Several eastern US states are planning major investments in offshore wind. Wind turbines are touted as clean, green, and economically sound. But experience from around the world shows that offshore wind systems are both expensive and at high risk for early system degradation.
The governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia have signed executive orders or passed laws to procure offshore wind systems valued at billions of dollars. Officials are eager to win leadership in what is perceived to be a new growth industry. The US Department of Energy has funded over $200 million in offshore wind research since 2011.
Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker signed a law in 2016 requiring utilities to purchase 1,600 megawatts of electricity from offshore wind systems over the next 10 years. The law requires that wind systems be “cost effective to electric ratepayers.” But history shows that costs are likely to be far above the New England wholesale market price of 5 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Massachusetts paid solar generators a subsidy of 25 cents per kilowatt-hour during the state’s solar build-out in 2013. Rhode Island’s Block Island wind system, the first offshore system in the United States, now receives over 27 cents per kW-hr, with an annual guaranteed rate increase of an additional 3.5 cents per kW-hr. New England residents must enjoy paying renewable generators more than six times the market price for electricity.
In May of last year, Maryland’s Public Service Commission (PSC) approved electricity-rate increases to fund two wind projects east of the Ocean City shoreline. Maryland’s residents will pay an additional $2 billion over 20 years in increased electricity rates to support the projects. The Maryland PSC claims the systems will create jobs and spur economic growth, but analysis shows that rate payers will pay $200,000 for each of the estimated 9,700 jobs created.
Also in 2017, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced approval of the South Fork Wind Farm off the coast of Long Island, stating “This project will not only provide a new reliable source of clean energy, but will also create high-paying jobs, continue our efforts to combat climate change and help preserve our environment for current and future generations of New Yorkers.”
But are offshore wind systems reliable? Ocean-located turbines face one of the harshest environments on Earth. Turbines are battered by wind and waves, struck by lightning, and need to endure salt spray that is very corrosive to man-made structures.
In February, it was reported that Danish wind operator Orsted must repair more than 600 wind turbines due to early blade failure. The blades are to be disassembled and brought to shore for repair after only five years of operation, at a cost on the order of $100 million.
Then in March, it was announced that wind turbines at the 175-turbine London Array, the world’s largest offshore wind system, would also need major repairs after only five years of use. Few offshore systems have made it to the end their specified 25-year lifetimes without a major overhaul.
Wind turbines sited off the eastern US coast must survive brutal weather compared to offshore turbines in Europe. From March 1 to March 22 of this year, four powerful extratropical cyclones, called nor’easters, battered our east coast from Virginia to Maine. These storms produced ocean storm surges, large snowfalls, wind gusts of up to 100 miles per hour, and even 20 tornados.
Specifications call for wind systems to withstand gusts up to 156 miles per hour, but this isn’t good enough for some of our Atlantic hurricanes. Last September, hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico with Category 4-strength winds and destroyed many of the wind turbines on the island.
Strong hurricanes occasionally collide with our eastern coastal states. The Great New England Hurricane of 1938 brought Category 3 winds to New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. The Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944 delivered Category 2 winds along the coast from North Carolina to Maine. Hurricane Carol in 1954 and Hurricane Gloria in 1985 brought Category 3 winds to the shores of the wind system-promoting states.
Finally, the Norfolk and Long Island Hurricane of 1821 passed through most of the proposed wind turbine sites with up to Category 4 wind strength. The expensive wind systems planned by Atlantic States could all be destroyed by a single well-placed hurricane.
Offshore wind turbines are expensive, prone to early degradation, and in the case of the US East Coast, at risk in the path of strong hurricanes. State officials should reconsider their plans for offshore wind systems.
Steve Goreham is a speaker on the environment, business, and public policy and author of the book Outside the Green Box: Rethinking Sustainable Development.
A new study suggests those skeptical about climate change and climate alarmism behave in more climate-friendly ways than do those who are very concerned about the issue.
University of Michigan psychology graduate student Michael Hall’s study looked at 600 Americans who “regularly reported their climate change beliefs, pro-environmental behavior, and other climate-change related measures.”
