Download SNFI 2011 1 MHLM Solar Storms Neg Solar Storms Negative – 4

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Solar Storms Negative – 4 Week
***AT: Advantage 1 – Solar Storms*** ..............................................................................................................2
Ground Protection Now .............................................................................................................................................3
Ground Based Protection Solves ...............................................................................................................................4
Ground Based Protection Needed ..............................................................................................................................5
Solar Shield Solves ....................................................................................................................................................9
Solar Storms Not Coming ........................................................................................................................................ 10
Solar Storms ≠ Disaster ........................................................................................................................................... 15
‘Global Katrina’ Empirically Denied ...................................................................................................................... 17
Other Satellites Solve .............................................................................................................................................. 18
US Tracking Not Key .............................................................................................................................................. 21
***AT: Advantage 2 – Warming*** .................................................................................................................... 23
AT: Satellites Solve Warming ................................................................................................................................. 24
AT: Data Solves warming ....................................................................................................................................... 25
Calibration Fails ...................................................................................................................................................... 28
Global Warming Answers – False ........................................................................................................................... 30
Global Warming Answers – Slow ........................................................................................................................... 32
Global Warming Answers – Inevitable.................................................................................................................... 34
Global Warning Answers – Not happening ............................................................................................................. 35
Global Warming Answers – Not Anthropogenic ..................................................................................................... 37
Global Warming Answers – NO IMPACT .............................................................................................................. 43
Global Warming Answers – AT: AGRICULTURE ................................................................................................ 44
Global Warming Answers – AT: CLIMATE SPIKES ............................................................................................ 45
Global Warming Answers – AT: CORAL REEFS .................................................................................................. 46
Global Warming Answers – AT: CORAL REEFS ................................................................................................. 47
Global Warming Answers – AT: DEAD ZONES .................................................................................................. 48
Global Warming Answers – AT: DISASTERS ...................................................................................................... 49
Global Warming Answers – AT: DISEASE ........................................................................................................... 50
Global Warming Answers – AT: DROUGHT........................................................................................................ 51
Global Warming Answers – AT: OCEANS ........................................................................................................... 52
Global Warming Answers – AT: OZONE HOLE .................................................................................................. 53
Global Warming Answers – AT: POLAR BEARS ................................................................................................ 54
Global Warming Answers – AT: SPECIES LOSS ................................................................................................. 55
Global Warming Answers – AT: SPECIES CAN’T ADAPT ................................................................................ 57
Global Warming Answers – AT: STORMS ........................................................................................................... 58
***AT: Solvency*** ............................................................................................................................................... 59
Solvency .................................................................................................................................................................. 60
***Off Case*** ........................................................................................................................................................ 62
JPSS Tradeoff DA ................................................................................................................................................... 63
JPSS - Link Extensions ............................................................................................................................................ 65
Hurricane Impact Module ........................................................................................................................................ 67
Solar Power Impact Module .................................................................................................................................... 69
Privatization CP ....................................................................................................................................................... 71
Politics Link – 1NC ................................................................................................................................................. 74
Politics Links – Flip Flop – 1NR ............................................................................................................................. 75
Politics Links – Satellites......................................................................................................................................... 76
Politics Links – Funding/Cost ................................................................................................................................. 78
Politics Links – Warming Policy ............................................................................................................................. 81
Budget Tradeoff Link .............................................................................................................................................. 85
Space Weapons Link ............................................................................................................................................... 86
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***AT: Advantage 1 – Solar Storms***
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Ground Protection Now
NASA is already working to safeguard the grid from solar storms
Power, Finance, and Risk, 2010
(Power, Finance and Risk, “NASA Tries To Prep Grid For Solar Storms,” November 15, 2010, Lexis Nexis,
accessed 7-23-11, ASR)
A unit of NASA has teamed up with the Electric Power Research Institute on an initiative to protect the U.S.
power grid from solar storms activity that could damage the grid--not generate power. Solar Shield monitors
solar eruptions on the sun's surface that emit ionized gas that can wreak havoc on the magnetic field and high
voltage transmission systems. Solar Shield could gives about two days notice about the impacts of a specific
solar storm that would give utility operators time to prepare, says Antti Pulkkinen, project leader of Solar
Shield at NASA in Greenbelt, Md., and associate researcher at Catholic University of America. The sun has an 11year solar cycle with peaks and valleys and "right now are starting to climb away from the solar minimum," he says.
Similar to a hurricane season--in which storms are likely not guaranteed--the next solar maximum is slated for 2014
when one or two storms could occur. Currently Solar Shield is working with two nodes in the "northern part of the
program," says Pulkkinen. He declined to give their exact locations--that's classified. The team wants to bring in
more nodes from across the country before the cycle is at its next peak. Power transformers systems can be
shorted and, in the worst cases, equipment melted. In 1989, a solar storm hit the Hydro-Quebec grid, knocking out
power to the province for nine hours.
Grid operators were able to successfully protect against a CME in 2003 after being warned
by the NOAA
Baker et al, University of Colorado Boulder Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary
Sciences, 2008
(Daniel, Space Studies Board Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, National Research Council of the
National Academies “Severe Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts Workshop
Report: Committee on the Societal and Economic Impacts of Severe Space Weather Events:A Workshop, National
Research Council” http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12507.html, 2008, accessed 7-21-11, ASR)
In his presentation James McGovern also provided an example from October 2003 when a significant solar
flare and coronal mass ejection (CME) occurred (Figure 5.5). NOAA’s SWPC issued a series of alerts,
warnings, and predictions, giving power grid operators advance warning that severe space weather
conditions were imminent that would put the power grid at risk. From past experience, the grid operators knew
that the intensity of the DC current induced in their systems (which they monitor with their own instrumentation)
scaled with the intensity of the geomagnetic storm. The intensity of the geomagnetic storm in turn is given by the K
index (Table 5.1). The power grid operators responded to warnings and to real-time space weather data
provided by the NOAA SWPC (formerly the SEC, or Space Environment Center, as shown in Box 5.1) by
modifying the way the power grid was operated in order to maintain adequate power quality for customers
and reserve capacity to counteract the effects of space weather. Despite severe GICs, the power transmission
equipment was protected and the grid maintained continuous operation. In the workshop discussion, though,
McGovern pointed out that the alerts and real-time data could be improved.
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Ground Based Protection Solves
Ground based alternatives can protect transformers and stop the worst of the damage from
the grid
Baker et al, University of Colorado Boulder Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary
Sciences, 2008
(Daniel, Space Studies Board Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, National Research Council of the
National Academies “Severe Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts Workshop
Report: Committee on the Societal and Economic Impacts of Severe Space Weather Events:A Workshop, National
Research Council” http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12507.html, 2008, accessed 7-21-11, ASR)
Given the potentially enormous implications of power system threats due to space weather, major emphasis
focuses on preventing storm-related catastrophic failure. Trends have been in place for several decades that
haveacted to inadvertently escalate the risks from space weather to this critical infrastructure. Kappenman stated that
procedures based on K-index-style alerts provide very poor descriptions of the impulsive disturbance environments
and lead to uncertainties about the adequacy and efficacy of operational procedures during large storms. He offered
several solutions for the future. With respect to the entire grid, remedial measures to reduce GIC levels are
needed and are cost-effective. The installation of supplemental transformer neutral ground resistors to
reduce GIC flows is relatively inexpensive, has low engineering trade-offs, and can produce 60-70 percent
reductions of GIC levels for storms of all sizes. Additional research work is already under way by the EMP
Commission in this area. Kappenman noted that improved situational awareness for power grid operators is
needed and is readily available (i.e., with an emphasis on disturbance environments/GIC levels instead of
ambiguous K/G indices). In addition, regional system operators require initial and continuing training to
understand their assigned roles and responsibilities in protecting the power system during solar events using
new tools.
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Ground Based Protection Needed
While solar storms can shut down everything from government services to transportation,
early warning is not enough. Costly protection needs to be developed for these institutions.
Baker et al, University of Colorado Boulder Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary
Sciences, 2008
(Daniel, Space Studies Board Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, National Research Council of the
National Academies “Severe Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts Workshop
Report: Committee on the Societal and Economic Impacts of Severe Space Weather Events:A Workshop, National
Research Council” http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12507.html, 2008, accessed 7-21-11, ASR)
Severe space weather can induce abnormalities in and can damage modern systems, including economic
systems, that constitute the nation’s critical infrastructure. Service disruptions of relatively short or
conceivably very long duration may spread from a directly affected system to many other systems due to
dependencies and interdependencies among, for example, electric power supply, transportation and
communications, information technology, and government services. As systems become more complex and
adaptive over time, the social and economic impacts of space weather are likely to increase. Space weather events
may be characterized as low-frequency, high-consequence events. Institutions have developed relatively good ways
to prepare for and defend against damaging events that are well understood and likely to occur relatively often.
However, low-frequency events, even if the potential damage is great, are typically less well understood and
are not given the attention needed to develop complex, costly protection. Speakers in this workshop session
emphasized the importance of devoting greater attention to technological, institutional, and management
responses to these events, given what is known about space weather events and their potential to have
increasingly broader impacts on both technical and socioeconomic systems.
The affirmative is shortsighted by only promoting forecasting without creating a way for
systems to handle the solar storm with prior warning
Baker et al, University of Colorado Boulder Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary
Sciences, 2008
(Daniel, Space Studies Board Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, National Research Council of the
National Academies “Severe Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts Workshop
Report: Committee on the Societal and Economic Impacts of Severe Space Weather Events:A Workshop, National
Research Council” http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12507.html, 2008, accessed 7-21-11, ASR)
La Porte acknowledged that the first response to the prospect of such technical and organizational
disruptions is to try to learn to predict anomalies and extreme events, in short, to study space weather. But he
argued that to stop there would be shortsighted. He emphasized the critical need to conduct research that
enables understanding of how to create and sustain high-reliability organizations or systems that can deal
successfully with low-probability issues in a socioeconomic and institutional context. Examples of such
organizations include air traffic controller operations, management of electric power grids, and aircraft
carriers. Among the research questions that need to be asked is how such organizations come to be dynamic in
ways that allow them to absorb changes and challenges from both the technical side and the economic or social
environments within which these technical systems operate. These organizations are rare and expensive to maintain,
and it is important to understand better how they operate. Institutional learning is generally done through trial and
error and in small-scale settings before being expanded to larger-scale settings. But La Porte stressed that a different
kind of research is needed to understand integrated technical and socioeconomic systems, including
communications, electric power, transportation, logistics, computation, and technical components operating in
situations where the totality of the system cannot be modeled. This limitation in modeling complex, interdependent
technical and social systems, combined with the fact that scientists can only model the implications of future
geomagnetic events and cannot test the systems, raises significant research problems. An additional and critical
question for understanding potential socioeconomic consequences of space weather events is how managers
and organizations can learn to deal with severe geomagnetic events without directly experiencing them.
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No solvency: DSCOVR is only one of eight steps the USFG needs to take to prevent solar
storm damage
Cooper and Sovacool 11 – * LLM Global Research Fellow at the Institute for Energy and the Environment at
Vermont Law School Environmental Law Center AND ** assistant professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public
Policy at the National University of Singapore (May 2011, The Electricity Journal, volume 24, issue 4, “Not Your
Father's Y2K: Preparing the North American Power Grid for the Perfect Solar Storm,”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040619011000972) EB
IV. Recommendations Electric utilities and transmission system operators need not wait passively for the perfect solar
storm. A series of eight recommendations, adopted as part of a comprehensive strategy, could address many of the
threats a large CME imposes on critical parts of the North American bulk power system. A. Incorporate solar storms into NERC
reliability standards Both the private and public sectors may not fully understand the level of interconnectivity of critical infrastructures and
could therefore fail to grasp the enormity of the threat posed by severe space weather.33 Utilities are not currently required to meet
any mandatory U.S. or international codes or regulations for protecting power grids from the effects of solar
storms.34 NERC standards require utilities to test their systems to prove they can withstand a number of
contingencies, including the simultaneous loss of up to two critical infrastructure assets. But nothing in NERC reliability standards
requires utilities to simulate a solar event of the scale that forecasters warn is not only possible, but inevitable. While utilities have
strong incentives to identify system vulnerabilities and protect critical assets, none are required to model the risks that a severe solar storm would
pose to system reliability. Since 1983, when EPRI developed the first computer simulations of induced currents, computer models have become
increasingly sophisticated. Today's models should be capable of simulating the reliability effects of induced currents with unprecedented
accuracy.35 Utilities and regional transmission organizations should utilize better computer modeling to identify how induced currents from solar
storms at a variety of intensities will affect critical system components at the local distribution and regional transmission levels. In addition,
utilities should rank substations, transformers, and capacitor banks based on their vulnerabilities to induced currents under different scenarios.
NERC should mandate that transmission companies install supplemental transformer neutral ground resistors to
reduce current flows through EHV transformers that models predict are the most vulnerable. These resistors are
relatively inexpensive, require little additional engineering, and can reduce induced currents by 60–70 percent,
regardless of storm intensity.36 EPRI has studied how taking precautions to protect relatively few vulnerable transformers in any threatened
service area does very little to reduce the risk to the overall system. 37 Therefore, it is essential that utilities and regional
transmission organizations coordinate efforts to protect transformers from the effects of severe solar storms. One
idea is for bulk power suppliers to develop and expand backup equipment sharing programs, paying special attention
to the sharing of EHV transformers between at-risk grid systems and those least likely to be affected during a severe
storm. B. Improve solar storm forecasting Highly reliable near-term forecasts of solar storms and earth-threatening
CMEs would provide critical advanced warning to grid operators. Given even 15 minutes of notice, system
operators can reduce generation in northern latitudes, spin up generating units in southern latitudes, offload
threatened transformers and direct personnel to the most vulnerable system infrastructure.38 With adequate warning,
independent system operators could reduce power transfers between adjacent systems and cancel planned
maintenance work to reduce the direct costs and secondary impacts of major geomagnetic disturbances .39 Currently,
NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) can predict, with moderate confidence, the probability of a solar storm one to three
days in advance. But the Center does not have the ability to forecast storms that could hit the earth in a matter of hours .40
Indeed, according to a recent National Research Council (NRC) assessment of national space weather prediction capacity, the United States has
no satisfactory short-term forecast or warning capabilities.41 The SWPC relies on data from NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE), a
satellite launched in 1997 to monitor solar winds and space weather from the L1 liberation point (roughly the point 1.5 million kilometers from
the earth) where the sun and the earth's gravitational pulls are in equilibrium. Using data from ACE, SWPC modelers currently can provide about
an hour's warning with a high level of confidence.42 There is some concern, however, that ACE is nearing the end of its operational life.43
NASA headquarters has warned that, after 11 years, ACE's detector heads are losing sensitivity and are vulnerable to electronic failure.
Nevertheless, NASA has no plan in place to replace some of its functions.44 On Feb. 11, 2010, NASA did, however, launch the Solar
Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which provides continuous data on some space weather with only a 15-minute delay.
Scientists have developed a new data analysis technique that uses electron particle flux measurements from SDO
sensors to predict the arrival times of charged particles from solar events. This advancement holds the possibility of
forecasting in near real time, when solar storms are likely to harm critical infrastructure.45 NASA should be
encouraged to pursue this option while developing longer-term plans for replacing and improving ACE's functions.
In the short term, the NRC, SWPC, and NASA should be charged with developing a comprehensive capability for
near-real-time forecasting of the most risky CMEs using existing satellite assets. The agencies also should prepare
recommendations to Congress for funding additional assets capable of providing accurate real-time alerts of all
major space weather events. C. Upgrade solar storm early warning and alert systems Following the March 1989 storm,
Hydro-Quebec installed an active communications software package on system operator consoles that provides each of the Northeast Power
Coordinating Council Coordinators with geomagnetic storm alerts as well as the status of all solar activity. When alerted of a geomagnetic storm
of sufficient intensity, the software triggers visual and audible alarms. A main screen provides the system operator with all information currently
known about the possible solar threat and a dialog box permits instantaneous communication among all reliability coordinators of any observed
geomagnetic phenomenon.46 The effectiveness of SWPC alerts was tested during an October 2003 CME that threatened the northeastern U.S.
power grid. The test revealed significant shortfalls in the system's accuracy. Because the SWPC relies on ground-based magnetometer stations in
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Boulder, Colo., and Fredericksburg, Va. (both in mid-latitudes), SWPC analysts must collect and average multiple magnetometer samples in
order to predict the intensity of prospective geomagnetic events. During the October 2003 storm, this meant that SWPC's estimates of the storm's
intensity lagged behind effects already being felt on the grid at higher latitudes. For example, monitors located along the affected grid measured
induced currents that exceeded the levels forecast by SWPC 38 minutes later.47 North American utilities should install system
operator consoles that communicate real-time, accurate information about space weather intensity and trajectory
provided by the SWPC. The SWPC should coordinate with North American system operators to forecast storm
intensity and trajectory based, in part, on measurements from an array of high-latitude magnetometers. NERC
should also coordinate with the SWPC to test the effectiveness of this system at providing greater situational
awareness under normal operating conditions. D. Use smarter grid technologies to improve situational awareness As
the bulk transmission system expands in size and complexity, system operators face conditions that are more
difficult to anticipate, model, and counter. While many utilities have spent substantial amounts installing phasor measurement units
(PMU) and collecting real-time data on system status, this torrent of data can overwhelm many operators. As more data is produced and
disseminated, it creates a challenge for operators to find the bits that they need and process them quickly enough to make prudent decisions.48
And once they have formulated a plan of action, most operators are limited to using conventional power flow controls employing mechanical
switches that are slow, inflexible, and vulnerable to wear.49 Improving situational awareness would allow system operators to
react more quickly to threats from solar storms and other geomagnetic disturbances. The more rapidly system
operators can intervene, the more likely that they can avert a blackout .50 Under some emergency situations, even the most
seasoned system operator has limits. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have built models that reveal that advanced
automatic control systems that communicate with one another independent of the operator can respond more
effectively.51 Quick response may be critical in preventing a minor outage from becoming a major blackout. An
improved ability to respond more quickly using more complex system information significantly increases system
resiliency and could substantially mitigate the impacts of a severe solar storm.52 E. Expand automatic protective
mechanisms Currently, special operational schemes designed to protect the grid lack the ability to adapt as a solar event
is affecting different parts of the system.53 A smarter grid is capable of data analysis and near-real-time
coordination of control actions that could provide greater protection during a massive geomagnetic disturbance ,
especially if organized on a regional or national scale. For some time, grid operators have employed a triage approach to widespread system
failure, including removing or sacrificing small portions of the system to save the whole.54 Some regional system operators, for
example, have turned to emergency load shedding as a mechanism to protect networks from system disturbances .
Selective load shedding is a utility's method of reducing demand on the transmission system by temporarily switching off the distribution of
electricity to specific customers. The utility pays customers that are willing to have their service interrupted during a grid emergency. Facing
rolling blackouts in 2007, ERCOT, for example, developed an Emergency Interruptible Load Shedding (EILS) program that pays qualified
customers to power down during an emergency that threatens the ERCOT grid.55 Still, participation in contracted load shedding schemes is
limited, typically representing less than 5 percent of a system's peak load.56 Additionally, most emergency load shedding still relies on a
relatively slow process, with system operators conferring to decide whether to deploy emergency interruptible loads and calling qualified
customers, who then have a set period of time from receiving the call to contact relevant personnel with instructions to power down.57 This
process is inherently slow, unreliable and dependent on communications systems that are themselves at risk during a
major solar storm. Recently, utilities have experimented with smart grid components like intelligent feeder switches
and real-time protective devices that can isolate faults and switch to on-site electrical storage devices or distributed
generation units without needing to wait for supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) commands from
network control centers. This technique, known as dynamic islanding, generally has been used in areas with frequent electrical outages, where
load centers are fed by older lines and aging infrastructure or areas where dense vegetation can come into contact with electrical lines and cause
transmission interruptions.58 But the expansion of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) could make dynamic islanding a more practical
method for reacting to system-wide disturbances by automating the process of remotely managing customer loads. Given sufficient development
and deployment of AMI, utilities will be able to create islands at will. Thus, critical loads such as hospitals, police stations, water treatment
facilities, transportation fuel distribution nodes, and control centers themselves can maintain power while the system strategically reduces power
flows to less critical load centers.59 Improved automation that allows more strategic dynamic islanding is especially critical in preventing
secondary impacts to interdependent systems.60 Dynamic islanding of critical infrastructure minimizes the time needed to restore the system,
mitigates secondary effects, and increases survivability.61 Early deployment of smart grid components and prepositioning of distributed
generation, if planned carefully, also can benefit utilities beyond safeguarding critical infrastructure. Dynamic islanding can provide an
immediate fix for a problematic network or short-term extension of a portion of an aging network, allowing utilities to defer capital investments
until they are more convenient or fiscally imperative.62 A smarter grid provides utilities and system operators with a better way
to implement emergency load shedding and dynamic islanding in response to severe solar storms . It would harness
modern communication and IT infrastructures to provide instantaneous bi-directional communication among control centers and grid
components. A smarter grid can process vast numbers of data transactions and deliver sub-second responses to system components designed to
implement emergency load shedding more quickly and strategically.63 When alerted to an approaching solar storm, control rooms could launch
computer models that simulate the path of induced currents under specific conditions. These simulations can help system operators identify the
most vulnerable assets and determine a strategic load shedding scheme to protect them. The smart grid can then communicate automatically to
begin powering down interruptible loads and commanding connected assets to take protective measures . By facilitating an automated and
dynamic response, a smarter grid could react more quickly to protect only vulnerable assets while maintaining
optimal service (under the circumstances) to critical load centers. This faster and more dynamic response ensures
less service interruption during a severe solar storm and far less recovery after one. F. Automate voltage stabilization
Voltage stability is critical to preventing transformer losses from triggering cascading voltage collapse that risks
bringing down large portions of the bulk power grid. Typically, operators regulate voltage control devices with
locally available measurements of voltage and current. On lines with multiple voltage regulation and VAR
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compensation devices, each device is controlled independently without regard for the resulting consequences of
action taken by other control devices. This can lead to problems when trying to regulate large voltage fluctuations
within a geographically broad area.64 Smart grid applications allow voltage and VAR control devices to share
information and evaluate comprehensive control strategies automatically to optimize voltage stabilization during a
crisis. Accelerated adoption of substation and feeder automation technology, coupled with the widespread deployment of AMI, would lay the
groundwork for automated control systems to optimize voltage control in real time. Recent innovations in contingency modeling in complex
networks holds the promise of rapidly identifying optimal voltage and VAR operation strategies from millions, if not billions, of operational
possibilities.65 G. Invest in domestic manufacturing of system components As part of this comprehensive strategy to prepare for a
severe solar storm, the federal government should pursue efforts to bring more of the supply chain and manufacturing
base for critical system components like transformers, shunt capacitors, and static VAR compensators back to the
United States. In addition, the government should expand funding and accelerate research and development of nextgeneration power conversion technologies like gallium nitride transformers that can increase efficiency while
providing greater capacity to withstand large DC currents induced by solar storms.66 This research not only would
help to jump-start a domestic component industry, it would ensure that spare parts and key system technologies are
more available in the event of a severe solar storm. H. Coordinate policy action The SWPC is the only governmental entity
charged with coordinating space weather forecasting. But there is no single agency responsible for coordinating space weather
information across agencies, reporting actionable alerts to affected industries, and overseeing a system-wide
emergency response. Responsibility for various aspects of CME preparedness is scattered throughout the U.S.
federal government. Consequently, affected industries rely on data haphazardly gleaned from multiple government
offices, foreign governments, international agencies, and the private sector.67 The SWPC should be charged with
developing, in consultation with public and private sector stakeholders, an action plan to deliver by 2012 accurate
near-real-time alerts and short- and long-term space weather forecasts. However, to ensure that all of these recommendations are
adopted as part of a comprehensive strategy to prepare the North American bulk power system for a severe solar storm, we propose that Congress
or the President require the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to develop a plan for coordinating accurate,
sustainable operational measurements of solar activity through a central office with operational authority to issue comprehensive forecasts and
alerts and to coordinate emergency response across affected utilities and the multiple jurisdictions and government agencies already charged with
regulating critical infrastructure. The SWPC operates with a very small and unpredictable annual budget of less than $6 million (and modest
additional funding from the United States Air Force for data preparation associated with selected operations). The National Research Council has
characterized this insubstantial appropriation as “more reflective of a research and development (R&D) enterprise than an operational enterprise
with real-time national space weather prediction responsibility.”68 Despite benefiting directly from SWPC's modeling and forecasting reports, the
other six agencies that participate in the National Space Weather Program (NSWP) – NASA, the Department of Commerce, the National Science
Foundation, the Department of the Interior, the Department of Energy, and the Department of State – currently do not contribute to SWPC's
operating budget. Congress should fully fund SWPC either through a dedicated appropriation or annual permanent funding from each of the
participating agencies, or both. This funding should reflect the important role the Center will assume in preparing the nation for a potential
electrical catastrophe.
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Solar Shield Solves
NASA’s new Solar Shield project solves – already gives advanced notice to specific
transformers that will be targeted by the storm
Phillips, production editor of Science@NASA, 2010
(Dr. Tony, NASA “Solar Shield--Protecting the North American Power Grid,” http://science.nasa.gov/sciencenews/science-at-nasa/2010/26oct_solarshield/ , Oct. 26, accessed 7-24-11, ASR)
Oct. 26, 2010: Every hundred years or so, a solar storm comes along so potent it fills the skies of Earth with blood-red auroras, makes compass
needles point in the wrong direction, and sends electric currents coursing through the planet's topsoil. The most famous such storm, the
Carrington Event of 1859, actually shocked telegraph operators and set some of their offices on fire. A 2008 report by the National Academy of
Sciences warns that if such a storm occurred today, we could experience widespread power blackouts with permanent damage to many key
transformers. A new NASA project called "Solar Shield" could help keep the lights on. "Solar Shield is a new
and experimental forecasting system for the North American power grid," explains project leader Antti
Pulkkinen, a Catholic University of America research associate working at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "We believe we can
zero in on specific transformers and predict which of them are going to be hit hardest by a space weather
event." The troublemaker for power grids is the "GIC" – short for geomagnetically induced current. When a
coronal mass ejection (a billion-ton solar storm cloud) hits Earth's magnetic field, the impact causes the field to shake and quiver. These magnetic
vibrations induce currents almost everywhere, from Earth's upper atmosphere to the ground beneath our feet . Powerful GICs can
overload circuits, trip breakers, and in extreme cases melt the windings of heavy-duty transformers. This
actually happened in Quebec on March 13, 1989, when a geomagnetic storm much less severe than the Carrington Event knocked out power
across the entire province for more than nine hours. The storm damaged transformers in Quebec, New Jersey, and Great Britain, and caused more
than 200 power anomalies across the USA from the eastern seaboard to the Pacific Northwest. A similar series of "Halloween storms" in October
2003 triggered a regional blackout in southern Sweden and may have damaged transformers in South Africa. While many utilities have taken
steps to fortify their grids, the overall situation has only gotten worse. A 2009 report by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation
(NERC) and the US Department of Energy concluded that modern power systems have a "significantly enhance[d] vulnerability and exposure to
effects of a severe geomagnetic storm." The underlying reason may be seen at a glance in this plot: Solar Shield (power lines, 550px) Growth of
the High Voltage Transmission Network and annual electric energy usage in the United States over the past 50 years. Credit: North American
Electric Reliability Corporation and the US Dept. of Energy. Since the beginning of the Space Age the total length of high-voltage power lines
crisscrossing North America has increased nearly 10 fold. This has turned power grids into giant antennas for geomagnetically induced currents.
With demand for power growing even faster than the grids themselves, modern networks are sprawling, interconnected, and stressed to the
limit—a recipe for trouble, according to the National Academy of Sciences: "The scale and speed of problems that could occur on [these modern
grids] have the potential to impact the power system in ways not previously experienced." A large-scale blackout could last a long time, mainly
due to transformer damage. As the National Academy report notes, "these multi-ton apparatus cannot be repaired in the field, and if damaged in
this manner they need to be replaced with new units which have lead times of 12 months or more." Solar Shield (transformer damage, 200px)
Permanent damage to the Salem New Jersey Nuclear Plant GSU Transformer caused by the March 13, 1989 geomagnetic storm. Photos courtesy
of PSE&G. [larger image] That is why a node-by-node forecast of geomagnetic currents is potentially so valuable.
During extreme storms, engineers could safeguard the most endangered transformers by disconnecting them
from the grid. That itself could cause a blackout, but only temporarily. Transformers protected in this way
would be available again for normal operations when the storm is over. The innovation of Solar Shield is its
ability to deliver transformer-level predictions. Pulkkinen explains how it works: "Solar Shield springs into action
when we see a coronal mass ejection (CME) billowing away from the sun. Images from SOHO and NASA's
twin STEREO spacecraft show us the cloud from as many as three points of view, allowing us to make a 3D
model of the CME, and predict when it will arrive." While the CME is crossing the sun-Earth divide, a trip that typically takes
24 to 48 hours, the Solar Shield team prepares to calculate ground currents. "We work at Goddard's Community Coordinated
Modeling Center (CCMC)," says Pulkkinen. The CCMC is a place where leading researchers from around the world have gathered their best
physics-based computer programs for modeling space weather events. The crucial moment comes about 30 minutes before
impact when the cloud sweeps past ACE, a spacecraft stationed 1.5 million km upstream from Earth. Sensors
onboard ACE make in situ measurements of the CME's speed, density, and magnetic field. These data are
transmitted to Earth and the waiting Solar Shield team. "We quickly feed the data into CCMC computers,"
says Pulkkinen. "Our models predict fields and currents in Earth's upper atmosphere and propagate these
currents down to the ground." With less than 30 minutes to go, Solar Shield can issue an alert to utilities with
detailed information about GICs.
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Solar storms are a natural occurrence and have been happening every 11 years. The major
Carrington event scenarios that the aff presumes will not happen for another 350 years.
International Risk Governance Council, 2010
(The International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) is an independent and neutral organisation whose purpose is to
help improve the understanding and management of potentially global risks that have impacts on human health and
safety, the environment, the economy and society at large.“Severe space weather: solar storms; Emerging Risks:
Solar storms,” October 2010, http://www.irgc.org/IMG/pdf/Emerging_risks_solar_storms.pdf , accessed 7-23-11,
ASR)
The frequency and intensity of solar flares and CMEs peak and trough according to the eleven-year solar
activity cycle (i.e. there are, on average, eleven years between solar maxima, when the sun is most active in
producing flares and CMEs). At a solar maximum (the next one is predicted by NASA to occur in April/May
2013) a CME reaches Earth’s orbit about once every five days and an average of 12 CME-induced geomagnetic storms can be expected annually on Earth [Jansen et al., 2000]. History tells us that very large storms
are low probability events – the largest storm on record, the ‘Carrington event’ of 1859, was caused by a
massive CME and a storm of this magnitude is probably a once-in-500-years event. Storms of half this
intensity can be expected every 50 years or so [Odenwald and Green, 2008]. Severe solar storms are therefore
low probability, high impact events. These space weather events are a natural source of risk and are nothing
new – such events have been observed for as long as humankind has been watching the skies.
