Mereja

Author: Serkadis

  • VW R Performance Division Coming

    VW has made a more than pleasant shocking announcement: the German brand is developing its own performance division, which will be caller R Gmbh, as European company executives told Insideline.

    "BMW has its M, Mercedes has AMG, and our sibling Audi has Quattro. This new R division will be our Quattro," These are the exact word reported by the aforementioned source. Music to our ears and a big punch in the crisis’ face.

    According to Insideline, the new R Gmbh is a much more seriou… (read more)

  • EU to Review Saab Loan Guarantee ASAP

    Now that General Motors finally agreed to sell Saab to Spyker, the Swedish authorities must decide on the amount of money to be used for backing the deal. Sources are claiming that Sweden wants to offer 400 million Euros but before providing the money, the European Union must review the proposal.

    According to Reuters citing spokesman Jonathan Todd, 82.8 percent of the loan has to be scrutinized by the European Commission.

    "The remaining 17.2 percent is considered to be remunerated at … (read more)

  • Valencia Will Donate Earnings from Ticket Sales to Haiti Victims

    Valencia has joined the other international organizations in announcing a donation for the victims of the recent Haiti earthquake. According to the director general of the Ricardo Tormo circuit, Julio Garcia, all the funds raised from ticket sales to next week’s maiden testing session will be sent to the Central American country.

    Being that the February 1 thru 3 testing meeting will mark the kick-off of this season’s winter testing in Formula One, the grandstands of the Ricardo Tormo Circuit … (read more)

  • Tila Tequila “Retires From Hollywood”

    Tila Tequila is leaving the building. The always-controversial former MySpace pinup/reality tart has announced her retirement from the limelight after learning that she is expecting her first child.

    The pint-sized attention-seeker is dealing with the sudden death of partner Casey Johnson by getting sperminated and blabbing the news all over the Interwebs. Tila took to the world wide web Wednesday to announce that she’s retiring from Hollywood.

    “I feel stronger than ever, more confident than ever, and most importantly, I know now what really matters in life. LOVE,” she blogged of her recent experiences. “And this baby saved Mommy’s life, because many times before, Mommy has wanted to kill herself… but now with my baby… Mommy is going to live a long happy life now and be with my child, Everything from this moment on, will ONLY be about my child. Every penny I make, will go into my child’s savings,” the petite minx rattled off.

    “So goodbye Hollywood. It’s been a fun ride being here with you all. I have had a lot of great memories of ‘LIVING IN THE LIMELIGHT’ however, at this point… I have seen how vicious living in the limelight can be and it is not something I want anymore.”