The results, published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, divided subjects into three categories: the “Skeptical,” the “Cautiously Worried,” and the “Highly Concerned.” As you might expect, the “Skeptical” were most opposed to government climate policies; however, they were also “most likely to report engaging in individual-level pro-environmental behaviors” (emphasis added).
On the other hand, the “Highly Concerned,” while very supportive of government action on climate, were the least likely to behave in eco-friendly ways.
Does this surprise anyone?
Pacific Standard has more:
On seven occasions- roughly once every eight weeks -participants revealed their climate change beliefs, and their level of support for policies such as gasoline taxes and fuel economy standards.
They also noted how frequently they engaged in four environmentally friendly behaviors: recycling, using public transportation, buying “green” products, and using reusable shopping bags.
While policy preferences of group members tracked with their beliefs, their behaviors largely did not: Skeptics reported using public transportation, buying eco-friendly products, and using reusable bags more often than those in the other two categories.
This pattern was found consistently through the year, leading the researchers to conclude that “belief in climate change does not appear to be a necessary or sufficient condition for pro-environmental behavior.”
Hall and his colleagues can only speculate about the reasons for their results. But regarding the concerned but inactive, the psychological phenomenon known as moral licensing is a likely culprit.
That “moral licensing” certainly sounds like an inconvenient truth regarding the best known climate alarmist, former veep Al Gore. His mansion reportedly uses 21.3 times more kilowatt hours than the average US household - “including 66,159 kWh just to heat his swimming pool [for a year] - but his camp counters with the following:
“[Gore] leads a carbon neutral life by purchasing green energy, reducing carbon impacts and offsetting any emissions that cannot be avoided, all within the constraints of an economy that still relies too heavily on dirty fossil fuels,” said Betsy McManus, Gore’s director of communications.
She just didn’t respond, however, when asked what those offsets are.
Below are a series of rebuttals of typical climate alarmists’ claims such as those made in the recently released Fourth National Climate Assessment Report. The authors of these rebuttals are all recognized experts in the relevant scientific fields. The rebuttals demonstrate the falsity of EPA’s claims merely by citing the most credible empirical data on the topic. For each alarmist claim, a summary of the relevant rebuttal is provided along with a link to the full text of the rebuttal which includes the names and the credentials of the authors of each rebuttal.
Claim: Heat Waves are increasing at an alarming rate and heat kills.
Summary of Rebuttal
There has been no detectable long-term increase in heat waves in the United States or elsewhere in the world. Most all-time record highs here in the U.S. happened many years ago, long before mankind was using much fossil fuel. Thirty-eight states set their all-time record highs before 1960 (23 in the 1930s!). Here in the United States, the number of 100F, 95F and 90F days per year has been steadily declining since the 1930s. The Environmental Protection Agency Heat Wave Index confirms the 1930s as the hottest decade. James Hansen while at NASA in 1999 said about the U.S. temperature record “In the U.S. the warmest decade was the 1930s and the warmest year was 1934”. When NASA was challenged on the declining heat records in the U.S, the reply was that the U.S. is just 2% of the world. However, all 8 continents recorded their all-time record highs before 1980. Interestingly while the media gives a great deal of coverage to even minor heat waves to support the case that man-made global warming is occurring, the media tends to ignore deadly cold waves. But in actual fact worldwide cold kills 20 times as many people as heat. This is documented in the “Excess Winter Mortality” which shows that the number of deaths in the 4 coldest winter months is much higher than the other 8 months of the year. The USA death rate in January and February is more than 1000 deaths per day greater than in it is July and August. Clearly, there is no problem with increased heat waves due to Climate Change.
Detailed Rebuttal and Authors: EF_RRT_AC - Heat Waves
Claim: Global warming is causing more hurricanes and stronger hurricanes.
Summary of Rebuttal
There has been no detectable long-term trend in the number and intensity of hurricane activity globally. The activity does vary year to year and over multidecadal periods as ocean cycles including El Nino/La Nina, multidecadal cycles in the Pacific (PDO) and Atlantic (AMO) favor some basins over others. The trend in landfalling storms in the United States has been flat to down since the 1850s. Before the active hurricane season in the United States in 2017, there had been a lull of 4324 days (almost 12 years) in major hurricane landfalls, the longest lull since the 1860s.