Scientific unknowns and uncertainty make it impossible to accurately predict when a solar
storm will happen
International Risk Governance Council, 2010
(The International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) is an independent and neutral organisation whose purpose is to
help improve the understanding and management of potentially global risks that have impacts on human health and
safety, the environment, the economy and society at large.“Severe space weather: solar storms; Emerging Risks:
Solar storms,” October 2010, http://www.irgc.org/IMG/pdf/Emerging_risks_solar_storms.pdf , accessed 7-23-11,
ASR)
Perhaps the most obvious factor is scientific unknowns – the knowledge that we have of the natural systems
involved (of solar chemistry or atmospheric physics) and of the nature and extent of where our vulnerabilities lie is
incomplete While we know a lot about solar chemistry and understand the processes by which solar flares and
CMEs are formed, there are still important unknowns due, in large part, to the complexity of the systems involved
(complexity of solar chemistry, of the interplanetary environment between the earth and the sun, etc). Despite the
fact that the eleven-year solar cycle helps predictability of space weather to some extent, modelling is still not
accurate enough to give more than a few hours of qualitative warning of a solar event [Cole, 2003]. Although
most flares and CMEs occur at solar maxima, large magnetic storms have also occurred at solar minima and,
indeed, the largest flare in modern times occurred during a solar lull in 2006 [Turner, 2009]. Deep, structural
uncertainty provides obstacles to accurate forecasting of solar events.
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Solar Storms Not Coming [2/4]
There is no way to predict with certainty that a solar storm will happen in 2013 – the sun
has been surprising scientists and disproving their models.
Phillips, production editor of Science@NASA, 2009
(Dr. Tony, NASA“ New Solar Cycle Prediction” http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-atnasa/2009/29may_noaaprediction/, May 29, accessed 7-22-11, ASR)
The latest forecast revises an earlier prediction issued in 2007. At that time, a sharply divided panel believed
solar minimum would come in March 2008 followed by either a strong solar maximum in 2011 or a weak
solar maximum in 2012. Competing models gave different answers, and researchers were eager for the sun to
reveal which was correct. "It turns out that none of our models were totally correct," says Dean Pesnell of the
Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA's lead representative on the panel. "The sun is behaving in an unexpected
and very interesting way." Researchers have known about the solar cycle since the mid-1800s. Graphs of sunspot
numbers resemble a roller coaster, going up and down with an approximately 11-year period. At first glance, it looks
like a regular pattern, but predicting the peaks and valleys has proven troublesome. Cycles vary in length from about
9 to 14 years. Some peaks are high, others low. The valleys are usually brief, lasting only a couple of years, but
sometimes they stretch out much longer. In the 17th century the sun plunged into a 70-year period of
spotlessness known as the Maunder Minimum that still baffles scientists. Right now, the solar cycle is in a
valley--the deepest of the past century. In 2008 and 2009, the sun set Space Age records for low sunspot counts,
weak solar wind, and low solar irradiance. The sun has gone more than two years without a significant solar flare.
"In our professional careers, we've never seen anything quite like it," says Pesnell. "Solar minimum has
lasted far beyond the date we predicted in 2007." In recent months, however, the sun has begun to show
timorous signs of life. Small sunspots and "proto-sunspots" are popping up with increasing frequency. Enormous
currents of plasma on the sun’s surface ("zonal flows") are gaining strength and slowly drifting toward the sun’s
equator. Radio astronomers have detected a tiny but significant uptick in solar radio emissions. All these things are
precursors of an awakening Solar Cycle 24 and form the basis for the panel's new, almost unanimous forecast.
According to the forecast, the sun should remain generally calm for at least another year. From a research
point of view, that's good news because solar minimum has proven to be more interesting than anyone
imagined. Low solar activity has a profound effect on Earth’s atmosphere, allowing it to cool and contract. Space
junk accumulates in Earth orbit because there is less aerodynamic drag. The becalmed solar wind whips up fewer
magnetic storms around Earth's poles. Cosmic rays that are normally pushed back by solar wind instead intrude on
the near-Earth environment. There are other side-effects, too, that can be studied only so long as the sun remains
quiet. Meanwhile, the sun pays little heed to human committees. There could be more surprises, panelists
acknowledge, and more revisions to the forecast. "Go ahead and mark your calendar for May 2013," says
Pesnell. "But use a pencil.
NASA officially denies that the solar maximum in 2012 will create a major dangerous solar
storm. The solar cycle will be the same as those which happen every 11 years.
NASA Frequently Asked Questions, 2009
(Frequently Asked Questions, “2012: Beginning of the End or Why the World Won't End?”
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html, November 6, accessed 7-22-11, ASR)
Q: Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012?
A: Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar
flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build
electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The
next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no
different than previous cycles throughout history.
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Solar Storms Not Coming [2/4]
Solar storms impacts are exaggerated and has a timeframe of a billion years
O’Neill 08’
[Ian O’Neill on june 21 2008, founder and editor of astroengine, PHD in solar physics at University of Wales, 2012:
No Killer Solar Flare, http://www.universetoday.com/14645/2012-no-killer-solar-flare/]
So what if a CME reaches Earth? For a start, much depends on the magnetic configuration of the IMF (from the Sun) and the geomagnetic field
of the Earth (the magnetosphere). Generally speaking, if both magnetic fields are aligned with polarities pointing in the same direction, it is
highly probable that the CME will be repelled by the magnetosphere. In this case, the CME will slide past the Earth, causing some pressure and
distortion on the magnetosphere, but otherwise passing without a problem. However, if the magnetic field lines are in an anti-parallel
configuration (i.e. magnetic polarities in opposite directions), magnetic reconnection may occur at the leading edge of the magnetosphere. he
longer answer is a little more involved. Whilst a solar flare from out Sun, aimed directly at us, could cause secondary
problems such as satellite damage and injury to unprotected astronauts and blackouts, the flare itself is not powerful enough to
destroy Earth, certainly not in 2012. I dare say, in the far future when the Sun begins to run out of fuel and swell into
a red giant, it might be a bad era for life on Earth, but we have a few billion years to wait for that to happen. There
could even be the possibility of several X-class flares being launched and by pure bad luck we may get hit by a series of CMEs and X-ray bursts,
but none will be powerful to overcome our magnetosphere, ionosphere and thick atmosphere below. omsayers point to the Sun as a possible
Earth-killer source, but the fact remains that our Sun is a very stable star. It does not have a binary partner (like II Pegasi), it has a
predictable cycle (of approximately 11 years) and there is no evidence that our Sun contributed to any mass extinction event
in the past via a huge Earth-directed flare. Very large solar flares have been observed (such as the 1859 Carrington white light flare)…
but we are still here. In an added twist, solar physicists are surprised by the lack of solar activity at the start of this 24th
solar cycle, leading to some scientists to speculate we might be on the verge of another Maunder minimum and
“Little Ice Age”. This is in stark contrast to NASA solar physicist’s 2006 prediction that this cycle will be a “doozy”. This leads me to
conclude that we still have a long way to go when predicting solar flare events. Although space weather prediction is improving, it will be a few
years yet until we can read the Sun accurately enough to say with any certainty just how active a solar cycle is going to be. So, regardless of
prophecy, prediction or myth, there is no physical way to say that the Earth will be hit by any flare , let alone a big one in 2012.
Even if a big flare did hit us, it will not be an extinction event. Yes, satellites may be damaged, causing secondary problems such
as a GPS loss (which might disrupt air traffic control for example) or national power grids may be overwhelmed by auroral electrojets, but
nothing more extreme than that.
The sun is calm—scientists predict an uneventful solar cycle and possibly another
Maunder Minimum
O’Neill 8 – Space Science Producer for Discovery News (Ian, 6-12-2008, Universe Today, “Where are the
Sunspots? Are We in for a Quiet Solar Cycle?” http://www.universetoday.com/15006/where-are-the-sunspots-arewe-in-for-a-quiet-solar-cycle/) EB
So what’s up with our Sun? Is it going through a depression? It seems as if our closest star is experiencing a
surprisingly uneventful couple of years. Solar minimum has supposedly passed and we should be seeing a lot more
magnetic activity, and we certainly should be observing lots more sunspots. Space weather forecasts have been
putting Solar Cycle 24 as a historically active cycle… but so far, nothing. So what’s the problem? Is it a ticking bomb, waiting
to shock us with a huge jump in solar activity, flares and CMEs over a few months? Or could this lack of activity a prelude to a very
boring few years, possibly leading the Earth toward another Ice Age? It’s funny. Just as we begin to get worried that the
next solar maximum is going to unleash all sorts of havoc on Earth (i.e. NASA’s 2006 solar storm warning), scientists begin
to get concerned as to whether there is going to be a solar maximum at all. In a conference last week at Montana State
University, solar physicists discussed the possibility that the Sun could be facing a long period of calm, leading to the concern that
there could be another Maunder Minimum. The Maunder Minimum (named after the late 19th Century solar astronomer Edward W.
Maunder, who discovered the phenomenon) was a 17th Century, 30-year period when very few sunspots were observed on the disk of the Sun. It
is thought by many scientists that this period contributed to what became known as the “Little Ice Age” here on Earth. As the Sun provides Earth
with all its energy, during extended periods when the solar output is lower than average, it seems possible a lack of sunspots on the Sun (i.e. low
activity) may be linked with periods of cold down here.
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Solar Storms Not Coming [3/4]
The sun’s cycle is at an extreme low, the overall effect will be minimal.
Fox News 11
(June 15, 2011, “How Sun Weather Changes Affect Earth”, published by space.com,
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/15/how-sun-weather-lull-affects-earth/ |SK)
The sun’s activity hit a dramatic low in 2008, a historic lull that caused a similar drop in magnetic effects on Earth
— with an eight-month lag, a new study suggests. The study found that many magnetic changes on Earth are
indeed strongly linked to the solar activity cycle, though not in perfect synchrony, and it can help scientists map
out some causes. The speed of the solar wind — the 1-million-mph stream of particles coming from the sun — as
well as the strength and direction of the magnetic fields embedded in it helped produce the low readings on our
planet, researchers said. Eruptions on the sun's surface can blast tons of plasma into space -- sometimes right at the
Earth. Astonishing new pictures from NASA show the giant flares and clouds of ionized gas erupting from the star.
"Historically, the solar minimum is defined by sunspot number," said study lead author Bruce Tsurutani, of
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in a statement. "Based on that, 2008 was identified as the
period of solar minimum. But the geomagnetic effects on Earth reached their minimum quite some time later, in
2009. So we decided to look at what caused the geomagnetic minimum." [Photos: Sunspots on Earth's Closest Star]
The sun typically follows an 11-year cycle, with periods of high activity known as solar maximums and the lulls
classified as solar minimums. Currently, the sun is in an active phase of its weather cycle. [Amazing New Sun
Photos From Space] The current solar activity cycle is called Solar Cycle 24. It looks like Solar Cycle 25 could be
an extremely low period, according to new research announced today at the annual meeting of the solar physics
division of the American Astronomical Society. Three things help determine the amount of energy transferred from
the sun to Earth's magnetosphere: the speed of the solar wind, the strength of the magnetic field outside Earth
(known as the interplanetary magnetic field) and which direction this field is pointing. The research team looked at
each of these factors. The scientists found that the interplanetary magnetic field was extraordinarily low in 2008 and
2009. This was an obvious contribution to the geomagnetic minimum. But it couldn't be the only explanation,
researchers said, since Earth magnetic effects dropped in 2009 but not 2008. Using NASA's Advanced Composition
Explorer satellite, the team discovered that the solar wind remained high during the sunspot minimum in 2008. It
began a steady decline later, however — consistent with the timing of the decline in geomagnetic effects. The
placement of 'coronal holes' Further investigation revealed the cause of this decrease: phenomena called coronal
holes. Coronal holes are relatively dark, cold areas within the sun's outer atmosphere. Solar wind rockets at great
speeds from the centers of these holes and much more slowly from their edges. During a solar minimum, coronal
holes are usually found at the sun's poles, sending to Earth only the slow-moving wind from the holes' edges,
not the fast stuff from their centers. But this wasn't the case in 2008, researchers said. Rather, the holes lingered
for a while at low latitudes before finally migrating to the poles in 2009. Only then, researchers said, did the speed
of the solar wind at Earth begin to slow down, leading to a decrease in geomagnetic effects, which can manifest as
variably intense auroras — the brilliant light shows found near Earth's poles. So researchers are starting to get a
handle on what causes geomagnetic minimums: low interplanetary magnetic field strength, along with slower solar
wind speed and coronal hole placement. "It's important to understand all of these features better," Tsurutani said.
"This is all part of the solar cycle, and all part of what causes effects on Earth."
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Solar Storms Not Coming [4/4]
The next solar storm will not come as soon and strong as predicted before.
Zimmerman, 5/8/09 (Robert, “Sun's Behavior Flummoxes Solar Scientists”,
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2009/05/08-01.html, DZ)
Fans of solar storms and power failures are in for some bad news. Today, a panel of the world's solar
scientists announced that the next solar maximum--when the sun's irradiance, solar wind, and sunspots are
most volatile--is not coming as soon and will not be as strong as predicted. That means fewer solar storms,
which can cause power outages here on Earth. For the past 3 centuries, the sun has followed a regular and reliable cycle. Every 11
years, it experiences a peak and a valley in its activity, called the maximum and minimum, respectively. During maxima, there are numerous
sunspots (cool and dark areas on the sun's surface), the polarity of the sun's magnetic field weakens and then flips, and the solar wind fluctuates
wildly. During minima, the sun is relatively placid, with no sunspots, a steady and strong magnetic field, and a more-or-less constant solar wind.
Although the solar cycle is regular, scientists have had a difficult time predicting exactly when the maxima and minima will occur. In 2006, for
example, as the sun slowly settled down from its most recent maximum, scientists argued with great passion over the timing and strength of the
next peak. Forty-five predictions were offered, based on a variety of techniques, from the theoretical to the purely statistical. These predictions
generally fell into two camps, with one group forecasting an early and strong solar maximum whereas another group predicted a late and weak
maximum. In the end, the Solar Cycle 24 Prediction Panel, made up of scientists from both groups, published both forecasts. "It was amazing
how split the community's predictions were," says panel chair Douglas Biesecker of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado. To everyone's surprise, the sun so far hasn't followed either prediction. Both camps
expected that by March 2008, the sun would hit its minimum and begin ramping up its activity toward one of the predicted maximums. But the
sun remained quieter than it has been in almost a century. It has now been more than a year, and the sun is still docile, in one of the deepest solar
minimums on record. So the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel is revising its 2007 predictions. And this time, three-quarters of the researchers are on
the same page. Today's announcement comes to three main conclusions. First, the panel now believes that the ongoing minimum reached its
lowest point in December 2008. Second, the scientists predict that the next maximum will be weak with relatively few
sunspots, the weakest since 1928. And third, the panelists say that the maximum will peak in May 2013, 9 months later than previously
predicted.
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Solar Storms ≠ Disaster [1/2]
There is no factual basis for claims of solar storms wiping out Earth’s electrical grid
Gary, ABC Sciences, 2010
(Stuart “Solar max claims 'overstated': expert,” http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/08/27/2995543.htm
Friday, 27 August 2010, accessed 7-23-11, ASR)
Australia's leading body responsible for monitoring space weather has dismissed claims that a massive solar
storm could "wipe out the Earth's entire power grid". One report quotes an Australian astronomer as saying "the
storm is likely to come sooner rather than later". But Dr Phil Wilkinson, assistant director with the Australian
Bureau of Meteorology's Ionospheric Prediction Service, says claims that this coming solar maximum will be
the most violent in 100 years are not factual. "All this talk about gloom and doom has selling power, but I'm
certain it's overstated," says Wilkinson. "[It's] going far beyond what's realistic and could be worrying or
concerning for people who don't really understand the underlying science behind it all." "The real message
should be that the coming solar maximum period could be equally as hazardous as any other solar
maximum." 11-year cycle The Sun goes through an 11-year solar cycle moving from a period of low activity
called solar minimum to a time of heightened activity called solar maximum. During solar maximum there's an
increase in sun spot activity, which are dark patches on the Sun's surface caused by magnetic field lines breaking
through from deep below. Because the Sun isn't a solid object like the Earth, different parts of the Sun rotate at
different speeds, which cause these field lines to twist and stretch, eventually snapping like elastic bands. When
they snap they produce an eruption of electromagnetic energy called a solar flare, which can be accompanied by a
coronal mass ejection (CME). If directed at Earth, charged particles within the CME slam into the magnetosphere,
resulting in the northern and southern auroral lights. Previous CME events have damaged spacecraft, interfered with
communications systems and overloaded ground-based power grids. Aware of the problems Despite the potential
threat, Wilkinson says authorities are aware of issues and are taking precautions. "We monitor solar activity
and give out warnings if something is heading our way," says Wilkinson. "That will be at least a few hours [in
advance], enough time to prepare." He says while some satellites could be damaged by a future CME, others
could be protected by being placed in 'safe mode'. Wilkinson adds the impact on power grids would be minimal.
"At worst, it's a regional thing, not a global thing as these reports imply." He says high frequency
communications may also be affected, but it would be temporary. Low maximum According to Wilkinson, the Sun
has been through a long solar minimum and appears to be heading into a low solar maximum. Previous
observations have shown this could result in high spikes of CME activity. "It means we could see auroral
activity over all of Australia rather than just the higher latitudes," says Wilkinson. "It's unusual, but not
unprecedented. James Cook made mention of just such an event off Timor."
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Solar Storms ≠ Disaster [2/2]
The aff’s claims of destructive solar storms are unfounded and sensationalist – only minor
damage would occur
GORMAN, The Press, 2009
(Paul, The Press, “Local expert downplays solar threat;SUPER-STORM” April 22, Lexis Nexis, accessed 7-23-11,
ASR)
The remote threat of a catastrophic "solar super-storm" killing hundreds of thousands of people and
plunging the Earth into chaos has met with typical Kiwi caution. Britons were this week warned of the risk of a
massive solar eruption smashing into the Earth, possibly in three years, its charged gases knocking out all power,
water, transport and communications infrastructure, killing crops and people. Twenty years ago a small solar
storm caused the power grid across much of eastern Canada and the north-east United States to collapse.
And in 1859, a solar eruption caused damage to telegraph networks. The next year of maximum solar activity,
given the 11-year solar cycle, is 2012. A report in New Scientist says that as the world becomes more dependent on
technology, the effects of a solar super-storm would become more devastating. Such a storm would be one of the
most dangerous, but least well-recognised, risks to the world's population. New Zealand scientists say the scenario
is sensationalist. National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research upper atmosphere scientist Bill
Allan said a super-storm was not due in three years and the impact of one on people and infrastructure was
"extreme and exaggerated". "Many of them could occur in some form, but the implied complete global
disaster is very unlikely." A report from the US National Academy of Sciences was a warning that major
economic disruptions were possible "if we don't do something about 'hardening' our electrical and electronic
systems". "Communications would definitely have major disruptions for a relatively short period. The worst
effects would be from electrical supply problems in regions at relatively high latitudes with major
interconnected power grids. "In a New Zealand context, we would likely have similar communications problems
for a relatively short period. We are at a moderate magnetic latitude and do not have the very large- scale
interconnected power systems that exist in North America."
Solar flares do not provide any hazards for life on Earth.
Stern 97
(Dr. David P., Studied physics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at the Israel Institute of Technology
(Technion) in Haifa, with doctoral thesis on an underground experiment on cosmic rays. In 1959 joined Fred
Singer's space group at the University of Maryland, then in 1961 came to Goddard Space Flight Center., “Ask An
Astrophysicist”, November 24, 1997, Goddard Space Flight Center,
http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/971124a.html |SK)
You can sleep soundly tonight--all we know about solar flares suggests they can never pose a life hazard at
the Earth's surface*. And as far as I know, no one ever suggested that one of them caused the demise of dinosaurs.
Asteroid impacts, giant volcanoes--yes; flares--no. Very few flares produce charged particles, and the energies
involved are generally too low to penetrate the entire atmosphere, which is equivalent to about 10 feet of
concrete. In such a thick layer, both ions and electrons dissipate their energy among a growing number of
secondary fragments, whose number grows but the energy of each one drops, until it is so low that other
processes stop them. The Earth's magnetic field also helps deflect particles, especially near the equator. I don't
remember numbers, but I would guess that in the last 40 years, the most flare particles did was double for a few
hours the cosmic ray intensity to which all life is exposed continually, day in and day out.
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‘Global Katrina’ Empirically Denied
The same disaster predictions for a massive solar storm were exaggerated before the peak
of the previous solar cycle in 2000.
Borenstein, The Gazette, 1999
(Seth, The Gazette “Solar wind blows strong: A big storm is building in space, and it's due to hit Earth next year.
Solar winds will gust up to a million miles an hour. But why did those winds drop earlier this year?” Lexis Nexis,
accessed 7-23-11, ASR)
As scientists, utilities and communication experts prepare to cope with a dangerous period of sun storms next
spring, they are still shaking their heads over a solar mystery that left them baffled earlier this year. Last May, the
million-mile-per-hour solar wind, which regularly blasts Earth with highly charged electrons that can disrupt
communications, virtually stopped for more than a day. Scientists gathering at the American Geophysical Union
conference in San Francisco are trying to figure out what happened. Astronomers say the episode illustrates the
limits of their knowledge about our solar system; just as they think they're getting a handle on it, the nearest star in
the sky presents a new gigantic puzzle. Starting at midday on May 10 and continuing through early May 12, the
sun's regular bombardment of Earth with streaming electrons dropped by more than 99 per cent. This kind of break
has happened before, scientists say, but never at this magnitude. ''It was a curveball,'' said John Steinberg of the Los
Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. ''We were looking for this very fast fastball.'' The periodic peak of
solar storms, which occurs every 11 years or so and will arrive again next spring, ''is when all hell breaks
loose,'' said NASA solar physicist Barbara Thompson. The expected onslaught of solar-storm electrons could
disrupt Earth's satellite communications and utility power lines, much as a similar period of solar storms did
in 1989. Those storms played havoc with Hydro-Quebec's system.
Even one of the biggest solar storms that hit in 2003 did not cause any damage
O'CONNOR and WALD, NYT, 2003
(ANAHAD and MATTHEW L., NYT, “A Huge Solar Storm, but Little Impact Is Seen” October 30, 200,
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/30/us/a-huge-solar-storm-but-little-impact-is-seen.html3 , accessed 7-23-11, ASR)
One of the largest solar upheavals ever recorded bombarded Earth yesterday with a speeding cloud of
charged particles, prompting officials in the United States and Canada to warn airline passengers and crew
members that they could be exposed to abnormally high levels of radiation. Aside from that warning, there were
few disruptions from a continuing event that has the potential to interfere with air travel, telecommunications
and electricity generation over much of the planet. The Federal Aviation Administration warned passengers on
aircraft over 25,000 feet north of the 35th parallel, which passes through Chattanooga, Tenn., and Albuquerque, that
they would accumulate about two millirems of radiation per hour, or two days' worth of normal radiation exposure
on the ground. Operators of electric power systems across the continent, meanwhile, took precautions to
prevent the storm from causing blackouts. Only minor effects were reported, said Larry Combs, a space
weather forecaster with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo. ''The power
companies are trying to avoid operating over capacity,'' Mr. Combs said.
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Other Satellites Solve [1/3]
Current data from NASA weather satellites can give real-time forecasts of sun activity up
to a week in advance.
Baker et al, University of Colorado Boulder Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary
Sciences, 2008
(Daniel, Space Studies Board Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, National Research Council of the
National Academies “Severe Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts Workshop
Report: Committee on the Societal and Economic Impacts of Severe Space Weather Events:A Workshop, National
Research Council” http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12507.html, 2008, accessed 7-21-11, ASR)
Holmes described the linkages between the existing Heliophysics Great Observatory, the data it provides, and
the science being developed by using these data. This science provides the necessary basis for space weather SA and
forecasting. He pointed out a relatively recent development from SOHO that improves the ability to predict
solar radiation storms. A new data analysis technique allows electron particle flux measurements from the
COSTEP sensor to be used to predict the arrival times of MeV protons from solar events. This science result
has now been turned into a near-real-time capability to forecast the arrival of solar protons in near-Earth space
where these protons can harm satellites and humans. He also emphasized that in time, as the STEREO Behind
spacecraft gets farther away from the Earth-Sun line, as shown in Figure 4.2, it will provide a view of solar
disk features about a week or more in advance of when they will be visible from Earth. Combining the
STEREO Ahead and Behind views with the SOHO view (on the Earth-Sun line) currently provides NOAA and Air
Force Weather Agency (AFWA) forecasters with a nearly 360° view of the solar surface. These data can be used
to forecast when active regions on the Sun will be in a position to affect Earth, should they erupt. He then
noted that when launched the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) will provide continuous space weather
data with only a 15-minute delay. Thus data from solar eruptions and their evolution will be available to
forecasting models in near-real time. The SDO project has been working with the forecast community to identify
the useful data content, and to show how the SDO data can be accessed. As mentioned above, NASA spacecraft
provide sources of raw data that are used directly by customers to access space weather SA. However, these
data are also used by the NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) SWPC, the USAF, and European
organizations to produce more refined, long-term forecasting products.
Solar Storm Tracking Is Already Being Applied By NASA in Early 2012
Army Space Journal 08 (Godshall, Stacy, “Space Climate and the Military Decision Making
Process in Solar Cycle 24”, http://www.dtic.mil/cgibin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA517914&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf, JEM)
NASA will launch the Radiation Belt Storm Probes in early 2012. The probes are designed to measure changes in
Van Allen Belts as a result of solar wind and solar event drivers. Lastly, planning has begun on the NASA Solar
Sentinels mission which would help scientists learn to predict solar storms in time to warn astronauts. This mission
would also be useful in warning terrestrial-based assets of the likelihood of superstorm induced effects on satellite
systems. The proposed locations include one Spacecraft of the sentinel cluster to be at the L3 Lagrange Orbital point
on the far side of the sun. The Lagrange Orbital points are stable orbits with one currently occupied by the Solar and
Heliospheric Observatory and one will be occupied by the James Webb Space Telescope [Godshall, 2003]. With
these tools to gather data, an in depth analysis can be made of the Space climate for operations that may take place.
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Other Satellites Solve [2/3]
The DoD has its own solar-monitoring satellites operated by the US Air Force
Baker et al, University of Colorado Boulder Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary
Sciences, 2008
(Daniel, Space Studies Board Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, National Research Council of the
National Academies “Severe Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts Workshop
Report: Committee on the Societal and Economic Impacts of Severe Space Weather Events:A Workshop, National
Research Council” http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12507.html, 2008, accessed 7-21-11, ASR)
The Department of Defense (DOD) is both a user and a supplier of space weather information. Herbert Keyser
noted that presidential policy makes the DOD responsible for protecting U.S. space-based activities. This makes it
of utmost importance for the DOD to elevate the capabilities of its space weather systems and improve the quality
of its products. Within DOD, the USAF is the lead organization for space weather activities. The Air Force uses
space-based observations from satellites operated by the Defense Meteorological Satellites Program (DMSP), the
Defense Support Program (DSP), and the Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS), to
name a few. The Global Positioning System (GPS) network is used to provide data on the total electron
content (TEC) of the ionosphere. Ground-based measurements provided by the USAF currently include those
made by the Solar Optical Observing Network (SOON), Radio Solar Telescope Network (RSTN), and Digital
Ionospheric Sounding System (DISS). In the near future, the Improved SOON (ISOON) will replace the
SOON, and the Next Generation Ionosonde (NEXION) sensors will replace the DISS. Most of these facilities
operate 24 hours per day or, in the case of the solar observatories, from sunrise to sunset.
STEREO solves—it allows 3D sun imaging and solar storm tracking
Science Daily 7 – (3-5-2007, Science Daily, “STEREO Panoramic Images Improve Solar Tracking,”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070305114331.htm) EB
The latest panoramic images from National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) twin STEREO (Solar
Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft enable scientists to track solar storms from the sun to the Earth for the
first time. "The new view from the STEREO spacecraft will greatly improve our ability to forecast the arrival time
of severe space weather," said Dr Russell Howard of the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, the Principal
Investigator of STEREO's Sun-Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI). "Previous
imagery did not show the front of a solar disturbance as it travelled towards Earth, so we had to make estimates of
when the storm would arrive. These estimates were uncertain by a day or so. With STEREO, we can track the front
from the sun all the way to Earth, and forecast its arrival within a couple of hours." The panoramic views are created
by combining images from the SECCHI suite of instruments, including the Heliospheric Imager on both spacecraft built in the UK by the University of Birmingham and CCLRC's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. Professor Keith
Mason, Chief Executive of PPARC said, "Despite frequent observations over the last decade many questions remain
unanswered about the nature of the Sun-Earth relationship and the way in which solar disturbances travel away from
the sun. These new panoramic images illustrate the relationship from an entirely new perspective." The instruments
on board the STEREO spacecraft allow scientists to track a type of solar disturbance called a Coronal Mass Ejection
(CME) from its birth at the sun towards Earth. CME's are violent eruptions of electrically charged gas, called
plasma, from the sun's atmosphere. A CME cloud can contain billions of tons of plasma and move at a million miles
per hour. As the CME cloud ploughs through the solar system, it slams into the slower solar wind, a thin stream of
plasma constantly blowing from the sun. The collision with the solar wind generates a shock that accelerates
electrically charged particles in the solar wind, causing radiation storms that can disrupt sensitive electronics on
satellites and cause cancer in unshielded astronauts. Professor Richard Harrison from CCLRC's Rutherford Appleton
Laboratory is Principal Investigator for the HI instruments. He comments, "The combination of data from the
instruments onboard STEREO have meant a dramatic improvement in the level of accuracy of solar storm
prediction, illustrating how space research really can impact on operations on Earth."
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Other Satellites Solve [3/3]
The SOHO can give an hour’s notice of solar storms
Moskowitz, Space Staff Writer, 2008
(Clara, Space.com, “One Hour Warning: Solar Storms Get More Predictable” http://www.space.com/4982-hourwarning-solar-storms-predictable.html, 19 February 2008, accessed 7-24-11, ASR)
If humans live on the moon some day, they might turn on the weather forecast just as they do on Earth. But in
space, they won't fear rain storms, but sun storms. During a solar radiation storm, the sun emits huge sprays of
charged particles that can disable satellites and would harm humans in space if they're not properly protected.
Although these storms are notoriously difficult to predict, a new method of forecasting storms can give up to
an hour's warning. The technique relies on measurements taken by the NASA/ESA SOHO (Solar and
Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft in orbit around the sun. SOHO, launched in 1995, has been near death
more than once, but clever engineers, working with the equivalent of electronic duct tape and more than a dash of
luck, have kept it running well beyond its expected lifetime. And now the probe is making fresh contributions to
solar weather forecasting. The new technique relies on SOHO's Comprehensive Suprathermal and Energetic
Particle Analyzer (COSTEP), which monitors the radiation coming from the sun. Scientists analyzed the data
COSTEP recorded from sun storms during the first six years of the spacecraft's launch, and compiled a matrix that
can predict a full-blown storm is coming after the less-dangerous first wave arrives. Because there is about an
hour's lag time between the early arrival of electrons, and the eventual onslaught of more-damaging protons,
this new forecast system gives people and spacecraft enough time to take cover. The method was described in
the journal Space Weather, and went online just in time for the recent launch of the STS-122 shuttle mission.
