I wouldn't put all my eggs in that basket.

Plan and grow all your plants in the old zone. 2 years ago temps were representative of the old zone numbers in my area. Last year they were normal to above normal.

Yes, the weather is screwy but the jury is still out for global warming. We will never know but in a few thousand years whoever is around will know. 30 years is nanoseconds in the big scheme of weather ups and downs down through the earth's ability to support life.

We are just so screwed up anymore. We make quick judgments about anything and everything while not having a clue or common seance about what we are talking about.

Dave

I have been growing zone 6 and 7 plants for the last 20 years. The temps in the last 30 represent closer to a zone 7 for me than even a zone 6. Do I know that zone 7 is pushing it. Yes. Zone 6 is what I have been considering myself anyway. It would be like living in Florida. You grow palm trees which can't take a freeze. Then one day, mother nature takes a trip south and freezes things that can't take it. I have no problem with that. It may happen where it gets below 0 here again. I bet I am long gone by that time.

i am pretty much on a 6a/6b cusp, but i take chances on a lot of stuff and have some success. I currently have some cab franc grapevines in their third year. going against the grain is part of the fun.

I enjoy that also. I don't mind taking chances. I have done that for 20 years now. Things that have died have not died because of cold, they have died more because of heat. I had a cool surprise for the last couple of years. I have had some zone 8 cannas just decide to keep growing and not die in the ground. I don't expect that to continue, but it was pretty cool.

yeah my parsley and some other stuff like that made it through this. winter. that is always a nice suprise.

The zones aren't based on individual low temperatures or short numbers of years.

What is it based on?

They use extreme winter temps over long periods of time. One drawback is that they do not take into account summer temps, which can vary hugely among areas with similar winter temps. They also do not factor in microclimates/maritime influence/wind chill/snow cover/etc. I believe that they were designed to help farmers determine what crops they could grow (USDA, remember).
Your local county extension office, which is affiliated with the state land-grant university, (and thus also quite agriculture focused) is generally a better source of info for home gardeners, and the Master Gardeners that work out of these offices can provide guidance, too. They may not know anything about specimen conifers, per se, but they can usually speak to the temperature extremes both summer and winter in your area and factor in the mitigating influences noted above. Here in the west with all of the maritime influence and microclimates the USDA zones are next to useless. Most of us use the Sunset zones which have the added benefit of being designed for home gardeners not farmers. Good luck! Your own observation over time is the best source of information on what you can grow in your area (with input from neighbors and others nearby).

Master Gardners..."They may not know anything about specimen conifers, per se",

Yep..for sure. I had one visit my garden last year.. A Kansas State prodigy. His first comment was: Nice evergreens you got there.

The wife and I went to a presentation on Native Kansas Wild Flowers. The K State Master Gardner was 45 minutes late. He forgot he had a program. For the first 20 minutes he wanted to talk Master Gardner's and the benefits of being one. The wife was pissed. She interrupted him and wanted to know when the program was going to start. He blew her off. That was the wrong thing to do to a women of Italian dissent. I won't go into what transpired after that but I bet he was never late for another presentation.

I guess they have their place somewhere in the big picture of gardening. I am not sure where.

I applied for their Master Gardner program back in the early 80's. They rejected my application and wished me well. I was not to be discouraged and went on to be the master of my garden. Glad I did.

Dave

I'm a Master Gardener and I really like the program; I think it differs markedly from county to county, and the main reason that people get rejected is class size (at least here) and the desire to do community service. Those who do not make a good case for why they want to volunteer may lose out to those who do; generally if they reapply they are accepted the next year. The training is expensive and taxpayer-subsidized and the organization is leery of people who want to get the training and then drop out.

Like many other organizations, it is largely a product of the people in it, and perhaps we are just lucky. I learned a lot from my experiences in the program and I believe that we do real good for local gardeners, however specimen conifers are way outside the scope of what we teach! I had 30 here on Tuesday for a field seminar to learn about the top garden plants for this county (however, most everyone wanted to ask about the conifers, maples, etc.).

You sound like you are doing fine without the MGs. The public, however, could probably use you!

