See the very detailed flood coverage and commentary on how the media there too claims that the Brazil and Queensland floods and the cold and snow in the Northern Hemisphere are all a product of climate change/disruption from greenhouse gases on the METSUL blog here. Scroll down to see a long story with images and newspaper stories with English commentary.

These days have been complete madness for us. Brazil is facing the worst natural disaster in its history and here in our state we are under a severe drought in some parts and under nearly daily t-storms and flash flooding in the capital city Porto Alegre, where MetSul is based. We manage the city official weather warning system, so these summer heavy downpours became a source of daily concern.

Regarding the catastrophic events in Rio de Janeiro, first of all, this part of Brazil is subject to heavy or extreme rainfall every year, but this time the amount of precipitation was very heavy and in a short period of time, creating an inland tsunami-like torrent.  The tragedy happened in the Sierras of Rio de Janeiro and there was a major topographical forcing to the extreme rainfall. As you know so well, topography can induce extreme precipitation under moisture flow from the ocean. The most affected cities are located between mountains as high as 5 to 6 thousand feet and rivers cross these towns, so the only way the water can take is the valley and the rivers.

The major problem is landslide. For many decades Brazilian authorities allowed construction of homes and buildings in the slopes, so every single year landslides with deaths are recorded in the states of Rio, Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais. In the state of Rio de Janeiro, there is massive occupation of the slopes and the hills, so landslides tend to be much more tragic and tragedies much more frequent.

There are anecdotal and historic accounts of extreme rainfall in the state of Rio de Janeiro since Brazil was a Portuguese colony in the 1600’s and 1700’s, but meteorological records are not available for that period. Great tragedies caused by rain and landslides in Rio de Janeiro began mainly in the second half of the 20th century coinciding with the demographical explosion and the massive and unorganized occupation of the hills. The risky areas of today, where the tragedies of the modern times use to happen almost every year, were not occupied 100 years ago, and for that reason the vast majority of the tragic events concentrate in the last 50 years.

DISASTERS IN RIO DE JANEIRO

April 1756 - Three days of heavy rainfall caused flooding, home collapses and “lots of victims” all over the town - still small - of Rio de Janeiro.

February 1811 - Between February 10th and 17th heavy rains caused a “catastrophe” in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Hills collapsed, the city was flooded and landslides were widespread with a torrent of water and mud invading town. Historical accounts tell of many victims, but there is no official number. The regent prince - designated by Portugal - ordered the churches to be open to serve as shelters.

April 1924 - Heavy flooding and landslided with fatalities.

January 1940 - Flooding and landslides in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Santo Cristo district was the most affected.

January 1942 - Flooding and landslides in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The Salgueiro Hill was the the main disaster area.

January 1962 - Heavy flooding and several landslides in the city of Rio de Janeiro after 242 mm of precipitation during a storm.

January 1966 - The storm of January 2nd, 1966, brought record rainfall to the city of Rio de Janeiro. Flooding and massive landslides caused 250 deaths. Other 70 people died after the storm due to diseases.

January 1967 - Heavy rain and landslides provoked the collapses of buildings in the city of Rio. 200 people died and 300 were injured. 300 people died in the states of Rio de Janeiro and Guanabara (today Guanabara and Rio form the state of Rio de Janeiro).

November 1981 - Landslides in the Sierras of Rio kill 20 people in the city of Teresopolis.

February 1987 - Flooding and landslides kill 292 people. The city of Rio de Janeiro and the Sierras of the state concentrate the damages and the victims.

February 1988 - 277 people died in flooding and landslides in the Baixada Fluminense region and in the city of Petropolis in the Sierras. In the rest of the month hundreds more died in new landslides and flooding. A hospital collapsed, killing 18 people. Damages topped 1 billion dollars.

Summer of 1996 - Dozens of deaths in floding and landslides.

Satellite pictures of the most affected areas by the disaster in Brazil taken in 1975 and 2006 show how land occupation changed in 30 years. This disaster would NEVER have this magnitude in the recent past as valleys and slopes were not occupied in the landslides regions 35 years ago. GO HERE. Roll the bar over the photo and click in thumbs below the main picture to see other comparisons.  Read and see more on the METSUL blog here.

UPDATE: See SPPI compilation from Eschenbach, Motl & McIntyre here. See Donna Laframboise’s excellent post on IPCC Nobel Laureates Lack Scientific Credibility here.