The NOAA cannot best predict large solar storms without the data from the SOHO
satellite
Baker et al, University of Colorado Boulder Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary
Sciences, 2008
(Daniel, Space Studies Board Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, National Research Council of the
National Academies “Severe Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts Workshop
Report: Committee on the Societal and Economic Impacts of Severe Space Weather Events:A Workshop, National
Research Council” http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12507.html, 2008, accessed 7-21-11, ASR)
NOAA SWPC also provides 39 types of eventGOES; 38 percent from ground-based magnetometer measurements; 7 percent from the USAF’s ground-based
Solar Electro-Optical Network (SEON), which comprises the Solar Optical Observing Network (SOON) and
the Radio Solar Telescope Network (RSTN); and 2 percent from NASA’s ACE spacecraft, as shown in Figure
4.3. NOAA requires that primary data sources be real time and continuous, and that they have redundancy.
This requirement is not met for most of the NASA research missions with the exception of ACE. ACE
provides data to NOAA from its position at the L1 Lagrangian point between the Sun and Earth. It is a
primary data source for measurements of solar particles and magnetic fields. ACE provides a critical ~45minute advance warning before a coronal mass ejection (CME) strikes Earth. The lack of a primary source of
continuous coronagraphic observations like those provided by SOHO/LASCO puts NOAA in a vulnerable
situation. Without a solar coronagraph it would be difficult to predict the properties and trajectories of
CMEs that are responsible for large geomagnetic storms.
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US Tracking Not Key
Canada Already Launching Satellite by 2012, No Need for DSCVR Launch
The Gazzete 7/21 (Max Harrold, “Refuelling our space program; as shuttle program
ends, Canada, U.S. governments face tough decisions on where they go from here”, JEM)
2011-12: Canada plans to launch two satellites this year or next. One will be the world's first dedicated to tracking
and detecting asteroids and satellites. Another will study Earth's upper atmosphere and the effects of solar storms.
Solar storms are checked in the SQUO by multiple countries.
Riswadkar & Dobbins 10
*A.R. is a liability line of business director in the Risk Engineering department of Zurich Services Corporation. He
is team leader for the Risk Engineering Liability Center of Expertise and a member of Zurich Ûs Emerging Risk
Group. He holds a B.S. in mechanical engineering, M.S. in industrial engineering and the Associate in Risk
Management designation, AND **Mr. Buddy Dobbins is the Director of Machinery Breakdown in the Risk
Engineering department of Zurich Services Corporation. Prior to Zurich Risk Engineering, Buddy worked for
Kemper Insurance Special Inspection and Loss Control Services. He holds an ASCÓ Engineering Technology and
BSCÓ Liberal Arts since 1995 (4/8/10, Team leader for the Risk Engineering Liability Center of Expertise and a
member of Zurich Ûs Emerging Risk Group, Solar Storms: Protecting Your Operations Against the Sun's 'Dark
Side', http://www.zurich.com/NR/rdonlyres/E7A8BC6C-86D9-4C1A-ABFC-F6213EB23D73/0/SolarStorms.pdf
|SK)
Department of Natural Resources Canada (NARCAN) is responsible for communicating forecasts and warning
alerts based on observed data from Canadian Automatic Magnetometer Observatory System (CANMOS) and other
worldwide resources. In Europe, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Space Weather Portal
(ESWeP) are the multi-language integrated outreach and access portals for information. Nordic countries (Finland,
Norway and Sweden) have formed a GIC cooperation network at the Lund Space Weather Center. The increased
cooperation and collaboration in research, exchange of real time data, forecasts and alerts by these and other
agencies is helping to improve our understanding of this risk. Our recently enhanced monitoring and observation
capabilities are helping to improve our understanding of the threat from the solar storms, associated space weather,
and their ability to impact electronics and other technology on earth.
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ACE/Squo Satellites Solve
ACE’s 45 minute warning of a solar storm gives grid operators enough time to protect
their systems.
Baker et al, University of Colorado Boulder Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, 2008
(Daniel, Space Studies Board Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, National Research Council of the National Academies “Severe
Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts Workshop Report: Committee on the Societal and Economic Impacts of
Severe Space Weather Events:A Workshop, National Research Council” http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12507.html, 2008, accessed 7-21-11, ASR)
In addition to real-time space weather monitoring, high-reliability near-term forecasts are critical to power system operators. Advance
warning about the arrival of an earthward-directed CME is of critical importance for grid operators, allowing them
time to take the measures needed to protect the grid. “The most important device that I know of out there to give us
a heads-up is ACE,” McGovern noted. “ACE gives our operators about a 45- minute warning.” As Frank Koza said
earlier, “We can reposition our system in probably up to 15 minutes. With 15 minutes’ advance notice we can quickstart units, reducing generation in the northern areas, picking up generation in the southern areas, offloading our tie
lines, offloading our transformers, even manning key facilities so that we have operators there to switch off a
transformer if they see the temperature on that transformer overloading.” And, “for the real-time operator, 45
minutes to an hour is very important. I would give it a 10 (on a scale of 1 to 10). That would be the same for the day-ahead market,
which is at least 24 hours out.”
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***AT: Advantage 2 – Warming***
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AT: Satellites Solve Warming
DSCOVR doesn’t meet requirements for climate data – proves no solvency
Clark 2009
[Stephen, “Mothballed Satellite Sits In Warehouse, Waits For New Life”, Space.com, http://www.space.com/2286-mothballed-satellite-sitswarehouse-waits-life.html, BJM]
After criticism regarding the way NASA selects space and Earth science missions, officials began soliciting regular input from independent
scientists. "It's important to know that NASA is now using input from the broad Earth science community in deciding which
missions to pursue in the future," Cole said. The recommendations come from a decadal survey prepared by a
committee of the National Research Council, the same group that reviewed the Triana mission in 2000. The committee's first
decadal survey was submitted in January 2007 to advise NASA on the science community's highest priorities in Earth science. Cole
said the team reviewed a number of proposed missions, but DSCOVR was not among the 17 projects recommended for
execution by NASA and NOAA. NASA also commissioned an ad-hoc science workshop in May 2007 to evaluate
DSCOVR's contributions to climate science. That group concluded that the mission would provide useful data, but
"DSCOVR measurements would not fulfill the climate science requirements established in the NRC decadal
survey," Cole said. That scientific verdict led NASA to begin considering other options for DSCOVR . The NASA
Authorization Act of 2008 passed last year forced the issue.
Satellites can’t solve climate data.
Wigbels et. al, 8 – (July 2008, Lyn Wigbels, senior associate of Technology and Public Policy program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, G. Ryan Faith, CSIS Human Space Exploration Initiative, Vincent Sabathier, senior associate with the CSIS Technology
and Public Policy Program, Center for Strategic Studies, “Earth Observations and Global Change,”)
However, U.S.
Earth observation systems are not collectively well suited to address the impacts of climate change, its
variability and intensity, water use, or many other changes that occur over long time scales. If our Earth observation
systems were better suited for long-term data acquisition and continuity, our existing observation capabilities could provide real value for
research applications by monitoring land use and cover change, agriculture delineation, fires, vegetation phenology and properties, forests, water
supply and quality, and atmospheric aerosols. Monitoring developments in these areas would provide valuable information needed for making
critical decisions. However, the national security community has become increasingly aware that current climate modeling lacks the
geographical granularity to predict the long-term effects of global change at subregional and national levels in all
regions of interest with sufficient accuracy to meet the detailed long-term planning needs of national security
decisionmakers.
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AT: Data Solves warming
Obama won’t enact climate policy – proves no solvency
Cappiello ’11
[Dina Cappiello is an award-winning environmental journalist who follows the story looking for specific, factual
information about environmental problems that communities need in order to push for change. “Gore: On Global
Warming, Obama Has Changed Little” 6/22
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=13900390, BJM]
The Democrats' leading
environmental messenger, Al Gore, is declaring that President Barack Obama has failed to lead
on the issue of global warming. In a 7,000-word essay posted online Wednesday by Rolling Stone magazine, Gore says the
president hasn't stood up for "bold action" on the problem and has done little to move the country forward since he
replaced Republican President George W. Bush. Bush infuriated environmentalists by resisting mandatory controls on the pollution
blamed for climate change, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that the burning of fossil fuels is responsible. The scientific case has only
gotten stronger since, Gore argues, but Obama has not used it to force significant change. " Obama has never presented to the
American people the magnitude of the climate crisis," Gore says. "He has not defended the science against the
ongoing withering and dishonest attacks. Nor has he provided a presidential venue for the scientific community ... to
bring the reality of the science before the public." Gore does credit Obama's political appointees with making hundreds of changes
that have helped move the country "forward slightly" on the climate issue, but says the president "has simply not made the case for
action." He is the second Clinton administration official this month to express disappointment with Obama on environmental issues. Former
Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, in a speech in early June, said Obama had yet to take up the "mantle of land and
water conservation...in a significant way." Gore's comments mark a turnaround for the nation's most prominent global warming
advocate, whose work on the climate problem has earned him a Nobel Prize and was adapted into an Oscar-winning documentary.
Satellite data backfires -- proves warming isn’t real.
a. Human readings are ineffective
Taylor 1 (James, “Polar Ice Cap Studies Refute Catastrophic Global Warming Theories”, December 16)
Surface temperature readings taken by humans indicate the Earth has warmed by approximately 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 100 years. This
warming is certainly not much, but it is often cited as evidence that global warming is occurring, even if it is merely in its initial stages.
However, precise satellite readings of the lower atmosphere (a region that is supposed to immediately reflect any
global warming) have shown no warming since readings were begun more than 20 years ago. "We have seen no sign
of man-induced global warming at all. The computer models used in U.N. studies say the first area to heat under the
'greenhouse gas effect' should be the lower atmosphere, known as the troposphere. Highly accurate, carefully
checked satellite data have shown absolutely no warming," explained Tom Randall of the National Center for Public Policy
Research. Global warming skeptics have pointed out that most of the surface temperature readings indicating a warming have
been taken in underdeveloped nations, where reliability and quality-control are questionable. In developed nations
such as the United States, by contrast, the readings tend to show no warming. Moreover, skeptics note, surface temperature
readings are influenced by artificial warming associated with growing urbanization, which creates artificial heat
islands around temperature reading stations. "While the greenhouse gases, especially CO2, have grown in the last 50 years, the
correlation with a warming of the world's climate is weak and far from being generally accepted by the scientific community," James L. Johnston,
a member of The Heartland Institute's Board of Directors, observed in the August 4 Chicago Tribune. Global warming proponents, on the other
hand, now counter that warming, despite prior consensus to the contrary, might occur in the lower atmosphere only after a general warming of the
Earth's surface.
b. Correlation between warming and seal-level rise
Morner 7 [June 22, Dr. Nils-Axel Mörner, “Sea-Level Expert: It’s not Rising”, http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aginatur/sealevel.htm,
Has
studied sea level and its effects on coastal areas for some 35 years. Recently retired as director of the Paleogeophysics and Geodynamics
Department at Stockholm University, Mörner is past president (1999-2003) of the INQUA Commission on Sea Level Changes and Coastal
Evolution, and leader of the Maldives Sea Level Project]
There's another way of checking it, because if
the radius of the Earth increases as a result of sea level rise, then immediately
the Earth's rate of rotation would slow down. That is a physical law, right? You have it in figure-skating: when skaters rotate very fast,
the arms are close to the body; and then when they increase the radius, by putting out their arms, they stop by themselves. So you can look at the
rotation and you see the same thing: Yes, it might be 1.1 mm per year, but absolutely not more. It could be less, because there could be other
factors affecting the Earth, but it certainly could not be more. Absolutely not! Again, it's a matter of physics. So, we have this 1 mm per year up
to 1930, by observation, and we have it by rotation recording. So we go with those two. They go up and down, but there's no trend in it; it was up
until 1930, and then down again. There's no trend, absolutely no trend. Another way of looking at what is going on is the tide gauge. Tide
gauging is very complicated, because it gives different answers for wherever you are in the world. We have to rely on geology when we interpret
it. So, for example, those people in the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), choose Hong Kong, which has six tide gauges, and
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they choose the record of one, which gives a 2.3 mm per year rise of sea level. Every geologist knows that that is a subsiding area. It's the
compaction of sediment; it is the only record which you should not use. And if that (2.3 mm) figure is correct, then Holland would not be
subsiding, it would be uplifting. And that is just ridiculous. Not even ignorance could be responsible for a thing like that. So tide gauges, you
have to treat very, very carefully. Now back to satellite altimetry, which shows the water, not just the coasts, but in the whole of
the ocean, as measured by satellite. From 1992 to 2002, (the graph of the sea level) was a straight line, variability along a straight line,
but absolutely no trend whatsoever. We could see spikes: a very rapid rise, but then in half a year, they fall back again. But
absolutely no trend, and to have a sea-level rise, you need a trend. Data Fudged Then, in 2003, the same data set, which in their
(IPCC's) publications, in their website, was a straight line—suddenly it changed, and showed a very strong line of uplift, 2.3 mm per year, the
same as from the tide gauge. And that didn't look so nice. It looked as though they had recorded something, but they hadn't recorded anything. It
was the original data which they suddenly twisted up, because they entered a "correction factor," which they took from the tide gauge. So it was
not a measured thing, but a figure introduced from outside. I accused them of this at the Academy of Sciences meeting in Moscow—I said you
have introduced factors from outside; it's not a measurement. It looks like it is measured from the satellite, but you don't say what really
happened. And they answered, that we had to do it, because otherwise we would not have gotten any trend! That is terrible! As a matter of fact, it
is a falsification of the data set. Why? Because they know the answer. And there you come to the point: They know" the answer; the rest of us, we
are searching for the answer. Because we are field geologists; they are computer scientists. So all this talk that sea level is
rising, this stems from the computer modelling, not from observations. The observations don't find it! I have been an
expert reviewer for the IPCC, both in 2000 and last year. The first time I read it (the report), I was exceptionally surprised. First of all,
it had 22 authors, but none of them—none—were sea-level specialists. They were given this mission, because they
promised to answer the right thing. Again, it was a computer issue. This is the typical thing: The meteorological
community works with computers, simple computers. Geologists don't do that! We go out in the field and observe, and
then we can try to make a model with computerization; but it's not the first thing.
Satellite data fails- sunspots make it impossible to find accurate trends in ozone levels
Singer, 10 (11/30/10, S. Fred, The Heartland Institute, “The Ozone-CFC Debacle: Hasty Action, Shaky Science,”
http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/28896/The_OzoneCFC_Debacle_Hasty_Action_Shaky_Science.html)
Another, quite separate problem is produced by the extreme noisiness of the ozone record. To establish the existence
of a small, longterm trend it is necessary to eliminate the large natural variations, especially also those correlated with the 11-yr
sunspot cycle. This is an impossible task given the shortness of the record and the virtual absence of data on longterm variations of the solar far-UV radiation that produces ozone in the upper atmosphere. The analysis fails a simple test:
The "trend" is found to depend strongly on the choice of time interval (20). An additional problem in identifying a man-made trend
arises from long-term trends in sunspot number, and therefore long-term ozone trends of natural origin (21). Thus, the issue of
whether the global ozone layer shows a steadily depleting trend is still controversial. Satellite data on global ozone
content are not subject to interference from low-altitude pollution, but long-term calibration drift presents a problem;
the TOMS data from satellites appear to have a calibration drift due to nonlinearities in the photomultiplier (22). In any case, the shortness of the
record, 1979 to present, makes the solar-cycle correction problematic (23).
Climate science is inaccurate – wrong data for more than a decade
O'Sullivan 10 (John is a legal analyst, author and journalist. As an accredited academic, John taught and lectured for over twenty years at
schools and colleges in the east of England before moving to the United States. As an analytical commentator, O'Sullivan has published over 100
major articles worldwide. “Official: Satellite Failure Means Decade of Global Warming Data Doubtful”, August 11 th,
http://www.climatechangedispatch.com//climate-reports/7491-official-satellite-failure-means-decade-of-global-warming-data-doubtful)
US Government admits satellite temperature readings “degraded.” All data taken offline in shock move. Global warming
temperatures may be 10 to 15 degrees too high. The fault was first detected after a tip off from an anonymous member of the
public to climate skeptic blog, Climate Change Fraud (view original article) (August 9, 2010). Caught in the center of the
controversy is the beleaguered taxpayer funded National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA’s
Program Coordinator, Chuck Pistis has now confirmed that the fast spreading story on the respected climate skeptic
blog is true. However, NOAA spokesman, Program Coordinator, Chuck Pistis declined to state how long the fault might have gone undetected.
Nor would the shaken spokesman engage in speculation as to the damage done to the credibility of a decade’s worth of temperature readings
taken from the problematic ‘NOAA-16’ satellite. ‘NOAA-16’ was launched in September 2000, and is currently operational, in a sunsynchronous orbit, 849 km above the Earth, orbiting every 102 minutes providing automated data feed of surface temperatures
which are fed into climate computer models. NOAA has reported a succession of record warm temperatures in
recent years based on such satellite readings but these may now all be undermined . World-renowned Canadian
climatologist, Dr. Timothy Ball, after casting his expert eye over the shocking findings concluded, “At best the entire incident
indicates gross incompetence, at worst it indicates a deliberate attempt to create a temperature record that suits the
political message of the day.” Great Lakes Sees Unphysical Wild Temperature Fluctuations Great Lakes users of the satellite service were
the first to blow the whistle on the wildly distorted readings that showed a multitude of impossibly high temperatures. NOAA admits that
the machine-generated readings are not continuously monitored so that absurdly high false temperatures could have
become hidden amidst the bulk of automated readings. In one example swiftly taken down by NOAA after my first article, readings for June
and July 2010 for Lake Michigan showed crazy temperatures off the scale ranging in the low to mid hundreds - with some parts of the Wisconsin
area apparently reaching 612 F. With an increasing number of further errors now coming to light the discredited NOAA
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removed the entire set from public view. But just removing them from sight is not the same as addressing the
implications of this gross statistical debacle. NOAA Whitewash Fails in One Day NOAA’s Chuck Pistis went into whitewash mode on
first hearing the story about the worst affected location, Egg Harbor, set by his instruments onto fast boil. On Tuesday morning Pistis loftily
declared, “I looked in the archives and I find no image with that time stamp. Also we don't typically post completely cloudy images at all, let
alone with temperatures. This image appears to be manufactured for someone's entertainment.” But later that day Chuck and his calamitous
colleagues now with egg on their faces, threw in the towel and owned up to the almighty gaffe. Pistis conceded, “I just relooked and (sic)
the image again AND IT IS in my archive. I do not know why the temperatures were so inaccurate (sic). It appears to
have been a malfunction in the satellite. WE have posted thousands if (sic) images since the inauguration of our Coatwatch (sic) service
in 1994. I have never seen one like this.” But the spokesman for the Michigan Sea Grant Extension, a ‘Coastwatch’ partner with NOAA screening
the offending data, then confessed that its hastily hidden web pages had, indeed, showed dozens of temperature recordings three or four times
higher than seasonal norms. NOAA declined to make any comment as to whether such a glitch could have ramped up the averages for the entire
northeastern United States by an average of 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit by going undetected over a longer time scale. Somewhat more contritely
NOAA's Pistis later went into damage limitation mode to offer his excuses, “We need to do a better job screening what is placed in the archive or
posted. Coastwatch is completely automated so you can see how something like this could slip through.” In his statement Pistis agreed NOAA’s
satellite readings were “degraded” and the administration will have to “look more into this.” Indeed, visitors to the Michigan Sea Grant site now
see the following official message: "NOTICE: Due to degradation of a satellite sensor used by this mapping product, some images have exhibited
extreme high and low surface temperatures. “Please disregard these images as anomalies. Future images will not include data from the degraded
satellite and images caused by the faulty satellite sensor will be/have been removed from the image archive.” Blame the Clouds, not us says
NOAA NOAA further explained that cloud cover could affect the satellite data making the readings prone to error. But Pistis
failed to explain how much cloud is significant or at what point the readings become unusable for climatic modeling purposes. As one
disgruntled observer noted, “What about hazy days? What about days with light cloud cover? What about days with
partial cloud cover? Even on hot clear days, evaporation leads to a substantial amount of water vapor in the
atmosphere, particularly above a body of water. How can this satellite data be even slightly useful if it cannot "see"
through clouds?” Top Climatologist Condemns Lack of Due Diligence The serious implications of these findings was not lost on Dr. Ball
who responded that such government numbers with unusually high or low ranges have been exploited for political purposes and are already in the
record and have been used in stories across the mainstream media, which is a widely recognized goal. The climatologist who advises the military
on climate matters lamented such faulty data sets, “invariably remain unadjusted. The failure to provide evidence of how often cloud top
temperatures "very nearly" are the same as the water temperatures, is unacceptable. If the accuracy of the data is questionable it should not be
used. I would suggest it is rare given my knowledge of inversions, especially over water.“ How Many other Weather Satellites Are Also
‘Degraded’? A key issue the government administration declined to address was how many other satellites may also be
degrading. ‘NOAA-16’ is not an old satellite - so why does it take a member of the public to uncover such gross failings? Climate
professor, Tim Ball, pointed out that he’s seen these systemic failures before and warns that the public should not
expect to see any retraction or an end to the doom-saying climate forecasts: “when McIntyre caught Hansen and
NASA GISS with the wrong data in the US I never saw any adjustments to the world data that changes to the US
record would create. The US record dominates the record, especially of the critical middle latitudes, and to change it so that it goes from
having nine of the warmest years in the 1990s to four of them being in the 1930s, is a very significant change and must influence global
averages.” Each day that passes sees fresh discoveries of gross errors and omissions. One astute commenter on www.climatechangefraud.com
noted, “it is generally understood that water heats up more slowly than land, and cools off more slowly. However, within the NOAA numbers we
have identified at least two sets of data that run contrary to this known physical effect. The canny commenter added, “two data points in question
are at Charlevoix, where the temperature is listed at 43.5 degrees - while temperature nearby (+/- 30 miles) is 59.2 degrees; and in the bay on the
east side of the peninsula from Leland is listed at 37.2 degrees. These are supposedly taken at 18:38 EDT (19:38 Central, or 7:38PM). These are
both taken in areas that appear to be breaks in the cloud cover. With NOAA’s failure to make further concise public statements
on this sensational story it is left to public speculation and ‘citizen scientists’ to ascertain whether ten years or more
of temperature data sets from satellites such as NOAA-16 are unreliable and worthless.
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Calibration Fails
No solvency for satellite calibration—DSCOVR’s own radiometric calibration accuracy is
unverified
Coletti 7 – Principal Scientist at SM Resources Corporation (Alexander, December 2007, NOSA Report,
“Lagrange & Artificial Lagrange Orbit Applications to NOAA Observing System Requirements”) EB
The review of DSCOVR high level documents provides an example of how environmental satellites on LO and ALO can be effectively used in
operational environmental data record production. The case of DSCOVR also provides scientific information and engineering details necessary
for characterizing systems on L0 and ALO within NOSA. However, the new technologies introduced for the first time on
DSCOVR, cannot be considered as flight tested. In particular, the accuracy of the radiometric calibration with the
moon still needs to be verified. The environmental observations taken by Galileo during its flyby of Earth discussed in Appendix I, only
provide examples of the global observations of the environmental parameters that are possible from distances of the same order as LO and at
angles close to those possible from ALO. The DSCOVR mission was not designed for compatibility with the CORL. However the analysis
conducted on the NPOESS and GOES-R EDRs indicates that a significant number of the products measured by DSCOVR are in fact compatible
with the CORL EDRs (Attachment I). A detailed review conducted on nine of NPOESS EDRs demonstrated that systems from L0 and ALO need
not be redundant with existing systems on LEO. The nine EDRs chosen in this study are among those found to be the most affected by the demanifestation of the APS, OMPS-Limb, and ERBS-CERES instruments. Even though the instruments on DSCOVR are different and do not
substitute any of the NPOESS de-manifested instruments, the analysis performed in this study shows how DSCOVR correlative data sets could
improve 56 of the 64 non-compliant parameters (Table 7.1) on NPOESS. Among the 56 improved parameters, it was found that between 32 and
50 could also comply with the NPOESS threshold requirements. The minimum and maximum number of environmental
parameters DSCOVR can improve varies depending on the assumptions made on the performance of the algorithms
and on the anticipated accuracy of EPIC‘s calibration with the Moon. Despite the great amount of scientific and technical work
summarized in the Valero et al. (I999) report, there is no detailed documentation on DSCOVR BDRs, and there are no ATBDs with end-to-end
error analysis of accuracy and precision of the EDRs. Therefore, to date the recommendation issued by the National Academy of Sciences task
group on March 2000 (Review of Scientific Aspects of the NASA Triana Mission: Letter Report, attached here as Appendix V) have not been
significantly implememented.
DSCOVR is only a temporary replacement for the network. The satellite CLARREO is more suitable for
satellite calibration
Donahue 11’
[Bill Donahue, May 6th 2011, staff writer of popular science magazine, “Who Killed The Deep Space Climate
Observatory?”, http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-03/lost-satellite]JB
In May 2007, six years after DSCOVR’s original launch date was canceled, NASA convened 35 satellite specialists
for a one-day workshop to decide to what extent DSCOVR would be able to replace the existing system of aging
American satellites once they are decommissioned. The scientists agreed that the satellite has unique observational
capabilities—the report the committee produced notes, “Sensors on the DSCOVR satellite have the potential to
make important and innovative measurements from a novel perspective”—but they decided that it was not itself a
suitable long-term replacement for an entire network. Hal Maring, the atmospheric chemist who chaired the
workshop, says that other satellite projects in the pipeline could do some of DSCOVR’s work. NASA has a new
low-Earth-orbiting mission, CLARREO, to be launched sometime in the next decade, and Maring says, “The
[satellite] calibration capability offered by CLARREO will be much more useful than that possible with DSCOVR.”
Space is a relentless environment where instruments become inaccurate over time. It will
also be increasingly difficult to compare data between DSCOVR and satellites already in
space. On top of that, satellites have finite lifetimes, and DSCOVR is no exception.
Pallé and Goode, 4/1/09 (Enric, works at Universidad de la Laguna, Department of Astrophysics, Phillip R., works at
Big Bear Solar Observatory, “The Lunar Terrestrial Observatory: Observing the Earth using photometers on the
Moon’s surface”, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273117708006029#bbib19, DZ)
One of the most difficult problems in the study of climate variability is the construction of long-term, wellcalibrated time series of the essential climate parameters. This is often the Achilles heel of satellite data
compilations. Because satellite observation have to rely on absolute measurements of radiances from different
points on Earth, they are bound to have calibration errors. Space is an unforgiving environment, and
compiling reliable long-term observations is not an easy task. When observing from space, orbits and
altitudes change, instrumentation degenerates, and gaps in the observations are inevitably produced because
of the finite lifetime of the missions. Moreover, when a new satellite is launched, it carries improved
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instrumentation yielding data from which it is not easy to compare with data from previously launched
instrumentation, as the scientific goals change with time. This remains true for all satellite data, whether at
LEO, GEO or L1. Moreover, satellites have a finite lifetime, sometimes very short. In the case of DSCVR, for
example, the nominal mission lifetime is two years (Valero et al., 2000). Even though this missions would
provide some unique climate data, they are not so useful for decadal to centennial scale climate changes
studies. Thus, in order to compile a long-term series, one needs to link together data from different satellites.
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Global Warming Answers – False
Global warming is a hoax, it’s just a method for politicians to control human livesBEWARE
Kadlec 6/25, Forbes (Charles K. 6/25 "The Goal Is Power: The Global Warming Conspiracy"
http://blogs.forbes.com/charleskadlec/2011/07/25/the-goal-is-power-the-global-warming-conspiracy/
)PHS
In Watermelons, The Green Movement’s True Colors, British journalist/blogger James Delingpole promises to show
that the man-made global warming is a fraud, one that has already cost billions of dollars and is a clear and present
danger to our liberty and democratic traditions — and, ironically, to the environment itself. He largely accomplishes
this task and, for the most part, does so without sounding hysterical or radical. This alone would recommend this
book to all who care about the environment, the human condition and the foundations of our way of life. Delingpole
was among the leading journalists who reported the Climategate scandal, in which he analyzed e-mails among
leading climate scientists that had been hacked and posted on the web. What he discovered was a pattern of
purposeful and coordinated efforts to: •Manipulate the data supporting the claims of a sudden and dangerous
increase in the earth’s temperature; •Not disclose private doubts about whether the world was actually heating up;
•Suppress evidence that contradicted the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming (AGW); •Disguise the facts
around the Medieval Warm Period, when the earth was warmer that it is today; •Suppress opposition by squeezing
dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. Normally, disclosure of fraudulent behavior on this scale would
throw the proponents of any position into disrepute and spell the end of their political power. Not so with the
advocates of global warming. The reason: Global warming is not about science, but about politics — that is, about
expanding the power of elites using the coercive instruments of government to control the lives of people
everywhere. Just as the governing class embraces ineffective Keynesian stimulus spending to justify expansion of
government, they now extol AGW as the basis for increasing their power to rule over the rest of us. I remember that
in the 1970s, “scientists” had used computer models to “prove” that the increase in industrial activity was about to
trigger another ice age. The villains and solutions were the same as with global warming: Economic growth, rising
living standards, capitalism and increased economic activity were going to destroy the planet. Then, as now,
reduction in the use of fossil fuels, de facto restrictions on the use of automobiles, higher taxes and forced reductions
in living standards were the recommended policy responses. What makes AGW different is that the alleged pollutant
is carbon dioxide — an odorless, colorless gas that is the basis of all life and human activity. Regulation of CO2 is
the gateway for those who control government to regulate all economic and most human activity. With the stakes
this high, it should not be surprising that those who seek power have simply ignored the fraud and continue to press
forward with their agenda to regulate “carbon” emissions. Note: This language too is part of the fraud. The
emissions they seek to regulate are not dirty, sooty carbon, but carbon dioxide, that harmless gas that we exhale with
every breadth. Delingpole shows that science, itself, has been corrupted by tens of millions of dollars that
governments all over the world provide in grants to scientists whose research supports global warming. “Post
Normal Science” has become the new ethical standard for climate scientists. As the late Stephen Schneider, Stanford
University Professor who had been one of the leading advocates of the dangers of global cooling in the 1970s, and
then, as the lead author for the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was one of the leading
advocates of global warming, explained in an interview with Discover magazine: And like most people we’d like to
see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially
disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination.
That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified,
dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently
find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being
effective and being honest. I hope that means both. There you have it. In the name of the greater good, scientists
must be political advocates otherwise they are not being effective. The detached honesty that is the cornerstone of
the scientific method? A mere hope. Only a few courageous scientists have spoken out publicly against this
corruption. Among them is Patrick Moore, the Canadian co-founder of Greenpeace who resigned in 1986 because
the organization had “abandoned scientific objectivity in favor of political agendas.” Another is Professor Frederick
Seitz, formerly president of the National Academy of Sciences who in 1996 wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “I
have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the events which led up to this
(1995) IPCC (Second Assessment) report.” Those events included the deletion of 15 passages from the document
that had been approved by all 28 contributing authors who expressed considerable doubt about man-made global
warming including these two: •“None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the
observed changes to the specific cause of increase in greenhouse gases.” •“No study to date has positively attributed
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all or part (of the climate change observed) to (man-made) causes.” All of this and more supports one of
Delingpole’s more provocative claims, that AGW has become a formidable secular religion led by zealots and
supported by true believers. What makes it sinister is that it circumvents the First Amendment prohibition against a
state sponsored religion. As a consequence, AGW is provided lavish support by government and taught as scientific
fact in our schools. Like all state religions, its tenets are imposed on believers and non-believers alike. Already,
billions of dollars have been wasted, resources squandered, and the environment put at risk by the policies of the
warming alarmists. Spain has been lauded for creating 50,000 green jobs. What goes unsaid is the cost of the
subsidy, $756,000 per job, likely destroyed 110,000 jobs. And Spain now is shackled with high cost “green”
electricity that hobbles its economy, burdensome debt and high unemployment. In the aftermath of terrible floods in
1974 the government of Queensland, Australia promised to build dams and other flood control systems. Instead,
persuaded by green activists that drought caused by global warming was now the real threat, the government
diverted the money into a $13 billion water desalinization plant program. When heavy rains returned earlier this
year, the terrible flooding killed dozens of people and caused billions in property losses. The American Bird
Conservancy estimates 100,000 to 300,000 birds are killed by wind farms in the U.S. each year – roughly equal to
the estimated 250,000 birds killed in 1989 by the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Yet, environmentalists fail to speak out,
instead averting their eyes to the slaughter as unsightly windmills destroy vistas. And they remain strangely silent on
the deployment of solar farms that will cover acres of ecologically sensitive desserts. The book is a bit disorganized
and full of cheeky British humor, which does not fit my taste. But Delingpole has provided documented insight into
a powerful political-scientific complex. This complex is led and supported by “Watermelons,” those whose rhetoric
is green, but whose tactics and political ambitions he traces back to the national socialists and communists of earlier
eras. Their goal is to control the economy and impose their vision of human society through the coercive power of
government. All who cherish liberty, treasure the environment and aspire to a better life should take note.
