carey in Western Australia during March, 2006.

I was running a drilling program on the western side of Lake Carey south of Laverton, and mentioned to the driller that the sudden appearance of flying ants indicated, to me at least, that rain was expected in 3-4 days.  My driller then mentioned the sudden appearance of what we call “Stink Beetles” as another harbinger of rain in desert country.

Now it should be stressed that I do not listen to the ABC radio when out bush unless it is absolutely necessary – one tires of the politically correct pap peddled on it. So our drilling team were quite unaware of the approach of Cyclone Larry north east of Queensland.

The problem was that out where I was, no rain appeared at the expected time, and initially caused concern as hitherto it had always been an accurate indicator. Rain in the desert environment causes all sorts of logistical problems like flash floods, impassable ground and so on, so an ability to predict short term weather from the observation of biosphere is a quickly developed skill.  Most city people would not have a clue about this aspect of the biosphere, of course, as only those of us who actually live and work in the bush, close and intimately with nature, appreciate.

So it was with some astonishment we learnt of Cyclone Larry’s arrival 3-4 days after the initial signs of the flying ants and stink beetles.

Mainstream science rejects the notion that mere insects could sense an impending distant climate event, and if so might do on a purely physical basis on the appearance of, in the case of rain, increased humidity. In this case these conditions were not present.

So I wondered whether the Lake Carey insects were reacting to a fluctuation in the earth’s electrical field. Cyclones or Hurricanes are, in terms of plasma physics, generated by enormous Birkeland currents producing sheaf discharges and voltage potentials of up to 10,000 volts are common.  The conventional view is that it is the mechanics of the physical vortex that produces the electric field, though how has not been experimentally demonstrated.

Did the Lake Carey insects react to the electric field activity that produced Cyclone Larry? We do know that the biosphere does anticipate earthquakes and other geophysical phenomena well in advance of the overt physical occurrence, but do not know why, so the role of the earthly electric field would seem the logical thing to study. And no one is.

It is cyclone season and the last time we had increased cyclonic activity was 1995 when Western Australia experienced a cyclone in late May that stopped field work in the Kimberley region until June 21. I know, because I was billeted in the Kununurra Country Club waiting for the roads to be officially opened to Kalumburu. I mention this because 2006 is 11 years from 1995 and coincides with the sunspot cycle period.

But then climate changers are absolutely certain that the sun has little to do with the earth’s climate – we humans are totally responsible, by emitting CO2 into the atmosphere, for climate change. So it might be in their circularly reasoned and designed computer climate models.

Challenger to the BOOPERS

A long outstanding challenge never taken up.

For some 20 years or so J. F. Kenney’s company, Gas Resources Corporation of 11811 North Freeway, fl. 5, Houston, TX 77060, U.S.A. has challenged anyone who believes in the spontaneous generation of natural crude oil from biomass (BOOP – Biological Origin Of Petroleum) and offered a reward for its experimental demonstration. The following conditions have to be met by any challenger:

1. The chemical formulae of all reagents entering the process must be explicitly stated.


2. The stereographic geometry of all reagents entering the process must be explicitly stated.


3. The molar Gibbs free enthalpy (a/k/a “chemical potential) of each reagent entering the process must be explicitly stated.


4. (4.), (5.), and (6.)       The same must be specified for all products of the physical and chemical process.


5. The experimental apparatus and procedure must be clearly described, such that the experiment can be rerun by anyone so inclined.


6. The energy balance of the experimental procedure must be precisely measured and clearly stated.  (This requirement serves to rule out drive processes, such as the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, for which more energy is put into the process than one recovers from combustion of the hydrocarbon products.)


7. The experimental procedure must take into account, and measure, the effects of chemical kinetics in order to assure that the reaction products represent the final, equilibrium distribution of the generation process, - not some labile, intermediate state.

So far no takers have taken up the challenge.

(I am not sure what Kenney means by points 4,5 and 6, but that is how I received it from him).

Measuring Temperatures

Letter to Readers Digest on their June 2002 Kyoto expose
------------------------------------------------------------
ON  THE  PRACTICE  OF  TEMPERATURE  MEASUREMENT

Date: September 04, 2002
Name: Bob Pawley

Comments:
All weather observations, outside of the laboratory are based on temperature readings.