Harvey was the first hurricane to make landfall in Texas since Ike in 2008 and the first Category 4 hurricane in Texas since Hurricane Carla in 1961. There has been a downtrend in Texas of both hurricanes and major hurricanes. Texas is an area where Gulf Tropical Storms and hurricanes often stall for days, and 6 of the heaviest tropical rainfall events for the U.S. have occurred in Texas. Harvey’s rains were comparable to many of these events. Claudette in 1979 had an unofficial rainfall total greater than in Harvey. In Florida, where Irma hit as a category 4 on the Keys, it came after a record 4339 days (just short of 12 years) without a landfalling hurricane. The previous record lull was in the 1860s (8 years). There has been no trend in hurricane intensity or landfalling frequency since at least 1900.
Detailed Rebuttal and Authors: EF_RRT_AC - Hurricanes
Claim: Global warming is causing more and stronger tornadoes.
Summary of Rebuttal
Tornadoes are failing to follow “global warming” predictions. Big tornadoes have seen a decline in frequency since the 1950s. The years 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 all saw below average to near record low tornado counts in the U.S. since records began in 1954. 2017 rebounded only to the long-term mean. This lull followed a very active and deadly strong La Nina of 2010/11, which like the strong La Nina of 1973/74 produced record setting and very deadly outbreaks of tornadoes. Population growth and expansion outside urban areas have exposed more people to the tornadoes that once roamed through open fields. Tornado detection has improved with the addition of NEXRAD, the growth of the trained spotter networks, storm chasers armed with cellular data and imagery and the proliferation of cell phone cameras and social media. This shows up most in the weak EF0 tornado count but for storms from moderate EF1 to strong EF 3+ intensity, the trend has been flat to down despite improved detection.
Detailed Rebuttal and Authors: EF_RRT_CA - Tornadoes
Claim: Global warming is increasing the magnitude and frequency of droughts and floods.
Summary of Rebuttal
Our use of fossil fuels to power our civilization is not causing droughts or floods. NOAA found there is no evidence that floods and droughts are increasing because of climate change. The number, extend or severity of these events does increase dramatically for a brief period of years at some locations from time to time but then conditions return to more normal. This is simply the long-established constant variation of weather resulting from a confluence of natural factors. In testimony before Congress Professor Roger Pielke, Jr. said: “It is misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally. Droughts have, for the most part, become shorter, less frequent, and cover a smaller portion of the U.S. over the last century.” “The good news is U.S. flood damage is sharply down over 70 years,” Roger Pielke Jr. said. “Remember, disasters can happen any time....”. But it is also good to understand long-term trends based on data, not hype.”
Detailed Rebuttal and Authors: EF_RRT_AC - Droughts and Floods
Claim: Global Warming has increased U.S. Wildfires.
Summary of Rebuttal
Wildfires are in the news almost every late summer and fall. The National Interagency Fire Center has recorded the number of fires and acreage affected since 1985. This data show the number of fires trending down slightly, though the acreage burned had increased before leveling off over the last 20 years. The NWS tracks the number of days where conditions are conducive to wildfires when they issue red-flag warnings. It is little changed. 2017 was an active fire year in the U.S. but my no means a record. The U.S. had 64,610 fires, the 7th most since in 11 years and the most since 2012. The 9,574, 533 acres burned was the 4th most in 11 years and most since 2015. The fires burned in the Northwest including Montana with a very dry summer then the action shifted south seasonally with the seasonal start of the wind events like Diablo in northern California and Santa Ana to the south. Fires spread to northern California in October with an episode of the dry Diablo wind that blows from the east and then in December as strong and persistent Santa Ana winds and dry air triggered a round of large fires in Ventura County. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection the 2017 California wildfire season was the most destructive one on record with a total of 8,987 fires that burned 1,241,158 acres. It included five of the 20 most destructive wildland-urban interface fires in the state’s history. When it comes to considering the number of deaths and structures destroyed, the seven-fold increase in population in California from 1930 to 2017 must be noted. Not only does this increase in population mean more people and home structures in the path of fires, but it also means more fires. Lightning and campfires caused most historic fires; today most are the result of power lines igniting trees. The power lines have increased proportionately with the population, so it can be reasoned that most of the damage from wild fires in California is a result of increased population not Global Warming. The increased danger is also greatly aggravated by poor government forest management choices.