  • Rotten Sea Ice


    This is further confirmation that the decades long sea ice decline is continuing.  Field observations describing the collapse of apparent multiyear ice sheets last fall supported that prognosis, but this will tighten it up.
    This winter I believe we had much colder conditions so if there is to be a halt in the ice loss process, then this summer could show it.  That is assuming that the cause of the sea ice loss is significantly related to atmospheric conditions which I no longer subscribe to at all.
    The little evidence we have supports the idea that a shift in the geometry of the circum polar current cause an increase of surface water flowing into the Arctic.  The cycle itself appears to be a full millennia long and is barely understood to exist by myself let alone anyone else.
    In the meantime, this shows that even badly rotten ice can mask the actual losses.  In fact the press has constantly jumped on areal extent as a measure of total ice.  It is not.  The low of 2007 came about because of exceptional wind conditions.  The problem is that the ongoing disintegration of the sea ice has prevented much of a recovery taking place, but normal winds have allowed a more regular area to be covered.
    We really have doubtful proxies for multiyear ice and it is problematic to just send out parties who can only assess a modest non representative sample.
    The longer picture is of sea ice decline that has entered its last stages of collapse.  As I posted in 2007, I expect it to be glaringly obvious by 2012.  Certainly two more years anywhere like the past decade or so will have eliminated the multiyear ice pretty well completely.
    This year promises to shed significant insight on the role of atmosphere on sea ice loss and perhaps strengthen the case for the global circum polar current paradigm.
    It would be immeasurably ironic if it could be shown that atmospheric conditions are driven by the variation of sea conditions everywhere rather than blithely assuming that warm weather is the cause of declining ice.  That any apparent climate warming or change is mostly reflecting ocean changes we know little about.
     Ice Is ‘Rotten’ in the Beaufort Sea
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100121164011.htm
    ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2010) — Recent observations show that Beaufort Sea ice was not as it appeared in the summer of 2009. Sea ice cover serves as an indication of climate and has implications for marine and terrestrial ecosystems.
    In early September 2009, satellite measurements implied that most of the ice in the Beaufort Sea either was thick ice that had been there for multiple years or was thick, first-year ice.
    However, in situ observations made in September 2009 by Barber et al. show that much of the ice was in fact “rotten” ice — ice that is thinner, heavily decayed, and structurally weak due to a uniform temperature throughout.
    The authors suggest that satellite measurements were confused because both types of ice exhibit similar temperature and salinity profiles near their surfaces and a similar amount of open water between flows. The authors note that while an increase in summer minimum ice extent in the past 2 years could give the impression that Arctic ice is recovering, these new results show that multiyear ice in fact is still declining.
    The results have implications for climate science and marine vessel transport in the Arctic.
    The research appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
    Authors include David G. Barber, Ryan Galley, Matthew G. Asplin, Kerri-Ann Warner and Mukesh Gupta, Centre for Earth Observation Science, Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources, University of Manitoba; Roger De Abreu, Canadian Ice Service, Environment Canada; Monika Pućko, Centre for Earth Observation Science, Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources, University of Manitoba, and Freshwater Institute, Fisheries and Oceans; Simon Prinsenberg, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Fisheries and Oceans; Stéphane Julien, Laurentian Region, Canadian Coast Guard.
    Looking for Above Normal Temperatures? They are in the Arctic.
    Submitted by Nick Sundt on Tue, 01/05/2010 – 20:58
    http://www.wwfblogs.org/climate/content/looking-above-normal-temperatures-they-are-arctic
    Despite the cold air gripping much of the U.S., Europe and Asia, there is a very large area in the Northern Hemisphere where temperatures are well above normal: the Arctic.  The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) reported yesterday (5 January 2010) that “average air temperatures over the Arctic Ocean were much higher than normal” during December 2009.  The extraordinary atmospheric conditions may be tied to climate change and  to the rapid decline in Arctic sea ice, as well as other factors that cause climate to vary.
    In our 24 December 2009 post (Don’t be Fooled by Weather’s Ups and Downs: The Climate is Warming — Rapidly ) we explained that the odds of below normal temperatures are lower than they used to be — but such conditions can still occur.  More importantly, we emphasized that it is necessary to look at the big picture — what is happening globally and over a longer period of time. 
    December is a case in point.  While most of us experienced cold conditions and heard in the news only about similar conditions elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere, vast and sparsely populated regions of the Arctic were well above normal.  In Extreme negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation yields a warm Arctic (5 January 2010), the NSIDC included the figure below that dramatically contrasts above normal conditions in the Arctic with below normal temperatures in populated areas to the south.
    http://www.wwfblogs.org/climate/sites/default/files/20100105_Figure4-415px.jpg
    Caption (from NSIDC):  Map of air temperature anomalies for December 2009, at the 925 millibar level (roughly 1,000 meters [3,000 feet] above the surface) for the region north of 30 degrees N, shows warmer than usual temperatures over the Arctic Ocean and cooler than normal temperatures over central Eurasia, the United States and southwestern Canada. Areas in orange and red correspond to strong positive (warm) anomalies. Areas in blue and purple correspond to negative (cool) anomalies.
    —Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center courtesy NOAA/ESRL Physical Sciences Division

    Beyond giving us a more complete picture of temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, there are other reasons why Arctic conditions matter.  They not only affect the region’s wildlife, ecosystems and communities, they have consequences that spill beyond the Arctic into the rest of the northern hemisphere — and the entire planet.  We explore many of these connections inArctic Climate Feedbacks: Global Implications (PDF, 10.3MB).