Sara

how do i become a master gardener

The jury is not still out. Co2 causes global warming and that is what we are seeing now. Not a single peerreviewed scientific work that shows us it is not. A lot of layman have opinions, as they have opinions about many other things they have little or no knowledge of. Also people who seem very well educated (drs etc) have opinions, without any evidence for these opinions. These so called "Sceptics" have never done any research on the matter, but most of the time they just say it ain't so and that is that. It is not too dissimilar from some surgeons and doctros who still insist HIV does not cause AIDS. No one believes that of course, because the risks (your life) are much too high. But the proof behind CO2 and other GHG causing warming is every bit as strong as HIV causing AIDS.

aquinod: contact your local county extension office. If you tell me where you live I can get you to the website.

Flat Eartheners etc...no need to get into that I guess.

First of all: copy paste the other link to watch the latest trend. I could only add one link here.

I predicted a less steep rise in 2000 based on my empirical model. And anyone can read it here: http://www.john-daly.com/nuke-em2.htm#sereno1 (thst is 6 march 2000).

Note the clear rise of human influences in the model a steep line (the blue line). In my model, our influence of course keeps on getting bigger. However, note this seven messages below the graphs in a response to Dr. Landscheidt:
"If the sun is going to enter something like the Dalton minimum and we would see more La Nina's than El Nino's, than my models indicate a fall in temperature as well. If solar activity will fall back to average levels for the period 1800-2000 for instance, then the temperature would stay at the same level in the next decade. I can go on with a dozen of other combinations, but my predicition would be that the next ten years we see a lower rate of temperature rise even at groundstation level, if solar irradiation levels and other levels of solar-factors would drop."

And this is exactly what happened. Of course on average temperatures have risen everstill since 2000. The sun did not enter a new Maunder minimum but it is a lot less active. All years since 2000 were warmer than any year before 2000 bar 1998. Climate is about averages. Indeed: the warming has abated in the sense that most years after 2000 were about as warm, only a few were a bit cooler. So a rise, but not a steep one.

The next decade we will see a continued rise, stronger than the last decade as solar influences are pretty low an dprobably won't drop any further. Only if the sun enters a Maunder or Sporer minimum this will happen.

Satellites show exactly the same trend as groundstations, so what you base yourself on is unclear. The rise is 0,13 to 0,17 K per decade. Note that there are troubles with satellite data as these need to be recalibrated all the time, they suffer from orbital decay, they do not measure 2 m above ground but a column of air and indeed do not measure the temperature directly at all. Still, they do show the same rise like groundstations do.

Tha you go on and cite people who have an opinion. That is okey, but we opinions of experts without evidence to support it are just that: an opinion. They need to substantiate that. They can show (if they can) what is wrong via an analyses and submit this to Nature or Science or JGR etc. All peerreviewed magazines and have their assumptions or facts reviewed and published. it never happens.

Another problem of course is this: what explains the continuous cooling of the stratosphere? Now suppose if the warming was natural, all parts of the atmosphere wuold warm. For instance, if the sun was to blame for wwarming and now for cooling that would be the case. But it is not. The only explanation (and this was predicted well ahead of any warming, back at the end of the seventies) is this: CO2 and other GHG do not emit extra energy. They keep the same amount of incoming energy to the surface of the Earth. In other words: mor eenergy is kept in the lower atmosphere. Only one thing can happen: that energy is lost elsewhereand that is the stratoshpere, which cools. As it does. If it was warming and cooling based on natural factors, we would not see this. We would see allroudn warming and cooling in our atmosphere. It is not so.

And indeed sattelites measure the energybduget of the Earht and it notes the same: it is out of balance every year keeping more energy in so that less energy is emitted out to space.

Those are the facts that can be read in any peer reviewed paper in Science and Nature etc. These are not challenged in any scientific way, not at all. Nor has the greenhos etheory been challenged in that way. No one has ever come up with an alternative view how CO2 would NOT be able to warm the Earth.

So:
- It has been predicted in 2000, namely by myself, that the next decade would show us less warming inspite of continuous CO2 output and its warming effects
- There ha snot been any scientific work disputing greenhouse warming
- The trend is still an upward one and sattelite do not disagree here
- Stratosphere is cooling which can not be explained by anything else than that energy is kept from the surface more and more, otherwise it would not cool.