The devices used to measure these temperatures have a measurement uncertainty of plus or minus 0.5 degrees Celsius - a one degree spread. (Adding other uncertainties within the full measurement system, brings the total measurement uncertainty a lot higher.) The global warming proponent have stated the temperature rise in the last century is one degree Celsius. This one degree rise is the basis for their whole argument - and it is absolutely false.

In my 35 years in industrial measurement and control I have gained a lot of experience in how accurately measurement (especially temperature) can be measured.

Other factors that will affect the temperature measurement are -

1 - Number of measuring points relative to the whole. 99% of our weather is monitored within 100 feet of the earths surface and within 5,000 ft of sea level. The vast bulk of the atmosphere is measured only periodically using balloons and rockets. Satellite measurements tend to measure only the upper level of the stratosphere, mostly heat reflection.

2 - Calibration - The device (RTD) itself is very stable. The electronics attached to the device, interpreting the readings for we humans to understand, does drift. How much and how often it drifts is a direct function of the cost. The weather department never buys the most costly systems. Most measurements are taken in remote sites where technicians venture seldom. (My son works for the Canadian weather service).

3 - The three factors, RTD inaccuracy, number of measuring points and calibration can add up to a plus or minus one degree (or more) uncertainty or a two degree spread in uncertainty. With this level of uncertainty in today's devices it is not very likely that the devices of 100 years ago were any better at providing a certain reading.

No one knows if the atmosphere has increased in temperature by one degree in the last hundred years. For all anyone does know, the atmosphere could very well be colder than it was a century ago.

How can so many 'scientists' be so wrong? Remember back in the early part of the twentieth century, all scientists, every last one of them, except one, were convinced that there was only one more fact to understand and everything in science would then be known. Unfortunately for this myth, along came Neils Bohr.

I have asked myself how so many so-called scientists can get on the global warming bandwagon when there is so much doubt about the very basics of accurate measuring. I think the answer lies in the fact that people in general look at a reading and accept that reading at face value. This has become even more prevalent since the advent of digital readouts.

Of course, most scientist are in the laboratory using highly accurate, therefore expensive, measuring system. They probably have never considered anything else being used in the weather services.

I also know that a lot of otherwise very smart people do not have a sound grasp of what measurement uncertainty entails.

I suggested my global warming and measurement uncertainty on an e-mail list of 2,000 of my compatriots in the industrial measurement and control industry. Of the tens of people who responded only one or two had any grasp of the factors involved in performing an accurate reading. The most common argument that came up was that if you average all of the reading this, somehow, improves the accuracy. Of course, when the reading are averaged you obtain an average of the readings - not of the temperature. And, these are people whose job it is to understand these principles.

As global warming, by definition, has its basics in the measuring of temperature, it is quite clear that we are being taken in by the largest, most expensive scam in the history of civilization.

Hiatus

The wetness caused by Cyclone Emma now having passed, I am off bush again to finish the drilling contract.

Unfinished business with the usual expert commentators at Jennifier Mahorasy’s blog, this time a debate over the origin of oil.

Strange that the Fischer-Tropsch method does not rely on a biomass to produce hydrocarbons and that no one has yet been able to to synthesise bitumen or grease from biomass. Yet there is a pervasive belief that nature can. The reasoning behind biotic oil, as for much of geology, is summarised by Kenney in one of his scientific papers which I reproduce here:

“Modern petroleum science has heretofore been a geologists’ theory, supported by many observations, drawn into a comprehensive pattern, and argued by persuasion. By contrast, a physicist’s theory uses only a minimum of data, applies fundamental physical laws, using the formalism of mathematics, and argues by compulsion. The theoretical results here reported, use only the fundamental laws of physics and thermodynamics, and establish the provenance of modern petroleum science in the rigorous mainstream of modern physics and chemistry. The experimental results here reported, confirm unequivocally those theoretical conclusions, which may now be taken as foundations of the modern theory of deep, abiotic petroleum origins” (The Evolution of Multicomponent Systems at High Pressures: VI. The Thermodynamic Stability of the Hydrogen-Carbon System: The Genesis of Hydrocarbons and the Origin of Petroleum. J. F. Kenney, V. G. Kutcherov, N. A. Bendeliani, V. A. Alekseev, (2002), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.A.), 99/17, 10976-10981).