Donna concludes: “To sum up, therefore, a significant number of IPPC insiders believe many of their colleagues possess inferior scientific credentials. They believe these people’s participation in the IPCC is a result of concerns that have nothing to do with science. Instead, they were chosen because they are of the right gender or the right nationality. They were chosen because they are pals with the person who makes such decisions in a particular country. They were chosen because they are considered politically “safe” by their own governments. All of these people - no matter how little they actually contributed to the IPCC process - are now Nobel laureates.

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On January 14, 2011, I reported here that Trenberth’s AMS presentation had lifted text verbatim or near-verbatim from Hasselmann 2010 with no citation in most cases and, in the one case where Hasselmann 2010 was cited, the citation was insufficient under standard academic practices given the lengthy near-quotation. Trenberth’s original presentation is here.

This post has obviously been brought to Trenberth and/or AMS’s attention, as they have deleted the original version of Trenberth’s presentation and replaced it with an amended version, without a change notice.

The amended version picks up most of the problems raised in the previous CA post. Here are the points raised in the CA post and Trenberth’s changes:

Trenberth originally stated:

Scientists make mistakes and often make assumptions that limit the validity of their results. They regularly argue with colleagues who arrive at different conclusions. These debates follow the normal procedure of scientific inquiry.

The amended version:

Hasselmann (2010) further notes that scientists make mistakes and often make assumptions that limit the validity of their results. They regularly argue with colleagues who arrive at different conclusions. These debates follow the normal procedure of scientific inquiry.

Trenberth’s original statement about tactics to use against “deniers”:

It is important that climate scientists learn how to counter the distracting strategies of deniers. Debating them about the science is not an approach that is recommended.

The amended version:

It is important that climate scientists learn how to counter the distracting strategies of deniers (Hasselmann 2010). Debating them about the science is not an approach that is recommended.

Trenberth originally stated:

The main societal motivation of climate scientists is to understand the dynamics of the climate system (both natural and human induced), and to communicate this understanding to the public and governments.

The amended version:

The main societal motivation of climate scientists is to understand the dynamics of the climate system (both natural and human induced), and to communicate this understanding to the public and governments (Hasselmann 2010).

Trenberth did not feel obligated to restate everything that Hasselmann had stated. For example, Trenberth did not repeat Hasselmann’s observation that:

Individually, most climate scientists have the goal of establishing a scientific reputation and, if possible, attaining more public funding for climate research.

Trenberth originally stated:

They [climate scientists] have faith in the scientific method and the efficacy of the established peer-review process in separating verifiable scientific results from baseless assertions.

The amended version:

As Hasselmann (2010) further notes, they have faith in the scientific method and the established peer-review process in separating verifiable scientific results from baseless assertions.

As to the lengthy introductory paragraph which was lifted near-verbatim from Hasselmann, but with no indication that large sections were verbatim: the original Trenberth version was:

Three investigations of the alleged scientific misconduct of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia - one by the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, a second by the Scientific Assessment Panel of the Royal Society, chaired by Lord Oxburgh, and the latest by the Independent Climate Change E-mails Review, chaired by Sir Muir Russell - have confirmed what climate scientists have never seriously doubted: established scientists depend on their credibility and have no motivation in purposely misleading the public and their colleagues. Moreover, they are unlikely to make false claims that other colleagues can readily show to be incorrect. They are also understandably (but inadvisably) reluctant to share complex data sets with non-experts that they perceive as charlatans (Hasselman 2010)

The amended version is:

As noted by Hasselmann (2010), three investigations of the alleged scientific misconduct of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia - by the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee and by the Lord Oxburgh and Sir Muir Russell reviews - have confirmed that established scientists depend on their credibility and have no motivation in purposely misleading the public and their colleagues. Moreover, they are unlikely to make false claims that other colleagues can readily show to be incorrect. They are also understandably (but inadvisably) reluctant to share complex data sets with non-experts that they perceive as charlatans (Hasselman 2010).

Note here that Trenberth removed the absurd Hasselmann characterization of the Oxburgh inquiry that had passed muster with the editors of Nature Geoscience - that it was the “Scientific Assessment Panel of the Royal Society”. A point also raised in comments in the CA post.

Trenberth did not submit a comment to Climate Audit thanking us for enabling him to mitigate the problem prior to the actual formal presentation of his speech or otherwise thank us at the AMS webpage at which the changes were made.

Even as amended, Trenberth’s use of extended near-quotations without quotation marks must surely still be at the edge of acceptable practice, if not over it.