Here is the trend, all datasets including two satellite datasets are in a combination. The red line is the 10 year average. How has it cooled? It has warmed still a bit. Like I expected.

http://www.weerwoord.be/uploads/23420123024.png

So yes, based on science I am right and I do know better.

Here is a link that might be useful: my models from 1880-2000 show a clear human signal

All the NASA satellite data minitoring atmospheric temperatures, ARGO bouys measuring the oceans, station data compiled and analized by every major institution in the world (even with all the fudging of the numbers) accepts the fact that there has been no warming attributable to burning fossil fuel in 15 years. The UN IPCC which heads the effort to support the man-made warming theory accepts these facts. In fact the IPCC theorizes that the pause in warming we are experiencing will last another 20 to 30 years.

The fact that weerworld does not agree is inconsequential. Carbon dioxide levels continue to rise and temperatures have stalled which makes the Man-made Warming Theory impossible.

Don't know where you get your info from, but I assume it is another falsification of the facts or mingling of words.

As I said in 2000: our influence will rise steadily over the next decade, natural factors will balance them out over that time.

I now can tell you that the next 10-20 years we will see new recordwarm temperatures.

What you seem to do is what many sceptics do: they come up with one unsubstantiated argument after another. First mnonsense is: the warming has stalled. We are talking about climate. the period 2000-2010 was the warmest on record. So it has not stalled. The weerwoord dataset is what you will get if you use sattelite and landstation data. It is factually correct.
Split the datasets and you'll find a warming of 0,13 to 0,17 K per decade per dataset.

Second nonsense: if Earth warms by man temperatures must always rise. No: mankindsinfluence is about 0,2 K per decade. Natural factors can give way to 0,2 to 0,3 fall or rise (so an amplitude of 0,6 K) over such a period. Natural factors could mask global warming for a relatively short time of 10-20 years.

The latest predictions are that this solar cycle will see maximum number of sunspots of 60 (smoothed). That is much lower than anything in the last 100 years. Sunspots are a reasonable indication of solar irradiance output, so al other things being equal this would cool the Earth somewhat. As human factor continues to rise and the sun has been calm for a couple of years already the temperatures are likely to rise everstill.

Climate change is a complex matter, climate is. But some things are simple to explain and I think easy to understand. It seems some sceptics have some trouble with this. DEven those who are very intelligent. I have heard them on many occasions talking and was baffled by the nonsense they said time and time again. How they came up with seemingly smart things that were explained and accepted scientifically for well over a decade, but somehow (even tjhough they knew a whole lot on the subject) they just missed precisely those explanations. And so they end up trusting climate science when it suits them but not when it does not suite them. The proof behind all those scientific facts is about equally strong, so why the preference one might ask...Yes....that is a good question.

And Europe having an exceptionally cold winter...I live in Europe, in The NEtherlands. The last winters have been (quite) snowy but not exceptinally cold. For snow you do not need exceptional cold at all, well, not over here. 0 C is enough. Our coldest winters completely whipe the floor with the last winters and that is not restricted to The NEtherlands but to whole of Europe. Last winter was mild, inspite of a coldwave that last 2 weeks. December was 4th warmest on record, january was very mild, february was cold but it was a miracle how warm it got after almost record cold. The month was not very cold. Just cold.
MArch was the secodn warmest ever (since 1705!).

To add to all that warmth, since 1988 we have had 2 years with below average temperatures: 1996 and 2010. All others where warmer than the average.

Finally: worldwide the number of cold records versys warmrecords are 1:13. So for every coldrecords there are 8 warmrecords! Of course one would expect a 1:1 in an unchanged climate...

Etcetc

So what has been accomplished with this exchange of information?

Nothing. You both are talking about a small time frame in the earths history. In fact if on a scale of 1-40,000 years it wouldn't even register on a bar graft. It could, I suppose, if you made it big enough.

Presenting a few facts and figures about temperatures and seasonal changes for the last 100 years doesn't add up to squat when you look at the big picture. Not along enough period of time to gauge anything.