Detailed Rebuttal and Authors: EF_RRT_AC - Wildfires
Claim: Global warming is causing snow to disappear.
Summary of Rebuttal
This is one claim that has been repeated for decades even as nature showed very much the opposite trend with unprecedented snows even to the big coastal cities. Every time they repeated the claim, it seems nature upped the ante more. Alarmists have eventually evolved to crediting warming with producing greater snowfall, because of increased moisture but the snow events in recent years have usually occurred in colder winters with high snow water equivalent ratios in frigid arctic air. Snowcover in the Northern Hemisphere, North America and Eurasia has been increasing since the 1960s in the fall and winter but declining in the spring. However, as NOAA advised might be the case, snowcover measurement methodology changes at the turn of this century may be responsible for part of the warm season differences.
Detailed Rebuttal and Authors: EF_RRT_CA - Snow
Claim: Global warming is resulting in rising sea levels as seen in both tide gauge and satellite technology.
Summary of Rebuttal
This claim is demonstrably false. It really hinges on this statement: “Tide gauges and satellites agree with the model projections.” The models project a rapid acceleration of sea level rise over the next 30 to 70 years. However, while the models may project acceleration, the tide gauges clearly do not. All data from tide gauges in areas where land is not rising or sinking show instead a steady linear and unchanging sea level rate of rise from 4 up to 6 inches/century, with variations due to gravitational factors. It is true that where the land is sinking as it is in the Tidewater area of Virginia and the Mississippi Delta region, sea levels will appear to rise faster but no changes in CO2 production would change that. The implication that measured, validated, and verified Tide Gauge data support this conclusion remains simply false. All such references rely on “semi-empirical” information, which merges, concatenates, combines, and joins, actual tide gauge data with various models of the reference author’s choosing. Nowhere on this planet can a tide gauge be found, that shows even half of the claimed 3.3 mm Sea level rise rate in “Tectonically Inert” coastal zones. These are areas that lie between regions of geological uplift and subsidence. They are essentially neutral with respect to vertical land motion, and tide gauges located therein show between 1 mm/yr (3.9 inches/century) and 1.5 mm/yr (6 inches/century rise). The great Swedish Oceanographer, Nils-Axel Morner, has commented on this extensively, and his latest papers confirm this ‘inconvenient truth. Further, alarmist claims that “Satellites agree with the model projection” are false. Satellite technology was introduced to provide more objective measurement of the sea level rise because properly adjusted tide gauge data was not fitting Alarmists’ claims. However, the new satellite and radar altimeter data lacked the resolution to accurately measure sea levels down to the mm level. Moreover, the raw data from this technology also conflicted with Alarmists’ claims. As a result, adjustments to this data were also made - most notably a Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA). GIA assumes that basically all land is rebounding from long ago glaciations and oceanic basins are deepening. The assumption is that this rebounding is masking the true sea level rise. Alarmists continue to proclaim that their models project a rapid acceleration of sea level rise over the next 30 to 70 years, when those same models have failed to even come close to accurately measuring the past 25 years.
Detailed Rebuttal and Authors: EF_RRT_CA - Sea Level
Claim: Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland ice loss is accelerating due to global warming.
