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Jun 18, 2013
How CO2 helped crops in the severe drought summer of 2012
By Joseph D’Aleo, Weatherbell Analytics
The 2012 drought, which affected more than half the country was the largest drought extent in the United States since the 1930s. It was more extreme than the conditions in 1988. U.S. Department of Agriculture Drought Disaster Declarations reached more than 2,600 of the Nation’s 3,143 counties. The drought did $30B in damage. The final yield of 123.4 bushels per acre compared to the early USDA forecast of record yields of 166 bushels/acre due to record early planting.
Despite the fact the drought was worse than 1988, yields were 50% higher. Part of that are improved hybrids and farming practices but part is the positive effect of CO2, which produces more growth and makes plants more drought resistant. The 1988 drought in 2012 dollars produced between $80B and $120B in losses. Under conditions of atmospheric CO2 enrichment, stomatal apertures typically decrease, thereby reducing stomatal conductance and transpirational water losses from plants. Water Stress: When plants are growing under less than optimal conditions of soil water availability, the percent growth enhancement due to atmospheric CO2 enrichment is generally greater than it is when water is readily available to them. Elevated levels of CO2 thus tend to compensate for less than optimal water supplies; and they help plants recover, both more quickly and more completely, when they have experienced a period of severe water stress. This was seen with soybeans, which recovered more than expected when cooler less stressful conditions developed in August. Water Use Efficiency: With higher concentrations of CO2 in the air, greater photosynthetic carbon uptake typically occurs. In addition, less water is lost via transpiration, as many plants exhibit decreased stomatal conductances at elevated CO2. Hence, the amount of carbon gained per unit of water lost via transpiration, or water use efficiency, generally increases substantially with atmospheric CO2 enrichment, sometimes even doubling with a doubling of the air’s CO2 content. CROP YEAR 2013 In the June WASDE report, the USDA projected corn production down 135 million bushels to 14.0 billion with the average yield projected at 156.5 bushels per acre, down 1.5 bushels from last month. Despite rapid planting progress during mid-May across the Corn Belt, rains and cool temperatures since have delayed the completion of planting in parts of the western Corn Belt and raised the likelihood that seasonally warmer temperatures and drier conditions in late July will adversely affect pollination and kernel set in a larger share of this year’s crop. Still that yield would be 26.8% higher than 2012 and production up 29.9%. This does not account for acres abandoned due to delayed planting due to cold, late snows and flooding and acres intended for corn planting where beans were instead planted or replaced flooded corn. In the June 28 report, the USDA will adjust acreage and production accordingly. See more here. May 31, 2013
AGW theory has failed all tests, so alarmists return to the ‘consensus’ hoax
Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, Weatherbell Analytics National Academies of Science defines a scientific theory as Dr Richard Feynman, Cornell Physicist in a lecture explained how theorys that failed the test of data or experiment are falsified ("wrong") and must be discarded.
GLOBAL WARMING THEORY HAS FAILED (1) Warming not ‘global’. It is shown in satellite data to be northern hemisphere only (2) It is now not warming. Warming (global mean and northern hemisphere) stopped in the 1990s (3) Models suggest atmosphere should warm 20% faster than surface but surface warming was 33% faster during the time satellites and surface observations used. This suggests GHG theory wrong, and surface temperature contaminated (4) Temperatures longer term have been modified to enhance warming trend and minimize cyclical appearance. Station dropout, missing data, change of local siting, urbanization, instrumentation contaminate the record, producing exaggerating warming. The GAO scolded NOAA for poor compliance with siting standards. (5) Those who create the temperature records have been shown in analysis and emails to take steps to eliminate inconvenient temperature trends like the Medieval Warm Period, the 1940s warm blip and cooling since 1998. Steps have included removal of the urban heat island adjustment and as Wigley suggested in a climategate email, introduce 0.15C of artificial cooling of global ocean temperatures near 1940. (6) Forecast models have failed with temperature trends below even the assumed zero emission control scenarios (7) Climate models all have a strong hot spot in the mid to high troposphere in the tropical regions. Weather balloons and satellite show no warming in this region the last 30 years. (8) Ocean heat content was forecast to increase and was said to be the canary in the coal mine. It too has stalled according to NOAA PMEL. The warming was to be strongest in the tropics where the models were warming the atmosphere the most. No warming has been shown in the top 300 meters in the tropical Pacific back to the 1950s. (9) Alarmists had predicted permanent El Nino but the last decade has featured 7 La Nina and just 3 El Nino years. This is related to the PDO and was predicted by those who look at natural factors. (10) Alarmists had predicted much lower frequency of the negative modes of the AO and NAO due to warming. The trend has been the opposite with a record negative AO/NAO in 2009/10 (11) Alarmists predicted an increase in hurricane frequency and strength globally but the global activity had diminished after 2005 to a 30+ year low. The U.S. has gone seven consecutive years without a landfalling major hurricane, the longest stretch since the 1860s (12) Alarmists have predicted a significant increase in heat records but despite heat last two summers, the 1930s to 1950s still greatly dominated the heat records. Even in Texas at the center of the 2011 heat wave, the long term (since 1895) trends in both temperature and precipitation are flat. And when stations with over 80 years of temperature data were considered, the number of heat records last July were not extraordinary relative to past hot summers. (13) Extremes of rainfall and drought were predicted to increase but except during periods of strong El Nino and La Nina, no trends are seen (14) Alarmists indicated winter would become warmer and short. The last 15 years has seen a decline in winter temperatures in all regions. In places winter have been the coldest and longest in decades and even centuries. (15) Alarmists had indicated snow would become increasingly rare in middle latitudes especially in the big cities where warming would be greatest. All time snow records were set in virtually all the major cities and northern hemisphere snow coverage in winter has increased with 4 of the top 5 years since 2007/08. Also among the east coast high impact snowstorms tracked by NOAA (NESIS), 11 of the 46 have occurred since 2009. (16) Alarmists had indicated a decline of Antarctic ice due to warming. The upward trends since 1979 continues. (17) Alarmists had indicated Greenland and arctic ice melt would accelerate. The arctic ice tracks with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation and the IARC shows the ice cover was similarly reduced in the 1950s when the Atlantic was last in a similar warm mode. In Greenland, the warmth of the 1930s and 1940s still dominates the records and longer term temperatures have declined. (18) Sea level rise was to accelerate upward due to melting ice and warming. Sea levels actually slowed in the late 20th century and have declined or flattened the last few years. Manipulation of data (adjustment for land rises following the last glaciation) has been applied to hide this from the public. (19) Alarmists claimed that drought western snowpack would diminish and forest fires would increase in summer. Snowpack and water equivalent were at or near record levels in recent winters from Alaska to the Pacific Northwest and Northern Rockies. Glaciers are advancing. Fires have declined. (20) Alaska was said to be warming with retreating glaciers. But that warming is tied intimately to the PDO and the North Pacific pattern NP and happens instantly with the flips from cold to warm and warm to cold. Two of the coldest and snowiest winters on records occurred since the PDO/NP flipped cold again (2007/08 and 2011/12). January 2012 was the coldest on record in many towns and cities and snowfall was running 160 inches above normal in parts of the south. Anchorage Alaska set an all time record for seasonal snow in 2011/12. In 2007/08, glaciers all advanced for the first time since the Little Ice Age. In 2011/12, the Bering Sea ice set a new high in the satellite era. Latest ever ice out date records were set in May 2013. (21) Mt. Kilimanjaro glacier was to disappear due to global warming. Temperatures show no warming in recent decades. The reduction in glacial ice was due to deforestation near the base and the state of the AMO. The glaciers have advanced again in recent years (22) Polar bears were claimed to be threatened. Polar bear populations instead have increased to record levels and threaten the populace.