In appraising whether inadequate citation rises to being academic misconduct, it seems to me that one needs to consider whether there is a claim or implied claim of originality and how such incidents are handled in the field. Trenberth’s speech was not the same thing as a master’s thesis. Trenberth had lifted text, but AMS appears to have decided that the situation could be more or less coopered up by providing more citations to Hasselmann; that the inadequacy of the citations did not entail that the entire speech be withdrawn; or that AMS was obliged to file a complaint against Trenberth for academic misconduct.

It’s also interesting what Trenberth chose to change and not to change. Plagiarism is an issue that is uniquely central to the academic world and Trenberth moved quickly to erase any evidence of plagiarism. The non-academic world would be less concerned about plagiarism and more concerned about Trenberth’s use of the offensive term “denier” and whether Trenberth’s Empire Strikes Back attitudes are a useful contribution to the post-Climategate debate. Although Trenberth was also criticized on these counts, Trenberth made no concessions or changes to this aspect of his speech.

In closing, I note that copying of text has been subject to considerable recent attention following the USA Today about Raymond Bradley’s academic misconduct complaint that “text was just lifted verbatim from my book and placed in the Wegman Report”. See CA discussion e.g. here and here - posts which included criticism of the Wegman Report in respect to its citation of Bradley, while, at the same time, observing that the section in question was “boilerplate” description of tree rings and did not affect the statistical report and that Bradley himself had lifted text verbatim from Fritts’ 1976 text on tree rings.

See the firestorm of other posts about Trenberth who has become an embarrassment to NCAR and the AMS here.

See how Trenberth may be the UN’s Gatekeeper to keep peer review publications out of the literature that could harm the UN scientist’s reputation or what is left of that, and much more on Trenberth here.

See also this insightful post on WUWT by Willis Eschenbach, “Unequivocal Equivocation - an open letter to Dr. Trenberth”.

The AMS also gave an award to Hansen who has gone unhinged in his alarmism as reported here.

The AGU is just as corrupted and the National Academy of Sciences under Cicerone has entirely lost its way. The once august group founded by President Lincoln is now a joke. See the Climategate Reloaded emails here from the group as they like the AMS and AGU rent seeking ‘scientists’ talk about winning the communications battle to convince the public that cold is really warm, wet is really dry.

UPDATE: See Pat Michaels discussion of Hansen’s efforts in this new Washington Post article.

The NASA scientist at the heart of the global warming fiasco seems set to stir more controversy after declaring in an op ed piece for The South China Morning Post and a personally published follow-up that American democracy is not competent to deal with global warming, and communist China now represents the world’s “best hope”.

In the op ed piece for the Chinese newspaper, which he entitled Chinese Leadership Needed to Save Humanity (published as The Price of Change) Hansen placed the blame for the vast majority of Co2 emissions supposedly causing global warming on his home country of America, and appealed to China not to follow the same path. Hansen said that China was the world’s “best hope” and called for them to “lead the world through the most dangerous crisis that humanity and nature have ever faced”.

In a follow-up article published on his website Hansen calls Americans “barbarians” and slams American democracy, calling for China to raise tariffs on American-made products until such time as America falls into line.

He recalls with some bitterness how the findings on fuel efficiency that he and his “A-Team” (as he calls it) of crack scientists came up with were held up for years by the democratic and judicial process in the United States:

We “won” the court case, yet appeals stretched the time of action for years. I came away feeling that not only is it nearly impossible to get effective legislation through Congress, but that the special interests can prevent implementation almost interminably. Democracy of the sort intended in 1776 probably could have dealt with climate change, but not the fossil-money - ‘democracy’ that now rules the roost in Washington.

James Hansen, China and the Barbarians.

The declaration that American ‘democracy’ (as he sarcastically refers to it as) cannot cope with climate change, and that the world must look to the Chinese communist dictatorship to “lead” is bound to be controversial.

What is potentially even more controversial is that Hansen goes on to condemn the current democratic system in America as “dysfunctional” as it will not enact the carbon taxes he has been calling for. All is not lost, though, as he advises the Chinese government what to do about Congress in a truly incredible passage in his letter:

However, there is a way around that, which becomes obvious with the realization that an initially modest carbon fee is in China’s own interest. After agreement with other nations, e.g., the European Union, China and these nations could impose rising internal carbon fees. Existing rules of the World Trade Organization would allow collection of a rising border duty on products from all nations that do not have an equivalent internal carbon fee or tax.

The United States then would be forced to make a choice. It could either address its fossil fuel addiction with a rising carbon fee and supportive national investment policies or it could accept continual descent into second-rate and third-rate economic well-being.