    Atmospheric pressure conditions in the Arctic have a lot to do with the temperature anomalies we are seeing.  The atmospheric pressure in the Arctic and its relationship to mid-latitude pressure can fluctuate in a pattern known as the Arctic Oscillation (AO) and its status is quantified as an index value.  When pressures are higher than normal in the Arctic and lower than normal in mid-latitudes, the AO is in its negative phase and the index is negative. The NSIDC reports that December’s AO index value was -3.41, “the most negative value since at least 1950.“
    There is mounting evidence that atmospheric pressure patterns are changing in mid-latitudes and in the Arctic, that atmospheric circulation — the large scale movement of air — is changing, and that these changes are related to the rapid buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and to the associated decline in Arctic sea ice.  While some are using the recent frigid conditions in the U.S. and other regions to raise doubts about climate change science, a wider perspective instead reinforces the science and the need to seriously address climate change by reducing emissions and preparing for the impacts that are increasingly evident. 
    For a recent discussion of the connection between Arctic climate change and weather changes in the northern hemisphere, see The Climate is Changing: The Arctic Dipole Emerges (Dr. Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog, 11 December 2009).  According to Masters:
    “The dramatic loss of Arctic sea ice in recent years has created a fundamental new change in the atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere that has sped up sea ice loss and is affecting fall and winter weather across most of the Northern Hemisphere, according to several recent studies. ” [emphasis added]
    Stu Ostro at the Weather Channel also is raising the alarm about the anomalous atmospheric patterns that are emerging and how those changes are reflected in unusual weather, including extreme events such as flooding rains.  As Ostro says in his posting, Off the Chain without a ‘Cane (3 October 2009), climate change is altering the thickness (or depth) of different parts of the atmosphere, thereby “setting the table” for the unusual and sometimes extreme weather we are seeing.  Ostro says:
    “What we’ve been observing over and over again in recent years is exceptionally strong ridges of high pressure, sometimes accompanied by strong, persistent “cutoff lows” (upper-level lows cut off from the main jet stream) to the south of the ridges. The upshot: many weather events/patterns in recent years which have been topsy-turvy and/or produced precipitation extremes and temperature anomalies.”
    Ostro concludes that “[w]hile it’s important to consider what may happen in 50 or 100 or 200 years, and debate what should be done about that via H.R. 2454 or other measures, we need to get a grip on what’s happening *now*.” (Ostro’s emphasis).
    See also:
    ·                   How Did this Happen?  Blame the North Pole and the Equator.   Capital Weather Gang (Washington Post), 21 Dec 2009.
    ·                   Study Links Low Arctic Sea Ice Levels to Drier Winters in the U.S.  WWF Climate Blog (6 October 2009)
    ·                   Where on Earth is it Unusually Warm?  Greenland and the Arctic Ocean, which is Full of Rotten Ice.  Climate Progress, 6 January 2010.
    ·                   It’s cold outside. What happened to global warming?  Christian Science Monitor, 7 January 2010).
    ·                   The U.S. and European Cold Blast: Blame the NAO. By Jeff Masters, Wunder Blog (7 Jan 2010)
    ·                   Winter Temperatures and the Arctic Oscillation.  NASA Earth Observatory, 9 January 2010.
    ·                   Feeling That Cold Wind? Here’s Why. New York Times, 9 January 2010.
    ·                   Frozen In France? Thank The Arctic Oscillation.  National Public Radio, 16 January 2010.
    ·                   It’s Cold so There is No Global Warming.  Video “Climate Denial Crock of the Week” by Peter Sinclair, 16 January 2010.

  • BMW Shows MINI E Study Results

    The MINI E has been around for a while and it is BMW’s response to the electric vehicle hysteria. The automaker leased the electric vehicle as part of a study, hoping that after a year the drivers will be able to point out all the problems they faced using the EV.