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Global Warming Answers – Slow
T/ aerosols, coal burning, volcano explosions slow down global warming.
Biello 11
(David, staff writer for the Scientific American, “Stratospheric Pollution Helps Slow Global Warming”, July 22,
2011, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=stratospheric-pollution-helps-slow-global-warming |SK)
Despite significant pyrotechnics and air travel disruption last year, the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull simply
didn't put that many aerosols into the stratosphere. In contrast, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, put 10 cubic
kilometers of ash, gas and other materials into the sky, and cooled the planet for a year. Now, research suggests
that for the past decade, such stratospheric aerosols—injected into the atmosphere by either recent volcanic
eruptions or human activities such as coal burning—are slowing down global warming. "Aerosols acted to
keep warming from being as big as it would have been," says atmospheric scientist John Daniel of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Earth System Research Laboratory, who helped lead the
research published online in Science on July 21. "It's still warming, it's just not warming as much as it would have
been." Essentially, sulfur dioxide gets emitted near the surface, either by a coal-fired power plant's smokestack or a
volcano. If that SO2 makes it to the stratosphere—the middle layer of the atmosphere 10 kilometers up—it forms
droplets of diluted sulfuric acid, known as aerosols. These aerosols reflect sunlight away from the planet,
shading the surface and cooling temperatures. And some can persist for a few years, prolonging that cooling.
By analyzing satellite data and other measures, Daniel and his colleagues found that such aerosols have been on the
rise in Earth's atmosphere in the past decade, nearly doubling in concentration. That concentration has reflected
roughly 0.1 watts per meter squared of sunlight away from the planet, enough to offset roughly one-third of the 0.28
watts per meter squared of extra heat trapped by rising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as
carbon dioxide. The researchers calculate that the aerosols prevented 0.07 degrees Celsius of warming in
average temperatures since 2000. The question is: why the increase in such aerosols? There have been plenty of
smaller volcanic eruptions in recent years, such as the continuously erupting Soufriere Hills on Montserrat and
Tavurvur on Papua New Guinea, which may have exploded enough SO2 into the atmosphere. And there has
been plenty of coal burning in countries such as China, which now burns some 3 billion metric tons of the fuel rock
per year, largely without the pollution controls that would scrub out the SO2, as is sometimes done in the U.S. In
fact, a computer model study published July 5 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggested that
such SO2 pollution in China has cancelled out the warming effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations globally
since 1998. Determining whether humans or volcanoes explain more of the increase in stratospheric aerosols is the
focus of ongoing research, says PhD candidate Ryan Neely of the University of Colorado, who contributed to the
NOAA research. Combined with a decrease in atmospheric water vapor and a weaker sun due to the most recent
solar cycle, the aerosol finding may explain why climate change has not been accelerating as fast as it did in the
1990s. The effect also illustrates one proposal for so-called geoengineering—the deliberate, large-scale
manipulation of the planetary environment—that would use various means to create such sulfuric acid aerosols in
the stratosphere to reflect sunlight and thereby hopefully forestall catastrophic climate change. But that points up
another potential problem: if aerosol levels, whether natural or human-made, decline in the future, climate
change could accelerate—and China is adding scrubbing technology to its coal-fired power plants to reduce SO2
emissions and thereby minimize acid rain. In effect, fixing acid rain could end up exacerbating global warming.
China "could cause some decreases [in stratospheric aerosols] if that is the source," Neely says, adding that growing
SO2 emissions from India could also increase cooling if humans are the dominant cause of injecting aerosols into
the atmosphere. On the other hand, "if some volcanoes that are large enough go off and if they are the dominant
cause [of increasing aerosols], then we will probably see some increases" in cooling. .
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Global Warming These Days Are Just a Way to Accrue Large Amount of Money and
Advance Statist Agenda
Horner Rep of Congress in Supreme Court, 07(Christophe C. Horner, 2007, “The Politically Incorrect Guide
to Global Warming and Environmentalism”, JEM)
This is not your father’s environmental movement. Your hippie uncle certainly wouldn't recognize it. While it bears
the same name and now controls the same institutions as the tree-huggers of old (as well as numerous others), its
true pedigree is less green than red. Most importantly for you: environmental causes always include- and are often
primarily - campaigns to gain more government control over the economy and individual activity. They are never
fights for less control or greater liberty. When communism didn't work out, environmentalism became the anticapitalist vehicle of choice, drawing cash and adoration from business, Hollywood, media, and social elites.
Environmental pressure groups have boomed into a $2 billion industry Much of their budget comes directly from the
wallet of taxpayers through grants for public "education" and congressional schemes designed to subsidize the
greens' lawyers. Spawned from the 1970s split of anti-modernists from the decades-old conservationist movement
"environmentalism" has matured into a night- mare for anyone who believes in private property, open markets and
limited government. Environmental pressure groups have no use for limiting governmental powers or expanding
individual liberties. Instead environmental claims are without fail invoked to advance the statist agenda.
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Global Warming Answers – Inevitable
Its too late to stop global warming- lag in the system
Van Diggelen 10 ( January 27, 2010 01:49 PM “Global Warming: It's Too Late” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alison-van-diggelen/globalwarming-its-too-la_b_438848.html)
In an exclusive Fresh Dialogues interview, Robert Ballard, ocean explorer of Titanic fame says, "If you want to know the truth: it's too
late. All the ice is going to melt. There's a lag and it's already in the system." Ballard, a respected scientist, professor of
oceanography and founder of the Inner Space Center says he is worried about the future of mankind, "Sometimes I see this tombstone that says,
'the human race came and went but it was politically correct.' As a scientist I am not politically correct. My job is not to be politically correct. My
job is to call it as I see it." Ballard was in Silicon Valley as part of the Foothill College Celebrity Forum Series to talk about his educational
outreach programs and his recent expeditions to the Black Sea. He sat down with me for an interview in the Green Room of the Flint Center
before his lecture on January 22 and we discussed global warming, alternative energy, funding his expeditions, and how he sees his role in
educating children in science. Although some scientists argue that global warming is part of a natural cycle in the earth's
climate, and humans have no part to play, Ballard clarifies the debate. Yes, we're in a natural cycle, he says, but the
real argument is this: how much of this is a natural cycle and how much is it human additive? Ballard says it's both,
and explains, "Whenever you have a tremendous controversy both sides tend to be right and wrong." He says we are
experiencing natural interglacial warming, but we're increasing the severity of it with our heavy human footprint and
if we steepen it too much, evolution can't keep up and extinction will happen. He says we can do a lot to impact our human
carbon footprint and suggests population control is vital.
We can’t stop global warming- past the tipping point
Wentz 6/29 (Skip, Writer for the Independent Record, June 29, 2011 12:00 am “Are we at the point of no return?”
http://helenair.com/lifestyles/article_42755e46- AT10-11e0-a33e-001cc4c002e0.html)
About 20 years ago, I read a book on global warming called “The Next One Hundred Years.”
The book was filled with dire — and, as
it turns out, alarmingly accurate predictions — about what would happen as the earth heated up: There would be an
uptick in violent, unpredictable storms, severe droughts in arid regions and massive flooding elsewhere.
Disappearing glaciers would threaten much of the world’s water supply as rising seas inundated coastlines.
Furthermore, the author maintained that we had already loaded the atmosphere with so much heat-trapping carbon
dioxide that, even if we stopped adding CO2 right then, it would take more than a century for the atmosphere to
revert to natural, pre-industrial levels. I became depressed, because I knew that CO2 pollution and other environmental degradation
would only increase in the coming decades. It seemed that my efforts on behalf of the environment — starting an “ecological design” program at
an architecture school and trying to live an environmentally conscious life — would have no effect against the industrial and financial juggernaut
that was gobbling up the planet’s resources and spitting them out as pollution. Still, being both a hopeful and a defiant soul, and seeing
humanity’s back against the wall, so to speak, I vowed to fight on, learning about and teaching environmentalism. Early prognosticators thought
we had two or three generations to turn things around; the serious effects of global warming would manifest themselves about 2050. Perhaps
humanity would change its ways before it was too late. But I was also aware of the imminent threat of uncontrollable feedback loops
that could be triggered by global warming: how heat-reflecting ice could melt, exposing the dark, heat-absorbing
water or land beneath it to sunlight; and those warmer masses, in turn, would accelerate the melting of the ice. Or
how the warming of the frozen tundra could release huge quantities of methane, a greenhouse gas that traps 20 to 40
times as much heat as CO2; and the newly trapped heat would accelerate the warming of the tundra. Once such
massive feedback loops get started, there is nothing humans can do to stop them. So I decided to keep an eye on the planet’s
feedback loops to assess humanity’s chances as the situation developed. When I read “The Next One Hundred Years,” the CO2 content of the
atmosphere was below 350 parts per million (ppm), the maximum level most experts think could ensure climate stability. Two decades have
passed and no serious efforts have been made to reduce our CO2 output, which now stands at 394 ppm and is
climbing rapidly. Along the way I learned about peak oil, peak uranium, peak food supply … peak everything,
including the peak capacity of the oceans to sequester CO2. But like most people, I stubbornly clung to the idea that we would
have time to address these mounting problems, to adjust, to fix things. Then suddenly, almost imperceptibly, the predictions
started coming true. Look at the past two years: record floods in Pakistan, Australia and Mississippi. Rising seas
inundating Bangladesh and Micronesia. Record drought and fires in Russia, Australia, Arizona. Record springtime
tornadoes in the midwest and south. The peaks are peaking, the ice is melting, the tundra thawing and the feedback
loops rolling — two generations ahead of schedule. It’s too late — we’ve passed the environmental tipping point,
and everything will change
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Global Warning Answers – Not happening
No warming—urban heat islands
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
On the other hand, the reason why no meteorological or climatic explanation could be found for the ever-increasing difference between the
surface- and satellite-derived temperature trends of the past 20-plus years may be that one of the temperature records is incorrect.
Faced with this possibility, one would logically want to determine which of the records is likely to be erroneous and then assess the consequences
of that determination. Although this task may seem daunting, it is really not that difficult. One reason why is the good correspondence
Hegerl and Wallace found to exist between the satellite and radiosonde temperature trends, which leaves little reason
for doubting the veracity of the satellite results, since this comparison essentially amounts to an in situ validation of the satellite
record. A second important reason comes from the realization that it would be extremely easy for a spurious warming of 0.12°C per
decade to be introduced into the surface air temperature trend as a consequence of the worldwide intensification of the
urban heat island effect that was likely driven by the world population increase that occurred in most of the places where surface air
temperature measurements were made over the last two decades of the twentieth century. It appears almost certain that surface-based
temperature histories of the globe contain a significant warming bias introduced by insufficient corrections for the
non-greenhouse-gas-induced urban heat island effect. Furthermore, it may well be next to impossible to make proper
corrections for this deficiency, as the urban heat island of even small towns dwarfs any concomitant augmented
greenhouse effect that may be present.
No warming—satellite data
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
We predict more predictions of this kind as more scientists recognize, first, that estimates
of past warming have been exaggerated by
reliance on surface-station data that have been discredited by physical observation and by testing against superior
satellite data; second, that recent temperature trends contradict past and recent forecasts by the IPCC and other
prominent advocates of the theory that temperatures will steadily rise in response to increasing forcing by rising CO2 levels in the
atmosphere; and third, as attention turns to natural cycles like those modeled by Keenlyside et al., as most scientists have known all
along are more influential than the small effects of rising CO2 in the atmosphere.
Climate measurements may be accurate but global warming isn’t real—current cooling is
regression to the mean
MURRAY 12-22-2010 (Iain, vice president for strategy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, “Global warming goes gaga: In
England, ideology is tilting the weather forecasts,” http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/22/global-warming-goes-gaga/)
It's the coldest winter on record in Great Britain. Great Britain also has experienced its heaviest snowfalls since the 1920s. The mayor
of London, who last year was subjected to a grilling in Parliament over the inability to keep the capital's roads clear, has asked why the
government's Meteorological Office ("Met Office") didn't see this coming. The answer is almost certainly an institutional faith in globalwarming models that is starting to conflict with reality. The United States needs to make sure it does not go down Great Britain's
unplowed road. Almost 10 years ago, the Independent, a leading national newspaper in the United Kingdom, ran a story that has become a joke,
circulated by e-mail and on Facebook even among left-wingers. "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past," was the headline, and some of the
quotes will raise wry smiles among Brits shivering and slipping their way to work. "[T]he warming is so far manifesting itself more in winters
which are less cold than in much hotter summers. According to Dr. David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of
the University of East Anglia, within a few years, winter snowfall will become 'a very rare and exciting event. ... Children just aren't going to
know what snow is,' he said." This is, of course, the same CRU that became infamous last year as the source of the "Climategate" e-mails. This
snow blindness manifested itself in the Met Office's predictions for the past three years. In 2008, it predicted a milder-than-normal winter. That
winter was the coldest in a decade. In 2009, Met Office scientists once again suggested that cold winters were a thing of the past. One said, "The
famously cold winter of 1962/63 is now expected to occur about once every 1,000 years or more, compared with approximately every 100 to 200
years before 1850." The winter of 2009 was the coldest in 30 years. This year, the Met Office published a map on its website that showed a 60
percent to 80 percent chance of a warmer-than-average winter. This December is the coldest since seasonal records began. There
have been suggestions that the reason for the Met Office's chronic failure has been that its brand-new $50 million supercomputer is relying on
assumptions fed in from global-warming models, leading to a garbage-in, garbage-out "warm bias." These suggestions have been confirmed to a
degree, but the scientists (many connected with the University of East Anglia) claim the bias is small. Perhaps, then, Britain's winters are
demonstrating a phenomenon that is quite common in science: regression to the mean. It often occurs that scientists document
what appears to be a real, significant and observable effect, which passes all scientific tests, that over a few decades
simply "wears off." Indeed, as Jonah Lehrer described in a recent New Yorker article, this is becoming such a problem
throughout science that many are coming to the conclusion that an awful lot of scientific consensus is built on
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foundations that are simply noise. It could be that the latest British winters are just the beginning of people realizing that
global warming was a passing phase.
Aerosols completely cancel warming
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
The IPCC estimates the net effect of all aerosols is to produce a cooling effect , with a total direct radiative forcing of -0.5
Wm-2 and an additional indirect cloud albedo forcing of -0.7 Wm-2 (IPCC, 2007-I, p. 4). However, the scientific literature indicates these
estimates are too low. Many studies suggest the radiative forcing of aerosols may be as large as, or larger than, the
radiative forcing due to atmospheric CO2. Vogelmann et al. (2003) report that “mineral aerosols have complex, highly
varied optical properties that, for equal loadings, can cause differences in the surface IR flux between 7 and 25 Wm-2 (Sokolik et al.,
1998),” and “only a few largescale climate models currently consider aerosol IR [infrared] effects (e.g., Tegen et al., 1996;
Jacobson, 2001) despite their potentially large forcing.” In an attempt to persuade climate modelers to rectify this situation, they used highresolution spectra to obtain the IR radiative forcing at the earth’s surface for aerosols encountered in the outflow from northeastern Asia, based on
measurements made by the MarineAtmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer from the NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown during the Aerosol
Characterization Experiment-Asia. As a result of this work, the scientists determined that “daytime surface IR forcings are often a few Wm-2 and
can reach almost 10 Wm-2 for large aerosol loadings.” These values, in their words, “are comparable to or larger than the 1 to 2 Wm-2 change in
the globally averaged surface IR forcing caused by greenhouse gas increases since pre-industrial times” and “highlight the importance of aerosol
IR forcing which should be included in climate model simulations.” Chou et al. (2002) analyzed aerosol optical properties retrieved from the
satellite-mounted Seaviewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) and used them in conjunction with a radiative transfer model of the planet’s
atmosphere to calculate the climatic effects of aerosols over earth’s major oceans. In general, this effort revealed that “aerosols reduce the annualmean net downward solar flux by 5.4 Wm2 at the top of the atmosphere, and by 5.9 Wm-2 at the surface.” During the large Indonesian fires of
September-December 1997, however, the radiative impetus for cooling at the top of the atmosphere was more than 10 Wm-2, while it was more
than 25 Wm-2 at the surface of the sea in the vicinity of Indonesia. These latter results are similar to those obtained earlier by Wild (1999), who
used a comprehensive set of collocated surface and satellite observations to calculate the amount of solar radiation absorbed in the atmosphere
over equatorial Africa and compared the results with the predictions of three general circulation models of the atmosphere. This work revealed
that the climate models did not properly account for spatial and temporal variations in atmospheric aerosol
concentrations, leading them to predict regional and seasonal values of solar radiation absorption in the atmosphere with
underestimation biases of up to 30 Wm-2. By way of comparison, as noted by Vogelmann et al., the globally averaged surface IR forcing
caused by greenhouse gas increases since pre-industrial times is 1 to 2 Wm-2. Aerosol uncertainties and the problems they generate figure
prominently in a study by Anderson et al. (2003), who note there are two different ways by which the aerosol forcing of climate
may be computed. The first is forward calculation, which is based, in their words, on “knowledge of the pertinent aerosol physics
and chemistry.” The second approach is inverse calculation, based on “the total forcing required to match climate model simulations
with observed temperature changes.” The first approach utilizes known physical and chemical laws and assumes nothing
about the outcome of the calculation. The second approach, in considerable contrast, is based on matching residuals,
where the aerosol forcing is computed from what is required to match the calculated change in temperature with the
observed change over some period of time. Consequently, in the words of Anderson et al., “to the extent that climate
models rely on the results of inverse calculations, the possibility of circular reasoning arises .” So which approach do
climate models typically employ? “Unfortunately,” according to Anderson et al., “virtually all climate model studies that have
included anthropogenic aerosol forcing as a driver of climate change have used only aerosol forcing values that are consistent with the
inverse approach.” How significant is this choice? Anderson et al. report that the negative forcing of anthropogenic aerosols
derived by forward calculation is “considerably greater” than that derived by inverse calculation; so much so, in fact,
that if forward calculation is employed, the results “differ greatly” and “even the sign of the total forcing is in
question,” which implies that “natural variability (that is, variability not forced by anthropogenic emissions) is much larger than
climate models currently indicate.” The bottom line, in the words of Anderson et al., is that “inferences about the causes of
surface warming over the industrial period and about climate sensitivity may therefore be in error .”
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Global Warming Answers – Not Anthropogenic
Newest studies show warming isn’t anthropogenic
JOLIS 2-10-2011 (Anne, editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe., “The Weather Isn’t Getting Weirder,” WSJ,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704422204576130300992126630.html)
But is it true? To answer that question, you need to understand whether recent weather trends are extreme by historical standards. The
Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project is the latest attempt to find out, using super-computers to generate a dataset of
global atmospheric circulation from 1871 to the present. As it happens, the project's initial findings, published last month,
show no evidence of an intensifying weather trend. "In the climate models, the extremes get more extreme as we
move into a doubled CO2 world in 100 years," atmospheric scientist Gilbert Compo, one of the researchers on the project, tells
me from his office at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "So we were surprised that none of the three major indices of climate
variability that we used show a trend of increased circulation going back to 1871." In other words, researchers have yet to find
evidence of more-extreme weather patterns over the period, contrary to what the models predict. "There's no data-driven answer
yet to the question of how human activity has affected extreme weather," adds Roger Pielke Jr., another University of Colorado climate
researcher. We do know that carbon dioxide and other gases trap and re-radiate heat. We also know that humans have emitted evermore of these gases since the Industrial Revolution. What we don't know is exactly how sensitive the climate is to increases
in
these gases versus other possible factors—solar variability, oceanic currents, Pacific heating and cooling cycles,
planets' gravitational and magnetic oscillations, and so on. Given the unknowns, it's possible that even if we spend trillions of
dollars, and forgo trillions more in future economic growth, to cut carbon emissions to pre-industrial levels, the climate will continue to
change—as it always has.
Warming is not anthropogenic—solar wind causes climate change
Reid 2k – PhD, University of Edinburgh (George C, 2-2-2000, Cooperative Institute for Research in
Environmental Sciences, “Solar Variability and the Earth’s Climate: Introduction and Overview,”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/x7l9752682l836p2/fulltext.pdf) EB
The solar wind, however, does have the potential for bringing about climate change through a rather indirect mechanism, first
suggested by Ney (1959). When solar activity is low, the solar wind flow is relatively smooth, and when activity is high waves and turbulence in
the wind scatter incoming galactic cosmic-ray particles back out of the heliosphere, thus reducing their flux at the Earth. The net result is an 11year cycle in cosmic-ray flux that amounts to as much as 20–30% at high geomagnetic latitudes, decreasing to near zero at the magnetic equator,
which is accessible only to particles with very high energies that are not significantly affected by the interplanetary magnetic fields. Cosmic-ray
fluxes are thus anticorrelated with the sunspot cycle, with maximum flux at sunspot minimum and vice versa. Galactic cosmic-ray particles are
generally considerably more energetic than those of solar origin, and substantial fluxes can penetrate to the upper troposphere. Ney (1959)
suggested that the resultant ionization could affect lightning in the troposphere , and give rise to an 11-year cycle in thunderstorm
activity. A broader potential impact of cosmic-ray ionization can come about through the formation of ice
condensation nuclei, which could be dependent on the local concentration of ions in the upper troposphere or lower
stratosphere, leading to a relationship between solar activity and cloudiness, which would be most pronounced at high latitudes
where the solar-cycle modulation of cosmic rays is most intense. This basic idea was discussed and extended by Dickinson (1975), who
suggested that the nucleation of sulfuric acid aerosols in the lower stratosphere and upper troposphere could be
enhanced by the presence of ions, and that they could in turn act as cloud condensation nuclei . This possibility was
criticized by Mohnen (1990) on the grounds that the effect of ionization would be negligibly small. Recently, however, Svensmark and FriisChristensen (1997) claimed to have discovered a significant relationship between cloud cover on a global scale and the cosmic-ray flux over the
solar cycle. This claim, however, has been criticized in turn by Kernthaler et al. (1999), based on a careful analysis of the occurrence of different
types of clouds in the ISCCP data base. The net result is that the entire issue of a cosmic ray influence on cloud radiative forcing, while intuitively
attractive, remains in the area of speculation. A different influence of solar-wind variation on climate has been proposed by Tinsley
and his colleagues (see, e.g., Tinsley and Deen, 1991; Tinsley and Heelis, 1993). Their mechanism invokes an assumed effect of
ionization or electric fields associated with solar activity on the freezing of supercooled water droplets in high
clouds. Supercooled water can exist in the free atmosphere to temperatures as low as –40 C before spontaneously
freezing and releasing the latent heat of liquefaction. If this process were to be made to occur at higher temperatures
as a result of changing electrical parameters, an effect of solar activity on weather and climate could be a possibility.
The whole area of solar-wind and cosmic-ray effects on cloud formation is probably the most controversial aspect of Sun-climate relationships,
and will be discussed at length in some of the accompanying papers. The outline given here is simply intended as an introduction to the current
background state of the field, hopefully assisting the reader to place the papers that follow in their proper perspective.
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Global warming is not man-made- 100 warrants whyFoundation 09, European Foundation (European F. 12/15/2009 "CLIMATE CHANGE IS NATURAL:
100 REASONS WHY" http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/146138 )PHS
HERE are the 100 reasons, released in a dossier issued by the European Foundation, why climate change is natural
and not man-made:
1) There is “no real scientific proof” that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from man’s
activity.
2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022 percent of the total
naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history.
3) Warmer periods of the Earth’s history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.
4) After World War II, there was a huge surge in recorded CO2 emissions but global temperatures fell for four
decades after 1940.
5) Throughout the Earth’s history, temperatures have often been warmer than now and CO2 levels have often been
higher – more than ten times as high.
6) Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time.
7) The 0.7C increase in the average global temperature over the last hundred years is entirely consistent with wellestablished, long-term, natural climate trends.
8) The IPCC theory is driven by just 60 scientists and favourable reviewers not the 4,000 usually cited.
9) Leaked e-mails from British climate scientists – in a scandal known as “Climate-gate” - suggest that that has been
manipulated to exaggerate global warming
10) A large body of scientific research suggests that the sun is responsible for the greater share of climate change
during the past hundred years.
11) Politicians and activiists claim rising sea levels are a direct cause of global warming but sea levels rates have
been increasing steadily since the last ice age 10,000 ago
12) Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London says
climate change is too complicated to be caused by just one factor, whether CO2 or clouds
13) Peter Lilley MP said last month that “fewer people in Britain than in any other country believe in the
importance of global warming. That is despite the fact that our Government and our political class—
predominantly—are more committed to it than their counterparts in any other country in the world”.
14) In pursuit of the global warming rhetoric, wind farms will do very little to nothing to reduce CO2 emissions
15) Professor Plimer, Professor of Geology and Earth Sciences at the University of Adelaide, stated that the idea of
taking a single trace gas in the atmosphere, accusing it and finding it guilty of total responsibility for climate change,
is an “absurdity”
16) A Harvard University astrophysicist and geophysicist, Willie Soon, said he is “embarrassed and puzzled” by the
shallow science in papers that support the proposition that the earth faces a climate crisis caused by global warming.
17) The science of what determines the earth’s temperature is in fact far from settled or understood.
18) Despite activist concerns over CO2 levels, CO2 is a minor greenhouse gas, unlike water vapour which is tied to
climate concerns, and which we can’t even pretend to control
19) A petition by scientists trying to tell the world that the political and media portrayal of global warming is false
was put forward in the Heidelberg Appeal in 1992. Today, more than 4,000 signatories, including 72 Nobel Prize
winners, from 106 countries have signed it.
20) It is claimed the average global temperature increased at a dangerously fast rate in the 20th century but the
recent rate of average global temperature rise has been between 1 and 2 degrees C per century - within natural rates
21) Professor Zbigniew Jaworowski, Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Central Laboratory for Radiological
Protection in Warsaw, Poland says the earth’s temperature has more to do with cloud cover and water vapor than
CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
22) There is strong evidence from solar studies which suggests that the Earth’s current temperature stasis will be
followed by climatic cooling over the next few decades
23) It is myth that receding glaciers are proof of global warming as glaciers have been receding and growing
cyclically for many centuries
24) It is a falsehood that the earth’s poles are warming because that is natural variation and while the western Arctic
may be getting somewhat warmer we also see that the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder
25) The IPCC claims climate driven “impacts on biodiversity are significant and of key relevance” but those claims
are simply not supported by scientific research
26) The IPCC threat of climate change to the world’s species does not make sense as wild species are at least one
million years old, which means they have all been through hundreds of climate cycles
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27) Research goes strongly against claims that CO2-induced global warming would cause catastrophic disintegration
of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets.
28) Despite activist concerns over CO2 levels, rising CO2 levels are our best hope of raising crop yields to feed an
ever-growing population
29) The biggest climate change ever experienced on earth took place around 700 million years ago
30) The slight increase in temperature which has been observed since 1900 is entirely consistent with wellestablished, long-term natural climate cycles
31) Despite activist concerns over CO2 levels, rising CO2 levels of some so-called “greenhouse gases” may be
contributing to higher oxygen levels and global cooling, not warming
32) Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any
significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures
33) Today’s CO2 concentration of around 385 ppm is very low compared to most of the earth’s history – we
actually live in a carbon-deficient atmosphere
34) It is a myth that CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas because greenhouse gases form about 3% of the
atmosphere by volume, and CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere
35) It is a myth that computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming because
computer models can be made to “verify” anything
36) There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that global warming will cause more storms and other
weather extremes
37) One statement deleted from a UN report in 1996 stated that “none of the studies cited above has shown clear
evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases”
38) The world “warmed” by 0.07 +/- 0.07 degrees C from 1999 to 2008, not the 0.20 degrees C expected by the
IPCC
39) The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says “it is likely that future tropical cyclones (typhoons and
hurricanes) will become more intense” but there has been no increase in the intensity or frequency of tropical
cyclones globally
40) Rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere can be shown not only to have a negligible effect on the Earth’s many
ecosystems, but in some cases to be a positive help to many organisms
41) Researchers who compare and contrast climate change impact on civilizations found warm periods are
beneficial to mankind and cold periods harmful
42) The Met Office asserts we are in the hottest decade since records began but this is precisely what the world
should expect if the climate is cyclical
43) Rising CO2 levels increase plant growth and make plants more resistant to drought and pests
44) The historical increase in the air’s CO2 content has improved human nutrition by raising crop yields during the
past 150 years
45) The increase of the air’s CO2 content has probably helped lengthen human lifespans since the beginning of the
Industrial Revolution
46) The IPCC alleges that “climate change currently contributes to the global burden of disease and premature
deaths” but the evidence shows that higher temperatures and rising CO2 levels has helped global populations
47) In May of 2004, the Russian Academy of Sciences published a report concluding that the Kyoto Protocol has no
scientific grounding at all.
48) The “Climate-gate” scandal pointed to a expensive public campaign of disinformation and the denigration of
scientists who opposed the belief that CO2 emissions were causing climate change
49) The head of Britain’s climate change watchdog has predicted households will need to spend up to £15,000 on a
full energy efficiency makeover if the Government is to meet its ambitious targets for cutting carbon emissions.
50) Wind power is unlikely to be the answer to our energy needs. The wind power industry argues that there are “no
direct subsidies” but it involves a total subsidy of as much as £60 per MWh which falls directly on electricity
consumers. This burden will grow in line with attempts to achieve Wind power targets, according to a recent
OFGEM report.
51) Wind farms are not an efficient way to produce energy. The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) accepts
a figure of 75 per cent back-up power is required.
52) Global temperatures are below the low end of IPCC predictions not at “at the top end of IPCC estimates”
53) Climate alarmists have raised the concern over acidification of the oceans but Tom Segalstad from Oslo
University in Norway , and others, have noted that the composition of ocean water – including CO2, calcium, and
water – can act as a buffering agent in the acidification of the oceans.
54) The UN’s IPCC computer models of human-caused global warming predict the emergence of a “hotspot” in the
upper troposphere over the tropics. Former researcher in the Australian Department of Climate Change, David
Evans, said there is no evidence of such a hotspot
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55) The argument that climate change is a of result of global warming caused by human activity is the argument of
flat Earthers.
56) The manner in which US President Barack Obama sidestepped Congress to order emission cuts shows how
undemocratic and irrational the entire international decision-making process has become with regards to emissiontarget setting.