Summary of Rebuttal
Satellite and surface temperature records and sea surface temperatures show that both the East Antarctic Ice Sheet and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet are cooling, not warming and glacial ice is increasing, not melting. Satellite and surface temperature measurements of the southern polar area show no warming over the past 37 years. Growth of the Antarctic ice sheets means sea level rise is not being caused by melting of polar ice and, in fact, is slightly lowering the rate of rise. Satellite Antarctic temperature records show 0.02C/decade cooling since 1979. The Southern Ocean around Antarctica has been getting sharply colder since 2006. Antarctic sea ice is increasing, reaching all-time highs. Surface temperatures at 13 stations show the Antarctic Peninsula has been sharply cooling since 2000. The Arctic includes the Arctic Ocean, Greenland, Iceland, and part of Siberia and northern Alaska. Because of the absence of any land mass in the Arctic Ocean, most of area lacks glaciers, which require a land mass. Thus, most of the Arctic contains only floating sea ice. Greenland, Iceland, northern Alaska, and northern Siberia contain the only glaciers in the general Arctic region. Arctic temperature records show that the 1920s and 1930s were warmer than 2000. Records of historic fluctuations of Arctic sea ice go back only to the first satellite images in 1979. That happens to coincide with the end of the 1945-1977 global cold period and the maximum extent of Arctic sea ice. During the warm period from 1978 until recently, the extent of sea ice has diminished, but increased in the past several years. The Greenland ice sheet has also grown recently.
Detailed Rebuttal and Authors: EF_RRT_AC - Arctic, Antarctic, Greenland 123117
Claim: Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations are causing ocean acidification, which is catastrophically harming marine life.
Summary of Rebuttal
As the airs CO2 content rises in response to ever-increasing anthropogenic CO2 emissions, more and more carbon dioxide is expected to dissolve into the surface waters of the world’s oceans, which dissolution is projected to cause a 0.3 to 0.7 pH unit decline in the planet’s oceanic waters by the year 2300. A potential pH reduction of this magnitude has provoked concern and led to predictions that, if it occurs, marine life will be severely harmed - with some species potentially driven to extinction - as they experience negative impacts in growth, development, fertility and survival. This ocean acidification hypothesis, as it has come to be known, has gained great momentum in recent years, because it offers a second independent reason to regulate fossil fuel emissions in addition to that provided by concerns over traditional global warming. For even if the models are proven to be wrong with respect to their predictions of atmospheric warming, extreme weather, glacial melt, sea level rise, or any other attendant catastrophe, those who seek to regulate and reduce CO2 emissions have a fall-back position, claiming that no matter what happens to the climate, the nations of the Earth must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions because of projected direct negative impacts on marine organisms via ocean acidification.The ocean chemistry aspect of the ocean acidification hypothesis is rather straightforward, but it is not as solid as it is often claimed to be. For one thing, the work of a number of respected scientists suggests that the drop in oceanic pH will not be nearly as great as the IPCC and others predict. And, as with all phenomena involving living organisms, the introduction of life into the analysis greatly complicates things. When a number of interrelated biological phenomena are considered, it becomes much more difficult, if not impossible, to draw such sweeping negative conclusions about the reaction of marine organisms to ocean acidification. Quite to the contrary, when life is considered, ocean acidification is often found to be a non-problem, or even a benefit. And in this regard, numerous scientific studies have demonstrated the robustness of multiple marine plant and animal species to ocean acidification - when they are properly performed under realistic experimental conditions.
Detailed Rebuttal and Author: EF_RRT_CA - Ocean pH
Claim: Carbon pollution is a health hazard.
Summary of Rebuttal
The term “carbon pollution” is a deliberate, ambiguous, disingenuous term, designed to mislead people into thinking carbon dioxide is pollution. It is used by the environmentalists to confuse the environmental impacts of CO2 emissions with the impact of the emissions of unwanted waste products of combustion. The burning of carbon-based fuels (fossil fuels - coal, oil, natural gas - and biofuels and biomass) converts the carbon in the fuels to carbon dioxide (CO2), which is an odorless invisible gas that is plant food and it is essential to life on the planet. Because the burning of the fuel is never 100% efficient, trace amounts of pollutants including unburnt carbon are produced in the form of fine particulates (soot), hydrocarbon gases and carbon monoxide. In addition, trace amounts of sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and other pollutant constituents can be produced. In the US, all mobile and industrial stationary combustion sources must have emission control systems that remove the particulates and gaseous pollutants so that the emissions are in compliance with EPA’s emission standards. The ambient air pollutant concentrations have been decreasing for decades and are going to keep decreasing for the foreseeable future because of existing non-GHG-related regulations.