In the early nineteenth century Charles Lyell used persuasion to convince his opponents that biblically based geological catastrophist ideas were also wrong and from this developed the existing paradigm of modern geology, its veracity argued more by persuasion than hard fact.

The late Tommy Gold popularised abiotic oil theories in the west, despite his plagiarising of Russian efforts, but his Siljan Ring project remains important despite the popular mainstream belief that it was a failure.

A concise summary of the discoveries are detailed here by Kenney (Principle Results of the Major Scientific Investigations for Hydrocarbons in the Swedish Deep Gas Exploration Project. J. F. Kenney, (1994), Proceedings of the VIIth International Symposium on the Observation of the Continental Crust through Drilling.

The totally anomalous values for Iridium in the Siljan oil leads to one inescapable conclusion – the oil is of mantle origin.

The mainstream belief that petroleum is biological is simply that – a belief, and like all beliefs it is defended rigorously against all challenges. Beliefs seem incapable of change to the presence of contradictory facts.

It must be significant that the same scientific mindset which believes in biological oil also believes in anthropogenic global warming despite the contradictory facts which I lift from Warwick Hughe’s blog:

“Douglas Hoyt Says: March 8th, 2006 at 2:34 pm

Below is a little essay I just wrote up discussing temperature trends. I think it shows that the surface thermometer network has problems.

For 1979-1995/97, we have the following observations:

RCS tree rings: cooling for 1979-1995
STD tree rings: cooling for 1979-1995
NCEP analysis (pressure transducers) for the 1000-925 mb layer: cooling of 0.04 C/decade for 1979-1997
Balloon thermistors: cooling of 0.04 C/decade for 1979-1997MSU 2r analysis: cooling of 0.04 C/decade for 1979-1997
Surface thermometers: warming of 0.16 C/decade for 1979-1997 (my emphasis LH)

The tree rings are validated by the balloons and satellites.

The MSU 2r analysis and MSU 5.2 analysis are virtually identical for the period 1979-1995. Only for 1996 and later will they differ as 5.2 is warmer than 2r starting then.

So what we have is 5 independent techniques showing a cooling for 1979 and 1995 and one technique (surface thermometers) showing a warming. In normal science, the single outlier is rejected because it differs from the other techniques by more than two standard deviations.

The surface thermometers are wildly different from all the other results. This indicates that something happened to the surface network between 1979-1995 and it is not a reliable measure of temperature. The surface network is overestimating the temperature and has a spurious increase of 0.38 C by 1997. It is because of this large spurious increase that claims can be made that it is warmer now than any time in the last century, or perhaps last 1000 years.

The reason for the spurious temperature readings in the surface network could be many. For example, many rural stations were shut down in 1980 and in 1990, as well as the other years. The average population near the remaining sites will increase and introduce a spurious trend in the readings. It is time to audit the surface network and it would require a team of physicists and statisticians.

For 1979-2005, the surface is claimed to have warmed by 0.18 C/decade. If 0.38 C is spurious as pointed out above, then the real increase in surface temperatures should be 0.10 C/decade less, or equal to 0.08 C/decade. 0.08 C/decade is less than the tropospheric trend which equals 0.10, 0.12, or 0.14 C/decade depending upon the analysis group. Since climate models predict less warming at the surface than in the mid-troposphere, they should be happy with the 0.08 C/decade number.

References:
Chase, T. N., Pielke Sr., R. A., Knaff, J. A., Kittel, T. G. F. and Eastman J. L., 2000. A comparison of regional trends in 1979–1997 depth-averaged tropospheric temperatures. Int. J. Climatology, 20, 503-518. The Chase paper can be found at http://blue.atmos.colostate.edu/publications/pdf/R-224.pdf (pdf format).

D’Arrigo on tree rings. See http://www.climateaudit.org/wp-images/darrig25.jpg

Satellite and surface trends for 1979-2005. See http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2005/ann/global.html “