57) William Kininmonth, a former head of the National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World
Meteorological Organisation, wrote “the likely extent of global temperature rise from a doubling of CO2 is less than
1C. Such warming is well within the envelope of variation experienced during the past 10,000 years and
insignificant in the context of glacial cycles during the past million years, when Earth has been predominantly very
cold and covered by extensive ice sheets.”
58) Canada has shown the world targets derived from the existing Kyoto commitments were always unrealistic and
did not work for the country.
59) In the lead up to the Copenhagen summit, David Davis MP said of previous climate summits, at Rio de Janeiro
in 1992 and Kyoto in 1997 that many had promised greater cuts, but “neither happened”, but we are continuing
along the same lines.
60) The UK ’s environmental policy has a long-term price tag of about £55 billion, before taking into account the
impact on its economic growth.
61) The UN’s panel on climate change warned that Himalayan glaciers could melt to a fifth of current levels by
2035. J. Graham Cogley a professor at Ontario Trent University, claims this inaccurate stating the UN authors got
the date from an earlier report wrong by more than 300 years.
62) Under existing Kyoto obligations the EU has attempted to claim success, while actually increasing emissions
by 13 per cent, according to Lord Lawson. In addition the EU has pursued this scheme by purchasing “offsets” from
countries such as China paying them billions of dollars to destroy atmospheric pollutants, such as CFC-23, which
were manufactured purely in order to be destroyed.
63) It is claimed that the average global temperature was relatively unchanging in pre-industrial times but skyrocketed since 1900, and will increase by several degrees more over the next 100 years according to Penn State
University researcher Michael Mann. There is no convincing empirical evidence that past climate was unchanging,
nor that 20th century changes in average global temperature were unusual or unnatural.
64) Michael Mann of Penn State University has actually shown that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice
Age did in fact exist, which contrasts with his earlier work which produced the “hockey stick graph” which showed
a constant temperature over the past thousand years or so followed by a recent dramatic upturn.
65) The globe’s current approach to climate change in which major industrialised countries agree to nonsensical
targets for their CO2 emissions by a Given date, as it has been under the Kyoto system, is very expensive.
66) The “Climate-gate” scandal revealed that a scientific team had emailed one another about using a “trick” for
the sake of concealing a “decline” in temperatures when looking at the history of the Earth’s temperature.
67) Global temperatures have not risen in any statistically-significant sense for 15 years and have actually been
falling for nine years. The “Climate-gate” scandal revealed a scientific team had expressed dismay at the fact global
warming was contrary to their predictions and admitted their inability to explain it was “a travesty”.
68) The IPCC predicts that a warmer planet will lead to more extreme weather, including drought, flooding, storms,
snow, and wildfires. But over the last century, during which the IPCC claims the world experienced more rapid
warming than any time in the past two millennia, the world did not experience significantly greater trends in any of
these extreme weather events.
69) In explaining the average temperature standstill we are currently experiencing, the Met Office Hadley Centre
ran a series of computer climate predictions and found in many of the computer runs there were decade-long
standstills but none for 15 years – so it expects global warming to resume swiftly.
70) Richard Lindzen, Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote: “The
notion of a static, unchanging climate is foreign to the history of the Earth or any other planet with a fluid envelope.
Such hysteria (over global warming) simply represents the scientific illiteracy of much of the public, the
susceptibility of the public to the substitution of repetition for truth.”
71) Despite the 1997 Kyoto Protocol’s status as the flagship of the fight against climate change it has been a failure.
72) The first phase of the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which ran from 2005 to 2007 was a failure. Huge
over-allocation of permits to pollute led to a collapse in the price of carbon from €33 to just €0.20 per tonne
meaning the system did not reduce emissions at all.
73) The EU trading scheme, to manage carbon emissions has completely failed and actually allows European
businesses to duck out of making their emissions reductions at home by offsetting, which means paying for cuts to
be made overseas instead.
74) To date “cap and trade” carbon markets have done almost nothing to reduce emissions.
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75) In the United States , the cap-and-trade is an approach designed to control carbon emissions and will impose
huge costs upon American citizens via a carbon tax on all goods and services produced in the United States. The
average family of four can expect to pay an additional $1700, or £1,043, more each year. It is predicted that the
United States will lose more than 2 million jobs as the result of cap-and-trade schemes.
76) Dr Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, has indicated that out
of the 21 climate models tracked by the IPCC the differences in warming exhibited by those models is mostly the
result of different strengths of positive cloud feedback – and that increasing CO2 is insufficient to explain globalaverage warming in the last 50 to 100 years.
77) Why should politicians devote our scarce resources in a globally competitive world to a false and ill-defined
problem, while ignoring the real problems the entire planet faces, such as: poverty, hunger, disease or terrorism.
78) A proper analysis of ice core records from the past 650,000 years demonstrates that temperature increases have
come before, and not resulted from, increases in CO2 by hundreds of years.
79) Since the cause of global warming is mostly natural, then there is in actual fact very little we can do about it.
(We are still not able to control the sun).
80) A substantial number of the panel of 2,500 climate scientists on the United Nation’s International Panel on
Climate Change, which created a statement on scientific unanimity on climate change and man-made global
warming, were found to have serious concerns.
81) The UK’s Met Office has been forced this year to re-examine 160 years of temperature data after admitting that
public confidence in the science on man-made global warming has been shattered by revelations about the data.
82) Politicians and activists push for renewable energy sources such as wind turbines under the rhetoric of climate
change, but it is essentially about money – under the system of Renewable Obligations. Much of the money is paid
for by consumers in electricity bills. It amounts to £1 billion a year.
83) The “Climate-gate” scandal revealed that a scientific team had tampered with their own data so as to conceal
inconsistencies and errors.
84) The “Climate-gate” scandal revealed that a scientific team had campaigned for the removal of a learned
journal’s editor, solely because he did not share their willingness to debase science for political purposes.
85) Ice-core data clearly show that temperatures change centuries before concentrations of atmospheric CO2
change. Thus, there appears to be little evidence for insisting that changes in concentrations of CO2 are the cause of
past temperature and climate change.
86) There are no experimentally verified processes explaining how CO2 concentrations can fall in a few centuries
without falling temperatures – in fact it is changing temperatures which cause changes in CO2 concentrations, which
is consistent with experiments that show CO2 is the atmospheric gas most readily absorbed by water.
87) The Government’s Renewable Energy Strategy contains a massive increase in electricity generation by wind
power costing around £4 billion a year over the next twenty years. The benefits will be only £4 to £5 billion overall
(not per annum). So costs will outnumber benefits by a range of between eleven and seventeen times.
88) Whilst CO2 levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout
history, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and the
growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years.
89) It is a myth that CO2 is a pollutant, because nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere and human beings could not
live in 100% nitrogen either: CO2 is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is and CO2 is essential to life.
90) Politicians and climate activists make claims to rising sea levels but certain members in the IPCC chose an area
to measure in Hong Kong that is subsiding. They used the record reading of 2.3 mm per year rise of sea level.
91) The accepted global average temperature statistics used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
show that no ground-based warming has occurred since 1998.
92) If one factors in non-greenhouse influences such as El Nino events and large volcanic eruptions, lower
atmosphere satellite-based temperature measurements show little, if any, global warming since 1979, a period over
which atmospheric CO2 has increased by 55 ppm (17 per cent).
93) US President Barack Obama pledged to cut emissions by 2050 to equal those of 1910 when there were 92
million Americans. In 2050, there will be 420 million Americans, so Obama’s promise means that emissions per
head will be approximately what they were in 1875. It simply will not happen.
94) The European Union has already agreed to cut emissions by 20 percent to 2020, compared with 1990 levels,
and is willing to increase the target to 30 percent. However, these are unachievable and the EU has already
massively failed with its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), as EU emissions actually rose by 0.8 percent from 2005
to 2006 and are known to be well above the Kyoto goal.
95) Australia has stated it wants to slash greenhouse emissions by up to 25 percent below 2000 levels by 2020, but
the pledges were so unpopular that the country’s Senate has voted against the carbon trading Bill, and the
Opposition’s Party leader has now been ousted by a climate change sceptic.
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96) Canada plans to reduce emissions by 20 percent compared with 2006 levels by 2020, representing
approximately a 3 percent cut from 1990 levels but it simultaneously defends its Alberta tar sands emissions and its
record as one of the world’s highest per-capita emissions setters.
97) India plans to reduce the ratio of emissions to production by 20-25 percent compared with 2005 levels by 2020,
but all Government officials insist that since India has to grow for its development and poverty alleviation, it has to
emit, because the economy is driven by carbon.
98) The Leipzig Declaration in 1996, was signed by 110 scientists who said: “We – along with many of our fellow
citizens – are apprehensive about the climate treaty conference scheduled for Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997” and
“based on all the evidence available to us, we cannot subscribe to the politically inspired world view that envisages
climate catastrophes and calls for hasty actions.”
99) A US Oregon Petition Project stated “We urge the United States government to reject the global warming
agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits
on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the
health and welfare of mankind. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of CO2, methane, or
other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s
atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”
100) A report by the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change concluded “We find no support for
the IPCC’s claim that climate observations during the twentieth century are either unprecedented or provide
evidence of an anthropogenic effect on climate.”
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Global Warming Answers – No Impact
Their impact arguments are just manipulations of public fear—there’s no impact
O’NEILL 1-4-2011 (Brendan, editor of Spiked, “The icy grip of the politics of fear,” http://www.spikedonline.com/index.php/site/article/10046/)
Other climate-change campaigners told us to prepare for Saharan weather . A book published as part of Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient
Truth’ jamboree in 2007 - The Global Warming Survival Handbook - said there would soon be ‘searing temperatures, killer storms, drought,
plague and pestilence’. Award-winning green theorists told us to prepare for life on a ‘hotter planet’ in which ‘the traditional British winter [is]
probably gone for good’. Newspapers provided us with a ‘hellish vision of life on a hotter planet’ where deserts would ‘reach into the heart of
Europe’ and global warming would ‘reduce humanity to a few struggling groups of embattled survivors clinging to life
near the poles’. Dramatic stuff. And unadulterated nonsense. The thing that occupied people’s minds at the end of
2010 was not how to explain to their sweating children in the deserts of Hampshire why snow disappeared from our
lives, but rather how to negotiate actual snow. Again, this isn’t to say that the snow proves there is no planetary
warming at all: if it is mad to cite every change in the weather as proof that Earth is doomed, then it’s probably also unwise to dance around in
the slushy white stuff in the belief that it proves that all environmental scientists are demented liars. But the world of difference between
expert predictions (hot hell) and our real experiences (freezing nightmare) is a powerful symbol of the distance that now
exists between the apocalypse-fantasising elites and the public. What it really shows is the extent to which the
politics of global warming is driven by an already existing culture of fear. It doesn’t matter what The Science (as
greens always refer to it) does or doesn’t reveal: campaigners will still let their imaginations run riot, biblically
fantasising about droughts and plagues, because theirs is a fundamentally moralistic outlook rather than a scientific
one. It is their disdain for mankind’s planet-altering arrogance that fuels their global-warming fantasies - and they
simply seek out The Science that best seems to back up their perverted thoughts. Those predictions of a snowless
future, of a parched Earth, are better understood as elite moral porn rather than sedate risk analysis .
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Global Warming Answers – AT: Agriculture
Warming can only be good for plants—when it gets too hot they emit OCS which creates a
negative feedback
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
The first portion of this response can be explained by the fact that most terrestrial plants prefer much warmer temperatures than a
mere 3°C, so that as their surroundings warm and they grow better, they extract more OCS from the atmosphere in an
attempt to promote even more warming and grow better still. At the point where warming becomes a detriment to
them, however, they reverse this course of action and begin to rapidly reduce their rates of OCS absorption in an
attempt to forestall warming-induced death. And since the consumption of OCS by lichens is under the physiological control of
carbonic anhydrase—which is the key enzyme for OCS uptake in all higher plants, algae, and soil organisms—we could expect this
phenomenon to be generally operative over most of the earth. Hence, this thermoregulatory function of the
biosphere may well be powerful enough to define an upper limit above which the surface air temperature of the
planet may be restricted from rising, even when changes in other forcing factors, such as increases in greenhouse gas
concentrations, produce an impetus for it to do so . Clearly, this multifaceted phenomenon is extremely complex, with different biological
entities tending to both increase and decrease atmospheric OCS concentrations at one and the same time, while periodically reversing directions
in this regard in response to climate changes that push the temperatures of their respective environments either above or below the various
thermal optima at which they function best. This being the case, there is obviously much more we need to learn about the many plant
physiological mechanisms that may be involved. State-of-the-art climate models totally neglect the biological processes we
have described here. Until we fully understand the ultimate impact of the OCS cycle on climate , and then incorporate
them into the climate models, we cannot be certain how much of the warming experienced during the twentieth century, if
any, can be attributed to anthropogenic causes.
(OCS = Carbonyl Sulfide)
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Global Warming Answers – AT: Climate Spikes
Warming reduces climate fluctuations
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
Over the same time period, Zhai and Pan (2003) derived trends in the frequencies of warm days and nights, cool days and nights, and hot days
and frost days for the whole of China, based on daily surface air temperature data obtained from approximately 200 weather observation stations
scattered across the country. Over the period of record, and especially throughout the 1980s and 1990s, there were
increases in the numbers of warm days and nights, while there were decreases in the numbers of cool days and
nights, consistent with an overall increase in mean daily temperature. At the extreme hot end of the temperature
spectrum, however, the authors report that “the number of days with daily maximum temperature above 35°C showed a
slightly decreasing trend for China as a whole,” while at the extreme cold end of the spectrum, the number of frost days
with daily minimum temperature below 0°C declined at the remarkable rate of 2.4 days per decade. In considering this entire
body of research, it is evident that air temperature variability almost always decreases when mean air temperature
rises.
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Global Warming Answers – AT: Coral Reefs
Warming and CO2 are good for coral
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
According to the IPCC, “many studies incontrovertibly link coral bleaching to warmer sea surface temperature … and mass
bleaching and coral mortality often results beyond key temperature thresholds” (IPCC 2007-II, p. 235). “Modelling,” the IPCC goes on to say,
“predicts a phase switch to algal dominance on the Great Barrier Reef and Caribbean reefs in 2030 to 2050.” The IPCC further claims that
“coral reefs will also be affected by rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations … resulting in declining calcification”
(Ibid.). In the following pages we review the scientific literature on coral reefs in an effort to determine if the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2
content, rising temperatures, or rising sea levels pose a threat to these incomparable underwater ecosystems. Because the fate of the earth’s corals
has become so prominent in the debate over climate change and because our findings are so entirely at odds with those of the IPCC,
we present a brief summary of our key findings here: • There is no simple linkage between high temperatures and coral
bleaching. • As living entities, corals are not only acted upon by the various elements of their environment, they also
react or respond to them. And when changes in environmental factors pose a challenge to their continued existence, they sometimes take
major defensive or adaptive actions to ensure their survival. • A particularly ingenious way coral respond to environmental stress
is to replace the zooxanthellae expelled by the coral host during a stress-induced bleaching episode by one or more
varieties of zooxanthellae that are more tolerant of the stress that caused the bleaching. • The persistence of coral reefs
through geologic time—when temperatures were as much as 10°15°C warmer than at present, and atmospheric CO2
concentrations were two to seven times higher than they are currently—provides substantive evidence that these
marine entities can successfully adapt to a dramatically changing global environment. Thus, the recent die-off of
many corals cannot be due solely, or even mostly, to global warming or the modest rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration over the
course of the Industrial Revolution. • The 18- to 59-cm warming-induced sea-level rise that is predicted for the coming century by the IPCC—
which could be greatly exaggerated if predictions of CO2-induced global warming are wrong—falls well within the range (2 to 6 mm per
year) of typical coral vertical extension rates, which exhibited a modal value of 7 to 8 mm per year during the Holocene and can be
more than double that value in certain branching corals. Rising sea levels should therefore present no difficulties for coral reefs. In fact, rising
sea levels may have a positive effect on reefs, permitting increased coral growth in areas that have already reached
the upward limit imposed by current sea levels. • The rising CO2 content of the atmosphere may induce changes in
ocean chemistry (pH) that could slightly reduce coral calcification rates; but potential positive effects of hydrospheric CO2
enrichment may more than compensate for this modest negative phenomenon. • Theoretical predictions indicate that coral
calcification rates should decline as a result of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations by as much as 40 percent by 2100.
However, real-world observations indicate that elevated CO2 and elevated temperatures are having the opposite
effect.
Alt causes to coral destruction
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
What are the implications of these observations? Cole concludes that “human activity, in the form of changing land use, has added
sedimentation to the list of stresses experienced by reefs.” Furthermore, as land-use intensification is a widespread phenomenon,
she notes that “many reefs close to continents or large islands are likely to have experienced increased delivery of sediment over the past
century,” which suggests the stress levels produced by this phenomenon are likely to have increased over the past century as well. In addition,
Cole logically concludes that as coastal populations continue to rise, “this phenomenon is likely to expand .” Lastly, a
number of poisonous substances are known to have the capacity to induce coral bleaching. Some of them are of human
origin, such as herbicides, pesticides, and even excess nutrients that make their way from farmlands to the sea (Simkiss, 1964;
Pittock, 1999). Other poisons originate in the sea itself, many the result of metabolic waste products of other creatures (Crossland and
Barnes, 1974) and some a by-product of the coral host itself (Yonge, 1968). Each of these toxicants presents the coral community with
its own distinct challenge. Taken together, these findings suggest a number of sources of stress on coral survival and
growth that have little or nothing to do with rising CO2 concentrations or temperatures . It is also clear that human
population growth and societal and economic development over the period of the Industrial Revolution have predisposed coral reefs to
everincreasing incidences of bleaching and subsequent mortality via a gradual intensification of near-coastal riverine sediment transport rates.
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Global Warming Answers – AT: Coral Reefs
Rising CO2 levels are good for coral
IDSO 2005 (Sherwood, Keith, Craig, CO2 Science Magazine, January 26, www.co2science.org)
McNeil et al. (2004) begin their important paper by referencing some of the studies that form the nucleus of the CO2-will-harm-corals
contention. Then, as we typically did time after time over the past several years, they cite a host of papers that establish -- beyond
doubt, because they are based on real-world observations -- that coral calcification rates increase with increasing sea surface
temperature, which listing of pertinent papers includes the studies of Bessat and Buigues (2001), Carricart-Ganivet (2004), Clausen and Roth
(1975), Coles and Coles (1977), Kajiwara et al. (1995), Lough and Barnes (2000), Nie et al. (1997) and Reynaud-Vaganay et al. (1999). As to
why this is so, they go on to state that "these observed increases in coral reef calcification with ocean warming are most likely
due to an enhancement in coral metabolism and/or increases in photosynthetic rates of their symbiotic algae ," just as
we did when noting over and over that coral calcification is a biologically-driven process that can overcome physicalchemical limitations that in the absence of life would appear to be insurmountable .
Warming reduces climate oscillations–this solves damage done to coral by both heat and
cold
IDSO 2004 (Craig, Keith, Sherwood, CO2 Science Magazine, Dec 29, www.co2science.org)
If they had ended their short note at this point, all would have been well; but Hoegh-Guldberg and Fine proceeded to discover some new bad
news in their observations, stating that projected changes in climate may lead to "greater variability in seasonal conditions," meaning that CO2induced global warming may lead to both warmer and cooler temperatures, which is really a marvelous debating position, for whether corals
are observed to bleach in response to unseasonably warm temperatures or unseasonably cool temperatures, it allows the
producers and users of fossil-fuel-derived energy to be blamed for the biological devastation. In essence, therefore, whatever bad things happen
under this scenario, whether caused by warming or cooling, anthropogenic CO2 emissions can be held responsible for them. Fortunately, realworld data tell a very different story from that which derives from the false premise upon which the two marine scientists build their
environmental house of cards: on nearly all time scales, global warming leads to less variability in weather extremes of nearly
all types, as may readily be seen in perusing the various materials archived under the many sub-headings of Weather Extremes in our Subject
Index. Most important within the context of coral bleaching, of course, is the sub-heading Weather Extremes (Temperature); and in reading the
Summary of this section, one learns that whether the warming in question is from a glacial state to an interglacial, from a centennial-scale cool
spell such as the Dark Ages Cold Period to a centennial-scale warm spell such as the Medieval Warm Period, or simply from the coolness of a La
Niña episode to the warmth of an El Niño episode, temperature variability nearly always does just the opposite of what the
world's climate alarmists claim and declines.
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Global Warming Answers – AT: Dead Zones
CO2 solves dead zones
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
As a subsidiary aspect of the study, Zou notes that “the extract of H.
fusiforme has an immunomodulating activity on humans and
this ability might be used for clinical application to treat several diseases such as tumors (Suetsuna, 1998; Shan et al., 1999).”
He also reports that the alga “has been used as a food delicacy and an herbal ingredient in China, Japan and Korea.” In fact, he says
that it “is now becoming one of the most important species for seaweed mariculture in China, owing to its high
commercial value and increasing market demand.” The ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content bodes well for all of
these applications. In addition, Zou notes that “the intensive cultivation of H. fusiforme would remove nutrients more
efficiently with the future elevation of CO2 levels in seawater, which could be a possible solution to the problem of
ongoing coastal eutrophication,” suggesting that rising CO2 levels may also assist in the amelioration of this
environmental problem. In light of these several observations, the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 content should help marine
macroalgae to become more productive with the passage of time.
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Global Warming Answers – AT: Disasters
Increasing severity of disasters is due to demographic factors
SAREWITZ AND PIELKE 2005 (Daniel Sarewitz is professor of science and society, and director of the Consortium for
Science, Policy & Outcomes, at Arizona State University. Roger A. Pielke Jr. is professor of environmental studies, and director of the Center for
Science and Technology Policy Research, at the University of Colorado, New Republic, 1-17-05)
The first thing to understand about disasters is that they have indeed been rapidly increasing worldwide over the past century, in both
number and severity, and that the causes of this increase are well understood--and have nothing to do with global
warming. Data from the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters in Brussels, Belgium, as well as the Red Cross and the
reinsurance industry, show that the number of disasters affecting at least 100 people or resulting in a call for international assistance has increased
from an average of about 100 per year in the late '60s to between 500 and 800 per year by the early twenty-first century. The reason is not an
increase in the frequency or severity of storms, earthquakes, or similar events, but an increase in vulnerability because of growing
populations, expanding economies, rapid urbanization, and migrations to coasts and other exposed regions .
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Global Warming Answers – AT: Disease
Warming doesn’t increase disease risk—cold temperatures do
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
Which is more deadly: heat or cold? Rising temperatures or falling temperatures? The IPCC claims warming is the primary
danger to be avoided at all costs. Real-world data, however, indicate the opposite. Systematic research on the relationship
between heat and human health dates back to the 1930s (Gover, 1938; Kutschenreuter, 1950; Kutschenreuter, 1960; Oechsli and
Buechley, 1970). Early studies by Bull (1973) and Bull and Morton (1975a,b) in England and Wales, for example, demonstrated that normal
changes in temperature typically are inversely associated with death rates, especially in older subjects. That is, when temperatures rise,
death rates fall; when temperatures fall, death rates rise. Bull and Morton (1978) concluded “there is a close association between
temperature and death rates from most diseases at all temperatures,” and it is “very likely that changes in external temperature cause changes in
death rates.” Since this early research was published, a large number of studies have confirmed the original findings.
Contrary to the IPCC’s highly selective reading of the literature, the overwhelming majority of researchers in the
field have found that warmer weather reduces rather than increases the spread and severity of many diseases and
weather-related mortality rates. We review this literature in the following order: cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, malaria,
tick-borne diseases, and finally cold- and heat-related mortality from all diseases.
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Global Warming Answers – AT: Drought
Warming won’t cause drought—paleoclimatic data proves
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
Last, and going back in time almost 5,500 years, Russell and Johnson (2005) analyzed sediment cores that had been retrieved from
Lake Edward—the smallest of the great rift lakes of East Africa, located on the border that separates Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the
Congo—to derive a detailed precipitation history for that region. In doing so, they discovered that from the start of the record until about 1,800
years ago, there was a long-term trend toward progressively more arid conditions, after which there followed what they
term a “slight trend” toward wetter conditions that has persisted to the present . In addition, superimposed on these long-term
trends were major droughts of “at least century-scale duration,” centered at approximately 850, 1,500, 2,000, and 4,100 years ago.
Consequently, it would not be unnatural for another such drought to grip the region in the not-too-distant future. In
summation, real-world evidence from Africa suggests that the global warming of the past century or so has not led to a
greater frequency or greater severity of drought in that part of the world. Indeed, even the continent’s worst drought in
recorded meteorological history was much milder than droughts that occurred periodically during much colder
times.
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Global Warming Answers – AT: Oceans
CO2 solves ocean health
IDSO 2005 (Sherwood, Craig, Keith, CO2 Science Magazine, January 12, www.co2science.org)
The authors say "it is usually thought that unlike terrestrial plants, phytoplankton will not show a significant response to an increase of
atmospheric CO2," but they note, in this regard, that "most analyses have not examined the full dynamic interaction between
phytoplankton production and assimilation, carbon-chemistry and the air-water flux of CO2," and that "the effect of
photosynthesis on pH and the dissociation of carbon (C) species have been neglected in most studies." Hence, they proceed to rectify this
situation. What was done Schippers et al. developed "an integrated model of phytoplankton growth, air-water exchange and C chemistry to
analyze the potential increase of phytoplankton productivity due to an atmospheric CO2 elevation." To test the predictions of their model, they let
the freshwater alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii grow in 300-ml bottles filled with 150 ml of a nutrient-rich medium at enclosed atmospheric CO2
concentrations of 350 and 700 ppm that they maintained at two air-water exchange rates characterized by CO2 exchange coefficients of 2.1 and
5.1 m day-1, as described by Shippers et al. (2004b), while periodically measuring the biovolume of the solutions by means of an electronic
particle counter. What was learned The authors report that their experimental results "confirm the theoretical prediction that if algal effects on
C chemistry are strong, increased phytoplankton productivity because of atmospheric CO2 elevation should become proportional to the increased
atmospheric CO2," which means, in their words, that "productivity would double at the predicted increase of atmospheric CO2
to 700 ppm." Although they note that "strong algal effects (resulting in high pH levels) at which this occurs are rare under natural conditions,"
they still predict "a potential productivity increase of up to 40%, at observed pH levels for marine species with low affinity for HCO3-," and that
effects on algal production in freshwater systems could potentially be larger, such that a "doubling of atmospheric CO2 may result in an increase
of the productivity of more than 50%." What it means With respect to the ongoing rise in the air's CO2 content, Schippers et al. say their
results suggest that "the aquatic C sink may increase more than expected," which would help to slow the rate-of-rise
of the air's CO2 concentration and provide a greater food base for higher marine and freshwater organisms. On the
negative side, they note that it could possibly aggravate nuisance phytoplankton blooms. Clearly, much more research should be directed to
addressing these important matters.
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Global Warming Answers – AT: Ozone Hole
The ozone hole is the product of cosmic ray fluctuations
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
In one final review paper, Lu (2009) showed that in
the period of 1980–2007, two full 11-year cosmic ray cycles clearly
correlated with ozone depletion, especially the polar ozone loss (hole) over Antarctica. The temporal correlation is also
supported by a strong spatial correlation because the ozone hole is located in the lower polar stratosphere at ~18 km, exactly
where the ionization rate of cosmic rays producing electrons is the strongest. The results provide strong evidence
that the cosmic ray-driven electron-induced reaction of halogenated molecules plays the dominant role in causing the
ozone hole. Changes in ozone then have a global impact on climate.
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Global Warming Answers – AT: Polar Bears
They’ll be fine
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
According to the IPCC, global warming is “inducing declining survival rates , smaller size, and cannibalism among polar
bears (Amstrup et al., 2006; Regehr et al., 2006)” (IPCC, 2007-II, p. 88). “Reproductive success in polar bears,” the IPCC also claims, “has
declined, resulting in a drop in body condition, which in turn is due to melting Arctic Sea ice. Without ice, polar bears cannot hunt seals, their
favourite prey (Derocher et al., 2004)” (p. 103). Later in the same report, the IPCC claims to have “very high confidence” that “substantial loss of
sea ice will reduce habitat for dependent species (e.g., polar bears)” (p. 213). As was the case with coral reefs, the IPCC’s claims and
predictions are based on computer models and untested theories rather than real-world data. They are at odds with
much of what is known about sea ice, polar bear populations and behaviors, and the natural ability of wildlife to
adapt to climate change. In this section we review the evidence and conclude polar bears are not endangered by global warming, whether it
is caused by human activity or any other causes. Since our findings once again contradict those of the IPCC, we summarize them here: • There
is little or no evidence of global warminginduced reduction in the extent or thickness of Arctic sea ice in the secondhalf of the twentieth century, particularly during those seasons when polar bears rely on it to reach their favorite food
supply (seals), despite what the IPCC calls the “unprecedented warming” of the past century. • Polar bears have survived changes in
climate that exceed those that occurred during the twentieth century or are forecast by the IPCC’s computer models .
• Temperatures in Greenland and other Arctic areas exhibit considerable variability described by one group of scientists as “a
long term cooling and shorter warming periods.” • Most populations of polar bears are growing, not shrinking, and the
biggest influence on polar bear populations is not temperature but hunting by humans, which historically has taken too large a toll
on polar bear populations. • Forecasts of dwindling polar bear populations assume trends in sea ice and temperature that
are counterfactual, rely on computer climate models that are known to be unreliable, and violate most of the
principles of scientific forecasting.
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Global Warming Answers – AT: Species Loss
Even the IPCC admits species loss data is bad
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
Buried in the IPCC report are admissions that the computer models based on the dubious notion of “survival
envelopes” that it relies on produce “a picture of potential impacts and risks that is far from perfect, in some
instances apparently contradictory” (p. 239) and “climate envelope models do not simulate dynamic population or
migration processes, and results are typically constrained to the regional level, so that the implications for
biodiversity at the global level are difficult to infer ,” citing Malcolm et al., 2002 (IPCC, 2007-II, p. 240). We agree, which is why, in
the following sections, we present more reliable theories and evidence that paint a much different, and more accurate, picture of the fate of
wildlife in a warming world.
Hippies at the UN agree—no extinction
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
What does real-world data say about rates of extinction? In 2002, the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) published
a new World Atlas of Biodiversity (Groombridge and Jenkins, 2002). It reported that the world lost only half as many major
wild species in the last three decades of the twentieth century (20 birds, mammals, and fish) as during the last three
decades of the nineteenth century (40 extinctions of major species). In fact, UNEP said the rate of extinctions at the end of
the twentieth century was the lowest since the sixteenth century—despite 150 years of rising world temperatures,
growing populations, and industrialization.
Observations contradict models—species are fine
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
Many, and probably most,
of the world’s species have benefited from rising temperatures in the twentieth century. There is
very little evidence of any extinctions. What should be plain is that, despite predictions of extinctions based on theories
and computer models, real-world observations confirm that a warmer world is more, not less, hospitable to wildlife.