(23) Australian drought was forecast to become permanent. Steps to protect against floods were defunded. Major flooding did major damage and rainfall has been abundant in recent years tied to the PDO and La Nina as predicted by honest scientists in Australia. All years with La Nina and cold PDO composited show this rainfall. Drought was associated with El Ninos and warm PDO fro 1977 to 1998
Given the failures of global warming science, just a few mentioned here, the most disreputable alarmists like Oreskes, Cook and Trenberth and the demagogue party have tried to convince the uninformed by using the consensus argument. See the latest failed attempt here. It was also described on Forbes here.
May 30, 2013
Would you believe ski areas plead for effort to combat climate change
By Joseph D’Aleo, Weatherbell Analytics I picked up the paper and read this this morning, less than a week after Whiteface and Green Mountains were buried in a record late 36” snow.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
BOSTON - Seven New Hampshire ski areas are among 108 alpine areas from across the U.S., as well big firms like GM and Levi Strauss, to sign the Climate Declaration, which calls upon federal policymakers to address climate change. New Hampshire ski areas that signed are Attitash, Cranmore, Gunstock, Loon Mountain, Mount Sunapee, Ragged Mountain and Waterville Valley. The petition, at www.climate declaration.us, does not call for specific legislative or other action. It argues that “tackling climate change is one of America’s greatest economic opportunities of the 21st century. It is obvious that the success of ski business operations depends greatly on climate, which is why we are so invested in programs that keep our slopes sustainable. But our actions alone won’t be enough without strong policies,” said Brent Giles, chief sustainability officer for Powder Corp., of Utah, parent company to Park City Mountain Resort in Utah, Copper Mountain in Colorado and Killington Resort in Vermont. “We welcome legislative and regulatory initiatives that will reduce carbon emissions, incentivize renewable energy development and help improve our resiliency in the future.” Ski areas in the U.S. employ approximately 160,000 people and generate approximately $12.2 billion in annual revenue, according to the National Ski Areas Association, which calculates that visitors to U.S. ski areas spent $5.8 billion at those resorts a year ago. “The past ski season was a banner year for our guests and for our resort, but we can’t gamble on the weather in an uncertain climate. We have to take action,” said Jerry Blann, president of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort in Wyoming. ------------------------------- TO WHICH I COMMENTED BACK: It is a money making scheme. Some ski areas have figured how to get credits or offsets (money) for being green (recycling water for snow making, wind turbines (Jiminy Peak), using methane (cow farts) to power gondolas (Killington), etc). Never mind that this November to April period for the hemisphere ranked #1 all-time for snow extent beating out 1977/78. And for the winters (December to February), the ranking is 1977/78 #1, 2009/10 #2, 2010/11 #3, 2012/13 #4, 2007/08 #5. Spot a trend? The idea that climate change will put an end to the industry was advanced by the UCS in 2007 before the snowiest winter on record in northern New England (Concord, Caribou) and the winter with record snows from Alaska to Oregon to Colorado to New England. They were silenced until 2011/12 when the US had a down year and this year in winter they felt it safe to repeat it again before record later winter and spring snows made them look foolish. Last weekend (Memorial Day Weekend) a record late 36” snowfall occurred at Whiteface Mountain and 1 to 3 feet in the higher Green Mountains. They waited to release their scare story for the first warm spell of the summer. Sorry not buying it. As meteorologist/climatologist in the business for 40 years, my advice is to ignore the hoax. We can explain all the climate changes with natural factors. And they point to very cold and snowy winters most years for the next few decades. Don’t waste a nickel on climate change remedies. Make sure we have the energy we need to keep warm at a price we can afford. As a former major ski area PR person wrote me this am:
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 Jun 15, 2013
The Pause In Global Warming
Update: See this excellent summary of peer reviewed papers and blog statements about the 16 year temperature stasis and global cooling underway since 2002 here --------- By Art Horn I speak to many groups of people through the year using my powerPoint presentations about weather to educate and entertain. Inevitably, at the end of a program, questions about global warming come up. The first thing I say is that there has been no measured surface temperature warming since 1998. This always comes as a shock to everyone in the room. However, as “The Pause” continues it appears more people are beginning to take note. President Obama is not one of them. In a press conference after his re-election he said “What we do know is the temperature around the globe is increasing faster than was predicted even 10 years ago.’ Having worked as a television meteorologist for 25 years, I am keenly aware of how the news media approaches global warming. In all forms of news media it is critical to craft a series of captivating, dramatic stories that will attract the largest audience. Unlike the hundreds of government agencies that get their money directly from Federal Government, media companies need to make their money directly from the people in society. The best way to do that is to have as many people as possible watch, read or listen to your news stories so that advertisers will want to sell their products on your station, website, newspaper or radio station. Global warming is the perfect captivating story. The global warming news stories through the last 10 years have been dominated by the dangers of using fossil fuels. These stories constantly drumbeat that increasing carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere will bring catastrophic changes to just about anything you can imagine. No wonder that people have never heard of “The Pause”. For example, back in September of 2004 The National Geographic Magazine’s cover story was “Global Warning: Bulletins From A Warmer World”. On the contents page the magazine states “There is no question that the earth is getting hotter, and fast”. The truth is that since that issue was published in 2004 there has been no warming at all and in fact the earth’s average surface temperature has declined slightly since 2003. John Lyman of The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is quoted as saying “Further work will be necessary to solve this cooling mystery.” But the alarming cover story helped sell the magazine. The National Geographic story goes on for about 75 pages with scare your pants off images and predictions. On page 27 the magazine lists the hottest years on record as 1998, 2002, 2003, 2001 and 1997. It fails to mention that weather records of earth’s temperature only date back 1850. This means that 92% of all temperature “records” of individual years over the last 2,000 years are unknown. It also means that 98.5% of all temperature “records” of individual years over the last 10,000 years are unknown. The ice sheet that covers Greenland is about 2 miles thick at the summit. The annual average temperature up there is 31 degrees below zero Celsius or 24 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. Ice core data from Greenland indicate that average temperature has been as much as 4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than today several times in the last 10,000 years and 2 degrees cooler than today several times. The ice core data also show that the earth was warmer than today 1,000 years ago and 2,000 years ago. The average temperature of the earth today is in no way unusual. Now that the warming, or more accurately, the lack of it has reached 15 years the talk of a pause in global warming is beginning to gain traction. Rich Lowery, editor of the National Review wrote “Over the past 15 years air temperatures at the earth’s surface have been flat while greenhouse gas emissions have continued to soar. The world added roughly 100 billions tons of carbon (dioxide) to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2012. That’s about a quarter of all CO2 put there by humans since 1750, yet no more warming”.
Rolf Westgard quoted Stamford Universities Noble physicist Robert Laughlin when he wrote in the Minnesota Daily “Global warming forecasts have the difficulty that one can’t find much actual global warming in present day weather observations”. He went on to write “This continues a 15 year pause in global warming despite a relentless rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide.” In Great Britain the Daily Mail noted “The figures reveal that since the beginning of 1997 until August of 2012 there was no discernable rise in aggregate global temperatures. This means that the “pause” in global warming has now lasted for about the same time as the previous period when temperatures rose, 1980 to 1996.” Alexander Otto of Oxford Universities Environmental Change Institute was quoted as saying that because of the hiatus, warming in the next 50 to 100 years “is likely to lie within the range of current climate models, but not at the high end of this range.” However Dr. Roy Spencer of The University of Alabama Huntsville shows that this statement is not even remotely true in current climate model forecasts vs. real world weather balloon observations in the tropics. His analysis shows that all 73 climate models have shown warmer to much warmer temperature predictions than has actually been measured since around 1980. Now even Rajendra Pachauri, the Head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has admitted that there is a pause in global warming. This comes as quite a surprise since in 2008 he proclaimed “We’re at a stage where the warming is taking place at a much faster rate.” Apparently the facts have become so obvious that the IPCC had to come clean or risk losing even more ground in their crumbling arguments about man made climate catastrophe. How long will the pause last? Have we reached some kind of peak in global temperature like the earth did 1,000, 2,000 or 3,300 years ago? That is a very difficult forecast since not all of the players in global climate change are completely understood or even known. Perhaps “The Pause” will give humanity a chance to literally pause and question the man made global warming theory. The brilliant physics lecturer Dr. Richard Feynman famously said “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” The current trend in rapidly increasing carbon dioxide in the air and the pause in global warming is having a lot to say about the “beautiful theory” of man made global warming. This article appeared in Energy Tribune. Please help support our team’s efforts to get the truth exposed to the public by donating to Icecap. Small amounts are appreciated. Remember the alarmists blogs are heavily funded by progressive organizations while true climate realist blogs though accused of being paid for by big oil are paid for by the authors with the help any donations we get from readers. We thank you for your support. One college in Maine received a $10M endowment for doing global warming and sustainability research and education and then another $1 in government funding/bribery. Aren’t there any people who share our views who could help us do more? There is no more important time. A story in Politico this week suggest the Obama administration intends to begin the climate war in July. We need to make it politically risky for politicians to support this. A carbon tax would mean $8 gasoline and heating oil and increasing prices for all other goods through a trickle down domino effect. They are praying for another Sandy and a hot spell in July. We need to be ready to rapidly respond to nonsense from the media, Soros funded Climate Progress, Climate Central and NBC owned and corrupted TWC and tax hungry politicians. --------- As an example of the efforts underway, by one of the 11 scientists who signed an Amicus Brief to the Supreme Court, here is a post by Dr. Gordon Fulks.