Detailed Rebuttal and Authors: EF_RRT_AC - Health
Conclusion
The well-documented invalidation of the “three lines of evidence” upon which EPA attributes global warming to human-caused CO2 emissions breaks the causal link between such emissions and global warming. {See here and here).
This in turn necessarily breaks the causal chain between CO2 emissions and the alleged knock-on effects of global warming, such as loss of Arctic ice, increased sea level, and increased heat waves, floods, droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. These alleged downstream effects are constantly cited to whip up alarm and create demands for ever tighter CO2 regulation. EPA explicitly relied on predicted increases in such events to justify the Endangerment Finding. But as shown above, there is no evidence to support such claims, and copious empirical evidence that refutes them. The enormous cost and essentially limitless scope of the government’s regulatory authority over GHG/CO2 emissions cannot lawfully rest upon a collection of scary stories that are conclusively disproven by readily available empirical data.The legal criteria for reconsidering the Endangerment Finding are clearly present in this case. The scientific foundation of the Endangerment Finding has been invalidated. The parade of horrible calamities that the Endangerment Finding predicts and that a vast program of regulation seeks to prevent have been comprehensively and conclusively refuted by empirical data. The Petition for Reconsideration should be granted.
On January 4 NTZ weekly contributor Kenneth Richard published a list of 485 papers dumping cold water on climate alarmism in 2017.
Looking through the list I find published papers showing that snowfall frequency has in fact increased over the the past 60 years!
Blizzard activity jumps fourfold
For example a paper by Coleman and Schwartz, 2017 revealed 713 blizzards over the 55 years with 57 federal disaster declarations resulting. Of these 57 declared disasters, more than a half have occurred since the year 2000.
The published scientific study also founds that “seasonal blizzard frequencies displayed a distinct upward trend, with a more substantial rise over the past two decades”.
It adds that the modeled increase in blizzard activity showed a “nearly fourfold upsurge between the start and end of the study period at 5.9 and 21.6 blizzards, respectively”. If the trend continues, then we would need to expect even more such blizzards.
In a another publication, Changnon, 2017 evaluated heavy 30-day snowfall amounts east of the Rockies in the United States during the period 1900-2016. The comprehensive data assessment identified 507 stations in this long-term climate study.
The author examined the top 30-day heavy snowfall amount and the average of the top five 30-day heavy snowfall amounts. The findings also surprised global warming scientists who warned earlier that snowfall would become less frequent as the globe warmed. The publications abstract reads:
The northern Great Plains, Great Lakes, Midwest, and Northeast experienced more top five periods [more snow] in the second half of the 117-year period [1958-2016], where most of the southern states experienced top five periods throughout the study period.”
Finally a study conducted by Hatchett et al., 2017 found a “winter snow level rise in the northern Sierra Nevada from 2008 to 2017”. Sea surface temperatures offshore California were observed to be related to snow cover.
I’d like a reference of who exactly was surprised by this. Is that available? A cold location would of course receive more snow with increasing humidity despite increasing temperatures. That seems to be pretty straight forward, doesn’t it? A location that barely reaches temperatures low enough for snow (let’s say, has only a few days of snow per year), would stop experiencing snow with increasing temperatures. That seems pretty straight forward too. So who was surprised?
Kenneth Richard Reply
IPCC TAR (2001): “Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms”
Kunkel et al., 2002: “Surface conditions favorable for heavy lake-effect snow decreased in frequency by 50% and 90% for the HadCM2 and CGCM1 [models], respectively, by the late 21st Century. This reduction [according to models] was due almost entirely to… an increase in average winter air temperatures.”