Warming causes ultra-rapid evolution
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
Skelly et al. (2007) critiqued the climate-envelope approach to predicting extinctions used by Thomas et al. (2004), citing as their
primary reason for doing so the fact that this approach “implicitly assumes that species cannot evolve in response to changing
climate.” As they correctly point out, “many examples of contemporary evolution in response to climate change exist,”
such as populations of a frog they had studied that had “undergone localized evolution in thermal tolerance (Skelly and
Freidenburg, 2000), temperature-specific development rate (Skelly, 2004), and thermal preference (Freidenburg and Skelly, 2004),” in less
than 40 years. Similarly, they report, “laboratory studies of insects show that thermal tolerance can change markedly after
as few as 10 generations (Good, 1993).” Adding that “studies of microevolution in plants show substantial trait evolution
in response to climate manipulations (Bone and Farres, 2001),” the researchers further noted that “collectively, these findings
show that genetic variation for traits related to thermal performance is common and evolutionary response to
changing climate has been the typical finding in experimental and observational studies (Hendry and Kinnison, 1999;
Kinnison and Hendry, 2001).” Although evolution will obviously be slower in the cases of long-lived trees and large mammals, where long
generation times are the norm, the scientists say the case for rapid evolutionary responses among many other species “has
grown much stronger,” citing, in this regard, the work of six other groups of researchers comprised of two dozen individuals (Stockwell et
al., 2003; Berteaux et al., 2004; Hairston et al., 2005; Bradshaw and Holzapfel, 2006; Schwartz et al., 2006; Urban et al., 2007). As a result, they
write, “on the basis of the present knowledge of genetic variation in performance traits and species’ capacity for evolutionary response, it can be
concluded that evolutionary change will often occur concomitantly with changes in climate as well as other
environmental changes (Stockwell et al., 2003; Grant and Grant, 2002; Balanya et al., 2006; Jump et al., 2006; Pelletier et al., 2007).” Much
the same conclusion has been reached by still other groups of scientists. In a study of the field mustard plant, for example, a group of three
researchers (Franks et al., 2007) found evidence for what they describe as “a rapid, adaptive evolutionary shift in flowering phenology after a
climatic fluctuation,” which finding, in their words, “adds to the growing evidence that evolution is not always a slow, gradual process but can
occur on contemporary time scales in natural populations.” Likewise, another group of researchers who published in 2007 (Rae et al., 2007)—
who worked with hybrids of two Populus tree species—obtained results which, as they phrased it, “quantify and identify genetic variation in
response to elevated CO2 and provide an insight into genomic response to the changing environment.” The results, they wrote, “should lead to an
understanding of microevolutionary response to elevated CO2 ... and aid future plant breeding and selection,” noting that various research groups
have already identified numerous genes that appear sensitive to elevated CO2 (Gupta et al., 2005; Taylor et al., 2005; Ainsworth et al., 2006; Rae
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et al., 2006). Life in the sea, in this regard, is no different from life on land. In another study published in 2007, for example, a team of
four marine biologists (Van Doorslaer et al., 2007) conducted an experiment with a species of zooplankton in which they say they “were
able to demonstrate a rapid microevolutionary response (within 1 year ) in survival, age at reproduction and offspring number to
elevated temperatures,” and they state that “these responses may allow the species to maintain itself under the forecasted global warming
scenarios,” noting that what they learned “strongly indicates rapid microevolution of the ability to cope with higher temperatures.” Many other
studies, some of them cited in Section 8.3, have produced analogous results with respect to increases in temperature on corals
(Kumaraguru et al., 2003; Willis et al., 2006) and increases in CO2 on freshwater microalgae (Collins et al., 2006). In conclusion, many species
have shown the ability to adapt rapidly to changes in climate. Claims that global warming threatens large numbers of species
with extinction typically rest on a false definition of extinction (the loss of a particular population rather than entire
species) and speculation rather than real-world evidence. The world’s species have proven to be very resilient,
having survived past natural climate cycles that involved much greater warming and higher CO2 concentrations than
exist today or are likely to occur in the coming centuries.
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Global Warming Answers – AT: Species Can’t Adapt
Yes they can—past climate shifts have been just as rapid
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
Environmentalists argue that the speed of today’s climate change is greater than previous warmings and will
overwhelm the adaptive capacities of plants and animals. Yet history and paleontology agree that many of the past
global temperature changes arrived very quickly, sometimes in a few decades. For example, 12,000 years ago, the Younger
Dryas event suddenly and violently swung from warm temperatures back to Ice Age levels by the shutdown of the Gulf
Stream as melting water from the extra trillion tons of ice built up in the glaciers and ice sheets over the previous 90,000 years of frigid climate
was released into the oceans. The shutdown of the oceans’ Atlantic Conveyor quickly triggered another thousand years of Ice Age. How did wild
species deal with Mother Nature’s sudden, sharp reversals then? In another example, starting about 1840 a Wyoming glacier went
from Little Ice Age cold to near presentday warmth in about a decade (Schuster et al., 2000). There’s no evidence of any
local species being destroyed by that rapid temperature change .
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Global Warming Answers – AT: Storms
Warming doesn’t intensify storms
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
Last, Briggs (2008) developed
Bayesian statistical models for the number of tropical cyclones, the rate at which these
cyclones became hurricanes, and the rate at which the hurricanes became category 4+ storms in the North Atlantic,
based on data from 1966 to 2006; this work led him to conclude that there is “no evidence that the distributional mean of
individual storm intensity, measured by storm days, track length, or individual storm power dissipation index, has changed (increased or
decreased) through time.” In light of the many real-world observations (as well as certain modeling work) discussed above,
it would appear that even the supposedly unprecedented global warming of the past century or more has not led to
an increase in the intensity of Atlantic hurricanes.
Warming doesn’t increase incidence of storms
NIPCC 2009 (Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change Reconsidered,” June,
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/2009/pdf/CCR2009FullReport.pdf)
Based on this work, the two
researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution detected three major intervals of
intense hurricane strikes: one between 5,400 and 3,600 calendar years before present (yr BP, where “present” is AD 1950), one
between 2,500 and 1,000 yr BP, and one after 250 yr BP. They also report that coral-based sea surface temperature (SST) data
from Puerto Rico “indicate that mean annual Little Ice Age (250-135 yr BP or AD 1700-1815) SSTs were 2-3°C cooler than they
are now,” and they say that “an analysis of Caribbean hurricanes documented in Spanish archives indicates that 17661780 was one of the most active intervals in the period between 1500 and 1800 (Garcia-Herrera et al., 2005), when tree-ring-based
reconstructions indicate a negative (cooler) phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (Gray et al., 2004).” In light of these findings,
Donnelly and Woodruff concluded that “the information available suggests that tropical Atlantic SSTs were probably not
the
principal driver of intense hurricane activity over the past several millennia.” Indeed, there is no compelling reason
to believe that the current level of intense hurricane activity is in any way unprecedented or that it has been caused
by global warming. Quite to the contrary, the two researchers write that “studies relying on recent climatology indicate that
North Atlantic hurricane activity is greater during [cooler ] La Niña years and suppressed during [warmer] El Niño years
(Gray, 1984; Bove et al., 1998), due primarily to increased vertical wind shear in strong El Niño years hindering hurricane
development.” In summary, millennial-scale reconstructions of intense hurricane activity within the Atlantic Basin provide
no support for the claim that global warming will lead to the creation of more intense Atlantic hurricanes that will
batter the east, southeast, and southern coasts of the United States. In fact, they suggest just the opposite.
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***AT: Solvency***
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Solvency
Even if the plan funded DSCOVR now, it wouldn’t get in the air until late 2013 – after the
solar maximum in May
CLARK, SPACEFLIGHT NOW, 2011
(STEPHEN, “NOAA taps DSCOVR satellite for space weather mission” http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n1102/2
1dscovr/ February 21, 2011, accessed 7-24-11, ASR)
NASA was also directed to refurbish the Earth science instruments, and that work is complete or nearing
completion, according to Steve Cole, an agency spokesperson. The recent work on the DSCOVR spacecraft was
ordered as NOAA considered several replacement options for the aging ACE satellite. Other options included
starting from scratch on an entirely new spacecraft and developing a sensor to fly on a commercial satellite. The
space agency would ready the DSCOVR spacecraft for flight and the U.S. Air Force would select a launch
vehicle. DSCOVR would be ready for launch by late 2013 if NOAA gets full funding this year.
No solvency – scientists can’t interpret satellite data
Psychology Press, 01 (No date, The environment encyclopedia and directory 2001, “Antarctic Ozone Hole” Vol. 3
Http://books.google.com/books?id=q_FROqap0F8C&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42&dq=The+international+scientific+community+was+skeptical,+parti
cularly+as+modern+monitoring+equipment+on+sophisticated+satellites+had+no+detected+ozone+depletion+in+the+upper+atmosphere.+It+was
+later+found+that+measurements+made+by+satellites+had+in+fact+indicated+the+depletion+of&source=bl&ots=53bhC6Ssfn&sig=-sFjWxK1ZSlSuH6wYX8G6lk2K8&hl=en&ei=qAgbTtvIKYTGtAbowNChDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAQ#v=
onepage&q&f=fals)
The international scientific
community was skeptical, particularly as modern monitoring equipment on sophisticated
satellites had no detected ozone depletion in the upper atmosphere . It was later found that measurements made by
satellites had in fact indicated the depletion of ozone but that scientists had failed to interpret the data when
processing the extensive records. Faced with the evidence of Farman’s ground, scientists began to work to determine whether the
depletion would spread beyond Antarctica. Arguments continued about whether the phenomenon observed by the Antarctic
team could have been caused by natural forces or by synthetic chemicals. Tests to confirm the potential sources of
chemical destruction were inconclusive but stated that ‘a chemical mechanisms is fundamentally responsible for the
hold’.
ITAR blocks image sharing and cooperation
Wigbels et. al, 8 – [July 2008, Lyn Wigbels, senior associate of Technology and Public Policy program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, G. Ryan Faith, CSIS Human Space Exploration Initiative, Vincent Sabathier, senior associate with the CSIS Technology
and Public Policy Program, Center for Strategic Studies, “Earth Observations and Global Change”]
Export control regulations are a fundamental disincentive and significant structural impediment to U.S. participation
in international systems, to foreign cooperation with the United States, and to the development of GEOSS. Since Earth observations can
involve airborne, oceanic, and ground observation and are not limited only to space systems, the International Traffic in Arms Regulations
(ITAR) legislation does not automatically come into play in every discussion of U.S. cooperation in GEOSS. However, ITAR can make it
difficult to even initiate discussions on potential collaboration in many fruitful and obvious areas. ITAR has created real
and perceived obstacles to engagement and cooperation. Although ITAR was intended to cover critical, highly sensitive military
technologies, in practice the regulations are applied to a much, much wider array of other technologies. In addition, as
individuals in the approval process are criminally liable equally for real and perceived mistakes, decisionmakers have a strong incentive to be
excessively cautious. Furthermore, ITAR is now being applied to data from space systems, not just the space systems
themselves. This has led to a situation where ITAR has forced the international community to develop their own independent capabilities (for
example, radar ocean altimetry and Lidar/IMU). As a result, the international community now leads in several technologies, and U.S. firms are
losing access to global markets and in some cases have lost the ability to produce such technologies altogether.
Agency disputes derails solvency
Wigbels et. al, 8 – (July 2008, Lyn Wigbels, senior associate of Technology and Public Policy program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, G. Ryan Faith, CSIS Human Space Exploration Initiative, Vincent Sabathier, senior associate with the CSIS Technology
and Public Policy Program, Center for Strategic Studies, “Earth Observations and Global Change”)
Though these efforts are a laudable attempt to address the dispersion of responsibility for Earth observations in the U.S. government, there are
questions about whether they are enough to address the looming gaps in Earth observation coverage, current and future investments needed for
Earth observation systems, and the lack of planning for future Earth observation systems. USGEO is a coordinating body that has three
cochairs, has no budgetary authority for Earth observations and cannot compel federal agencies to take any actions with
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respect to budgeting for Earth observation capabilities or implementing a national Earth observation plan. USGEO
also cannot compel
governmental agencies to work together to more effectively transition research capabilities to a system that acquires
data consistently over the long term. This arrangement limits the support for a robust, holistic national Earth
observation program to meet the nation’s needs and a national budget sufficient to implement it.
Can’t solve – no launch vehicles
Wigbels et. al, 8 – (July 2008, Lyn Wigbels, senior associate of Technology and Public Policy program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, G. Ryan Faith, CSIS Human Space Exploration Initiative, Vincent Sabathier, senior associate with the CSIS Technology
and Public Policy Program, Center for Strategic Studies, “Earth Observations and Global Change”)
Another issue that needs to be considered in the planning and budgeting for the next generation space-based Earth observation system
is which launch vehicles will be used. With the Delta 2 no longer available, there is a concern that more funding will be
required for launchers, with consequently less funding available for the platforms and instruments.
Sustainability decks solvency
Wigbels et. al, 8 – (July 2008, Lyn Wigbels, senior associate of Technology and Public Policy program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, G. Ryan Faith, CSIS Human Space Exploration Initiative, Vincent Sabathier, senior associate with the CSIS Technology
and Public Policy Program, Center for Strategic Studies, “Earth Observations and Global Change”)
The majority of today’s Earth observation systems are focused on science and examining how and why the Earth is changing; how the Earth
responds to these changes; the impact of these changes; and how the Earth system will change in the future. In the Earth Science and Applications
from Space decadal survey,1 the Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space wrote that there is a need for science missions that are
focused on longer-term science questions. Continuous information is needed not only on what changes are taking place at
this instant, but also on the trend and pace of change. Long-term sustained measurements are needed to support both
shortterm predictions, through consistent provision of data, and science, by providing records of Earth processes
over many years.
Climate science now – other satellites
Wigbels et. al, 8 – (July 2008, Lyn Wigbels, senior associate of Technology and Public Policy program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, G. Ryan Faith, CSIS Human Space Exploration Initiative, Vincent Sabathier, senior associate with the CSIS Technology
and Public Policy Program, Center for Strategic Studies, “Earth Observations and Global Change”)
There are currently no U.S. Earth observation missions that deliver climate measurements as anything but an ancillary side effect of technology
development activities. However, the future NPOESS will contribute to the continued measurement of more than half of the
essential climate variables. In Europe, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) was
created in 1986 through an international convention agreed to by 20 European member states (as of now) to deliver weather and
climate-related satellite data, images, and products on a continuous basis. EUMETSAT supplies this data to the national
meteorological services of the organization’s 20 members and 10 cooperating states and other users worldwide. While the data and images from
geostationary (Meteosat) and polar-orbiting (MetOp-A) satellites are used for weather forecasting, they also provide long-term data
acquisition (and some measure of continuity) to scientists for climate change research. The United States, France, and EUMETSAT
have been cooperating on the Jason satellites to conduct more in-depth research on the Earth’s oceans, which is leading to the provision of a
future capability (Jason-3) in 2013 that may extend data acquisition and continuity in this area.
Satellites read the data wrong
Markowitz, 2 – President of EarthPace LLC. Director of Law and Technology Program, Center for International Environmental Law
(Spring 2002, Kenneth J., Duke Environmental Law and Policy Forum, “Legal Challenges and Market Rewards to the use and Acceptance of
Remote Sensing and Digital Information as Evidence,” Vol. 12, Issue 219, http://www.epa.gov/esd/gqc/pdf/evidence.pdf)
Section I revealed the potential satellite remote sensing and GIS technologies hold in legally mandated decisions regarding the environment. This
section details the technical processes that move information from raw data to a usable product, and highlights the potential for error in each of
these processes. As the information is passed through the information chain, it may be lost, distorted, or mishandled ,
thereby increasing the likelihood that a court will exclude it from evidence in a legal proceeding. A. Satellite Data Error Remote sensing
information flow is a complex process involving five phases: (1) pre-launch calibration, (2) data ingest (collection), (3) digital image
processing, (4) storage and archiving, and (5) retrieval and application.85 Satellite data must be transformed from newly-collected
petabytes of binary code, to calibrated data occupying terabytes of storage area, to gigabytes that are usable for modeling and
observational systems, to megabytes that can be used in daily applica-tions.86 Potential for error exists in all of these
transformations, but NASA and other satellite developers are continually creating and improving calibration tools to reduce amount of
potential error. For most satellites, data handbooks exist that detail collection and calibration procedures.
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MHLM
***Off Case***
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MHLM
JPSS Tradeoff DA
A. Uniqueness: JPSS is being funded now. Obama Administration pushing for an
increase in the budget.
Kintisch, 2011 (7-15-2011, Eli Kintisch, Journalist for Science Mag, House Appropriators Propose Big Cuts to
Earth Sciences, sciencemag.org) http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/07/house-appropriators-proposebig-.html?ref=hp G.H.
For NOAA, “it’s the same problem they’ve had for the last 5 years—how do they ramp up the satellite programs
without affecting the rest of their operations,” said lobbyist Kevin Wheeler of Ocean Leadership in Washington,
D.C. The proposed $100 million cut comes at the same time the committee endorsed a big increase for satellite
systems that provide remote sensing for the planet. The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), which received $472
million this fiscal year, would get an increase of $429 million, for a total of $901 million. But that increase
would be taken from other NOAA programs. The Obama Administration had asked for $1.06 billion for
NOAA’s share of the JPSS program in 2012.
B. Funding for DSCOVR trades off with the polar-orbiting weather satellite program.
Brinton, Space News Staff Writer, 2011
(Turner, “House Panel Denies Funding for Space Climate Probe, Satellite Constellation,”
http://www.space.com/12259-house-panel-space-climate-satellites-funding.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_m
edium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+spaceheadlines+%28SPACE.com+Headline+Feed%29, 13 July 2011,
accessed 7-23-11, ASR)
WASHINGTON - The U.S. House Appropriations Committee is set to vote today (July 13) on a 2012 spending
bill that denies funding for a pair of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite
programs, one to provide advance warning of solar storms, the other a collaborative project with Taiwan.
The House version of the 2012 commerce, justice, science and related agencies appropriations bill also would
trim $50 million from NOAA’s $617.4 million request to develop a new generation of geostationary orbiting
weather satellites, according to the report accompanying the bill published July 12. It appears the savings would
be applied to help kick-start NOAA’s polar-orbiting weather satellite program, which was delayed by the
protracted 2011 budget process.
C. JPSS deployment is key to rapid storm detection – that’s key to predict and prepare
for every major natural disaster.
NOAA News 11 ("consequences of budget shortfall ," June 7,
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2011/20110607_jpss.html)
The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) program, which will deliver the next-generation of polar-orbiting satellites,
reached a key milestone with the installation of the first antenna that will receive data from the spacecraft. A team
from Raytheon Company recently installed the antenna receptor at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. The receptor is the
first to be installed around the world as part of the JPSS Common Ground System. It is designed to capture up to
five times more environmental data at speeds four times faster than current polar-orbiting satellites. JPSS will
maintain continuity of critical global data collected from polar orbits by NOAA’s polar satellite program, which for
more than 40 years has provided these observations which are critical for life-saving weather forecasts and
environmental monitoring. However, NOAA officials warned of the looming gap in polar satellite coverage to
spot developing storms if funding for JPSS is not secured. “Having more data available much faster will strengthen
NOAA’s ability to monitor atmospheric triggers that eventually lead to a tornado outbreak, hurricane, snow
storm, wildfire or flood, so we are all prepared before severe weather strikes,” said Kathryn Sullivan, Ph.D.,
NOAA’s assistant secretary for environmental observation and protection. She added that the budget shortfalls in the
JPSS program could lead to a loss of U.S. polar-orbiting weather satellite coverage beginning in 2016-17, at the end
of life for the NASA National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System Preparatory Project (NPP).
NPP is scheduled for launch October 25. “If JPSS is not in place at the end of NPP’s life, there will be a significant
decline in the accuracy of NOAA weather forecasts, including hurricane track prediction two days out,” Sullivan
said. “It’s absolutely critical that we have continuous polar satellite coverage.”
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D. Disasters cause extinction and outweigh nuclear war on timeframe and magnitude
Sid-Ahmed 5 (Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, “The post-earthquake world.” Al-Ahram Weekly Online. Jan 6-12,
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/724/op3.htm)
The human species has never been exposed to a natural upheaval of this magnitude within living memory. What
happened in South Asia is the ecological equivalent of 9/11. Ecological problems like global warming and climatic
disturbances in general threaten to make our natural habitat unfit for human life. The extinction of the species
has become a very real possibility, whether by our own hand or as a result of natural disasters of a much greater
magnitude than the Indian Ocean earthquake and the killer waves it spawned. Human civilisation has developed in
the hope that Man will be able to reach welfare and prosperity on earth for everybody. But now things seem to be
moving in the opposite direction, exposing planet Earth to the end of its role as a nurturing place for human life.
Today, human conflicts have become less of a threat than the confrontation between Man and Nature. At least
they are less likely to bring about the end of the human species. The reactions of Nature as a result of its exposure
to the onslaughts of human societies have become more important in determining the fate of the human species
than any harm it can inflict on itself. Until recently, the threat Nature represented was perceived as likely to arise
only in the long run, related for instance to how global warming would affect life on our planet. Such a threat could
take decades, even centuries, to reach a critical level. This perception has changed following the devastating
earthquake and tsunamis that hit the coastal regions of South Asia and, less violently, of East Africa, on 26
December. This cataclysmic event has underscored the vulnerability of our world before the wrath of Nature and
shaken the sanguine belief that the end of the world is a long way away. Gone are the days when we could
comfort ourselves with the notion that the extinction of the human race will not occur before a long-term future that
will only materialise after millions of years and not affect us directly in any way. We are now forced to live with the
possibility of an imminent demise of humankind.
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Tradeoff - Link Extensions
Funding for DSCOVR is being put aside once again in order to fund higher priority
satellites like the JPSS
Brinton, Space News Staff Writer, 2011
(Turner, “House Panel Denies Funding for Space Climate Probe, Satellite Constellation,”
http://www.space.com/12259-house-panel-space-climate-satellites-funding.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_m
edium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+spaceheadlines+%28SPACE.com+Headline+Feed%29, 13 July 2011,
accessed 7-23-11, ASR)
DSCOVR would utilize hardware left over from a planned NASA Earth observation mission dubbed Triana
that was canceled several years ago. COSMIC-2 is a multisatellite radio occultation experiment being conducted
jointly with Taiwan. "While the Committee supports NOAA’s efforts to establish a radio occultation satellite
constellation in partnership with Taiwan, the recommendation does not include any funding for the COSMIC-2
program given funding constraints and the need to fund other higher priority NOAA satellite programs," the
report said. The higher priority satellite program is the Joint Polar Satellite System created last year after
the White House dismantled a joint military-civilian weather satellite program. NOAA had sought $1 billion
for the program in 2011 but Congress provided less than half of that amount. The House bill would provide $901.3
million for the Joint Polar Satellite System in 2012, which is $429.4 million more than appropriated for the program
in 2011 but $168.6 million less than the request. NOAA sought $9.5 million for 2011 to ready the long-shelved
DSCOVR spacecraft for launch and $3.7 million to initiate development of COSMIC-2. Congress was unable to
pass any of the 12 traditional federal spending bills for 2011 and instead passed an all-in-one spending bill that held
most federal spending to 2010 levels. Funding was generally not provided for so-called new start programs
such as DSCOVR and COSMIC-2. The 2012 funding bill, meanwhile, would provide $567.4 million for NOAA’s
Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R series, $94.9 million less than provided for this year.
There is a direct tradeoff between the funding of new satellites and JPSS
Kintisch 11’
[Eli Kintisch July 15, 2011, editor of science magazine, award winning space journalism]
Deep cuts in earth science budgets for several U.S. agencies are in store next year under a proposed budget that awaits a
vote by the House of Representatives. Under the plan drafted by the commerce, justice, and science subcommittee and approved Wednesday by
the full appropriations committee, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would receive a $100 million cut
below its current $4.5 billion budget. The plan also includes a $100 million less for NASA’s $1.7 billion earth science budget than the agency has
proposed. Climate programs at the U.S. Geological Survey, meanwhile, are also under the knife under a different proposed spending
bill. “There are a number of areas in this bill that, under different circumstances, I would have preferred to fund at different levels,” subcommittee
chair Frank Wolf (R-VA) said at a hearing last week when his panel marked up the $50.2 billion spending bill. “However, the House-passed
budget resolution established our allocation and, accordingly, this subcommittee produced a strong bill with strategic investments in national
security, job creation, and science.” For NOAA, “it’s the same problem they’ve had for the last 5 years—how do they ramp up
the satellite programs without affecting the rest of their operations,” said lobbyist Kevin Wheeler of Ocean Leadership in
Washington, D.C. The proposed $100 million cut comes at the same time the committee endorsed a big increase for
satellite systems that provide remote sensing for the planet. The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), which received
$472 million this fiscal year, would get an increase of $429 million, for a total of $901 million. But that increase
would be taken from other NOAA programs. The Obama Administration had asked for $1.06 billion for NOAA’s share of the JPSS
program in 2012. NOAA has not released details on how its $4.5 billion budget for 2011 has been allocated. So the proposed House cuts to
specific programs can only be compared with 2010 levels. According to an analysis by Ocean Conservancy, a D.C. nonprofit organization, the
bill would cut ocean research by 44% compared with 2010 and nonresearch ocean and fisheries programs by roughly 30%. “It doesn’t help that
the ocean doesn’t have a congressman,” says spokesperson Timothy McHugh of Ocean Conservancy. Despite the large increase for JPSS,
considered a crucial tool for maintaining long-lasting climate and environmental research records, oceanographer Antonio Busalacchi says not
funding JPSS for the full 2011 “only serves to drag out the funding profile for JPSS, which will cost the country more in total program costs
while seriously jeopardizing the nation's operational capability for continuous weather monitoring and prediction.” Busalacchi, director of the
Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, run jointly by the University of Maryland, College Park, and NASA, was co-author on an
influential 2007 report by the National Academies on earth remote sensing. The cut to the earth science program at NASA is part of a proposed
$16.8 billion budget for NASA as a whole, $1.6 billion below the current year budget. The bill protects funding for human space flight, including
a crew vehicle and launch system. "While the Committee supports Earth Science functions, this area has rapidly grown over the past few fiscal
years, and the current constrained fiscal environment simply cannot sustain the spending patterns envisioned by NASA in this field," said
committee members in a report. That statement “ is very misleading, as it does not take into account the years of neglect and declining budgets
for NASA Earth Science during the previous Administration,” says Busalacchi. “Coupled with considerably increased costs for access to space,”
he adds, “this cut, plus the wording to protect specific missions, leaves NASA with very little flexibility to maintain a balanced approach to earth
system science.” Cuts to climate and environment programs in the Interior and Environment spending bill, which has been passed by the
appropriations committee but is yet to be taken up by the full House, include $83 million from the $371 million spent in various climate-related
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work conducted by the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs. In a
statement, the committee explained its rationale:
DSCOVR would cost 47.3 million
Brinton, Space News Staff Writer, 2011
(Turner, “House Panel Denies Funding for Space Climate Probe, Satellite Constellation,”
http://www.space.com/12259-house-panel-space-climate-satellites-funding.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_m
edium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+spaceheadlines+%28SPACE.com+Headline+Feed%29, 13 July 2011,
accessed 7-23-11, ASR)
The 2012 budget request NOAA sent to Congress in February asked for $47.3 million for the Deep Space
Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) and $11.3 million for Constellation Observing System for Meteorology
Ionosphere and Climate-2 (COSMIC-2). The House bill would not provide funding for either.
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Tradeoff- Hurricane Impact Module
Data from polar orbiting satellites key to hurricane prediction and preparation
GAO 10 (Government Accountability Office, "ENVIRONMENTAL SATELLITES: Strategy Needed to Sustain
Critical Climate and Space Weather Measurements," Report to Congressional Commitees, April, GAO-10-456,
Google Books)
Since the 1960s, the United States has operated two separate operational polar-orbiting meteorological satellite
systems: the Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) series, which is managed by NOAA. and
the Defense Meteorological Salellite Program (DMSP). which is managed by the Air Force.' These satellites obtain
environmental data (hat are processed to provide graphical weather images and specialized weather products. These
satellite data are also the predominant input to numerical weather prediction models, which are a primary tool for
forecasting weather days in advance—including forecasting the path and intensity of hurricanes. The weather
products and models are used to predict the potential impact of severe weather so that communities and emergency
managers can help prevent and mitigate its effects. Polar satellites also provide data used to monitor environmental
phenomena, such as ozone depletion and drought conditions, as well as data sets that are used by researchers for a
variety of studies such as climate monitoring.
Another major hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico would destroy the US economy
Business Wire 7 (“Strong Hurricane in Gulf of Mexico Could Generate $65 Billion Offshore Energy Loss, Says
EQECAT,” September 9, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/is_2007_Sept_5/ai_n27364009)
OAKLAND, Calif. -- EQECAT, Inc., a subsidiary of ABSG Consulting Inc. (ABS Consulting), and the leading
authority on extreme-risk modeling, said today that a strong hurricane like Camille, a category 5 storm, with a track
through the heart of Gulf of Mexico U.S. offshore energy platforms, could generate energy producer damage and
loss of more than $65 billion. "Property damage alone could exceed $35 billion and losses due to business
interruption and reduction in production capacity could add another $30 billion to the loss," said Richard Clinton,
president of EQECAT. "Industry insured losses are more difficult to estimate due to the changes in allocated
insurance capacity, policy terms and limits following the large losses from 2004-2005 hurricanes, but could certainly
be in the $15 billion range," Mr. Clinton continued. "Both the energy industry and the U.S. economy face
substantial risks due to Gulf of Mexico hurricanes. The EQECAT Offshore Energy catastrophe model can help
exposed parties to better understand and manage that risk," said Mr. Clinton. The estimates were generated by
EQECAT's new and innovative Offshore Energy model, which was designed specifically for quantifying offshore
energy risk. "EQECAT has developed new modeling capabilities that enable more comprehensive loss estimates for
the offshore assets than those previously available. The model takes into account waves and current, wind, tidal
surge and mudslides to estimate platform and pipeline damage," said Dr. Mahmoud Khater, EQECAT's chief
technical officer. "The vulnerabilities of the different assets were developed by ABS Consulting engineers,
leveraging decades of experience in the risk assessment of offshore platforms worldwide. The damage functions
were validated using extensive damage and claims data from hurricanes Ivan, Katrina and Rita," said Dr. Khater.
"Perhaps the most innovative aspect of the EQECAT model is the ability to quantify the risk of disruption of product
delivery to onshore facilities due to pipeline damage. This assessment is possible through use of a network analysis
that considers pipeline connectivity, redundancy and the impact of wave scouring and mudslides to determine
residual pipeline capacity after a storm. The program estitrmates the initial loss of oil and gas product delivery
capacity, and also takes into account the time necessary to restore full delivery capability. This is the first model that
will enable users to plan for all major aspects of offshore damage and loss," said Dr. Khater.
Economic decline causes global nuclear war
Mead 9 (Walter Russell Mead, Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, New
Republic, February 4, http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=571cbbb9-2887-4d81-8542-92e83915f5f8)
So far, such half-hearted experiments not only have failed to work; they have left the societies that have tried them
in a progressively worse position, farther behind the front-runners as time goes by. Argentina has lost ground to
Chile; Russian development has fallen farther behind that of the Baltic states and Central Europe. Frequently, the
crisis has weakened the power of the merchants, industrialists, financiers, and professionals who want to develop a
liberal capitalist society integrated into the world. Crisis can also strengthen the hand of religious extremists,
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populist radicals, or authoritarian traditionalists who are determined to resist liberal capitalist society for a variety of
reasons. Meanwhile, the companies and banks based in these societies are often less established and more vulnerable
to the consequences of a financial crisis than more established firms in wealthier societies. As a result, developing
countries and countries where capitalism has relatively recent and shallow roots tend to suffer greater economic and
political damage when crisis strikes--as, inevitably, it does. And, consequently, financial crises often reinforce rather
than challenge the global distribution of power and wealth. This may be happening yet again. None of which means
that we can just sit back and enjoy the recession. History may suggest that financial crises actually help capitalist
great powers maintain their leads--but it has other, less reassuring messages as well. If financial crises have been a
normal part of life during the 300-year rise of the liberal capitalist system under the Anglophone powers, so has war.