A Supreme Challenge for Climate Fanatics:
I last spoke to them about six years ago and debated a UO professor (Bartlein) under their sponsorship sometime later. As to the content of my talk, that will be quite different from my talk to the Rubicon Society six years ago, because the subject of Anthropogenic Global Warming has changed so much in this short time. In 2007, many of us were still treating this subject as a dispute among scientists as to role of carbon dioxide in climate. But that presumed that science was working the way it is supposed to work with all of us applying our best individual efforts independent of external forces like government funding, organized scientific groups pushing an agenda, or political affiliations. The release of the Climategate e-mails in 2009 completely shattered those illusions. The most prominent of the scientists supporting the present paradigm were found to be working together to guarantee that their ideas always came out on top. And anyone who stood in their way was targeted. We were aware in 2007 that the global climate was not warming as alarmists maintained but now know that the leveling off of the Global Temperature Anomaly (GTA) has continued long enough that it can no longer be denied. Hence as Portland meteorologist Chuck Wiese said, “The theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming has completely collapsed.” Eleven scientists very recently filled an amicus brief with the Supreme Court asking them to consider what the EPA calls their “Three Lines of Evidence,” because all underpin EPA attempts to regulate carbon dioxide and all are manifestly false. Not only are they manifestly false, but it is simple to show that they are manifestly false. These are not minor failures of an otherwise sound theory but fatal flaws. The EPA clearly lacks an empirically-validated theory on which to base their proposed regulations. The advantage of arguing in front of the court is that the discussion will focus on what the EPA has already put forth as their best arguments and not drift into all the peripheral discussions that typically keep this subject going forever without resolution. And a ruling against the EPA’s “science” could open the floodgates for discussions of fraud. Here is some of what we said to the high court (GAST is Global Average Surface Temperatures):
For more information including the location of my talk and how to find the venue, please go here. See you there.
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD (Physics)
Jun 13, 2013
Climate talks collapse!
June 12, 2013 by Craig Rucker For the UN climate conference in Bonn the bear to worry about was not Polar, but Russian.
In the final minutes of COP 18, the UN climate talks in Doha, Qatari vice prime minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah brought down the gavel ending the COP and snubbing delegates of nations waiting to speak. Among them was the Russian delegation which was frantically waving papers in the air demanding to be recognized. Russia has neither forgiven, nor forgotten. When the UN climate talks opened in Bonn last week, Russia, joined by Ukraine and Belarus, blocked adoption of the agenda of the “Subsidiary Body for Implementation” (SBI). The SBI is the key negotiating track towards signing a UN climate treaty in Paris in 2015. The SBI has been unable to conduct any business in Bonn and has announced that it has suspended its business. This has prevented the UN from considering, among other items, advancing the loss and damage mechanism (see CFACT’s report) that was perhaps the most significant outcome agreed to in Doha. Many developing nations are not happy at seeing “loss and damage” blocked, as it is a key pathway for those seeking a global warming route to wealth redistribution. Russia has raised a much needed question as to whether there is a fundamental lack of fairness and due process at the UN climate talks. The Doha outcome, for example, was “agreed to,” but was it ever properly voted upon? Is it proper for the UNFCCC to allow major portions of the outcome of the climate talks to be drafted behind closed doors, present them at the 11th hour and then proceed based on a “consensus” rather than a recorded vote? Can the UN lawfully slam the gavel on any nation, such as Russia, and refuse to recognize them? Reuters reports that ‘Christiana Figueres, the U.N.’s climate chief, said a consensus was reached,’ but Oleg Shamanov, Russia’s head of delegation, called it an “absolutely obvious violation of the procedure.” Reuters further reports that, ‘in 2010, Bolivian chief negotiator Pablo Solon claimed that security had blocked him from attending the talks, while a year later Venezuela’s envoy had to stand on a chair to voice her objections. Jayanthi Natarajan, India’s minister of forests and environment, said she was threatened and told not to object to any text at talks in Durban in 2011. “In the past we have very negative examples where procedures were not followed...and the culmination point was Doha. It’s unacceptable,” Shamanov said.’ If the UNFCCC successfully gets its climate treaty in Paris in 2015, the treaty will govern a tremendous portion of the economic activity of all mankind. Not billions, but trillions of dollars will be at stake. Nations will subordinate major portions of their sovereignty to the United Nations. Aside from whether the climate treaty is wise (it is not), can such a thing be created without due process? Without a vote? This would seem to contravene the principles upon which the UN was founded. Those who stand for individual freedom and the due process which protects it owe Russia their thanks. Russia’s actions, however, appear to be largely self motivated. When al-Attiyah gaveled Russia down in Doha he wounded Russian pride - something Russia is historically willing to fight for. A larger Russian motivation, however, appears to be what is being called in Bonn the “hot air” issue. Russia was not at all pleased when the UN COP pulled the plug in Doha on all the emissions credits Russia had acquired under the first Kyoto treaty and told Russia it couldn’t carry them forward. Russia, which has announced that it will not be part of a second commitment period for the Kyoto protocol and has signaled a reluctance to sign on in Paris, wants to keep its credits anyway. Russia would like to sell its old credits to the countries which do sign aboard and would be paid effectively for nothing but hot air. European carbon markets have recently collapsed with the price of carbon hitting record lows. The UNFCCC believes that allowing Russia, Ukraine, Poland and other former Soviet bloc nations to retain the huge stockpile of carbon credits they picked up under Kyoto would relentlessly flood and depress the carbon market in perpetuity. The irony is that in effect, the former Eastern bloc nations are claiming credit and demanding compensation for Communism, which depressed their economic development. Many of the former Eastern bloc’s carbon credits accrued during their painful transition from Communism which temporarily depressed their economies still further. If any compensation is due for the harms caused by Communism, Russia should be paying, not receiving. Poland, which will host UN COP 19 in November, has approximately 500m tons of carbon credits which it refuses to part with. Poland generates much of its power from coal and would like to use those credits both to offset the emissions from its use of coal and to continue to sell to other nations. Poland is estimated to have sold 190 million Eurosin credits to nations including Japan, Ireland and Spain. Poland was a victim of Communism. Should Russia and the other nations of the former Soviet Union truly be compensated for the economic destruction wreaked by Communism? The absurdity of how money changes hands through UN processes apparently knows no bounds. The good news is that the treaty negotiating track at the UN climate talks in Bonn is temporarily suspended, although Ms. Figueres vows to be back on track by Warsaw. The bad news is that there are very few “good guys” involved. The UN climate talks have become a place where radical ideology trumps science, consensus is gaveled into policy with little regard for due process and the nations of the world are bribed to go along with handouts of other people’s money. Who do you suppose worked for the money that everyone at the UN is so anxious to redistribute? See more. Jun 10, 2013
China translates 1,200-page rebuttal to climate change agenda; Climate model world vs real world
Breitbart News can exclusively report on Tuesday night that the Chinese Academy of Sciences has translated and published a Chinese edition of two massive climate change volumes originally published by The Heartland Institute in 2009 and 2011. The volumes, Climate Change Reconsidered and Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report, are chock full of 1,200 pages of peer-reviewed data concerning the veracity of anthropogenic climate change. Together, they represent the most comprehensive rebuttal of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change findings, which have been the basis of the climate change legislation movement across the planet.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences is set to present the publication on June 15 at a major ceremony in Beijing. The Academy employs approximately 50,000 people and hosts 350 international conferences each year, and is one of the most prestigious scientific academies in the world, ranked ahead of every Ivy League school save Harvard