"The latest trend" will be tomorrows obsolete trend as someone will inject another new revelation with new facts and figures.

Still in Zone 5. Shawnee KS. and will be for years to come.

Dave

I agree that in the long run it doesn't matter at all. In fact: if we would use all atomic weapons all at once, given enough time everything would be okey again also. Life would continue, probably without us but Earth has done so for billions of years so that is not a problem either if you look at it that way.

If I reason like you, I might aswell think that the Earth is not sphere but flat. Because someday someone may come up with it so it might aswell be true. I see no use in arguiing about future facts as I live now and I cannot tell what the future has in store for us scentifically.

The fact is that the Earth warms and the warming is antropogenic. Given the fact that Co2 remains airborn for hundreds of years the warming will continue for quite some time. Untill proven wrong, this is right.

Whatever anyone thinks about it....I honestly could not care less. No one can prove it is good, it is bad or something in between. It is what it is. Humans are changing the planet on a global scale, we spread species all over the world, we spread carbondioxide all over the atmosphere etcetc. That is what we do. No scientist can tell you what to think about it. And indeed: in their work, climatologist do not use valueladen wording. They just say it how it is and only when asked by a government, they'll explain a bit further. Unlike ecologists, who also tell us we MUST think the spread of species is somehow bad. Very unscientific, more ideologic.

Well if you want to reason like me you will have to believe the earth is a sphere.

Ferdinand Magellan's expedition completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth in the early 1500's proving the earth wasn't flat.

We lack the time and undeniable evidence that global warming is on us for the long term. Our short life span will see to that.

Interesting discussion. Thanks for you input.

Dave

If you can deny, without any evidence for your point, that mankind by emitting GHGs warm the Earth (where there is only evidence supporting it and in more than one way) than you can deny the Earth is a sphere. Just look out your window: do you see a sphere? No, it looks flat or hilly. And if you stick to that you can always say you do not believe it.

- If Co2 does not warm the Earth, our current climate on Earth i scompletely unexplainable. We just got 30
- Centigrade warmer planet with no explanation as to what causes it.

- If CO2 and co do not keep more infrared (energy) in, the cooling of the stratosphere we witness is inexplainable. It is (and it was predicted also) when you know that Co2 like a greenhouse keeps the energy in and therefor lets less of it to warm the higher atmosphere which cools

- Sattelite data, in their turn measure the energybudget and they show that Earth is now constantly out of balance and every year it is getting better in trapping infrared keeping more energy in than it lets out. None of the factors ever mentioned by scpetics (and not researched, they just toss up something layman think is credible) are capable of doing that. That is why it is called the greenhouse effect.

We see lots of species migrating north and south. We see climate zones shift and travel at a speed of on average 7 km per year to the north and south. THis can only be explained by warming. This trend continues over the continents.

Also, at least in Northern Europe we see precipitation going steadily up. Where I live it is 8% rise per 10 years. So we have a temperate rainforest climate within 50-60 years. Nice for all those conifers tha grow here already..

None of these findings have ever been challenged in the scientific literature by anyone (also not scpetics). Waht some sceptics do challenge is the credibility of the researcher, and again assumptions, overgeneralisations and straightout lies are used. Again, the assumptions are not supported by evidence bu they are brought in such a way that layman, and no one else, think the assumptions must be true.

I am not asking anyone or anybody to do something about global warming as it is of little interest to me from that perspective. Like the spread species over the world and its effect on plant and animal communities to me it is just very interesting. Interesting times. Nothing goes wrong or right. There is only one constant on this planet: change. If people accept this as a fact, they losen ip a little and focus on science and find out exactly why it happens, what the consequences are and we as a society decide wether we should do something about it, like the change or no etc. For instance: I like new species a whole lot! Many conifers of the NOrtwers PAcific have found excellent over here in THe Nethrlands and add to what I like in nature. So it is personal. Nothing more nothing less.
The science is clear about the global warming. It is real, it is manmade.

We know it's real, man-made and overly accelerated from normal trends from humankinds CO2 emissions. This really isn't even debatable, except against true-believers, to whom there is no proof save their ass catching on fire.