    As part of the research, MINI conducted a comprehensive study in cooperation with the University of California (UC Davis) and the people leasing MINI E, and the preliminary results are public. The UC Davis study shows the following:… (read more)

  • Volvo 2.0l GTDi Engine Ready for Action

    Swedish manufacturer Volvo announced today the introduction of a new 2.0l Gasoline Turbocharged Direct Injection (GTDi) engine, to be fitted onto the S80, V70 and XC60.

    "We’ve succeeded in making a four-cylinder engine that is as powerful as a 2.5-litre five-cylinder unit, and it’s also much more energy-efficient. This is a very welcome both for those customers who want high performance as well as supreme driveability and for the environment that benefits from the improved fuel efficien… (read more)

  • Daily Crunch: More Screens Edition

    Apple unveils the iPad – at last – and it’s $499
    The Nexus One gets the Colorware treatment
    The iPad vs the Kindle spec for spec
    What is this mysterious Motorola Android device?
    The iPad: our take


    Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

    Read Original Article

  • Loeb Believes in Raikkonen in the WRC

    Six-time WRC champion Sebastien Loeb thinks highly of his new Citroen teammate Kimi Raikkonen, whom he sees as a successful rookie in 2010. Although he has only one rally outing on his CV prior to making his official debut with Citroen in the WRC, Raikkonen proved everyone that he has the speed to compete in the series during his Rally Finland stint.

    Talking about Raikkonen’s prospects in 2010 and what people expect of him this season, Loeb insisted that there is no doubt the Finn is a very g… (read more)

  • The Long Fail: A Brief History of Unsuccessful Tablet Computers [Voices]

    By Harry McCracken, Founder and Editor, Technologizer

    “Insanity,” novelist Rita Mae Brown wrote, “is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.” By that standard, the long history of tablet computers doesn’t quite count as insanity–manufacturers have tried a variety of form factors and features over the years. But the results are the same, over and over again: failure. It’s the classic example of a gadget that the industry keeps coming back to and reintroducing with all the hype it can muster–and which consumers keep rejecting.

    Read the rest of this post on the original site

    Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

    Read Original Article

  • Chinese Woman Seeks Plastic Surgery To Become Jessica Alba

    We’ve heard of Superfans, but this is taking things a step too far: A young woman in China is so desperate to salvage a failed romance with her former boyfriend she’s having plastic surgery to transform herself into his favorite Hollywood actress: Sin City stunner Jessica Alba.

    The phrases “He’s Just Not That Into You” & “Move On, Honey!” spring to mind, but let’s hear the lady out…..

    Jessica has long been regarded one of America’s most beautiful women, and its appears the celeb’s pouty lips and killer smile are just as mesmirizing in Asia. In Wednesday’s edition of Shanghai Daily, a 21-year-old student — identified only as Xiaoqing — describes the man she loves as an obsessed fan of the former Dark Angel actress. Xiaoqing claims the 28-year-old web designer blanketed his walls with pictures of Jessica and even demanded that she apply her makeup the same way the actress applies hers.

    He even gave her a blonde wig for Christmas, which he demanded she wear at all times. The couple split earlier this month, after Xiaoqing refused to continue dressing like an Alba clone. However, a few weeks of listen to sad love songs have X looking at things from a different perspective. She’s decided to transform herself to win back her man.

    At bare minimum, Xiaoqing will need a facelift, eyebrow lifting, eyelid reshaping, and rhinplasty (nose job) to make her features mimic Jessica’s. The woman has enlisted the help of doctors at a local Shanghai clinic, who have agreed to perform the procedures for free.

    “I have made my decision. I love him very much…. that’s why I always followed his opinions. I don’t want to lose him….”

  • Inside the iPad: Apple’s new ‘A4′ chip [Voices]

    By Brooke Crothers, Editor at Large, CNET News

    Along with the iPad, the Apple (AAPL) chip has arrived.

    Called the A4, (“A” presumably for Apple), the most obvious difference with the chip in the iPhone 3GS is speed. The iPad’s chip runs at 1GHz, compared to the estimated 600MHz (0.6GHz) of the iPhone 3GS.