A December 2012 UN meeting designed to provide climate change regulations ended in failure after China refused to sign a global climate change treaty. China was joined by the United States, as well as Canada, India, Japan, Russia, and Brazil. “Opposition to a new climate treaty is justified based upon the real science presented in Climate Change Reconsidered,” explains Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast. While some critics have charged that China may be fostering research on climate change that facilitates its political positions, Lakely pointed out, “China doesn’t need an excuse. The country can (and is) doing what it thinks is in its best interests as are many countries in the developed and developing world.” The New York Times noted this week that global CO2 emissions have “accumulated in the atmosphere at a record pace” over the last 15 years, but global temperatures have remained flat. The Times notes “the slowdown is a bit of a mystery to climate scientists,” but Lakely said, “it becomes less mysterious when one reads Climate Change Reconsidered. The timing for CAS publishing its translation could hardly be better for the advancement of climate science understanding.” Lakely said that this could mark the turning point in the climate change debate, and that a global consensus was beginning to form against regulation of emissions. “The latest observable climate data, new studies from scientific academies around the globe, the peer-reviewed studies one can find in Climate Change Reconsidered, and its translation and publication by the prestigious Chinese Academy of Sciences is making life difficult for those who declare with certainty that man is causing catastrophic global warming,” he explained. “That’s the way it should be. No scientific discipline is ever ‘settled’ especially a discipline as young, as complicated, and as diffuse as climate science. The Heartland Institute is proud to support and promote the pursuit of the classic scientific method that follows the data and continually asks questions about what is happening to the climate of our planet.” ------------- Prof. Murry Salby’s Presentation In Hamburg: Climate Model World Diverges Starkly From Real World By P Gosselin on 10 June 2013 (NoTricksZone) Die kalte Sonne website here has just posted the video presentation of Murry Salby in Hamburg in April. If anyone ever demolished the dubious CO2 AGW science, it’s Salby!
Most of the presentation is very mathematical and technical. But the last 10 minutes sums everything up very nicely for the laypersons. Die kalte Sonne writes:
The video recording of the presentation, which was organised by the host Helmut Schmidt University, is now available at Youtube (above). Near the end (1:02:50) Salby on CO2 and temperature: Their divergence over the last decade and a half is now unequivocal. In the models global temperature tracks CO2 almost perfectly. In the real world it clearly doesn’t.” Salby then presents two charts for comparison, which I’ve arranged side-by-side: the model world vs real world:
Model world (left) vs real world (right). Graphics from Murry Salby presentation. 1:04:05 mark he sums it up neatly: CO2 then evolves not like temperature, as it does in the model, but like the integral of temperature. In dotted blue is the integral of observed temperature. It closely tracks observed CO2 even after the 1990s when the observed record of CO2 and temperature clearly diverged. If CO2 tracks the integral of temperature, which it clearly does, it cannot track temperature, which it clearly doesn’t. In the model, CO2 and temperature are related directly. In the real world they are also related, but differently. The distinctly different relationship between CO2 and global temperature represents a fundamental difference in the global energy balance between its evolution in the model world and the real world. If the global energy balance is wrong, everything else is window dressing.” The points of Salby’s presentation lead to the following implications: 1. In the Real World global temperature is not controlled exclusively by CO2, as it is in the Model World. 2. In significant part, however, CO2 is controlled by Global Temperature, as it is in the Proxy Record. At the end of the presentation, Salby implies, quoting Richard Feynman, that CO2 science today can be described as “Cult Science”. He sums up quoting Feynman: “If it differs from observations, then it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.” Read much more at NoTricksZone on Tamino’s epic fail and that of Skeptical Science. |
 Jun 19, 2013
Hump day hilarity: Big Kahuna WarmyNote: this is NOT Professor Scott Mandia in another costume
From the overhyped and virtually overheated UK Met Office meeting yesterday where they tried to explain “The Pause” Telegraph blogger Sean Thomas was there and was able to get first hand reports on what was said. Bishop Hill says: “I think we should be worried.” First, I asked Stephen Belcher, the head of the Met Office Hadley Centre, whether the recent extended winter was related to global warming. Shaking his famous “ghost stick”, and fingering his trademark necklace of sharks’ teeth and mammoth bones, the loin-clothed Belcher blew smoke into a conch, and replied, “Here come de heap big warmy. Bigtime warmy warmy. Is big big hot. Plenty big warm burny hot. Hot! Hot hot! But now not hot. Not hot now. De hot come go, come go. Now Is Coldy Coldy. Is ice. Hot den cold. Frreeeezy ice til hot again. Den de rain. It faaaalllll. Make pasty.”....
For a final word, I turned to the greatest climate change scientist of all, Dr David Viner, one-time senior research scientist at the climatic research unit of the University of East Anglia, who predicted in 2000 that, within a few years, winter snowfall would become “a very rare and exciting event”. However, he was trapped under a glacier in Stockport, so was unable to comment at the time the Telegraph went to press. More hilarity here. Meanwhile back in the real world: yawn Jun 11, 2013
Bloomberg’s FollyUPDATE: In an address today in Berlin, President Obama proved as clueless as Bloomberg on what’s happening with the climate:
---------- In a far-reaching plan that would reshape the coastline of the nation’s largest city, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the modern day King Canute, unveiled a $20-billion proposal Tuesday that he said will protect New Yorkers from disasters brought on by climate change including rising tides. Little Napoleon is delusional.
Fox News and the other media carried an AP story about the Bloomberg folly with forecasts that have a 0 (zero) percent chance of verifying. “The projections paint an unsettling picture of New York’s future: a city where by the 2050s, 800,000 people could be living in a flood zone that would cover a quarter of the land, and there could be as many 90-degree days as is now normal for Birmingham, Ala. Facing those new projections of the effects of global warming on the nation’s biggest city, Mayor Michael Bloomberg was scheduled to talk Tuesday about what to do about risks that Superstorm Sandy brought into stark relief. “We have to look ahead and anticipate any and all future threats, not only from hurricanes and other coastal storms but also from droughts, heavy downpours and heat waves—many of which are likely to be longer and more intense in the years to come,” an excerpt from the mayor’s planned speech says. Two top Bloomberg aides who oversaw the study underlying the speech, Seth Pinsky and Deputy Mayor Caswell Holloway, wouldn’t hint Monday at what the suggestions would be, what they might cost or how they might be financed. Many key decisions likely will come after Bloomberg’s third and final term ends this year. Bloomberg said last winter the study would examine the pros and cons of building berms, dunes, levees and other coast-protection structures. But he has historically been cool to the idea of massive sea walls—and emphatic about not suggesting that people retreat from coastal communities. The recommendations will draw from updated predictions from the New York City Panel on Climate Change, a scientists’ (???) group convened by the city. The average day could be 4 degrees to nearly 7 degrees hotter by mid-century, the panel estimates in data Pinsky and Holloway discussed Monday. A once in a century storm would likely spur a surge 5 or more feet higher than did Sandy, which sent a record 14 foot storm tide gushing into lower Manhattan. And with local waters a foot to 2 1/2 feet higher than they are today, 8 percent of the city’s coastline could see flooding just from high tides, the group estimates. Most of that coast is in a relatively undeveloped area near a bay. City Hall, the state government and others have released warnings over the years about climate risks. The city has required some new developments in flood zones to be elevated and has restored wetlands as natural barriers, among other steps.