IPCC AR4 (2007): “Snow season length and snow depth are very likely to decrease in most of North America”
Kapnick and Delworth, 2013: “In response to idealized radiative forcing changes, both models produce similar global-scale responses in which global-mean temperature and total precipitation increase while snowfall decreases… By using a simple multivariate model, temperature is shown to drive these trends by decreasing snowfall almost everywhere” (press release) “In North America, the greatest reductions in snowfall will occur along the northeast coast, in the mountainous west, and in the Pacific Northwest. Coastal regions from Virginia to Maine…
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ICECAP NOTE:
Pierre etal are exactly right. The Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale (NESIS) developed by Paul Kocin and Louis Uccellini of the National Weather Service (Kocin and Uccellini, 2004) characterizes and ranks high-impact Northeast snowstorms. These storms have large areas of 10 inch snowfall accumulations and greater. NESIS has five categories: Extreme, Crippling, Major, Significant, and Notable. Three more NESIS storms occurred this winter bringing the total since the mid 1950s to 62.
Boston which is a coastal city was said to be the likely first to see reduced snowfall according to government climate assessments because of the proximity to the ocean. Paradoxically, Boston 10 year running mean for snowfall has rising to new heights.
Alarmists run quickly to the idea that warmer winters and warmer air which can hold more moisture mean more snow, forgetting their rationale that the coastal cities are often on the border between rain and snow and even slight warming would tip the scales to rain. Reality is the snows are occurring in colder winters and colder periods within.
Mr. Morner, you have recently visited the Fiji islands in South Pacific several times in order to research changes on the coasts and sea levels. Why Fiji?
Nils-Axel Morner: I knew there would be a science conference in New York in June 2017 that focused on sea level changes in Fiji. In addition, it was known that the island nation would chair the 23rd World Climate Conference, which took place last November in Bonn. Thus, Fiji moved into the focus of interest. It was said that the rising sea level had done a lot of damage there. I wanted to check with my own eyes if that is true.
What made you skeptical?
I have been researching sea-level changes my entire life, traveling to 59 countries. Hardly any other researcher has so much experience in this field. However, the IPCC has always misrepresented the facts on this topic. It exaggerates the risks of a sea level rise enormously. The IPCC relies in particular on questionable computer models rather than field research. However, I always want to know what is going on. That is why I went to Fiji.
However, according to ProClim, the Swiss climate research platform, there are a series of measurements in Fiji that show a sharp rise in sea level in recent decades. Specifically, the sea level has increased by 5.4 millimeters annually since 1990, which is twice as much as the global average.
Yes, I know these measurements. These are two series of tide heights, that is, water levels at low tide and high tide. We checked these data with the result that they are of very poor quality. One series has been influenced by the fact that port facilities were built on loose sediment soil near the measuring station, which could have changed tidal heights. For the other series, the measuring station was even moved. The researchers who rely on such data are office workers. They are not specialized in coastal dynamics processes and sea level changes. Many of them have no idea of the real conditions.
How did you go about getting better data?
On the one hand, we have been following the given examples, where sea level rise is said to have led to coastal erosion. The result was that erosion has been caused by human intervention - such as new coastal structures altering water currents or increased harvests of sea cucumbers, which could have destabilized the seabed. To prove sea level changes over the past 500 years, we have dated sand deposits to see when they came into being. In addition, we have researched the spread of coral in recent centuries. Typically, coral reefs grow in height when sea levels rise and in width when they remain constant. If the level drops, corals die off. Corals do not lie; they are a reliable indicator - much more reliable than tidal measurements.
What was the result?
We were able to prove that the sea level in Fiji from 1550 to about 1700 was about seventy centimeters higher than it is today. Then it sank and was about fifty centimeters lower in the 18th century than it is today. Then it rose to about the current level. In the last 200 years, the level has not changed significantly. For the past 50 to 70 years, it has been stable.
Were you surprised?
Not really. It was not the first time that the claims of the IPCC turned out to be wrong.
Fiji is only a single archipelago. Maybe the situation is different in other places.
There are also data from many other places in the world. These by no means confirm the picture that the IPCC draws. In some places, the sea level is indeed rising, but in other places, it is stable, and elsewhere it is even dropping. For example, sea levels are constant in the Indian Ocean and on the Atlantic coast of South America. On South Pacific islands such as Tuvalu and Kiribati measurements do not confirm the constant warnings about the sinking of these archipelagos. The sea certainly erodes the shores here and there, but islands grow elsewhere as well. It has always been like this.