My reading of this is that Hansen is advising a foreign, communist dictatorship how to circumvent American democracy and “force” (his word) America into either kow-towing over carbon taxes, or “accepting continual descent”. It is truly breath-taking that a federal employee seems able to get away with such seemingly unpatriotic activity without any reprimand or disciplinary action.

Hansen concludes his remarkable personal advice by expressing his hope that China will be able to find “good barbarians” (i.e. compliant Westerners) to help it “participate in effective policy”. As he observes, the great thing about China is that they are not bound by the inconveniences of democracy, such as elections and accountability and can simply impose decisions by diktat:

I have the impression that Chinese leadership takes a long view, perhaps because of the long history of their culture, in contrast to the West with its short election cycles. At the same time China has the capacity to implement policy decisions rapidly.

Hansen also claimed that if no action was taken, and all fossil fuels were burnt, then sea levels would rise by 75 metres (246 feet).

Read more here.

See the excellent critique of the Hansen and IPCC model forecasts here in ALARMING WARMING? Reality Trumps Dire Predictions here

71 Year USA Cooling Trend for December.
Click here to enlarge it.

23 Winters with NO WARMING! Will this be winter number 24?
Click here to enlarge it.

12 Winters of RAPID COOLING! )(31.5F/century!) Will this be winter number 13?
Click here to enlarge it.

12 Years of Annualized RAPID COOLING!
Click here to enlarge it.

Please! Tell me again who thinks it is a good idea to utterly waste $45 TRILLION in order to pretend we can micromanage climate change. Kyoto has already PROVEN that we can waste all the money we want and we will not even come CLOSE to changing the global temperature in any way which could even be measured.

Furthermore, history tells us that the estimate of $45 TRILLION would balloon into at LEAST a full order of magnitude above that figure.

See the post here. See similar post here.
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Phil Jones Proves ALL IPCC Computer Models are WRONG!

Quoting the U.K. Mail Online: “[Phil Jones, of ClimateGate infamy] said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming”. He also noted the globe had cooled 0.12C (0.22F) from 2002 to 2009.

Click here for the BBC Q&A.

The most overwhelming significance of this admission has been overlooked by EVERYBODY!

The alarmists at NOAA are on record admitting that: “The [computer model] simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends [in global temperatures] for intervals of 15 yr or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.”

That’s it! Game OVER! The AGW Hysteria cult is officially DEAD and BURIED!

According to the very core of the alarmist cabal, the IPCC computer models—the SOLE SOURCE of all the hysterical predictions of climate catastrophe—have been invalidated!

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Yet after scurrying during recent cooling to find more warmth by eliminating UHI adjustments for the US (NOAA) and pretending bad siting did not matter (soon to be shown not to be the case) and NASA pretending it had superior arctic data and taking advantage of record blocking to extrapolate record warm all across the arctic (although Norway on the edge of the arctic had the coldest year since 1941), NOAA and NASA predictably announce 2010 was tied for the warmest year. As David Evans notes “They are cheating”.

“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely to be regarded.” Dwight Eisenhower 1961 Farwell Address to the Nation has indeed proven prescient.

The failure of Britain’s wind farms to produce electricity in the extreme cold will cost billions of pounds, create an economic crisis and lead to blackouts, leading industrialists have warned.

To cover up the ineffectiveness of wind farms the Government will be forced to build emergency back-up power plants, the cost of which will be paid by industry and consumers.

Enlarged here.
Jeremy Nicholson, director of the Energy Intensive Users Group, which represents major companies employing hundreds of thousands of workers in the steel, glass, pottery, paper and chemical industries, said the failure of wind power had profound implications.

Flawed: To cover up the ineffectiveness of wind farms the Government will be forced to build emergency back-up power plants, the cost of which will be paid by industry and consumers. He was speaking after new figures showed that during the latest cold snap wind turbines produced less than two per cent of the nation’s electricity.

Now Mr Nicholson predicts that the Government will encourage power companies to build billions of pounds worth of standby power stations in case of further prolonged wind failures.Last updated at 1:20 AM on 9th January 2011

And the cost of the standby generation will be paid for by industry and households through higher bills - which could double by 2020. Industry regulator Ofgem has already calculated that the cost of achieving sustainable energy targets - set by Brussels but backed by the British Government - will amount to 200 billion pounds, which will mean that annual household fuel bills will double to about 2,400 pounds on average within the next ten years.