It's probably not something that we can fix either given mankinds insatiable desire to do no work, make more kids and play with CO2 causing toys.

Back on topic, my zone varies in my opinion from 7 to 8b, from Winter to Winter. Most of the time we see temps in the mid 20s for lowest lows, some years we've been in the teens and once in a rare while we see temps in the single digits. We don't get anywhere near the variation of the rest of the country though.

-Will

Well, over 3,000 ARGO buoys measure the ocean temperatures to a depth of 2000 meters. Since they have become operational in 2003 they have shown no increase in temperature.

Since 1998 the earth has not warmed. Climate scientists stated very clearly that this would not be possible unless there was a huge volcanic eruption. Their predictions and their models have never been accurate, they have consistently overestimated warming and the models now have been proven completely useless as it has stopped warming as every model predicted could not possibly happen and in fact was guaranteed by climate scientists not to happen.

Climate scientists are now scrambling to explain why warming has stopped. They are trying to use aerosols (particles in the air) as a reason for the lack of warming. This is the same theory that suggested we were heading into an Ice Age in the 70s. They are now re-cycling the "science" used to produce the Ice Age scare of 40 years ago.

If some of you choose not to educate yourselves to the facts then this is your choice, but there is no possible way that fossil fuel burning is controlling climate. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but the effect of the levels we have seen are minor and are now being overridden by nature in a way that proponents of man-made warming said were impossible. Carbon dioxide levels continue to rise and the temperatures have been on a plateau since 1998. This is not disputed by anyone except those ignorant of the facts. Climate scientists do not dispute it, no recognized institution denies it and even the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control does not dispute it. There are theories of aerosols stopping the warming, these are unproven and unlikely. There are theories of some hidden hot spot somewhere in the depths of the oceans where all this warming is hiding. None of these have any data or proof of existence. They are merely theories invented to try and explain the lack of warming.

Empirical temperature measurements have disproved the man-made warming theory. Pretending that it is still warming is denying reality. If you want to discuss this subject, one should at least educate yourself to this very basic fact. Arguing that the climate is still warming is denying reality.

""In the scientific literature, there is a strong consensus that global surface temperatures have increased in recent decades and that the trend is caused mainly by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases. No scientific body of national or international standing disagrees with this view,[145][146] though a few organisations hold non-committal positions.""

It sounds like you're one of those hold-outs....

Hole in sand, enter head. At least then you'll quit spewing garbage and attempting to convince those other holdouts that everything will be fine - keep burning coal and buying huge SUVs.

I won't reply again, you cannot change a true believers mind.

Isn't there another forum for this kind of discussion? This one is supposed to be about conifers!

yes i believe the forum for global warming deniers is called "the toilet"

SO, to keep this a little more on topic. According to new research (May 2, 2012) in Nature plants are leafing and blossming earlier and earlier and in leaf longer and longer. 1558 plants were monitored, on 4 continents. And these findings were compared to experiments and it showed that what happens in nature points to a stronger, not weaker signal than in those experiments. And the link is with higher temperatures. Oke, this is a proxy of course.

We can easily find the trends. The lowest of all datasets is the one of the UAH (a satellite dataset). It is updated till april 2012. Their global longtermtrend is a rise of 0.13 K per/decade. Not what you would have thought when it would have not warmed. But it is less than it was till 2002 or so (Edit: I write this now in hindsight, as I was not aware of the 2003 date you mentioned in your message. I opened a second window to read it...So there is your answer: indeed since 2003 there is less additional warming).
I guess it was 0.17 or 0.18 K back then. Look at the longterm behaviour of the trend: we see bumps here and there. It is not a straight line as human induced global warming does not cancel out natural variation. That remains and still has an influence by slowing down or speeding up the upward trend.

The other satellite dataset, RSS (V3.3) now shows a warming of 0,15 K decade (as opposed to 0.162K/decade in the V3.2 dataset). Note: a ten year average. If it was warmer till 1998, we would have seen a cooling trend. It is still warming up though.

