Groundbreaking global warming research by a Boston University team

Did human induced global warming slow down  Tom  Longboat,  the winner of the  1907  Boston  Marathon?
(image by wiki)

Here is a hint for the guys choosing next year's Nobel Peace Prize, or alternatively one of the science prizes. A Boston University team has just published some sensational results, based on their groundbreaking new research:

Led by BU biologist Abraham J. Miller-Rushing, the scientists analyzed weather data alongside men's winning times in the Boston Marathon from 1933 to 2004 and women's winning times from 1972 (when women first officially participated) to 2004. They found that a 1.8 degree F (1 degree C) increase in temperature slowed the winning time, on average, by 20 seconds for men and 21 seconds for women. Strong headwinds had a similar effect. But overall, the researchers found that warming trends did not seem to affect the winning times of the marathon between 1933 and 2004, likely because there is still large variation in marathon-day temperature over that period.

"The authors are not saying that a warm temperature on race day on any given year won't affect race performance," said Scott Montain, a physiologist with the U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine who was not involved in the study. But the BU data suggests it will take "considerable time" before year-over-year warming will result in predictable and consistent slowing of race times, Montain explained to LiveScience in an email.

The BU researchers said if the race-day temperatures warmed by an average of 0.050 degrees F (0.028 degrees C) per year, they would expect a 64-percent chance that winning times would consistently slow by 2100. But even if Boston saw predictably rising temperatures on the third Monday of every April going forward, marathon runners will likely avoid any long-term climate-caused drag because race organizers have moved up the start time, researchers said. Through 2005, the race kicked off at noon, but since then, it has started in waves beginning at 9:00 a.m.

"By changing starting times for the race to earlier in the day when temperatures are cooler ... race organizers have effectively counteracted any effects that long-term warming would have had on winning times," the authors wrote. "If this change had not been made, we would have expected that warming would likely lead to fewer record-breaking times in the Boston Marathon."

Read the entire article here

It is of course of utmost importance that the distinguished BU research team is awarded extensive new funding for a comprehensive follow up of this exciting new research project. 

A Supplicant’s Prayer to Earth - recommended reading for global warming believers

John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation has, in the aftermath of  the somewhat hypted storm Irene written a "Supplicant´s Prayer to Earth" that should be read by all people worried about the purported effects of climate change/global warming:

Oh great and powerful Mother Earth, I humbly beseech you to forgive this wayward human occupant of your perfect natural paradise.

I fully accept responsibility for the sins that led your servants, the tropical winds of Hurricane Irene and the towering pine tree of Backyard Hood, to wreak havoc on my suburban Wake County home.

Only your divine intervention, Oh Green Goddess, could have broken my healthy tree so near the ground and propelled it, precisely aimed, at my bedroom. When it crashed into the house, cracking the rear wall and punching several holes in my roof, the sight and sound of your judgment was terrible to behold – as surely you intended it to be.

I know now, blessed Gaia, and that I have strayed far from the True Faith. I should have remembered that you are a jealous goddess, and that the weed of environmental crime bears bitter fruit.

In my arrogant belief that maximizing human happiness and well-being should be the goal of any sound regulatory process, I overlooked the equal natural rights of the snail darter, the paramecium, and the slime mold.

In my misplaced belief that people benefit from low-cost sources of energy to light their homes, run their machines, transport their families, and protect their communities, I overlooked the aesthetic value of the windmill, the aromatic value of biomass, and the psychic benefits of the photovoltaic cell.

In my foolish belief that climate change must be materially harmful to human beings and reversible at a reasonable cost to justify draconian “cap and balance” style regulation, I overlooked the social benefits of returning mankind to the servitude of unelected authoritarians – the bureaucrats who staff the regulatory agencies of their respective developed countries.
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I’ve learned my lesson, oh wise and beneficent Mother of Winds. No longer will I question the theological pronouncements of your cardinals in Berkeley and Brussels or the liturgy of your priesthood in Asheville and Chapel Hill. I am reformed – or perhaps counter-reformed is the right term. Anyway, I’m really sorry.

I throw myself upon your mercy. Please, please do not send my chestnut tree through my garage door, or my oak tree through my music-room window.

Read the entire Earth Prayer here