“Sandy, obviously, increased the urgency of dealing with this and the need to plan and start to take concrete steps,” Holloway said.
“The overall numbers are similar, but we have more compelling evidence now that (a more severe scenario from 2009) is looking like a more realistic possibility now,” due to improved computer models and more evidence that some ice sheets are melting, said Radley Horton, a climate scientist with Columbia University’s Earth Institute and a researcher with the city climate panel. Scientists have reached a consensus on global warming but still debate how severe the effects will be.” ---------------------- How about zero? New York temperatures reflect the change in population since 1870 (from less than 1 million to 8.2 million in the five boroughs) but have shown little change for 16 years like the rest of the world. The greatest warming took place during the time the population grew fastest from the 1880s to 1930s. Temperatures and population in recent years have been just like the 1950s. And Sandy was only a CAT 1 storm. There were 8 storms that made landfall in the northeast from 1938 to 1960, many CAT3. Landfalls of hurricanes along the east coast are favored when the Atlantic is warm (+AMO) and the Pacific cold (-PDO), which is the current state. If we create an index of the two ocean oscillations (+AMO,-PDO) and call it the Ocean Cycle Landfall Index (OCLI), we see good agreement. A similar state existed in the early and late 1800s. Landfalling storms on New York CIty occurred in 1815, 1821 and 1893. the 1821 was the worst storm. Could we see a storm worse than Sandy before the Atlantic cools in 5 to 10 years? YES! And with enhanced blocking in an era of low solar activity, a hit further west on the coast closer to NYC is enhanced just as we saw with Sandy. Will the Sea level go up a foot by 2020? Doubtful. Recall Hansen in 1988 predicted sea levels would inundate the West Side Highway and be lapping at the Goddard Institute (an important component of the mayor’s scientific advisory panel) Building in 20 years (2008). Sea level has risen 1 inch since 1988. Oh, well.
The Battery , NY Station ID: 8518750
Based on current NOAA data, it will take over 100 years to gain a foot of sea level rise. See what our friend and associate Anthony Watts found about the sea level story. And, it really is easy to get freaked out if you don’t pay attention to anything but hype. Jun 06, 2013
Revisiting Climategate as Climatism FaltersBy Steve Goreham Originally published in Master Resource.
Climatism, the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate, is on the wane. Once riding high, the ideology of man-made climate change is losing its influence in governments across the world. Climategate, the release of e-mails from the University of East Anglia, called the science of dangerous warming into question and turned the tide of global opinion. Background On November 19, 2009, and unidentified hacker or internal whistle-blower downloaded more than 1,000 documents and e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University in the United Kingdom and posted them on a server in Russia. Within hours, these documents were accessed by websites around the world. These e-mails were a subset of confidential communications between top climate scientists in the United Kingdom, the United States, and other nations over the last fifteen years. These were the very same scientists that developed the surface temperature data sets, promoted the Mann Hockey Stick Curve, and wrote and edited the core of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports. The incident was branded “Climategate” by British columnist James Delingpole, a label soon adopted by the world. These e-mails provide an insight into practices by researchers that are poor science at best and fraudulent at worst. Bias, manipulation of data, avoidance of freedom of information requests, and efforts to subvert the peer-review process are apparent, all to further the “cause” of man-made global warming. The e-mails were released on the eve of the 2009 United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen. Climatism’s Apex Just two years earlier, Climatism had swept almost all in its path. The IPCC 2007 Fourth Assessment Report declared that mankind was very likely the cause of global temperature increase. That same year, former Vice President Al Gore and the IPCC shared the Nobel Peace Prize. In December of 2007, The RENIXX index of the world’s largest renewable energy companies soared to over 1,900. Barack Obama was elected President of the United States in 2008, heralding the rebirth of a more environmentally conscious nation. After securing the majority of primary delegates in June, 2008, candidate Obama declared, “...this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal!...” The year 2009 was set to be a year of triumph for Climatism. The US House of Representatives passed the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill in June and sent it to the US Senate. The Copenhagen Climate Conference in December 2009 was to be the major next step to control global emissions. But the release of the Climategate e-mails just one week prior to the start of the conference shook the science of man-made warming. Climatism’s Downward Spiral Today, the man-made global warming movement is headed for a crash. United Nations climate conferences at Cancun (2010), Durban (2011), and Doha (2012) failed to produce an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Kyoto Protocol climate treaty expired at the end of 2012 without a successor agreement. The Waxman-Markey bill was ignored by the US Senate and climate legislation is now a non-starter in the US Congress. Contrary to climate model predictions, global temperatures have failed to increase for the last fifteen years, confounding the sirens for dangerous climate change. In January of this year, the UK Met Office revised their global temperature forecast downward for the next decade. The early release of a chart from the upcoming Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC showed that temperatures are running far below IPCC projections. Scientists and leading publications, such as The Economist, now question whether the climate models are too sensitive to greenhouse gas levels. Renewable energy subsidies have been cut in Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Spain, the UK, and the US. Governments across the world are rethinking their commitment to green energy. The RENIXX index has fallen to 250, down almost 90 percent from the 2007 peak. In April, the European Parliament rejected an effort to prop up the Emissions Trading System. The price of a carbon allowances dropped to under 3 Euros per tonne, down from 20 per tonne in 2011. Climatism has become shaky business. The Climategate e-mail release has played an important role in shifting global opinions about the theory of man-made warming. Below are some of the most important quotes from Climategate emails. More quotes on climate change, energy, and the environment can be found here. Emails: On the Theory of Man-Made Warming “I know there is pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’ but in reality the situation is no quite so simple.” Dr. Keith Briffa, Climatic Research Unit, disclosed Climategate e-mail, Sep. 22, 1999 “Keith’s [Briffa] series...differs in large part in exactly the opposite direction that Phil’s [Jones] does from ours. This is the problem we all picked up on (everyone in the room at IPCC was in agreement that this was a problem and a potential distraction/detraction from the reasonably consensus viewpoint we’d like to show w/ the Jones et al and Mann et al series).” Dr. Michael Mann, IPCC Lead Author, disclosed Climategate e-mail, Sep. 22, 1999 “...it would be nice to try to ‘contain’ the putative ‘MWP’ [Medieval Warm Period]...” Dr. Michael Mann, IPCC Lead Author, disclosed Climategate e-mail, June 4, 2003
“By the way, when is Tom C [Crowley] going to formally publish his roughly 1500 year reconstruction??? It would help the cause to be able to refer to that reconstruction as confirming Mann and Jones, etc. Dr. Michael Mann, IPCC Lead Author, disclosed Climategate e-mail, Aug. 3, 2004
“Well, I have my own article on where the heck is global warming...The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”
Emails: Manipulating Temperature Data “I’ve just completed Mike’s [Mann] Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s [Briffa] to hide the decline.” Dr. Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit, disclosed Climategate e-mail, Nov. 16, 1999 “Also we have applied a completely artificial adjustment to the data after 1960, so they look closer to observed temperatures than the tree-ring data actually were...” Dr. Tim Osborn, Climatic Research Unit, disclosed Climategate e-mail, Dec. 20, 2006 “...If you look at the attached plot you will see that the land also shows the 1940s warming blip (as I’m sure you know). So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say 0.15 deg C, then this would be significant for the global mean but we’d still have to explain the land blip...” Dr. Tom Wigley, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, on adjusting global temperature data, disclosed Climategate e-mail to Phil Jones, Sep. 28, 2008 “We, therefore, do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (i.e. quality controlled and homogenized) data.” Climatic Research Unit web site, the world’s leading provider of global temperature data, admitting that it can’t produce the original thermometer data, 2011 Emails: Data Suppression and Freedom of Information (FOI) Avoidance
“...We have 25 or so years invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try to find something wrong with it...” Dr. Phil Jones, Director of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University, e-mail to Warwick Hughes, 2004
“Mike [Mann], can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith [Trenberth] re AR4? Keith will do likewise...Can you also e-mail Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his e-mail address...We will be getting Caspar to do likewise."Dr. Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit, disclosed Climategate e-mail, May 29, 2008 “You might want to check with the IPCC Bureau. I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 [the upcoming IPCC Fifth Assessment Report] would be to delete all e-mails at the end of the process. Hard to do, as not everybody will remember it.” Dr. Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit, on avoiding Freedom of Information requirements, disclosed Climategate e-mail, May 12, 2009 Emails: Subverting the Peer-Review Literature Process “...I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin [Trenberth] and I will keep them out somehow, even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” Phil Jones, Director of the Climatic Research Unit, disclosed Climategate e-mail, July 8, 2004 Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania. |
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 Jun 14, 2013
Coldest Spring In England Since 1891; NCDC Spring data also shows spring cold US, AK
By Paul Homewood Originally, it was thought to be the coldest spring since 1962.