What strikes me is that many sceptics always said this "satellite data is the best there is as we have global coverage" and also "it is the sun, it is all natural".
Not familiar with how metstation datasets are compiled, checked and tested, they said these had to be wrong. It turns out that these datasets are virtually identical and in the past, satellite datasets were wrong and needed big corrections (yes, also by the sceptical scientists behind these measurements. They have agreed and adjusted accordingly). Landdatasets also go for about 0.15-0.16 K/decade rise.

And now I ahve to look at buoys, that do not cover the whole world, that only started measuring in 2003 nd therefor cannot even be used for decadal trends. Like I said: since 2003 there was very little additional warming also in the other datasets. I have also explained how this is, that I expected little additional rise back in 2000 as you can read yourself and the reasons I gave for my forecast are precisely the reasons why there was little additional warming:
- no big El Nino's
- more La nina's
- Less solar irradiation through a calmer sun

Purely based on this, one would have expected a clear cooling. It did not happen. It is warmer than ever before on average.

The sun will remain in a lull for the next few years, GHG warming pressure continues, El Nino (albeit a weak to moderate one) is coming. This decade will see a stronger rise than the last one, unless we get some major volcanic eruptions.

Plants and animals are responding to warming by moving up north in the northern hemisphere and south in southern, by moving up in mountains. We see the permafrost melting in Alaska and Russia, givig way todrunken trees" (they weak ground no longer can support their weight). We see the northpolar icecap melting drastically. We see warmrecords eight times more than cold ones worldwide.

The stratosphere is cooling. In part also due to CFC's and the destruction of the ozon layer. These are banned since 1987, so the stratosphere should get warmer over time, warmer than in the 1980s. However: it is not. The 1980s were 0.6-0.8 K warmer (not colder) on average than since 1995.
The reason is redistribution of the same amount of energy. Greenhouse gasses trap the heath in the lower atmopshere so less is available more upwards. This wa predicted in the 1970s, when this was not happening yet. BTW: this also leads to a delayed recovery of the ozonlayer.
Now, look at Venus with a runaway Greenhouse effect. The surface is at 500 centigrade. The upper atmosphere, inspite of being closer to the Sun, is much much colder than ours! Precisely because of the greenhouse effect. Virtually no solar energy escapes the surface. So the second remark (it is the sun) cannot explain this at all, nor can it explain a rise when the sun is cooler than ever since about 1900.

All datasets and all proxies are clear: it is warming. And there is only one thing that can explain it and it was predicted decades before it was measurable.

jorhinho there is a forum for people that like to argue and this is not it. Please go to the debate forum and you'll find lots of people that will do this. This forum is for CONIFERS.

In my Zone 5. I can grow Z.6. conifers with relative ease. I have 40 ft. high screen protecting the backside of my property facing north. 75 ft. back from the screen is an elevated highway. The lay of the land falls off dramatically in that 75 ft. and becomes a swale or bowl like area beginning at the screen that I grow my plants in.

It's all about micro climate. In other words you have that special area you can cheat mother nature and grow out of zone. My Z.6 conifers have survived -10 F. overnight. Anything Z.6. planted outside of my special micro climate area will suffer damage especially Cedrus deodara. Although it has not happened in the last 10 years any temps below -10 down to - 15F. would surely take out Z.6. conifers regardless of micro climate.

I guess what I am saying is be careful if you want to step out of the now obsolete zone box assigned to you and go one up. Especially if you plant in a unprotected area. In my case being in Z.6. now I would never consider a Z.7 conifer regardless of what micro climate I am afforded.

I have lived in the Kansas City area all my life. I can only speak for myself but having lived here many years I know what the extremes can be...hot or cold. I can say nothing much if anything has changed climate wise. That being the case I will not throw caution to the wind when it comes to new plant selections.

Dave

Juniperus virginiana screen on left.
{{gwi:628398}}

First of all I am not the only one debating here, so why are you solely directing your message to me I wonder.
Second of al this is partly on topic as changing climate zones of course go hand in hand with climate change.
I did not notice the debate forum, I think you are right that if there is such a part these discussion should be held there.
THis debate started here, because some people were interested and it seems a bit of a nuissance to quit here and start there. Still: you are correct and I will stop here.