    Read the rest of this post on the original site

    Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

    Read Original Article

  • Print Media’s Big Tablet Letdown [Voices]

    By Ryan Tate, Editor, Valleywag

    No doubt, Steve Jobs showed off a compelling tablet computer today, one that should excite people who make videogames, TV shows — even books. But today’s Apple (AAPL) iPad debut was a big letdown for magazine and newspaper people.

    Look, expectations were fairly insane.

    Read the rest of this post on the original site

    Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

    Read Original Article

  • 2010 Suzuki Kizashi Earns Top Safety Pick in NHTSA NCAP

    The 2010 Suzuki Kizashi sedan received the highest safety ratings in the US NHTSA New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) crash tests, earning a five-star rating in both the frontal and side-impact crash tests for all seating positions.

    Suzuki Kizashi went on sale in the US in December and comes equipped with several safety features, including four-wheel disc brakes with ABS and electronic brake-force distribution; Electronic Stability Program (FWD) or Intelligent Vehicle Stability Program (AWD), f… (read more)

  • Apple Tablet: A Should-Do List for Apple [Voices]

    By Charles S. Golvin and James McQuivey, Ph.D., Contributors, The Forrester Blog

    In the last month the din of rumor and the clamor of speculation inspired by Apple’s (AAPL) expected announcement this week has risen in a crescendo that is about to peak. We’re all convinced this Wednesday’s “one other thing” will be some kind of magical tablet device. We all expect it will be a big deal.

    Read the rest of this post on the original site

    Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

    Read Original Article

  • Hello iPad, Goodbye PC [Voices]

    By Nicholas Carr, Blogger, Rough Type

    The PC era ended this morning at ten o’clock Pacific time, when Steve Jobs mounted a San Francisco stage to unveil the iPad, Apple’s (AAPL) version of a tablet computer. What made the moment epochal was not so much the gadget itself – an oversized iPod Touch tricked out with an e-reader application and a few other new features – but the clouds of hype that attended its arrival.

    Tablet computers have been kicking around for a decade, but consumers have always shunned them.

    Read the rest of this post on the original site

    Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

    Read Original Article

  • With Google Gone, Elevation Invests in Yelp–Just Like it Wanted To [MediaMemo]

    Whatever happened between Google and Yelp is now officially kaput. Instead of selling the entire company to the search giant, Yelp’s owners will be taking up to $100 million in funding from private equity shop Elevation Partners.

    I still don’t know how close Google and Yelp came to actually consummating a transaction, but Elevation’s involvement does clear one thing up. As I noted in December when news of the would-be Google deal broke, Yelp had already been exploring a large funding round. And now sources tell me that Elevation had been in the mix for months.

    Elevation, whose most prominent portfolio company to date has been Palm (PALM), will put $25 million into the local reviews site for expansion, and has earmarked up to $75 million more to buy shares from employees. That structure is similar to the deals Russian investors Digital Sky Technologies have done with Facebook and Zynga — and as in those deals, the Elevation bet means any public offering has likely been pushed back by a year or more.

    BusinessWeek pegs the value of the round at $475 million. TechCrunch first reported Elevation’s involvement earlier this month.

    Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

    Read Original Article

  • China Bubble

    Adam Sharp makes the most telling comment when he asks if you would rather have the us investment in AIG or the developing equivalent investment in China’s high speed rail network been built to serve over a billion people.

    That is what makes merely looking at the numbers such folly.  China’s growth surge will not truly end until China’s economic demographics match that of the western world and by that standard they have plenty more to do. 

    There will still be shake outs along the way, but the objective is clear and attainable.

    The true bubble will only burst when they get there and they have to manufacture a system driven by creative growth as finally occurred in Japan.

    We should have learned by now that sustainable growth is simply a matter of finance when all you have to do is repeat what succeeded elsewhere.

    Ideology and elitist greed held back global development everywhere while the West recovered from the Second World War yet proved their economic case for economic development.

    Today, almost everyone has taken the lesson to heart and is applying its lessons successfully.  Even the lesson that a globally integrated economy makes war rather difficult has been accepted in strange places.  It isn’t all working yet, but it is now a majority position and that certainly was not the world I grew up in.