Why do many climate researchers warn then about sinking islands?
Because they have a political agenda. They are biased towards the interpretation that man is causing climate change, and that it is a threat. The IPCC was founded with the purpose of prove man-made climate change and to warn against it. His goal was thus fixed from the beginning. It sticks to it like a dogma - no matter what the facts are. As a specialist in sea level developments, I have consistently found in recent years that the IPCC team does not include a single expert on this issue.
Is there no problem with the rise of the sea level at all?
No.
No danger that islands could sink?
The doomsday scenarios usually refer to the year 2100. I estimate that the sea level will then rise by five centimeters on average, with an uncertainty of 15 centimeters. The change might go from plus 20 centimeters to minus 10 centimeters. This is not a threat. Anyone who claims that there will be a threat of an increase of one meter or so has no idea of physics.
However, a lot of meltwater from glaciers and ice shields flows into the sea.
Much less than you think. In Antarctica, no ice melts in total. When ice melts in the Arctic, it does not change the sea level - because floating ice does not affect the water level when melting according to the laws of physics. In essence, only melting ice on Greenland contributes to a level increase. However, this amount is small.
Seawater heats up and expands, increasing sea level.
That is true, but only by a few centimeters, not by decimeters or even meters. There are much more important influences, which affect the sea level, especially solar activity. There are also significant horizontal water shifts, from one ocean to another. Like the data in Fiji, those of the Maldives also show that levels were clearly higher in the 17th century than they are today. Significantly, this was the time when it was cold on the northern hemisphere; this period is called the Little Ice Age. At that time solar activity was lower than today. It was the big solar minimum. It seems that low solar activity is associated with high sea levels in the tropics - and vice versa. The sea levels seem to depend mainly on the oscillation of solar cycles and hardly on melting ice.
You are among the most distinguished critics of the IPCC. Why have you distanced yourself from the warnings of manmade climate change?
In 1991, I gave a scientific presentation at a conference on sea level changes in the U.S. The representative of the IPCC present there responded with great anger to my point of view. This reaction surprised me. Because in science circles, it is usual that you listen to each other and debate about different points of view. Later, I noticed more and more that the IPCC was disseminating false information and adhered to obvious mistakes. I then published a paper on the influence of the sun on the sea level, which was supported by 19 recognized experts. However, the IPCC attacked the paper with outrageous claims and caused the scientific journal, in which it was published, to be discontinued.
So do they want to stop you?
They cannot stop me. I have published about 650 scientific papers to date. However, young colleagues, who think critically, have no chance given these kind of manipulations. In principle, most editors of science magazines no longer accept papers that are contrary to the IPCC’s claims, regardless of the quality of the papers.
However, 97 percent of climate researchers are convinced that global warming is man-made?
This is nonsense. This number is based on dubious polls. In fact, the majority of researchers reject the claims made by the IPCC, depending on the field between 50 and 80 percent. Only meteorologists agree almost 100 percent with the IPCC. However, these people are financially dependent on the IPCC.
However, doesn’t it make sense to reduce the CO2 in principle?
Why? It is obvious that CO2 is not the main driver of temperatures. It is noteworthy that the IPCC itself has repeatedly reduced the warming trend in recent years. If a temperature increase of only 1.5 degrees Celsius is to be expected, that is not important.
Why do we hear so many warnings about climate change then?
Some people have exposed themselves heavily with their claims and obviously cannot go back now. In addition, public research money flows almost exclusively to climate alarmists. We are dealing here with a quasi-religious movement that claims to protect the environment. The fight against global warming is now set against the fight to alleviate poverty.
Which would be the right priorities?
It would be important to protect people from natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. In addition, 25,000 people die every day because they have no access to clean drinking water. The food supply is often just as catastrophic. However, Nigeria, for example, is discouraged from using coal and thus from advancing economic development and prosperity that would reduce hunger and poverty. There are today efficient technologies to filter out air pollutants in coal use. Effectively, the fight against climate change harms people very much.
What will happen next?
Solar activity is expected to decrease over the next few decades and there will be cooling as a result. By then it will probably become clear how wrong the warnings of global warming are.
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