According to the Central England Temperature Series, England has just experienced its coldest Spring since 1891. The average mean temperature of 6.87C ranks the 31st coldest on records starting in 1659, and is 2 degrees lower than the 1981 to 2010 average of 8.9C. The 5-Year average has dropped to 8.9C, a level commonly seen in the 1940’s and 50’s. Although the cold Spring has been due in large part to the exceptionally cold weather in March, which was the coldest since 1892, both April and May have also been much colder than normal.
CET Warmer/(Colder) v 1981 to 2010
The 12-Month running average continues to drop, and at 8.9C is well below the levels seen for the last decade, and 1.0C lower than the 1981 to 2010 annual average. -----------
US SPRING AT A GLANCE
This was the first season since Spring 2011 not classified as “warmer than normal”, or in the warmest one-third of the historical distribution. New England and the West were both warmer than average. California had its seventh warmest spring on record with a seasonal temperature 3.5F above average. Spring brought both wet and dry precipitation extremes to the United States. Iowa had its wettest spring on record with 17.61 inches of precipitation, 8.63 inches above the seasonal average. Wetter-than-average conditions were observed in the Northern Plains and Midwest, where North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Michigan each had one of their ten wettest spring seasons. Below-average precipitation was observed in the Mid-Atlantic, Southern Plains, and West. New Mexico had its second driest spring with 0.66 inch of precipitation, 1.72 inches below average. California had its eighth driest spring, with 2.34 inches of precipitation, 3.33 inches below average. The above-average precipitation and below-average temperatures in the north-central United States were associated with a spring snow cover extent that was above average. According to data from the Rutgers Global Snow Lab, the spring snow cover extent was the eighth largest on record and the largest since 1984. TEMPERATURE PRECIPITATION ALASKA SPRING TEMPERATURES They were the coldest since 1984. Alaska colder winters and springs are due to the cold PDO. May 16, 2013
NCDC on April and January to April
Climate Highlights - April The April average temperature for the contiguous U.S. was 49.7F, which was 1.4F below the 20th century average. April 2013 ranked as the 23rd coolest such month on record and marked the coolest April since 1997 when the monthly average temperature for the contiguous U.S. was 48.0F. The central U.S. was much cooler than average during April. North Dakota had its coldest April on record with a statewide average temperature of 31.0F, 9.9F below average. Six additional states - South Dakota,Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Wisconsin - each had a top ten cold April. Below-average temperatures were also present for the Northern and Central Rockies, the Southern Plains, and the Mississippi River Valley. Near and above-average temperatures were present along the U.S. East Coast and in parts of the West.California had its 12th warmest April on record with a statewide temperature 3.7F above average. The April average precipitation for the contiguous U.S. was 2.90 inches, 0.47 inch above average, and tied with 1953 as the 19th wettest April on record. The Northwest, Midwest, and the Southeast were wetter than average. Iowa and Michigan both had their wettest April on record. The Iowa statewide average precipitation total of 6.71 inches was 3.76 inches above average; the Michigan precipitation total of 5.97 inches was 3.29 inches above average. Additionally,Tennessee, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin each had one of the ten wettest Aprils on record. The wet conditions in the central U.S. resulted in several rivers in Illinois, Iowa, and Michigan reaching record high levels, with widespread flooding observed. The Mississippi River at St. Louis also reached flood stage after dropping to near-record low levels at the beginning of the year. Below-average precipitation was observed in the Southwest and Northwest. New Mexico had its 12th driest April, while Connecticut and Rhode Island had their sixth and 11th driest April, respectively. Alaska was much cooler than average during April, with a statewide average temperature 5.8F below the 1971-2000 average. This was the 7th coldest April in the 96-year period of record for the state, and the coldest April since 1985. The average temperature in Fairbanks was 14.5F below normal and the coldest April on record for the city. According to the April 30 U.S. Drought Monitor report, 46.9 percent of the contiguous U.S. was experiencing moderate-to-exceptional drought, smaller than the 51.9 percent at the beginning of the month. Drought conditions continued to improve across the Southeast, Midwest, and along the northern and eastern periphery of the core drought areas of the Great Plains. Drought conditions worsened for parts of the Southwest, and drought continued for much of the Great Plains and Mountain West. Several storms impacted the U.S. bringing record-breaking, late-season snowfall to central United States. According to data from the Rutgers Global Snow Lab, the April snow cover extent for the contiguous U.S. was approximately 480,000 square miles, 209,000 square miles above the 1981-2010 average and the 5thlargest April snow cover extent in the 47-year period of record. However, dismal snowpack continued in parts of the West, with only 18 percent of normal snowpack reported in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. On a local basis, over three times as many record cold highs and lows occurred than record warm highs and lows. Approximately 3,430 record low temperatures and about 4,050 record cool daily high temperatureswere tied or broken. In comparison, approximately 690 record warm daily high temperature records and 1,570 record warm daily low temperatures were tied or broken. March/April was the coldest since 1996 and 33rd coldest out of 119 years. Climate Highlights - year-to-date (January - April) The average temperature for the contiguous U.S. for the year-to-date period was 39.3°F, which was near the long-term average. Near to below-average temperatures were present from the Rockies, through the Plains and into the Ohio Valley. Near to above-average temperatures were observed in the West and the Northeast. The nationally-averaged precipitation total for the year-to-date period was 8.94 inches, 0.13 inch below average. Wetter-than-average conditions stretched from the Great Lakes, along the Mississippi River Valley, and into the Southeast. Michigan and Wisconsin each had their wettest January-April, with precipitation totals 5.26 inches and 3.62 inches above average, respectively. Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois also had a top ten wettest year-to-date period. Much of the western and northeastern U.S. was drier than average during January-April. In the West,California had its driest year-to-date with a statewide precipitation total of 3.59 inches, 9.49 inches below average. Oregon, Nevada, and Idaho each had one of their ten driest year-to-date periods. In the Northeast,Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont also had a top ten dry January-April. The year-to-date USCEI was near-average. Despite the near-average USCEI, the extremes in 1-day precipitation totals and the component that examines the spatial extent of drought were both much above average. May 13, 2013
Are wind turbines killing off the whooping crane population?; Goats hired, camels targeted
By Caleb Shaw Guest post by Caleb Shaw I am having trouble getting to the bottom of a serious issue, (or a serious issue for a bird lover like myself.) It may well be that wind turbines are killing endangered birds, and may lead to the extinction of the California Condor and the Whooping Crane.