    The China Bubble Debate
    Stock Valuations and Growth Projections
    By Adam Sharp

    Monday, January 18th, 2010

    http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/china-stock-valuations/2272

    China is still a growth machine, averaging around 9% GDP lately. But a growing chorus of bears thinks they’re cooking the books, and that the whole thing is a huge bubble waiting to pop.

    I think Shanghai stocks are a bit pricey here, trading at a P/E of around 30x. So while I consider myself a long-term China bull, it’s always good to examine the other side of the argument…
    China: Bear Case

    Jim Chanos is probably the best-known China Bear out there. He’s one of the few guys who saw the Enron collapse coming, so people tend to listen to his warnings.

    He thinks China‘s economy is only being propped up by massive stimulus spending. He points out that their $900b program represents nearly 1/4 of their $4.3t GDP.

    It’s also not clear how wisely the money is being spent. In some cases, it looks like it’s being flushed down the toilet. The empty city in Inner Mongolia is a good example…

    China spent billions to build a huge city in the middle of nowhere. It has a huge luxury mall, Venice-like canals, and thousands of empty houses. You can watch an amazing video about the projecthere. Some see this type of project as a clear sell signal.

    Questions are also being raised about how real China‘s growth is. For example, official numbers show excellent growth in auto sales. But sales of gas are anemic. Are they fudging the numbers? Chanos suspects they are, and plans to short auto and infrastructure stocks.  

    A government-controlled economy will always be full of waste and inefficiency — that’s the nature of socialist markets. Bureaucrats generally make awful businessmen. With hardly any stake in the outcome, workers inevitably get careless and make bad decisions. Corruption also tends to creep in.

    But there are some promising projects taking place in China. And compared to the prospects of developed markets, China is one of the better long-term bets.

    The Bull Case

    Jim Rogers is probably the most well-known China Bull. He dismisses talk that China is a bubble. He recently made a not-so subtle dig at Chanos, saying, “I find it interesting that people who couldn’t spell China 10 years ago are now experts on China.”

    Rogers thinks that selling Chinese stocks today would be like selling American stocks in 1905. I agree. It might be a bumpy ride, but if I had to put money somewhere for the next 10 years, China‘d be near the top of the list.

    And while some stimulus money is clearly being wasted, some projects look good. One of the more impressive is a $200b high-speed rail network, scheduled to be complete in 10 years.

    Efficient public transportation is a no-brainer for China. Combine rising energy costs with 1.3 billion citizens in need of transportation, and you have a socialist’s dream-project. If well-executed, it’ll provide superior transportation and a lower cost of living for hundreds of millions.

    Here’s a map of how it’ll look like when it’s done:


    http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/china-stock-valuations/2272
    Now consider the fact that the U.S. has spent around $180b bailing out AIG. For about the same price, China will have a huge high-speed rail network in 10 years. I doubt our investment in AIG will look so good.

    The China bull case comes down to growth. Even if they’re cooking the books a little to hit their goals, it’s still growing faster than 90% of the world.

    Time to Invest?

    Chinese stocks have historically traded at a premium due to their growth. However, I would probably wait for a pullback to pull the trigger. With the near 100% run Chinese stocks had in 2009, it’s prudent to wait at this point.

    At 30x trailing earnings, Shanghai stocks are priced for extremely strong growth going forward. And the China bears do have some good points, especially the dependence on stimulus spending.

    That said, if we do get a big pullback, I’ll be looking to add to my Chinese ETFs — PGJ in particular.
    There are a few stocks that are worth a look, but I’m steering clear of the broad-based index funds for now. I recently found a small-cap stock that looks great here. It’s China Security & Surveillance Tech, and trades under CSR. It’s dirt cheap, trading at a 10x P/E with strong growth prospects. 

    Until next time,
    Adam Sharp

    Analyst, Wealth Daily

  • Internal Apple town hall expected to discuss iPad

    Executive leadership at Apple has arranged for a company-wide meeting—town hall style—in which the topic of discussion is expected to address the recent release of the iPad tablet, Ars has learned from multiple sources.