In the last quarter ending December 23, wind turbines produced on average 8.6 per cent of our electricity, but the moment the latest bad weather arrived with snow and freezing temperatures, this figure fell to as low as 1.8 per cent.

The slack was immediately taken up by efficient, but dirty, coal-fired power stations and oil-fired plants. ‘What is so worrying is that these sort of figures are not a one off,’ said Mr Nicholson. ‘It was exactly the same last January and February when high pressure brought freezing cold temperatures, snow and no wind.’

In fact last year, the failure of wind power to produce electricity was even more profound. Then, over a few days, the lack of wind meant that only 0.2 per cent of a possible five per cent of the UK’s energy was generated by wind turbines. So little energy was generated then that the National Grid, which is responsible for balancing supply and demand of energy in the UK, was forced to ask its biggest users - industry - to ration supplies.

What really concerns industrial users is that it is Government policy to put wind power at the centre of its efforts to ensure that 30 per cent of electricity is generated by renewable resources by 2020. This means that the number of turbines now running - 3,140 - will have to be massively increased to well over 6,000 in ten years time.

But this huge surge in wind farm activity will come at the same time as an EU Directive will insist that we close down our coal-fired and oil-fired power stations. Mr Nicholson said: ‘We can cope at the moment because there is still not that much power generated from wind. But all this will change. What happens when we are dependent on wind turbines for 30 per cent of our power and there is suddenly a period when the wind does not blow and there is high demand?

‘We will be forced to switch off the gas and it could even lead to power cuts.’ The Government is aware of the dangers of relying on intermittent power sources and is working on plans to encourage energy companies through financial inducements to have stand-by generation.

Mr Nicholson said: ‘At least the Government is aware of the problem, but it will cost billions to put these measures in place and we will have to pick up the tab. A Department of Energy and Climate Change spokesman said: ‘Wind power provides a home-grown source of electricity that doesn’t produce carbon dioxide. The electricity system always has more generating capacity available than the expected demand. By having a diverse energy mix, we can manage the fact that some technologies are intermittent.’

The National Grid is also aware of the problem and has set up a team to look at solving the problem of erratic energy supplies. One of the solutions being considered is changing demand at times of crisis. For example, setting up systems to stop electricity supplies to millions of fridges for an hour or so. This would be possible by having ‘smart’ meters and would save massive amounts of energy.

Read post here.

In Maine, one wind turbine is delivering just 1/10th of the promised output. The wind company told the town they need to move it to a better location....and so need more money. The town will be throwing good money after bad. They should sue not reward the wind company.

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Coal takes the strain...again
By Paul Hudson, BBC

On BBC Look North on friday I reported that during the recent intense cold weather, it’s been our traditional coal and gas fired power stations that have been working flat out to keep our homes and businesses warm.

And for the third winter running, the intense cold has gone hand in hand with periods of little or no wind. This should come as no surprise since prolonged cold is invariably associated with areas of high pressure.

Peak demand also comes during summer heat waves - as we all turn on our air conditioning units - again usually associated with areas of high pressure, with little or no wind.

December 21st 2010 was one of the coldest days on record in Yorkshire. The bar chart below gives an idea of how much electricity was being generated by which type of power facility, when temperatures were at their lowest.

Enlarged here.

With much of the country experiencing very little wind, both onshore and offshore, wind turbines were largely inactive.

At the moment that is not a problem. Only 5% of electricity is currently generated by wind farms, and so other power stations can step in and ramp up output.

But in only 9 years time, the UK will legally have to generate around 30% of its electricity from renewable sources, of which 25% is expected to come from wind farms alone, as it is seen as a clean, carbon free energy source.

So what will happen then, when the wind doesn’t blow?

If a similar meteorological situation occurred in 2020, then almost 25% of power would have to come from sources other than wind.

This means that there would have to be some power stations - using coal or gas, since nuclear power output can’t be increased at short notice - that simply exist as a stand-by facility, in case the wind doesn’t blow.

And that’s a very expensive way of producing electricity.

And what happens if, as seems at least possible, the next 10-15 years sees an increase in the type of disrupted weather patterns that we have experienced recently, because of solar considerations?

Professor Mike Lockwood at Reading University thinks that the UK could indeed experience colder winters on average, compared with the last few decades because of the sun’s low activity.

This would lead to a higher frequency of ‘blocking’ weather patterns leading to less frequent windy conditions than would normally be expected if one looks at climatological averages - suggesting we would have to continue to rely on coal and gas fired power generation well into the future - and possibly more than is currently envisaged. Read more here.