Because wind turbines involve a great deal of capital, (not merely the big-bucks of fat-cats, but also and especially the political capital surrounding the save-the-world idea of Global Warming,) the bullying of media-warping power politics seems to be involved. You can’t get a straight answer to a simple question. All I want to know is whether or not the population of whooping crane has fallen by over a hundred, since wind turbines were erected in their flyways. I think it may well have happened, but because the government would get bad press if such was “a fact,” the facts get muddled. The government is on record as saying wind turbines are good, and has invested huge amounts of taxpayer’s money in erecting them. They will downplay bad news. One way to downplay is to change the way of counting whooping cranes. For 61 years an aerial count was used. Now a new “hierarchical distance sampling” is used, and gives a number with an absurd degree of uncertainty. . What is the degree of uncertainty? “Plus or minus 61 whooping cranes.” That could be as much as a half of the total population. It is a failure to give an honest questioner an honest answer. 261 would not be good news, but would indicate the population was at least holding steady, however, if you subtract 61 from the positive direction and go 61 in the other direction, you have 139 whooping cranes, which is an environmental disaster. It also would be a political inconvenience, and a business inconvenience to all fat cats who have invested huge amounts of money into the enormous, towering, and very ugly turbines. However I always thought true environmentalists didn’t care about what was inconvenient for politicians, and inconvenient for fat cats, and instead cared about what was inconvenient for whooping cranes. When you can’t even get the data that matters, not even from the Environmental Protection Agency, it starts to look like environmentalists have been bought out by, and have sold out to, fat cats and politicians. I always thought that was the one thing that environmentalists never, ever would do.
I figured environmentalists needed to be warned. Therefore I left the following comment, (actually a sort of letter-to-the-editor,) at the environmentalist website Wind Turbine Syndrome, on the post.
The problem is that environmentalists have overused the sympathy of the public, because some less-than-altruistic environmentalists have raised the alarm, but have done so for reasons that involve political and even business interests. By allowing such people to infiltrate our ranks we have dug a grave for ourselves, because we are now like the little boy who cried wolf. When we raise the alarm, the public rolls their eyes and doesn’t listen. An example of such a false alarm may well be the “snail darter,” which is a small fish which lives in a California delta. Because California’s climate has included both copious rainfalls and withering droughts, the delta has varied hugely, and the little fish has evolved to cope with tremendous variations. However the environmentalists involved made it sound like the slightest bit of irrigation in America’s richest farmland, (which has the longest growing season,) could wipe the obscure minnow out, by reducing the water in the delta. While there are good arguments on both sides, the uproar made environmentalists look bad for two reasons. First, it made them look like they cared more for a few hundred minnows than feeding hundreds of thousands of Americans. Second, it made them look like liars, when it turned out that particular minnow had survived horrific historic droughts when the delta was practically dry. Once environmentalists have been made to look bad in this manner, the public is slow to forgive the stain on their reputation. The whooping crane population was down to around 21 in 1941. It was only due to the work of altruistic environmentalists, who worked hand in hand with Washington DC, that the population bounced back to over 200. It is a triumph, and shows environmentalism at its best. We need to return to that goodness, but we cannot do so with people who abuse environmentalism in our ranks. We are like a beautiful garden, but our ranks contain some rank weeds. Some of our members are merely young, and need the guidance of older and wiser members. However others are rather obviously more interested in money, quick profits, and power politics than anything that has to do with keeping nature in balance, and beautiful creatures alive. None of us much likes to be disagreeable, but we had better disagree with these people, who are actually fakes and phonies. In the most polite manner possible, we need to bring up the truth and demand the facts, and confront them. They are corrupting a beautiful thing, and if we don’t stand up for what environmentalism stands for, we are standing by as a sewer pipe pollutes a beautiful river, but in this case the river is environmentalism itself.
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By Steve Goreham
O’Hare airport will finally get its goats. The Department of Aviation of the City of Chicago has awarded a contract to a private firm to provide 25 goats to munch vegetation at the city’s airport. These “green lawn mowers” will help reduce carbon dioxide emissions to sustain the planet.
Last fall, when the project was bid, Amy Malick, head of sustainability at the Department of Aviation, commented on the planned use of goats in hard-to-mow areas, “They may have steep slopes, very hard to get to with heavy machinery, and those machines also emit pollution. They’re burning fossil fuel. So as a sustainability initiative we’re looking to bring in animals that do not have emissions associated with them, at least to the same extent that heavy machinery would.” A shepherd will herd the goats across 120 acres at four different sites on airport property. The 25 fuzzy critters are expected to clear vegetation each day from a square at least sixteen feet on a side. Chicago is not the first city to employ animals to reduce airport vegetation. Sheep are used at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and goats are used at San Francisco International. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport deployed goats as early as 2008, but stopped because “it was not cost effective.” How can a guy with a lawn mower be as cost effective as a herd of goats? A single one-way Boeing 747 flight from Chicago to London emits about 200 tons of carbon dioxide, or about 5,000 times the annual emissions from a gasoline-powered lawn mower of a homeowner. It appears that emissions savings from O’Hare goats will be relatively small. But what about methane emissions from the herd? On the other side of the world, about 10,000 miles from Chicago, the government of Australia has a different solution for global warming. More than a million wild camels, called “feral” camels, roam the outback of Australia. They munch up the foliage and emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from both the nose end and the tail end. Each camel produces more than one ton of CO2-equivalent emissions per year. Feral goats are also part of this severe climate problem.
But the enlightened Australian government passed the Carbon Farming Initiative Act in December of 2011. The act calls for “The reduction of methane emissions through the management, in a humane manner, of feral goats, feral deer, feral pigs, or feral camels.” “Management” companies are now flying over the outback, shooting goats and camels from helicopters, and earning carbon credits. Maybe the Aussies should use goats instead of lawn mowers at airports? So goats are both grazed and shot to reduce those evil carbon dioxide emissions. It’s all part of this mad, mad, mad world of Climatism. Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania. |
 Jun 19, 2013
The Continuing Collapse of the Global Warming Hoax
By Alan Caruba While the nation tries to come to grips with the cascade of scandals involving the Obama administration, a significant phenomenon has been occurring. It is the demise of the global warming/climate change hoax that has driven national and international policies since the 1980s.
Directed from within the bowels of the most corrupt international organization on planet Earth, the United Nations, the hoax originally generated the Kyoto Protocols in December 1997 to set limits on the generation of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The UN’s climate charlatans claimed that CO2 was causing the Earth to dramatically warm. It was a lie. The U.S. Senate unanimously refused to ratify it and, in 2011, Canada withdrew from it.
As reported by Craig Rucker, Executive Director of CFACT, fast-forward to the recent UN climate talks in Bonn, Germany, and news that Russia, joined by Ukraine and Belarus, blocked the adoption of the agenda of the “Subsidiary Body for Implementation”, part of the standard fast-tracking toward a 2015 Climate Treaty scheduled to be adopted and signed in Paris. Part of the treaty is a scheme to redistribute the wealth of developed nations to those less developed. The Russians were fed up with the usual behind-closed-doors proceedings that create such treaties, but no doubt they were well aware that the treaty would empower the UN to govern a large portion of economic activity around the world. All UN treaties require nations to surrender some aspect of their national sovereignty. There is clearly a backlash against the global warming hoax, particularly from nations that have discovered the costs to their economies that idiotic “renewable” energy schemes and emissions reductions incur. In the real world, they are experiencing longer, harsher winters as the result of the cooling cycle the Earth has been in for the last seventeen years! Despite President Obama’s incessant claims that the Earth is heating, scientists in both Russia and China have been publishing data from scientific studies disputing the Big Lie of global warming/climate change. The Chinese Academy of Sciences 50,000 members strong recently published “Climate Change Reconsidered and Climate Change Reconsidered: 2011 Interim Report”, two hefty volumes with more than 1,200 pages of peer-reviewed data on climate change published by The Heartland Institute in 2009 and 2011. In May, Marc Morano, publisher of ClimateDepot.com and a former member of the staff of the U.S. Senate Environmental & Public Works Committee submitted written testimony to the committee. “The scientific reality is that on virtually every claim from A to Z the claims of the promoters of man-made climate fears are failing,” wrote Morano, “and in many instances the claims are moving in the opposite direction. The global warming movement is suffering the scientific death of a thousand cuts.” “There is no evidence,” wrote Morano, “we are currently having any unusual weather.” Weather events such as the Moore, Oklahoma tornado and the sub-tropical storm Sandy that hit the northeast are normal occurrences despite the damage they inflicted. In The Wall Street Journal in May, Princeton University physicist Dr. William Happer and NASA moonwalker and geologist, Dr. Harrison H. Schmitt wrote that “Thanks to the single minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control of energy production, the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide is that it is a dangerous pollutant. That’s simply not the case.” Literally thousands of scientists around the world have disputed the IPCC “science” and many former “warmists” have reversed their former beliefs. Dr. Lennart Bengtsson, a top Swedish climate scientist, formerly affiliated with the IPCC, said in February “We are creating great anxiety without it being justified...there are no indications that the warming is so severe that we need to panic… “The warming we have had the last 100 years is so small that, if we didn’t have meteorologists and climatologists to measure it, we wouldn’t have noticed it at all.” The threat facing Americans is posed by the Environmental Protection Agency that clings to the Big Lie about CO2 and uses it as the basis for a flood of regulations that are doing great harm to economic recovery and development. The same holds true for the Departments of Energy and the Interior that deny access to the nation’s huge reserves of energy resources and, in the case of coal, act to destroy its mining industry and plants using it for the generation of electricity. The global warming/climate change hoax continues to be widely taught in the nation’s schools and that should end. Now. It continues to be reported as truth by the mainstream media and as fodder for Hollywood movies and for television programs such as those on the National Geographic Channel. Despite the lies surrounding global warming/climate change, the hoax is in its final death throes and has been for many years. That’s the good news. Jun 04, 2013
Epic Model Failure and May Global LT Temperature Update
By Dr. Roy Spencer ICECAP UPDATE: Spring for the USA in the UAH LT data was coldest since 1984 and fifth coldest in the record back to 1979. It came after the warmest spring in 2012. We await the NCDC US rankings.