    The meeting, which will take place Thursday (January 28, 2010), echoes a similar internal meeting that took place a days before the launch of the iPhone in 2007. In that meeting, Steve Jobs explained to the company that he felt the device would change the mobile phone industry and took questions from employees.

    During that meeting, an employee asked a question as prescient as ever after Wednesday’s announcement:

    Someone from the audience asked whether Apple was concerned about cannibalization of business from the iPod with the introduction of the iPhone, and Steve answered that if there’s going to be cannibalization of Apple, they want it to be by Apple.

    At that time, every full-time Apple employee and part-time employees who had worked at the company for a year received an iPhone for free. We here at Ars wouldn’t be surprised if Apple plans to do the same with the iPad.

    We’ll be keeping our ears to the ground about the iPad town hall and keep you updated if there’s anything newsworthy to report.


    Buy This Item: [Click here to buy this item]

    Article

  • IPCC Saga Continues

    The IPCC needs to have these past reports all formally withdrawn for revision.  It has become abundantly clear that data manipulation and suppression of dissent was central to the formulation of these reports.

    A full peer review by an independent group of scholars has become necessary to accomplish two things:

    1          Clear the air.

    2          Determine the validity of the data used and whether specific papers may have been improperly reviewed.   After all others will want to reference these papers and their data in the future and it is now necessary to get second opinions because of the reputational damage now done.

    The process is embarrassing, but I fail to see how much worse it can get.  Right now they are been treated to death induced by a thousand revelations.   We undoubtedly will soon be hearing from the night janitor.

    Perhaps the vigorous new review procedures can be applied directly to the past three years and attached to the next report.

    UN wrongly linked global warming to natural disasters


    Jonathan Leake, Science and Environment Editor

    THE United Nations climate science panel faces new controversy for wrongly linking global warming to an increase in the number and severity of natural disasters such as hurricanes and floods.

    It based the claims on an unpublished report that had not been subjected to routine scientific scrutiny – and ignored warnings from scientific advisers that the evidence supporting the link too weak. The report’s own authors later withdrew the claim because they felt the evidence was not strong enough.

    The claim by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that global warming is already affecting the severity and frequency of global disasters, has since become embedded in political and public debate. It was central to discussions at last month’s Copenhagen climate summit, including a demand by developing countries for compensation of $100 billion (£62 billion) from the rich nations blamed for creating the most emissions.

    Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change minister, has suggested British and overseas floods – such as those in Bangladesh in 2007 – could be linked to global warming. Barack Obama, the US president, said last autumn: “More powerful storms and floods threaten every continent.”
    Last month Gordon Brown, the prime minister, told the Commons that the financial agreement at Copenhagen “must address the great injustice that . . . those hit first and hardest by climate change are those that have done least harm”.

    The latest criticism of the IPCC comes a week after reports in The Sunday Times forced it to retract claims in its benchmark 2007 report that the Himalayan glaciers would be largely melted by 2035. It turned out that the bogus claim had been lifted from a news report published in 1999 by New Scientist magazine.

    The new controversy also goes back to the IPCC’s 2007 report in which a separate section warned that the world had “suffered rapidly rising costs due to extreme weather-related events since the 1970s”.

    It suggested a part of this increase was due to global warming and cited the unpublished report, saying: “One study has found that while the dominant signal remains that of the significant increases in the values of exposure at risk, once losses are normalised for exposure, there still remains an underlying rising trend.”

    The Sunday Times has since found that the scientific paper on which the IPCC based its claim had not been peer reviewed, nor published, at the time the climate body issued its report.

    When the paper was eventually published, in 2008, it had a new caveat. It said: “We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and catastrophe losses.”

    Despite this change the IPCC did not issue a clarification ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit last month. It has also emerged that at least two scientific reviewers who checked drafts of the IPCC report urged greater caution in proposing a link between climate change and disaster impacts – but were ignored.

    The claim will now be re-examined and could be withdrawn. Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a climatologist at the Universite Catholique de Louvain in Belgium, who is vice-chair of the IPCC, said:

    “We are reassessing the evidence and will publish a report on natural disasters and extreme weather with the latest findings. Despite recent events the IPCC process is still very rigorous and scientific.”