So my zone is 7B I guess. I wonder if it is really that important though. i think it is a good indicator, but I prefer sunshine zones (ro what it is called).
Aren't trees more susceptibler to the absolute minimum they can bare? Suppose your climate is 7 B but you can get to -30 C every 20 years? Many trees of zone 7B would have great difficulty I guess...

In this winter, we went down to -20. I see a lot of dead trees but not much conifers. Most conifers over here are zone 2-5. So they have no problem. Picea Sitchensis is zone 7 but I did not see any of them die. Mahonia aquifolium, not a conifer of course, is another story....it has suffered a lot. Many trees from southern lattitudes brought here because the clmate warms (sorry to bring it up, but it is true) have died. Olive, figs etc....stone dead. Olives are extremely expensive here. They just surved a few years when it got down to -13 to -15. But now it was too much.

Abies concolor grows here in there, but these can be wiped out here too. It happened on a massive scale in january 1985 where in some woods all the Abies concolor, which were planted as a test in the 60s, were dead. A 100% loss. This species is not appropiate in our climate even though it is probably a solid zone 7 may be 6 (?).

The facts are undeniable. Satellites and buoys simply and dispassionately report data. They are the purest data possible. They are not dependent on a particular answer in order to be paid or keep their job.

If anyone takes the time to learn about station siting they would find that a great percentage are not up to the standards set. You will find that stations in rural areas are dropped and stations in cities and near airports are kept and given greater significance in the homogenizations given to the raw data. The heat island effect of cities is said not to exist. Wherever there is human involvement the data is skewed towards warming.

Of course plants love the carbon dioxide and thrive as one would expect. The basic facts are that carbon dioxide levels are continuing to rise. This is a simple matter of measurement. Temperatures have stalled for 15 years by the best instrument technology available. These 2 undeniable facts are verified by every recognized institution in the world. Given these undeniable facts man's fossil fuel burning and the forcing formulas applied to achieve a desired political result, cannot be true.

Global warming was an invented political problem which has had hundreds of billions spent trying prove it accurate and has failed miserably to come close. It has, in fact, been undeniably proven scientifically impossible.

I am quite sure that most who very stridently say I am wrong have not and will not check the facts. If they did, they would realize:

It hasn't warmed in 15 years

Every single calculation and model put forth in the last 25 years to try and prove man-made warming has failed miserably.

Temperatures over the last 100 years have risen 0.75 degrees centigrade and this is a number that should be expected in the Holocene Era of rebound from the last Ice Age and is completely compatible with an atmosphere with or without fossil fuel burning and the increased CO2 it creates.

The last refuge of the failed Global Warming cadre is that we should bow down to peer reviewed science and accept what they say without question. It seems to me this is the same mentality that Galileo confronted when he was almost burned at the stake for suggesting the Sun did not revolve around the Earth. True science questions everything and does not accept that anything is settled. Those clinging to statements from institutions that do not allow dissenting opinion are accepting political opinion as science and they are denying hard facts.

Many of you dismiss my statements without taking the time to find out the facts. That is unfortunate. Perhaps some will wonder and take some time to learn the facts. That would be great.

Several observations

First our zone changed from 5b to 7a. However, the microclimates within our yard may vary as much. We have a small grove of Port Orford cedars which serves as a cold air drainage dam. Plants above the grove are less hardy than below.

Second, the zones are based upon 12 years. I calculated the running value for zone for our location back to the 1930's and observed a 20 to 30 year cycle between 5b and 7a, which would correspond to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

Third, anyone visiting the Ancient Bristlecone forest in eastern CA gets an interesting view of climate change. There are essential two ago groups: very old and very young. In other words the climate is warmer than it has been in thousands of years, but thousands of years ago it was just as warm.

Pasadena...no doubt it was warmer thousands of years ago and colder a shorter and longer while ago. CLimate can change naturally just as people can die in many natural ways. That does not mean that all death or all climate change therefor is natural if that is what you intend to say (unsure).

Over here we went from zone 6b/7a or so back in the 1800s to 8a in 1990s and lately back to 7b but it is close. Minima on average indeed are near -12 C nowadays (this year near -20 C).