Courtesy of John Christy, a comparison between 73 CMIP5 models (archived at the KNMI Climate Explorer website) and observations for the tropical bulk tropospheric temperature (aka “MT") since 1979 (click for large version):
Rather than a spaghetti plot of the models’ individual years, we just plotted the linear temperature trend from each model and the observations for the period 1979 to 2012. Note that the observations (which coincidentally give virtually identical trends) come from two very different observational systems: 4 radiosonde datasets, and 2 satellite datasets (UAH and RSS). If we restrict the comparison to the 19 models produced by only U.S. research centers, the models are more tightly clustered: Now, in what universe do the above results not represent an epic failure for the models? I continue to suspect that the main source of disagreement is that the models’ positive feedbacks are too strong...and possibly of even the wrong sign.
The lack of a tropical upper tropospheric hotspot in the observations is the main reason for the disconnect in the above plots, and as I have been pointing out this is probably rooted in differences in water vapor feedback. The models exhibit strongly positive water vapor feedback, which ends up causing a strong upper tropospheric warming response (the “hot spot"), while the observation’s lack of a hot spot would be consistent with little water vapor feedback.
UAH Global Temperature Update for May 2013: +0.07 deg. C
Our Version 5.5 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for May, 2013 is +0.07 deg. C, down a little from +0.10 deg. C in April (click for large version):
YR MON GLOBAL NH SH TROPICS
The anomalies are computed relative to only 2003 to 2006 because those years were relatively free of El Nino and La Nina activity, which if included would cause temperature anomaly artifacts in other years. Thus, these anomalies cannot be directly compared to, say, the Reynolds anomalies which extend back to the early 1980s. Nevertheless, they should be useful for monitoring signs of recent ocean surface warming, which appears to have stalled since at least the early 2000’s. (For those who also track our lower tropospheric temperature ["LT"] anomalies, these SST anomalies average about 0.20 deg. C cooler than LT since mid-2002, but there is considerable variability in that number). The SST retrievals come from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), and are based upon passive microwave observations of the ocean surface from AMSR-E on NASA’s Aqua satellite, the TRMM satellite Microwave Imager (TMI), and WindSat. While TMI has operated continuously through the time period (but only over the tropics and subtropics), AMSR-E stopped nominal operation in October 2011, after which Remote Sensing Systems patched in SST data from WindSat. These various satellite SST datasets have been carefully intercalibrated by RSS. Despite the relatively short period of record, I consider this dataset to be the most accurate depiction of SST variability over the last 10+ years due to these instruments’ relative insensitivity to contamination by clouds and aerosols at 6.9 GHz and 10.7 GHz. May 31, 2013
In coal country, believers and skeptics spar over warming
Jean Chemnick, E&E Published: Friday, May 31, 2013 Congressional Democrats have pressed their Republican colleagues for three years to hold a hearing on climate change, and yesterday one did in the heart of West Virginia’s coal country. See full coverage here. Dr. John Christy’s testimony in six slides here. Despite having introduced a bill last week that would bar U.S. EPA from promulgating rules that would require the use of carbon capture and storage technology until a panel of officials from outside the agency deemed it to be economically and technologically feasible, Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) hosted yesterday’s climate change forum in a technology park in Fairmont, W.Va. McKinley’s office said “is fascinated by this issue” and read several books on climate change in preparation for the event, including Sen. James Inhofe’s (R-Okla.) “The Greatest Hoax,” which denies that man-made warming exists. “The congressman’s take-away is that the science is still unclear,” said his office. “There needs to be open debate about this in Washington, and both sides need to be represented and simply talk.” The West Virginia venue was chosen because McKinley wanted his constituents to be able to take part in the debate, his staff said. An effort was made to balance the invited guests between those who believe in climate change and those who do not. “Many environmental groups declined to come as they felt it was not worth the discussion to come to W.Va.,” his office said. “But this was about bringing the debate to the citizens of West Virginia to hear both sides.” Participants estimated the crowd at 70 people or fewer and said it appeared to be equally divided between skeptics and climate science believers. The discussion lasted more than three hours. The diverse group of experts McKinley invited to the West Virginia High Technology Consortium included many of the same people Republicans frequently call to Capitol Hill to discuss the issue: contrarian scientists who say human emissions aren’t driving climate change, like atmospheric sciences professor John Christy of the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and skeptic activists like former Inhofe aide Marc Morano and Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. But the panel also included mainstream researchers who are among the (alleged - greatly exaggerated) 97 percent of scientists who agree that human emissions are driving climate change, according to a recent analysis of scientific papers.
These included Colorado State University atmospheric scientist Scott Denning and Jim Hurrell, director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s Earth System Laboratory.
“He made a few comments that did lift my spirits, and I thought, maybe he is really serious about trying to think about ways to deal with climate change,” said Joe Casola, senior scientist for the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. He said McKinley, who is an engineer by training, asked several times what it might take for the United States to bring its emissions under control, something Casola called “a constructive beginning.” But Casola said that if McKinley’s purpose in holding the hearing was to get a genuine read on the effect fossil fuel use is having on climate, he should have stocked his panel with mainstream scientists rather than skeptics whom he said frequently steered the discussion toward other topics, like preindustrial climate fluctuations. Annie Petsonk of the Environmental Defense Fund, who also took part in the discussion, said she, too, was impressed with what she saw as McKinley’s genuine interest in climate change science and in how it might affect the Mountain State’s economy. “He is clearly concerned about the issue of diversifying West Virginia’s economic base, which he should be,” Petsonk said. A major focus of the congressman’s remarks was how to keep technology research in West Virginia after Morgantown’s National Energy Technology Laboratory saw its budget hit by sequestration.
While McKinley’s office said West Virginia’s iconic coal mining industry would continue to grow, it pointed out that lower-emissions natural gas is also an important economic sector.
Climate skeptics, too, praised the event, saying it allowed them to make their case that human emissions are not having a significant effect on warming and that efforts to rein them in are unnecessary. Morano called the event “refreshing.” “When actual debate occurs like we saw at the hearing, we see just how much of man-made climate fears are based on ‘projections,’ ‘predictions’ and ‘maybes,’” Morano said. He pointed out that scientists on the panel did not agree on several key points.
“Team global warming had a scientific civil war going on during the debate about whether there was a current global warming signal in our global average [temperatures] or even weather,” he said. See Morano’s written testimony here.
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