The wars of the League of Augsburg and the Spanish Succession; the Seven Years War; the American Revolution;
the Napoleonic Wars; the two World Wars; the cold war: The list of wars is almost as long as the list of financial
crises. Bad economic times can breed wars. Europe was a pretty peaceful place in 1928, but the Depression poisoned
German public opinion and helped bring Adolf Hitler to power. If the current crisis turns into a depression, what
rough beasts might start slouching toward Moscow, Karachi, Beijing, or New Delhi to be born? The United States
may not, yet, decline, but, if we can't get the world economy back on track, we may still have to fight.
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Tradeoff - Solar Power Impact Module
Visible-Infrared Radiometer Suite will be flown on JPSS
Gao et al 11 (Bo-Cai Gao and Rong-Rong Li, Remote Sensing Division of US Navy Research Laboratory, "Cloud
Remote Sensing Using Midwave IR CO2 and N2O Slicing Channels near 4.5 μm," May 17, in Remote Sens. 2011,
3, 1006-1013)
In spite of the great utility of the longwave IR CO2 slicing channels for remote sensing of clouds and atmospheric
temperature profiles, some of the near-future satellite instruments presently being built will not carry these channels.
For example, the VIIRS (Visible/Infrared Radiometer Suite) instruments have selected HgCdTe photovoltaic
detectors for the IR focal planes. VIIRS instruments will be flown on the near-future Joint Polar Satellite System
(JPSS) mission. The VIIRS IR focal planes cannot accommodate the longwave IR CO2 slicing channels above 13
μm. The same is true to the SGLI (Second-Generation Global Imager) instrument designed for the future Japanese
Global Climate Observation Mission (GCOM). Both VIIRS and SGLI will not have the important cloud and
temperature sensing capabilities.
Inefficient generation makes solar power infeasible – we can’t generate electricity at night
or when it’s cloudy
TESLA 10 (The Electrical Students Luminous Association, headed by Prof. Sri Samir Ku. Das (HOD, EE) and
Prof. Sri Rati Ranjan Sabat (HOD, EEE), "SPACE SOLAR POWER TRANSMISSION: A KEY TO ENERGY
CRISIS," July 23, http://teslagiet.com/softwares/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=83:space-solarpower-transmission&catid=41:presentation&Itemid=59)
Humanity faces a new energy crisis. Industrialization and urbanization will sharply increase energy use. Reliance on
fossil fuels could produce unprecedented environmental damage. The solution to this problem of finite sources is to
utilize terrestrial renewable energy resources to the maximum extent possible, while at the same time developing
Space solar power a global, 24-hour-a-day energy supply. The volume of solar energy hitting the earth is more than
twice that generated by all the forms of energy sources – both conventional and non-conventional put together.
The energy received from the Sun in just one hour is sufficient enough to meet the entire global energy demand
for around one year. Electricity generation using photo-voltaic cells is receiving increasing attention as a means of
electricity generation that produces neither CO2, NOx nor SOx pollution as do systems using fossil fuel burning, nor
radiation like nuclear power systems. However, because solar energy generation is impossible at night and of poor
efficiency during cloudy weather, stable electricity generation is difficult. However, if solar panels are launched
into space they can produce power continuously, independent of the weather and of the day-and-night cycle. The
Solar Power Satellite (SPS) concept involves a satellite carrying photo- voltaic panels in geo-stationary orbit (GEO)
to generate electricity, and transmitting this power to the Earth's surface. Solar power generation, especially space
solar power, is one of the most promising alternative technologies for reducing CO2 emissions and thus reducing
“Green House Effect”.
VIIRS cloud data is key to optimize solar energy production
NPP 10 (NPOESS Preparatory Project - NASA, "Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite," date last modified
November 17, http://jointmission.gsfc.nasa.gov/viirs.html)
Since 1980, polar-orbiting weather satellites have included both imagers and sounders. These types of sensors record
data continuously, using different wavelengths to infer information about clouds on a global scale. They can
determine cloud top height and thermodynamic phase (ice or water particles), and make estimates of microphysical
and optical properties that indicate the amount of water and ice in the cloud layer. The cloud products derived from
VIIRS and CrIS will serve a range of communities. For example, information on cloud cover is needed by the solar
energy community to optimize energy production. Cloud products are being used increasingly in nowcasting
models (up to 9 hours in the future) and in numerical weather prediction models (perhaps several days in the
future). Such products are used to determine the probability of precipitation or severe weather. Since such models
requires that cloud products be available soon after the data are collected, data reduction must be timely and
efficient. On a longer time scale, these cloud data are used to build climate data records that are critical for
establishing a decadal record of cloud properties. Technical issues associated with deriving a long-term data set of
cloud properties require continual work on sensor calibration and refinement of algorithms. Historically, cloud
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information was provided by the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) and the High resolution
InfraRed Sounder (HIRS). On the NASA Earth Observing System Aqua and Terra platforms, such measurements
are provided by the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Atmospheric Infrared
Sounder (AIRS). Over time, the technology behind these imager and sounder sensors has improved, with the latest
imager being the Visible Infrared Imager Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS).
VIIRS will provide information about clouds, aerosol, and surface properties at a spatial resolution of about 750 m
for most spectral measurements. VIIRS records data at a set of discrete wavelengths from the ultraviolet (0.45 _m)
to the infrared (12 _m). CrIS is a hyperspectral (> 1000 spectral wavelengths) sensor that will provide
complementary information about clouds, especially in complex regions such as the poles, over bright surfaces such
as snow/ice, and in areas that have strong temperature inversions. The cloud properties from VIIRS, and in some
regions from VIIRS combined with CrIS, will maintain continuity with the decadal cloud record from 1980 to the
present that is provided by historical and current sensors such as AVHRR, HIRS, MODIS, and AIRS. VIIRS cloud
products will be available at higher spatial resolution, and will be well-calibrated, which is essential for its use in
continuing the climate record.
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Privatization CP – 1NC Solvency
Private sector can handle Earth-observing satellites—AMPERE proves
EARSC 11 (“Earth-Observation Community Looks to Private Sector to Host Satellite Payloads,” January 31,
2011, http://www.earsc.eu/news/earth-observation-community-looks-to-private-sector-to-host-satellite-payloads)
Commercial satellite companies are offering the Earth-sciences community a faster and less-expensive way to
launch sensors needed to collect vital Earth-observation data and perform a range of scientific missions from
space. This capability, known as “hosted payloads,” is a cost-effective and timely way to deploy remote Earth- and space-monitoring
instruments on host satellites, which are primarily created to provide commercial voice, data and other telecommunications services. The
public/private partnerships enabled through hosted payloads carry benefits for satellite communication firms and public agencies aiming to stem
cost overruns and schedule delays associated with many large, government-run satellite programs. The March 2010 cancellation of the U.S.
government’s problem-plagued National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), for example, underscores the
role hosted payloads can play to ensure continuity of data collection necessary for predicting global climate change and making accurate weather
forecasts. NPOESS was designed to support the Department of Defense, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA). When it was halted, the budget had more than doubled to nearly $14 billion, and the project was at least six years behind schedule.
Budgetary pressures now are forcing the scientific community to rethink old ways of doing business in space. Magnetic Attraction A good
example of what’s possible is the Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment (AMPERE)
program. Funded in part by a $4 million grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in June 2008, AMPERE is a collaborative
initiative undertaken by Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), The Boeing Co. and Iridium Communications Inc. The
project, which recently got underway, is tapping data transmitted from Iridium’s constellation of 66 low-Earth orbit (LEO)
satellites to provide researchers with a global view of space weather in near-real time. To monitor data needed for
space-weather observation, scientists found a way to upload a software upgrade to the satellites’ bus, enabling a sensor that monitors magnetic
fields to also provide the additional information. This allows APL to get near-instantaneous global readings of electric currents and magnetic
signatures of the energy flux that flows between the sun and Earth’s upper atmosphere. These energy fluxes can cause powerful geomagnetic
storms that can disrupt telecommunications, utility grids and GPS navigation systems. The AMPERE project, led by principal investigator Brian
Anderson of APL, shows how commercial communications satellites can be used to host secondary missions. According to Lars Dyrud, a
scientist at APL, it’s an approach that can satisfy the practical needs of government for Earth-observation data and the academic community’s
efforts to expand human understanding of things such as the sun’s long-term effect on Earth’s climate and weather. “These public/private
partnerships and hosted payloads are essentially a paradigm shift in the way we conduct science from space,” adds Dyrud. “This kind of
cooperation between industry, scientists and the government expands what we are capable of doing and the kinds of things we never really
dreamed were financially possible. If we went to NASA or NOAA and asked for the money to put up a 66-satellite
constellation, it would be many billions of dollars and take a good decade to get off the ground. There just wouldn’t
be the budget to get sensors on that many platforms. But if you come along and do a hosted payload on Iridium satellites or
through another satellite operator, it would cost much less, and we could get our sensors into orbit much
more quickly. There are a lot of scientific topics and new techniques that the opportunity opens up.” New Space Science The NSF’s mission
is to advance scientific knowledge as well as science and technology education. Historically, the government agency hasn’t been directly
involved in funding space-based observation projects, according to Therese Moretto Jorgensen, program director in the Geospace Science Section
of NSF’s Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences. In the case of hosted payloads, however, NSF’s involvement could help demonstrate
new, creative ways of doing science in terms of methodology and results produced. “That is an objective that NSF can be solidly behind,” says
Jorgensen. “A main advantage of hosted payloads is that the reduction in cost can give you the ability to be more places in space and cover more
ground. Providing the global coverage is so essential to all the modeling and our understanding of the space environment. Hosted payloads
on LEO satellites would fulfill an obvious gap in almost any basic parameter for space weather and the
Earth’s upper atmosphere, because we know so little, and certainly not on a global scale. Teaming with industry
brings it down into a realm where the NSF can even consider doing it. I see a lot of promise in this. The White House recognized the potential
benefits for these government/industry partnerships when it unveiled a new U.S. National Space Policy in June 2010. The policy encourages
federal departments and agencies to explore nontraditional ways of conducting business, including tapping into available commercial space
capabilities to the “maximum practical extent.” Collaborating with a market-driven private sector, which has business incentives
to control costs and launch on schedule, could save the government money and time as well as promote a robust
domestic commercial space industry. The space blueprint identifies public/private partnerships and hosted
payloads on commercial spacecraft as key options to consider.
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Privatization CP - Solvency
Space Services Inc. could launch DSCOVR
NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, 2007
(“News of the Month Archive”http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/nndc/struts/results?eq_0=2007/02&op_3=eq&v_
3=N&t=102750&s=3&d=10,6,11, February 07, 2007, accessed 7-25-11, ASR)
National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) Participates in a Briefing on Commercial use of DSCOVR [February
07, 2007] On Wednesday, January 31, 2007 Drs. Christopher Fox and William Denig from NGDC participated
in a briefing by Space Services Inc. (SSI) [http://www.spaceservicesinc.com/about.htm] on their initiative to
promote the use of space weather data within NOAA. Other NOAA participants included: NWS Space
Environment Center's Tom Bodgan and Ron Zwickl; NOAA Weather and Water Goal Leads George Smith and
Ward Seguin; and NESDIS Pat Mulligan and Ben Diedrich by telephone. Mr. Charles Chafer (CEO) represented
SSI along with several supporting team members, who also included Mr. Kenn George, a former Assistant Secretary
of DOC. Mr. Chafer presented an overview briefing which was primarily based on their recently completed contact
study coordinated by Pat Mulligan. The objectives of this study were to assess the feasibility and estimated costs
associated with having a commercial entity develop a capability to obtain in-situ solar wind data and
coronagraph imagery at or near the L1 Lagrange point and then sell these services to the government. SSI's
scope has now expanded beyond their original task to consider the benefits, if any, of using the available
NASA DSCOVR satellite [http://www-pm.larc.nasa.gov/triana.html]. Mr. Chafer presented an intriguing
business model where the use of DSCOVR significantly lowered the risks from that of the previous "go-italone" strategy. The overall reaction on the Government side was positive. There still remain, however, several
important considerations such as the willingness of NASA to repurpose DSCOVR for this mission, potential cost
savings by using a non-US launch service, transmitter frequency allocations, and the architecture for the follow-on
mission.
The private sector could build a replacement to ACE
Baker et al, University of Colorado Boulder Professor of Astrophysical and Planetary
Sciences, 2008
(Daniel, Space Studies Board Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences, National Research Council of the
National Academies “Severe Space Weather Events--Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts Workshop
Report: Committee on the Societal and Economic Impacts of Severe Space Weather Events:A Workshop, National
Research Council” http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12507.html, 2008, accessed 7-21-11, ASR)
Pursuing this theme, several participants commented on a perceived fragility, or lack of robustness, in the nation’s
capacity for space weather monitoring. John Kappenman (Metatech Corporation) observed that many key parts of
the system have no backups: single points of failure, he argued, could substantially degrade or even halt
operations. A critical weakness in the present system, noted by a number of participants, is the reliance on
the aging Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft as virtually the nation’s sole upstream solar
wind monitor. ACE, positioned at L1,1 is now 11 years old, well beyond its planned operational life, and the
detector heads are losing gain. “There could be an electronic failure,” Charles Holmes (NASA Headquarters)
pointed out. “So it is a vulnerable system.” As Baker noted, the loss of L1 solar wind measurements such as are
provided by ACE “would be a devastating loss to the national space weather capability.” In a presentation
given the previous day, Thomas Bodgan of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center listed as one of NOAA’s
“critical new directions” to “secure [an] operational L1 monitor.” It was clear from the comments of the participants,
however, that no clear replacement for ACE is coming on line soon. Devrie Intriligator (Carmel Research
Center, Inc.) noted that the possibility of an L1 monitor supplied by private industry had been discussed at
other workshops.
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Privatization CP – AT: Profit Motive
Private companies would sell the data to the government after launching and redeveloping
DSCOVR
SpaceFlightNow, 2009
(“Industry news: Mothballed NASA satellite awaits new life” http://www.atlasaerospace.net/eng/newsir.htm?id=4328&printversion=1, Mar 03, 2009( taken from SpaceFlightNow ), accessed 7-25-11, ASR)
NOAA began considering using DSCOVR for solar wind studies in 2007. Space Services Inc., a Houston-based
company that specializes in launching cremated remains into space, approached the government with a proposal to
redevelop the spacecraft for solar observations. Space Services would have sold the data to the government.
Government and commercial organizations were unable to reach an agreement.
The private industry is already taking over control of weather satellites. GeoOptics proves.
Brinton, Space News, 2009
(Turner , “GeoOptics Aims To Sell Weather Satellite Data to NOAA,” http://www.spacenews.com/ea
rth_observation/091120-geooptics-sell-weather-data-noaa.html, 11/20/09, accessed 7-25-11, ASR)
WASHINGTON — U.S.
startup firm GeoOptics LLC says it has secured private funding to build and launch six
Earth-observing satellites in 2011 to collect weather and climate data it expects to sell to the U.S. government
among others. The envisioned satellites would employ an Earth-observing technique called GPS radio occultation (GPS-RO) that the
Pasadena, Calif.-based company has been studying on behalf of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is
interested in purchasing weather data from private firms. GeoOptics plans to launch the first six satellites of its Cicero
constellation in late 2011, followed about a year later by as many as 18 more satellites. GeoOptics is confident
NOAA will buy Cicero data, but even if it does not, there are enough interested research institutions around
the world to make the endeavor profitable, GeoOptics President Tom Yunck said in a Nov. 17 interview. GeoOptics’ board of
advisers includes former NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher and retired U.S. Army Gen. Wesley Clark, who ran for president in 2004.
The company has received an undisclosed amount of financial backing for Cicero from Near Earth LLC,
Rodman & Renshaw LLC and Social Wealth Partners, according to Yunck. GeoOptics plans to buy the six 30kilogram Cicero satellites and instruments from Broad Reach Engineering, a Golden, Colo.-based spaceflight
hardware firm that has built GPS occultation receivers for multiple in-orbit spacecraft. Broad Reach Engineering
has done preliminary design work for GeoOptics, Yunck said, and a satellite production contract is expected to be signed late this year or early
next year. The two companies have collectively spent more than $15 million developing the satellite and the next-generation GPS-RO instrument,
which Yunck said will be the most sensitive ever built. GeoOptics intends to contract in early 2010 with Hawthorne,
Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp. to launch the first six satellites on a Falcon 1e rocket,
Yunck said. The radio occultation technique at the heart of the Cicero concept was pioneered by NASA’s Pasadena, Calif.-based Jet Propulsion
Laboratory and Stanford University of Palo Alto, Calif., for determining the size and atmospheric composition of distant planets. When a planet
occults, or passes in front of, a star, the star’s brightness decreases. The amount of the decrease can be used to approximate the height of the
planet’s atmosphere. The way in which the star’s radio waves bend and change relative to the observer can be used to characterize the planet’s
atmospheric composition. Radio occultation also has been used to make measurements of Earth’s atmosphere. As relatively high-flying GPS
satellites fall below the horizon, nearby satellites with GPS-RO receivers, such as Taiwan’s Constellation Observing System for Meteorology,
Ionosphere and Climate (COSMIC) constellation, pick up the emitted GPS radio waves as they pass through the atmosphere. The observed
frequency changes are used to measure atmospheric temperature, humidity, pressure and electron density. Yunck said the COSMIC
constellation’s GPS radio occultation data has more than 1,000 users worldwide, including NOAA which since 2007 has been incorporating GPSRO data into its weather forecasts. Launched in 2006, the six-satellite COSMIC constellation is designed to last through 2011. There currently are
no firm plans for a replacement. GeoOptics has secured financial backing to build and launch a constellation of
commercial GPS-RO satellites that would keep the atmospheric data flowing to a COSMIC user base that
spans 50 countries worldwide — assuming those users can be converted to paying customers. Yunck expressed
confidence that NOAA will be among the first in line to buy Cicero data. “We believe this will be a fundamental departure for
NOAA and a continuation in the trend toward commercializing space,” Yunck said. “We don’t want to wait
for NOAA to take the initiative because that might take another year or two or three. So we’re just going to
move forward and get the satellites up and running. At the end of 2011, we know NOAA will have the money
by then and there will be no practical alternative to buying our data.” The Cicero constellation would also be
well suited to providing the U.S. military with space weather information, Yunck said. GeoOptics responded
to an April request for information from the U.S. Air Force regarding the possibility of obtaining commercial
space weather data. The company believes it could provide all 13 types of ionospheric data that the Air Force is interested in, and it may in
fact choose to add these sensors to its next 18 satellites without a firm commitment from the service to buy the data.
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Politics Link – 1NC
The plan guarantees a political battle -- costs capital.
Boyle, 5/23/11 [Rebecca, Popular Science, “As Congress Fusses Over Climate Semantics, the U.S. Faces a Weather Satellite Gap,”
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-05/satellite-funding-cuts-us-could-face-weather-satellite-gap]
Amid all this, the country’s future weather prediction capabilities could be stymied by a battle in Washington. During the
budget battle earlier this spring, Congress cut funding for a new polar-orbiting satellite, which is designed to monitor
atmospheric temperatures and pressure, severe weather, fires and other manmade and natural disasters, and to provide continuous climate
data. If it does not get built, the country faces a satellite gap, which could affect forecasters’ ability to predict the weather. The key word here is
climate. “Weather is apolitical, but climate is unfortunately not,” Bill Sullivan, a director at Raytheon Intelligence and Information
Systems and program manager for the new satellite, said in an interview. Click here to launch a gallery of images of NASA’s NPP satellite
NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said at a news conference Thursday that the agency’s satellite program is in limbo. This is at least the
fourth time in the past few years that a climate-monitoring project has fallen victim to either terrible luck or bad
politics. First the Orbiting Carbon Observatory failed to reach orbit, then NASA’s aerosol-monituring Glory mission
also died during launch. Last month we told you about the Deep Space Climate Observatory, languishing in a box in Maryland. Now a
satellite called JPSS is in danger of losing its funding.
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Politics Links – Flip Flop – 1NR
The plan costs capital and is a flip-flop.
Borenstein, 3/4/11 [Seth, Associated Press, “Lost Satellite Deals Heavy Blow to Climate Research,” MSNBC,
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41895904/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/lost-satellite-deals-heavy-blow-climate-research/]
NASA's environmental division is getting used to failure, cuts and criticism. In 2007, a National Academy of Sciences panel
said that research and purchasing for NASA Earth sciences had decreased 30 percent in six years and that the climatemonitoring system was at "risk of collapse." Just last month, the Obama administration canceled two major satellite
proposals to save money. Also, the Republican-controlled House has sliced $600 million from NASA in its
continuing spending bill, and some GOP members do not believe the evidence of manmade global warming.
Flip-flops destroy Obama’s political capital
Goddard, 2009
(Taegan, Creator – Political Wire, (One of the Most Widely-Read and Influential Political Web Sites on the Internet), "Does Obama Practice a
Different Kind of Politics?", CQ Politics, 3-19, http://innovation.cq.com/ liveonline/51/landing)
# Dan from Philadelphia: How quickly is Obama burning through his political capital? Will he have anything left to actually keep
some of his promises? With potential shifts from his campaign stances on the question of Gitmo, Iraq troop withdrawals and taxing employer
healthcare benefits, it seems he is in for tough fights on all fronts. # Taegan Goddard: That's a great question. I think Obama spends
some of his political capital every time he makes an exception to his principles -- such as hiring a lobbyist to a key position or
overlooking an appointee not paying their taxes. Policy reversals such as the ones you note burn through even more of this precious
capital.
More ev -- flip-flop.
Hamilton, 6/17/11 (John, NPR, “Blind Eye in the Sky: Weather Satellites Lose Funding,”
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/17/137251742/blind-eye-in-the-sky-weather-satellites-lose-funding?ps=cprs)
Government officials are forecasting a turbulent future for the nation's weather satellite program. Federal budget cuts
are threatening to leave the U.S. without some critical satellites, the officials say, and that could mean less accurate warnings
about events like tornadoes and blizzards. In particular, officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are concerned about
satellites that orbit over the earth's poles rather than remaining over a fixed spot along the equator.
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Politics Links – Satellites
Congress hates climate science
Friedman, 3/21/11 - Executive Director of The Planetary Society, Director of the Society's LightSail Program (Lou, The Space
Review, “Earthquakes and Climate Change: Get the Data,” http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1802/1)
Now consider the following: scientists around the world studying climate make incremental improvements on understanding
and even predicting it by gathering data from many sources. They create satellite maps of atmospheric data, set up monitoring stations
around mapped areas, observe effects from past climate change in plants and on landforms, improve sensors. and build elaborate computer
models. They begin to predict general trends, and even start to predict a few specific cases. The predictions are sometimes right, sometimes
wrong, but always approximate. More data improves the quality of the predictions. Does this seem worthwhile, like the case in the
preceding paragraph? To those in Congress and elsewhere who oppose Earth science, it does not; they want to eliminate
the satellites and monitoring and modeling.
NASA and climate association guarantees backlash
Semeniuk, et. al, 1/4/11 (Ivan Semeniuk, television producer and columnist for Discovery Channel, US Bureau Chief for New
Scientist, journalism degree at Boston University, Meredith Wadman, Eugenie Sameual Reich, Jeff Tollesfon, Nature News, “US Science Faces
Big Chill,” http://www.nature.com/news/2011/040111/full/469009a.html)
NASA is in a particularly tricky position. In the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, which sets out the agency's budget request and programme
priorities for the coming year, Congress voted for an additional space-shuttle flight in 2011, a new programme to develop successor vehicles and
a halt to Constellation, President George W. Bush's plan to send astronauts back to the Moon. Yet under the continuing resolution, the agency
must keep spending on the Constellation programme, which is budgeted at around $7 billion per year. Keith Cowing,
editor of NASAWatch.com, says it is hard to see how NASA can finance the shuttle flight while juggling everything else. "It's like trying to take
a large truck and do a sudden left turn," he says. NASA may be especially susceptible to political wrangling in the new Congress because many
influential Republicans, including Gordon's successor on the science committee, Ralph Hall (Texas), have NASA centres in their districts or
states and support a strong manned-spaceflight programme. Their resistance will make it harder for Obama to give the agency a fresh direction.
Hall spoke against the reauthorization of America COMPETES, arguing that he would rather scrutinize and vote on each science programme
funded by the bill than give agencies such as the NSF a wholesale increase. He has already singled out for criticism the $900-million allocated to
ARPA-E, a new agency of the US Department of Energy that promotes advanced energy research. ARPA-E originally had bipartisan support and
Hall's scepticism came as a disappointment to Charles Vest, president of the National Academy of Engineering, who has championed
COMPETES. "I believe the uniqueness and full importance of ARPA-E was missed," Vest says. A battle over energy policy may well be
inevitable because several incoming Republicans have expressed scepticism about climate change. Incoming chairman of the
House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Fred Upton (Republican, Michigan), represents a moderate voice, but he has appointed more
conservative lawmakers to chair his subcommittees. John Shimkus (Republican, Illinois), who heads the new environment and
economy subcommittee, made headlines in November when he quoted scripture to make the case that God would not destroy
Earth through global warming. Ed Whitfield (Republican, Kentucky), who will head the new energy and power subcommittee, has
already attacked the Obama administration's regulatory initiatives, in particular suggesting that the Environmental
Protection Agency has not provided "compelling scientific evidence" to justify its climate regulations. With
government scaling back spending, and concerns about economic growth at the forefront, any attempt to curtail
emissions is likely to face strong opposition on economic grounds. Abraham Lincoln famously observed that "a house divided"
cannot stand. For US scientists, 2011 may be the year that demonstrates that a government divided cannot move.
Congress hates the plan -- NOAA funding cuts prove.
Conathan, 3/24 - is Director of Ocean Programs at American Progress (03/24/11, Michael, Science Progress, “NOAA Says Loss of
Environmental Satellite Funding Could Halve Accuracy of Precipitation Forecasts” http://www.scienceprogress.org/2011/03/noaa-says-loss-ofenvironmental-satellite-funding-could-halve-accuracy-of-precipitation-forecasts/)
The National Ocean and Atmospheric Association released new data yesterday showing precisely how the loss of environmental monitoring
satellites would affect our ability to forecast extreme weather events, using the example of the “Snowmageddon” storm that dumped massive
precipitation from the Gulf of Mexico to New England on February 5-6, 2010. We here at CAP and Climate Progress have been keeping close
tabs on House Republicans’ efforts to make the country more vulnerable to extreme weather events. If Congress refuses to fund new
environmental monitoring satellites to replace aging spacecraft that could fail at any time, it will undoubtedly expose
Americans to increased risk from storms, floods, blizzards, and hurricanes . Meanwhile, more and more science is
emerging that strengthens the link between unprecedented weather phenomena and human-caused global climate
change. The GOP-controlled Congress took steps to eliminate $700 million in funding for NOAA’s satellite
program in its bill to fund the federal government for the remainder of the fiscal year (until October 2011). Though that
bill is still being negotiated, the three-week continuing resolution that keeps the government open until April 8 also
contained cuts to NOAA’s vital satellites.
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The plan is political suicide – appropriations prove Congress wants to focus on other issues
Smith, 6/4/11 (Maria, Space Policy Online, “Congress not Convinced JPSS Need is Urgent,” Space and Technology Policy Group,
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/pages/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1617:congress-not-convinced-jpss-need-isurgent&catid=67:news&Itemid=27)
Why then would Congress not fund JPSS? Sullivan and colleague Mary Kicza portrayed the problem as a primarily structural issue in how
Congress handles funding for these satellites. NOAA is part of the Commerce-Justice-Science (CJS) appropriations bill and Congress must
set priorities between weather satellites and the varied other programs under that jurisdiction, including NASA and
community police services, for example. Kicza, head of NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS),
which manages NOAA's satellite programs, spoke on a panel later in the day. She also noted that appropriators feel they have to focus
on today's problems, not something that will happen in 2015-2016. The message from both NOAA representatives was that JPSS
is a simply a victim of bad timing. In February 2011, the White House decided to dissolve the tri-agency National Polar-orbiting Operational
Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) program due to repeated cost increases and schedule delays. NPOESS was to merge the historically
separate military and civil weather satellite systems. Instead, the White House decided to revert to separate systems and directed NOAA to build
JPSS while DOD builds its own system to meet its requirements. The White House requested $1.1 billion in NOAA's FY2011
budget for JPSS, but when the dust finally settled on FY2011 appropriations two months ago, Congress maintained NOAA's
polar weather satellite program at its previous level of $382 million.
GOP hates the plan
Conathan, 3/24/11 – Director of Ocean Programs at American Progress (Michael, Science Progress, “NOAA Says Loss of
Environmental Satellite Funding Could Halve Accuracy of Precipitation Forecasts,” http://www.scienceprogress.org/2011/03/noaa-says-loss-ofenvironmental-satellite-funding-could-halve-accuracy-of-precipitation-forecasts/)
The GOP-controlled Congress took steps to eliminate $700 million in funding for NOAA’s satellite program in its bill to
fund the federal government for the remainder of the fiscal year (until October 2011). Though that bill is still being negotiated, the three-week
continuing resolution that keeps the government open until April 8 also contained cuts to NOAA’s vital satellites.
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Politics Links – Funding/Cost
Budget austerity guarantees backlash against the plan.
Morello 3/7/11 (Lauren, Climatewire and Scientific American, “How Failure of Climate Satellite Sets Back Earth Science, March 7th,
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=failure-climate-satellite-sets-back-earth-science)
The crash Friday of NASA's Glory satellite couldn't have come at a worse time. The incident is a blow for climate
science and the space agency's efforts to rebuild an Earth observation program weakened by years of lean budgets. It
also comes during a protracted spending fight on Capitol Hill in which science agencies have become prime targets
for House Republicans' budget ax. According to NASA, problems with Glory's launch vehicle, a Taurus XL rocket, sent the
climate probe crashing into the Pacific Ocean early Friday morning. The agency has begun an investigation, expected to take months,
into what went wrong (Greenwire, March 4). Preliminary data suggest that the rocket's fairing, a nose cone designed to shield Glory during the
journey through Earth's atmosphere, did not detach the way it was supposed to. A similar problem two years ago caused the crash of another
NASA climate satellite, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO). Both satellites were considered key missions for NASA's Earth
observation program, which foundered in recent years as the agency pursued new space exploration projects like the proposed mission to
Mars and designing a replacement for the space shuttle. "Working from space is hard, expensive and risky," NASA climate scientist Gavin
Schmidt wrote Friday on the blog RealClimate, in a post examining the aftermath of the Glory crash. "We cannot take it for granted, and yet we
need that information more than ever." In 2007, the National Academy of Sciences warned that the nation's Earth observing capability was "at
great risk" after cumulative rounds of budget cutting. The nation's ability to monitor severe weather, fresh water shortages and climate change all
depended on increasing NASA's Earth science budget, the science academy said. The losses of Glory and the Orbiting Carbon Observatory will
make rebuilding that capability harder, said Rick Anthes, who co-chaired the committee that wrote the National Academy of Sciences analysis.
"When that survey came out, we expected the OCO and Glory to fly and be part of the foundation of Earth observations," said Anthes, the
president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. NASA's decision to build and launch a copy of the failed Orbiting Carbon
Observatory has taken money away from other key Earth and climate satellite missions, he said, and the loss of Glory could compound that
problem. "With the present budget climate in Washington, where a lot of science is at risk, it's just not good at all, "
Anthes said. "We really needed Glory to be successful. ... I don't think you can sugarcoat it."