    The academic paper at the centre of the latest questions was written in 2006 by Robert Muir-Wood, head of research at Risk Management Solutions, a London consultancy, who later became a contributing author to the section of the IPCC’s 2007 report dealing with climate change impacts. He is widely respected as an expert on disaster impacts.

    Muir-Wood wanted to find out if the 8% year-on-year increase in global losses caused by weather-related disasters since the 1960s was larger than could be explained by the impact of social changes like growth in population and infrastructure.

    Such an increase, coinciding with rising temperatures, might suggest that global warming was to blame. If proven this would be highly significant, both politically and scientifically, because it would confirm the many predictions that global warming will increase the frequency and severity of natural hazards.

    In the research Muir-Wood looked at a wide range of hazards, including tropical cyclones, thunder and hail storms, and wildfires as well as floods and hurricanes.
    He found from 1950 to 2005 there was no increase in the impact of disasters once growth was accounted for. For 1970-2005, however, he found a 2% annual increase which “corresponded with a period of rising global temperatures,”

    Muir-Wood was, however, careful to point out that almost all this increase could be accounted for by the exceptionally strong hurricane seasons in 2004 and 2005. There were also other more technical factors that could cause bias, such as exchange rates which meant that disasters hitting the US would appear to cost proportionately more in insurance payouts.

    Despite such caveats, the IPCC report used the study in its section on disasters and hazards, but cited only the 1970-2005 results.

    The IPCC report said: “Once the data were normalised, a small statistically significant trend was found for an increase in annual catastrophe loss since 1970 of 2% a year.” It added: “Once losses are normalised for exposure, there still remains an underlying rising trend.”

    Muir-Wood’s paper was originally commissioned by Roger Pielke, professor of environmental studies at Colorado University, also an expert on disaster impacts, for a workshop on disaster losses in 2006. The researchers who attended that workshop published a statement agreeing that so far there was no evidence to link global warming with any increase in the severity or frequency of disasters. Pielke has also told the IPCC that citing one section of Muir-Wood’s paper in preference to the rest of his work, and all the other peer-reviewed literature, was wrong.

    He said: “All the literature published before and since the IPCC report shows that rising disaster losses can be explained entirely by social change. People have looked hard for evidence that global warming plays a part but can’t find it. Muir-Wood’s study actually confirmed that.”

    Mike Hulme, professor of climate change at the Tyndall Centre, which advises the UK government on global warming, said there was no real evidence that natural disasters were already being made worse by climate change. He said: “A proper analysis shows that these claims are usually superficial”

    Such warnings may prove uncomfortable for Miliband whose recent speeches have often linked climate change with disasters such as the floods that recently hit Bangladesh and Cumbria. Last month he said: “We must not let the sceptics pass off political opinion as scientific fact. Events in Cumbria give a foretaste of the kind of weather runaway climate change could bring. Abroad, the melting of the Himalayan glaciers that feed the great rivers of South Asia could put hundreds of millions of people at risk of drought. Our security is at stake.”

    Muir-Wood himself is more cautious. He said: “The idea that catastrophes are rising in cost partly because of climate change is completely misleading. “We could not tell if it was just an association or cause and effect. Also, our study included 2004 and 2005 which was when there were some major hurricanes. If you took those years away then the significance of climate change vanished.”

    Some researchers have argued that it is unfair to attack the IPCC too strongly, pointing out that some errors are inevitable in a report as long and technical as the IPCC’s round-up of climate science. “Part of the problem could simply be that expectations are too high,” said one researcher. “We have been seen as a scientific gold standard and that’s hard to live up to.”

    Professor Christopher Field,director of the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution in California, who is the new co-chairman of the IPCC working group overseeing the climate impacts report, said the 2007 report had been broadly accurate at the time it was written.

    He said: “The 2007 study should be seen as “a snapshot of what was known then. Science is progressive. If something turns out to be wrong we can fix it next time around.” However he confirmed he would be introducing rigorous new review procedures for future reports to ensure errors were kept to a minimum.