Frozen in Time
Oct 24, 2019
Nature Magazine’s decline/Alarmists long history of failure

Peer review is being exposed in medical journals (see this) and is starting to be exposed in scientific ones (it has been what we call pal review for years). Recently a paper that was highly touted in the media was withdrawn without any media coverage by Nature.  It is an example of the corruption of environmental journalism as shown here.

Also see Americans being Misled by the climate change cabal of Cook, Oreskes, Lewandowsky and Maibach by David Middleton here. See more on Oreskes here and many more here.

Stanford’s Paul Ehrlich sketched out his most alarmist scenario for the 1970 Earth Day issue of The Progressive, assuring readers that between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the “Great Die-Off.”

See how CEI, AIE and Mark Perry UMich and Carpe Diem showed the alarmist/media record is perfect (100% wrong) in the 50 major claims made since 1950 here.

Here is another example of one that should be, of course jumped on by house democrats all too anxious to impose a Green New Deal.

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WE COULD HAVE A HUGE PERMAFROST PROBLEM:

A new report - published Monday in the scientific journal Nature - finds melting permafrost in the Arctic could actually be putting more carbon into the air than it is storing as a carbon sink. And the accelerated melting of that frozen ground in the winter could lead to an additional 27 billion tons of carbon emissions through 2100, equal to the emissions from 260 million cars each year.

What’s more is those numbers aren’t yet accounted for in global carbon budgets at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and elsewhere.

‘There are a lot of surprises that are happening in the Arctic,” Dr. Sue Natali, a researcher with the Woods Hole Research Center (an environmental advocacy group not to be confused with the more credible Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution or WHOI) and an author on the study, told lawmakers in an on-the-record briefing Monday with fellow researcher Jennifer Watts.

“I was working in the Arctic this summer and it was 90 degrees Fahrenheit” Natali added. “The ground was cracking, literally places where you foot was falling through the ground.”

The briefing, hosted by Democratic climate and environment subcommittee chairman Paul Tonko and select climate committee chairwoman Kathy Castor, allowed a rare glimpse into interactions between policymakers and researchers that typically happen behind closed doors.

“The more we learn, the more obvious it becomes that we must make dramatic greenhouse gas reductions as soon as possible,” Tonko said, introducing the briefing.

But translating the science into policy is difficult: Scientists and policymakers in many ways speak different languages about ambition, uncertainty, and political will. There’s not much Natali and Watts could tell Tonko and Castor beyond U.S. climate policy needs to be more aggressive.

“I think we need to ramp up ambition and there’s really no other way,” Natali said. “Sooner is better. Today’s better than tomorrow. Ten years ago would have been even better.”

Tonko said the new science helps make the case for House Energy and Commerce Democrats’ push toward a 2050 goal of a 100% net-zero carbon economy. The committee Democrats announced that vision in June.

The researchers, though, also urged policymakers to fund more long-term climate research. That’s the only way to get rid of scientific uncertainty, Watts said.

“Data is messy, but the more observations that agree, the more model simulations that agree, that gives us more confidence in what we are seeing,” she added.

Reducing scientific uncertainty also means policymakers would be better prepared and less money would be spent trying to avoid the worst effects of climate change, Natali said.

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Dr. Don Easterbrook, a geologist and author and a real expert commented:

There are several major objections to their permafrost opinions about climate:

1. CO2 does not cause significant climate change--the evidence is conclusive (see Easterbrook, 2019). It doesn’t matter how much CO2 is released from permafrost.

2. Historic records show that Arctic temperatures follow the global trend. Temps were higher in the 1930s than at present. Temps recently have been cooler, not warmer.

3. We just entered a Grand Solar Minimum. This has happened 6 times in the last 1000 years and every time resulted in severe cooling. We’re likely to see more, rather than less, permafrost for the next several decades.

Dr. Craig Idso of CO2 Science and Lead author of the voluminous NIPCC series added:

A number of studies refute the initial contention when you include longer timeframes. Upon initial warming, more CO2 is released from melting permafrost. However, upon continued warming, plants begin to grow and sequester carbon. After a handful of years or so, the amount of carbon stored from the new vegetative growth offsets the initial CO2 that was released.  This is a non-problem.

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