Economic crisis puts satellite warming solutions on the congressional backburner
Patterson, 4/10/11 (Christian, Daily Sundial, “Political Egos Freeze Satellite and Science,” http://sundial.csun.edu/2011/04/politicalegos-freeze-satellite-and-science/)
One of the key reasons we argue about the existence of global warming is the lack of solid evidence and political
blocks. Being able to observe the Earth from a further distance in space could aid in fitting together more pieces of
this complicated puzzle. Therefore, politicians need to butt out of concepts beyond their comprehension level and allow scientists to do
their jobs. In 1998, physicist Francisco Valero invented a satellite named Triana (later renamed the Deep Space Climate Observatory or
DSCOVR), which was designed to track the effects of climate change. Two ways it would do this was by measuring levels of atmospheric
aerosols, ozone, etc. and constantly monitoring earth’s albedo. Albedo is a major factor to understanding climate change since it is the amount of
sunlight that is absorbed into the earth and how much is reflected back into space. With rising amounts of water vapor, aerosols and ozone, this
sunlight is being trapped and re-directed back to the surface, causing global temperatures to gradually rise. Unfortunately, the Bush
administration cancelled the launch of DSCOVR in 2001 and it was placed in cold storage with constant nitrogen being fed into the box to
prevent contamination. To this day, it’s still sitting in that box. One reason it was never launched was due to its association with
Al Gore, who was an advocate for its deployment. After the presidential election in 2000, of course President Bush wasn’t going to continue
with his opponents’ plan – that would be non-politician-like. Just to clear something up, it was not the lack of funds for this launch that kept
DSCOVR from heading 930,000 miles into orbit. It was quite literally on its way to the launch pad with $100 million in funding, when Bush
pulled the plug. Things were looking hopeful in 2009 when the Obama administration budgeted $9 million for DSCOVR to bring it up to date
and support its launch. NASA officials said the launch could happen by 2014 if the Air Force and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration can come up with the remaining $125 million needed to determine the fate of this satellite. Recently, it became clear that NOAA
and the Air Force wish to launch DSCOVR but not for its original intention of monitoring climate change. A recent article by Bill Donahue in
Popular Science magazine reported they are looking at using it to monitor the effects of the sun’s rays on electronic equipment on Earth. It
seems that changing the purpose of this satellite is the only way to grasp approval from our discordant government.
It truly is frustrating that scientists are trying to figure out what is happening to our planet but are being thrown back
by political red tape. Imagine if political egos hadn’t shut down the first launch in 2001, we could have had a decade’s worth of data on the
extent of climate change. Perhaps this would have been enough to convince more members on Capitol Hill to place environmental issues at the
forefront. As of February 2011, $47 million had been requested by the White House to launch DSCOVR in order to observe space weather and
warn of severe solar flare. However, after the federal budget mayhem last week, serious doubts are being cast upon our
leaders to follow through.
Congress hates the plan – useless spending
Friedman, 3/21/11 – Executive Director of The Planetary Society, Director of the Society's LightSail Program (Lou, The Space
Review, “Earthquakes and Climate Change: Get the Data,” http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1802/1)
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What bothers me most about the climate change “debate” is that it is so anti-science. The deniers
oppose even the gathering of data
about the phenomena. Earth science programs and earth observing satellites were cut back drastically in the previous
decade, and now, once again, they are among the chief targets of budget cutters in the Congress. The deniers continuously
and deliberately mix discussions of cause and effect. Let’s put aside the causes of climate change for a moment.
Congress would hate the plan – political perception is what matters
Gallagher, 2k – Master’s at the University of Southern California, Bachelor’s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, project
manager and system engineer (12/13/2000, Karl, “NPOESS Political from Day One,” ISE 550 Final Paper,
http://www.kelthaven.org/papers/npoesshistory.pdf]
Sensing the opportunity for a major cost savings, Congress wasn’t willing to let the agencies wiggle out of it. A
November 1993 House Space Subcommittee hearing brought up the number of satellites the agencies were buying. Congressman Dana
Rohrabacher complained about the backlog of 15 stored and planned DMSP and POES satellites, stating “I’m going to look into this
closer.” A closer look would have revealed that maintaining four satellites in orbit with lifespans of 2 to 4 years over the next decade or more
would require just about that number of satellites, but as before “Perception is often more important than the truth”. Chairman Ralph
Hall said the $6 billion cost of DMSP, POES, and EOS over the next 10 years was something “which many members of Congress
feel that the nation cannot afford.”
If we win a risk of technical problems we win our politics link
Gallagher, 2k – Master’s at the University of Southern California, Bachelor’s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, project
manager and system engineer (12/13/2000, Karl, “NPOESS Political from Day One,” ISE 550 Final Paper,
http://www.kelthaven.org/papers/npoesshistory.pdf)
Meeting all of the data quality requirements promised to the users may require higher sensor data rates, which have
already increased significantly since the sensor development contracts began. This massive quantity of data will require more
expensive spacecraft components and ground network services to meet the requirements for rapid delivery.
Eventually the IPO may be forced to chose between breaking the promises on data quality or timeliness (angering the
users) or driving up the cost of the program (angering Congress).
Plan unpopular – the House’s bill excludes funding for solar storm detection.
Brinton 11 (Turner, Space News Staff Writer, “House Panel Denies Funding for Space Climate Probe, Satellite
Constellation,” 7/13, Space News, http://www.space.com/12259-house-panel-space-climate-satellites-funding.html)
WASHINGTON - The U.S. House Appropriations Committee is set to vote today (July 13) on a 2012 spending bill
that denies funding for a pair of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite programs, one
to provide advance warning of solar storms, the other a collaborative project with Taiwan. The House version of the
2012 commerce, justice, science and related agencies appropriations bill also would trim $50 million from NOAA’s
$617.4 million request to develop a new generation of geostationary orbiting weather satellites, according to the
report accompanying the bill published July 12. It appears the savings would be applied to help kick-start NOAA’s
polar-orbiting weather satellite program, which was delayed by the protracted 2011 budget process. The 2012
budget request NOAA sent to Congress in February asked for $47.3 million for the Deep Space Climate
Observatory (DSCOVR) and $11.3 million for Constellation Observing System for Meteorology Ionosphere and
Climate-2 (COSMIC-2). The House bill would not provide funding for either.
DSCOVR is unpopular—Republicans don’t want to spend money on the program
SEED 6 (SEED Magazine, “Free DSCOVR!,” Sept 18, 2006,
http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/free_dscovr/)
At a time when the Earth’s climate is at the top of practically every nation’s agenda, it might seem perplexing that
there’s a $100 million, fully completed climate-sensing satellite stored in a warehouse in Maryland. The Deep Space
Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) was supposed to be delivered five years ago to the L1 Lagrangian point—a
gravity-neutral parking spot between the Earth and the sun that affords a continuous, sunlit view of the planet. From
here, DSCOVR would measure the planet’s energy balance and reflectivity, known as albedo, which is critical data
for calibrating climate change models and monitoring the ozone layer. Yet the mission was quietly killed this year,
so the satellite is sitting in a box at Goddard Space Flight Center. Could the decision to kill DSCOVR have
anything to do with the politics of climate science? For years, Republicans have claimed the need for more data
before acting to curb global warming. A letter President Bush wrote to four Republican senators in March 2001
(after DSCOVR’s endorsement by a National Academy of Sciences review panel) referred to “the incomplete state
of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change.” More recently, in a 2005
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briefing, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan asserted that “there is still a lot of uncertainty when it
comes to the science of climate change.” Dr. Kevin Trenberth, Head of the Climate Analysis Section at National Center for
Atmospheric Research, said, “It is as if the administration prefers to continue to hide behind lack of definitive data as an excuse for lack of action
and leadership.” According to Dr. Jonah Colman, who does climate modeling at Los Alamos National Laboratory, “the availability of DSCOVR
for inter-comparison between other measurements” would reconcile discrepancies in data from low-Earth orbit satellites. “Albedo is incredibly
important,” he added. “It can change quickly, and we currently do not have a direct method for measuring it. DSCOVR would have given us
that.” Project leader Dr. Francisco P.J. Valero, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, describes the mission as “an urgent necessity.” Dr.
Robert L. Park, a professor of physics at the University of Maryland, is even more blunt about the importance of DSCOVR’s data: “Not knowing
may kill us.” If we’re interested in understanding how climate changes and how to predict what’s going to happen next, DSCOVR would appear
to be a crucial undertaking. So what happened? The loss of the Columbia shuttle certainly didn’t help, but the real coffin nail seems to have been
partisan politics. Back in 1998, Al Gore championed a probe that would broadcast real-time images of Earth to the Internet at the relatively cheap
cost of $20 million. Dubbed Triana (after the sailor on Columbus’ voyage who first spotted the New World), Gore hoped the probe would foster
greater awareness of the fragility of the planet; the idea, he admitted publicly, had come to him in a dream. After a peer review process, the
mission was upgraded to allow the spacecraft to continuously monitor the energy budget of the entire planet—the first one ever with this
capability—making it a much more credible mission. The name was later changed from Triana to DSCOVR, likely in the hope of jettisoning the
Gore-dream baggage. Republicans didn’t buy it. In 1999 , GOP Congressmen put the project on ice, calling it the
“Goresat,” a “multimillion-dollar screen saver.” Dick Armey, then House Majority Leader, quipped, “This idea
supposedly came from a dream. Well, I once dreamed I caught a 10-foot bass. But I didn’t call up the Fish and
Wildlife service and ask them to spend $30 million to make sure it happened.”
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Politics Links – Warming Policy
Congress backlashes against the plan -- links satellites to warming discussions.
McEntee, 4/1/11 – executive director of the American Geophysical Union (Christine W., The Hill, “Science ÷ Politics = a Loss for
Everyone,” http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/153243-science-d-politics-a-loss-for-everyone)
Despite overwhelming agreement across disciplines within the scientific community of its occurrence and the impact of human
activity, there has continued to be much political debate , with climate change even playing a significant role in the current FY11
budget proposals. Thus far, we’ve seen proposals that eliminate funding for the President’s energy and climate advisor
and for the State Department's climate envoy to international climate negotiations , as well as participation in the United
Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s proposed Climate
Service. As it relates to the IPCC and NOAA’s Climate Service, those funding bans will limit access to a wide array of scientific
data and information about climate, extreme weather events and seasonal forecasting, including the ability to leverage international
knowledge and research, all of which could help inform mitigation and adaptation strategies worldwide. Of course, all of this is happening
with very little discussion of how climate change, and its influence on extreme weather events, does and will impact
the American people and our economy. Consider this:
GOP would fight the aff with every means at their disposal -- recent warming fights prove.
Kapur, 2010
[Sahil, “GOP to investigate ‘scientific fraud’ of global warming: report,” 11-3, http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/gop-investigate-scientificfraud-global-warming-report/]
Fresh off a dramatic victory in which it retook the House leadership, the Republican Party intends to hold major
hearings probing the supposed "scientific fraud" behind global warming. The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder related the news in a
little-noticed article Wednesday morning. The effort is a likely attempt to out-step the White House on energy policy moving
forward. Legislation on energy and climate change reform, one of President Barack Obama campaign promises, has yet to
materialize, though Obama's EPA recently classified carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Holding hearings would please
the Republicans' conservative base, which increasingly doubts the scientific basis for global warming -- especially
human-induced global warming -- and provide a reflection of the new GOP's tenor. Ron Brownstein of the National Journal reported last week
that in Tuesday's midterm election, "virtually all of the serious 2010 GOP challengers" have denied that there is scientific
evidence that global warming is even happening. "The GOP is stampeding toward an absolutist rejection of climate
science that appears unmatched among major political parties around the globe, even conservative ones, " Brownstein
wrote. Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists -- and just about every accredited international scientific institution in the world -unequivocally agree that global warming is occurring and is fueled by human activity. Scientists say inaction will lead to an unmitigated spiral of
polarized -- and over time rising -- temperatures, melting ice caps, rising sea levels and droughts, among other consequences. The Republican
belief to the contrary incubates the party's fervent opposition not only to cap and trade but to any measures reducing
greenhouse gas emissions. The Obama administration has long anticipated efforts from the GOP to weaken the
Environmental Protection Agency, and plans to strongly enforce environmental regulations. The deeply differing
views of the White House and likely energy committee chairman, Texas Republican Joe Barton, suggests that conflicts
over the issue are inevitable in the new divided government.
Skepticism guarantees backlash
Tryon, 7/10/11 – Opinion Editor at the Herald-Tribune (Tom, “Tryon: Confronting the ‘Fifth Ocean,’”
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110710/COLUMNIST/110709602/-1/news?p=all&tc=pgall)
In politics, however, skeptics and cynics have questioned the mere existence of climate change. Conservatives and
their industrial allies, in particular, have portrayed believers in climate change as granola-eating, Al-Gore-voting,
liberal, environmentalist extremists and political alarmists. There's no doubt that some liberals, including scientists,
environmentalists and politicians have exploited climate change to win elections, influence policies and raise — or
make — money.
GOP hates warming stuff.
Wing, 12/1/10
[Nick, Huffington Post, “House Republicans Scrap 'Unnecessary' Global Warming Committee,”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/01/house-gop-global-warming-committee_n_790739.html]
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The new soon-to-be Republican Congress is so unconcerned with global warming that their leader, Speaker-in-waiting John
Boehner, has announced that they're throwing an entire House committee dedicated to the topic out the window . The
Select Committee on Global Warming, created by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2007, was created as a forum to debate the latest
developments on climate change issues and research, but Republican leaders claimed that it was an unnecessary
congregation. According to Politico: Since the panel's inception, Democrats have held more than 75 hearings focusing on the impacts of
global warming, ending U.S. reliance on foreign oil, and "clean energy" job creation, Markey said. The committee served as a political platform
for Democrats as they worked to pass sweeping energy and climate legislation through the House last year, but the panel doesn't have any
authority to write legislation. As the New York Times points out, legislative issues concerning climate change are traditionally
overseen by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and the Natural Resources Committee. Those concerned
about the effects of climate change and global warming, then, will likely not find solace in the ongoing battles to lead
those committees. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who is more receptive of environmental causes than the other contenders, Rep. John
Shimkus (R-Ill.) and Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), is currently engaged in a difficult contest to prove his conservative
credentials to GOP leadership. Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) who is likely to assume the House Natural Resources Committee chair,
recently decried the decision by the Obama administration to halt offshore oil drilling in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico. He is also in the midst of
lobbying the House GOP Steering Committee to hand over the energy concerns of the Energy and Commerce Committee to the Natural
Resources Committee.
More ev -- killing the warming committee proves.
Sheppard, 1/6/11
[“Republicans kill global warming committee,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/06/republicans-kill-global-warmingcommittee]
The kick-off of the 112th Congress on Wednesday also marked the end of an era in the House – the demise of a
committee devoted solely to climate change and energy issues. The Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global
Warming, created by Nancy Pelosi in 2006, has been shuttered under the new Republican leadership. In the final days of the
committee, staffers released a report on what the committee accomplished in its brief tenure – an epitaph of sorts. Tackling issues from the
politicisation of climate science to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon , the committee held 80 hearings and briefings. It
played a role in shaping policy for the 2007 energy bill, the 2009 stimulus package (which included $90bn [$58bn] in energy, efficiency, and
other green elements), and, of course, the 2009 climate bill (the one that never became law, of course, because the Senate didn't act on it). The
final report concludes with the question of whether the United States will respond to all the information that the committee has compiled during
its lifespan on the climate and energy challenge: Someday, our children and grandchildren will look back on the record of the Select Committee.
That record will reflect a respectful and rigorous debate and an unprecedented understanding of the challenges before us. Whether or not they will
see that this generation has taken the bold action required by these challenges remains to be seen. Select Committee Chair Ed Markey (D-Mass)
will now serve as the ranking member of the natural resources committee, so I'm sure we will be hearing more on the subject from him in the next
two years. There had been some talk among Republicans of keeping the committee alive so it could be used to mock
climate change and harass scientists, but leadership put the kibosh on that idea. It went out on a high note, and on its own
terms, so I suppose we can take some small comfort in that.
Religious ideology and general craziness mean the Tea Party backlashes against the aff.
Broder, 2010
[John M., NYT, “Climate Change Doubt Is Tea Party Article of Faith,” 10-21, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/us/politics/21climate.html]
JASPER, Ind. — At a candidate forum here last week, Representative Baron P. Hill, a threatened Democratic incumbent in a largely
conservative southern Indiana district, was endeavoring to explain his unpopular vote for the House cap-and-trade energy bill. It will create jobs
in Indiana, reduce foreign oil imports and address global warming, Mr. Hill said at a debate with Todd Young, a novice
Republican candidate who is supported by an array of Indiana Tea Party groups and is a climate change skeptic.
“Climate change is real, and man is causing it,” Mr. Hill said, echoing most climate scientists. “That is indisputable. And we have
to do something about it.” A rain of boos showered Mr. Hill, including a hearty growl from Norman Dennison, a 50-year-old
electrician and founder of the Corydon Tea Party. “It’s a flat-out lie,” Mr. Dennison said in an interview after the debate, adding
that he had based his view on the preaching of Rush Limbaugh and the teaching of Scripture. “I read my Bible,” Mr. Dennison said.
“He made this earth for us to utilize.” Skepticism and outright denial of global warming are among the articles of faith
of the Tea Party movement, here in Indiana and across the country. For some, it is a matter of religious conviction; for
others, it is driven by distrust of those they call the elites. And for others still, efforts to address climate change are
seen as a conspiracy to impose world government and a sweeping redistribution of wealth. But all are wary of the
Obama administration’s plans to regulate carbon dioxide, a ubiquitous gas, which will require the expansion of government
authority into nearly every corner of the economy. “This so-called climate science is just ridiculous,” said Kelly
Khuri, founder of the Clark County Tea Party Patriots. “I think it’s all cyclical.” “Carbon regulation, cap and trade, it’s all just a
money-control avenue,” Ms. Khuri added. “Some people say I’m extreme, but they said the John Birch Society was
extreme, too.” Whatever the party composition of the next Congress, cap and trade is likely dead for the foreseeable future. If dozens of
new Republican climate skeptics are swept into Congress, the prospects for assertive federal action to control global
warming gases, including regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency, will grow dimmer than they already are. Those
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who support the Tea Party movement are considerably more dubious about the existence and effects of global warming
than the American public at large, according to a New York Times/CBS News Poll conducted this month. The survey found that only 14
percent of Tea Party supporters said that global warming is an environmental problem that is having an effect now, while 49
percent of the rest of the public believes that it is. More than half of Tea Party supporters said that global warming would have no serious effect at
any time in the future, while only 15 percent of other Americans share that view, the poll found. And 8 percent of Tea Party adherents
volunteered that they did not believe global warming exists at all, while only 1 percent of other respondents agreed. Those
views in general align with those of the fossil fuel industries, which have for decades waged a concerted campaign
to raise doubts about the science of global warming and to undermine policies devised to address it. They have
created and lavishly financed institutes to produce anti-global-warming studies, paid for rallies and Web sites to
question the science, and generated scores of economic analyses that purport to show that policies to reduce
emissions of climate-altering gases will have a devastating effect on jobs and the overall economy. Their views are
spread by a number of widely followed conservative opinion leaders , including Mr. Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity,
George Will and Sarah Palin, who oppose government programs to address climate change and who question the credibility
and motives of the scientists who have raised alarms about it. Groups that help support Tea Party candidates include
climate change skepticism in their core message. Americans for Prosperity, a group founded and largely financed by oil industry
interests, has sponsored what it calls a Regulation Reality Tour to stir up opposition to climate change legislation and federal regulation of carbon
emissions. Its Tea Party talking points describe a cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions as “the largest excise tax in history.” Those
who support the Tea Party movement are considerably more dubious about the existence and effects of global warming than the American public
at large, according to a New York Times/CBS News Poll conducted this month. The survey found that only 14 percent of Tea Party supporters
said that global warming is an environmental problem that is having an effect now, while 49 percent of the rest of the public believes that it is.
More than half of Tea Party supporters said that global warming would have no serious effect at any time in the future, while only 15 percent of
other Americans share that view, the poll found. And 8 percent of Tea Party adherents volunteered that they did not believe global warming exists
at all, while only 1 percent of other respondents agreed. Those views in general align with those of the fossil fuel industries, which have for
decades waged a concerted campaign to raise doubts about the science of global warming and to undermine policies devised to address it. They
have created and lavishly financed institutes to produce anti-global-warming studies, paid for rallies and Web sites to question the science, and
generated scores of economic analyses that purport to show that policies to reduce emissions of climate-altering gases will have a devastating
effect on jobs and the overall economy. Their views are spread by a number of widely followed conservative opinion leaders, including Mr.
Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, George Will and Sarah Palin, who oppose government programs to address climate change and who
question the credibility and motives of the scientists who have raised alarms about it. Groups that help support Tea Party candidates include
climate change skepticism in their core message. Americans for Prosperity, a group founded and largely financed by oil industry interests, has
sponsored what it calls a Regulation Reality Tour to stir up opposition to climate change legislation and federal regulation of carbon emissions.
Its Tea Party talking points describe a cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions as “the largest excise tax in history.” FreedomWorks,
another group supported by the oil industry, helps organize Tea Party rallies and distributes fliers urging opposition to federal climate policy,
which it calls a “power grab.” “Any effort to make electricity and fuel more expensive or to cap or regulate CO2 will only exacerbate an already
critical situation and cause tremendous economic damage,” FreedomWorks says on its Web site. The oil, coal and utility industries have
collectively spent $500 million just since the beginning of 2009 to lobby against legislation to address climate change and to defeat candidates,
like Mr. Hill, who support it, according to a new analysis from the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a left-leaning advocacy group in
Washington. Their message appears to have fallen on receptive ears. Of the 20 Republican Senate candidates in contested races,
19 question the science of global warming and oppose any comprehensive legislation to deal with it , according to a
National Journal survey. The only exception is Mark Steven Kirk, the Republican Senate nominee in Illinois, who was one of only eight
Republicans to vote for the House cap-and-trade bill sponsored by Representatives Henry A. Waxman of California and Edward J. Markey of
Massachusetts, both Democrats. (One of the other Republican “yes” votes was cast by Representative Michael N. Castle of Delaware, who
blames that vote in part for his primary election defeat by Christine O’Donnell, the Tea Party candidate and a global warming skeptic.) A large
majority of Tea Party-supported House candidates also doubt global warming science and oppose energy legislation
designed to address it. Mr. Young, the Indiana Republican nominee trying to unseat Mr. Hill for the Ninth Congressional District seat,
strongly opposes cap and trade and other unilateral measures to combat global warming. He says he is uncertain what is causing the observed
heating of the planet, adding that it could be caused by sunspots or the normal cycles of nature. “ The science is not settled,” he said in
an interview in his headquarters in Bloomington, Ind. And he said that given the scientific uncertainty, it was not wise to make
major changes in the nation’s energy economy to reduce carbon emissions. A third candidate in the Indiana Congressional race, Greg Knott, a
libertarian, said he accepted the scientific consensus on climate change but opposed a nationwide cap-and-trade system as the answer. Lisa
Deaton, a small-business owner in Columbus, Ind., who started We the People Indiana, a Tea Party affiliate, is supporting Mr. Young in part
because of his stand against climate change legislation. “They’re trying to use global warming against the people,” Ms. Deaton
said. “It takes away our liberty.” “Being a strong Christian,” she added, “I cannot help but believe the Lord placed a
lot of minerals in our country and it’s not there to destroy us.”
GOP backlashes -- won’t accept climate change realities.
Carna, 2007
[Sam, policy developer and blogger, “Global warming arrives in Republican politics,” 10-18,
http://politics.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977150614]
The Republican candidates are unanimous in their support for nuclear energy to generate electricity in a carbon-neutral way.
Interestingly, many climate environmentalists support this approach, but some do not. This is actually a very hot controversy in the
ranks of the greens, but it is pretty much agreed upon by Republicans. Well, except for the NIMBY thing, that is. "Not in my back yard" is a
phrase that still applies for the attitudes of many when it comes to the storage of nuclear waste. Fred Thompson is the only candidate who
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mocked the idea of global warming (back in April 2007), but then changed his tone when he became a candidate. He has recently said that
"climate change is real" but advocates a measured approach to dealing with it . In other words, "let's take action when we
see south Florida disappear under the waves of the Caribbean." No, that is not a real Fred quote, but that is the true meaning of the
word "measured" when we are discussing global warming. It should be noted that these positions bear a certain resemblance to the position on
global warming adopted by George W. Bush back during the 2000 election campaign. George said that global warming was a bad thing and
would require some action. Then he got himself elected, and handed energy policy over to Dick Cheney who promptly invited a group of industry
CEOs into a closed room with no cameras or note taking. The resulting policy initiatives limited actions on global warming to an effort to study it
to death. When that effort only ended up revealing that global warming was an even worse problem than anyone had thought back in the year
2000, Bush decided to run out the clock and do his best to undermine the United Nations efforts to sponsor international agreements and
mandatory emission caps. So if we take the seriousness of the Republican candidates as regards climate change with a
grain of salt, perhaps we can be forgiven. Actually, it is possible to ask how serious the Dems really are about actions
to combat global warming. It is quite clear that they are willing to go farther in providing incentives for alternative
energy than any of the Republicans. It is less clear that they are willing to propose the kind of painfully intrusive and
expensive steps that would actually cause us to reduce our use of fossil fuels, instead of merely slowing our rate of
increase.
GOP will oppose DSCOVR – they hate global warming
Park, University of Maryland Professor of Physics, former director of American Physical Society, 2011
(Robert, Scitable by Nature “What’s New: The news from a physicist’s perspective” July 19, 2011,
http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/whats-new , accessed 7-23-11, ASR)
3. BLINDED: EARTH HAS ITS EYES PLUCKED OUT. One week after a House subcommittee proposed terminating the James Webb Space
Telescope (JWST), NASA's costly successor to the orbiting Hubble observatory, agency officials told an advisory panel on Thursday that JWST
can be launched as soon as 2018, but political realities could delay the mission's start well into the 2020s. "Political realities" could terminate it
completely. Meanwhile, the 2012 budget request NOAA sent to Congress in February asked for $47.3 million for the
Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) and $11.3 million for Constellation Observing System for Meteorology Ionosphere and
Climate-2 (COSMIC-2). The House bill would not provide funding for either. Republicans oppose any mission that
would give evidence of global warming. Otherwise celebrity billionaires might be called on to pay taxes at the rate
of working people.
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Budget Tradeoff Link
The plan trades off with other funding priorities.
Wigbels et. al, July 2008 – (Lyn Wigbels, senior associate of Technology and Public Policy program at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, G. Ryan Faith, CSIS Human Space Exploration Initiative, Vincent Sabathier, senior associate with the CSIS Technology
and Public Policy Program, Center for Strategic Studies, “Earth Observations and Global Change”)
In an increasingly constrained “discretionary” fiscal environment, NASA, NOAA, and USGS budgets for Earth observations,
which began to decline in FY 2006, are competing with other national priorities , and existing budgets have not been sufficient to either
maintain current capabilities, meet clearly identified current needs, or provide the Earth observation products needed for foreign policy,
economic, or security applications. For example, the president’s budget requests for NASA since the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) was
announced in January 2004 have been approximately $2 billion below the administration’s five-year budget projection in FY 2004. The Earth
science community estimates that the overall Earth observation budget is underfunded on the order of $2.5 billion annually.
Moreover, funding has become unbalanced among dedicated defense and intelligence capabilities on the one hand and purely
civil space activities on the other, even though civil space activities such as Earth observations provide very significant value to other sectors.
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Space Weapons Link
Laser systems required for Ozone monitoring
SBIR, 06 (02/13/06, Small Business Innovation Research, “Laser Materials for Remote Sensing of Ozone,”
http://sbir.nasa.gov/SBIR/abstracts/00/sbir/phase2/SBIR-00-2-13.06-8332.html)
Space based lidar systems for the remote sensing of Ozone require high-power, high-efficiency lasers operating in
the ultraviolet. Diode-pumped solid-state lasers are the primary candidates for this application. A promising material
for use in lasers for the remote sensing of Ozone is Nd:Y2O3 operating at 914 nm and 948 nm using the 4F3/2 to 4I9/2 transition of
the Nd3+ ion. This material offers several advantages over other crystals, including a lower threshold for oscillation of this transition, high
thermal conductivity, and a broad transmission range from 0.23 microns to 8 microns. Recent studies indicate that Nd:Y2O3 is well suited to
Ozone lidar applications provided that crystals of sufficient size and quality are available. The primary difficulty in producing crystals of this
material is its very high melting point (2410 C) that has previously prevented the use of apparatus and techniques typically employed to grow
high melting point oxide crystals. This Phase II SBIR project is aimed at developing commercial growth systems to
produce Y2O3 using existing production crystal growth equipment currently employed for growth of Nd3+:YAG
crystals and at scaling these systems to produce laser rods of sufficient size for use in systems that meet NASA?s
requirements for Ozone sensing.
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Spending Link
$250 million has already been spent on DSCOVR
MSNBC, 2009
(MSNBC, “'Gore-Sat' climate probe may get second chance: Mothballed observatory could monitor for solar storms,
global warming” 4/2/2009 ,http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30018554/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/gore-satclimate-probe-may-get-second-chance/, accessed 7-25-11, ASR)
After completing the NOAA work to test the observatory's solar instruments, NASA is now finishing an
assignment from Congress to test its Earth science instruments and outline options for a new mission, said
NASA spokesman Stephen Cole. "The testing has concluded," Cole told Discovery News. "I don't have a firm
date of when the report will go to Congress." Cole said NASA already has spent $97 million on the program,
though Valero puts that figure closer to $250 million. Deep Space Climate Observatory was assembled and
was part way through testing when the program was canceled in November 2001, about a year from its planned
launch.
Readying and launching DSCOVR would cost hundreds of millions of dollars
AtlasAeroSpace.net, 2009
(AtlasAeroSpace.net, “Testing, reviews continue for grounded satellite” ( taken from SpaceFlightNow), Oct 16,
2009, http://www.atlasaerospace.net/eng/newsi-r.htm?id=4638&printversion=1, accessed 7-25-11, ASR)
The options given closer scrutiny included launching DSCOVR on its original two-year Earth observation mission, a
five-year mission devoted to space weather, or an in-the-middle concept to study both. It would cost between $138
million and $300 million to fly DSCOVR as originally planned, with a focus on Earth science and minimal
changes to the spacecraft. But NASA says this option is not likely because it was not identified as a priority in the
most recent Earth Science Decadal Survey by the National Research Council. Decadal surveys guide the agency in
selecting missions based on the input of the scientific community. Between $139 million and $285 million would
be needed to pay for a space weather mission, including money for a new coronal mass ejection camera and
upgrades to ensure the satellite could last for five years in space. The hybrid mission's cost would range from
$165 million to $319 million, according to NASA. Most of the cost variability stems from uncertainty in the
launch industry in the 2012 timeframe, when DSCOVR would be ready to fly in the scenarios costed by NASA.
Traditional launch vehicles at historical prices are unlikely to be available, the report said. The best rocket options
would be the Orbital Sciences Corp. Taurus 2, SpaceX's Falcon 9, or the larger Atlas 5 and Delta 4 boosters.
DSCOVR is too large to fit on an Air Force-provided Minotaur vehicle. Because of the unclear launch
availability, rocket prices could range from $60 million to $200 million under all three alternatives.