By Joseph D’Aleo
It is behavior consistent with what you should expect as outlined in Leon Festinger’s ‘When Prophecies Fail’. First after the cessation of warming for 16 years and cooling for 10 and the slowing of sea level rises proved to be persistent, they switched to hyping extremes. Roger Pielke Jr in the EPW hearing pretty much disabused the congress of that idea by presenting the facts that showed there were no trends in any of these although don’t expect the media to get it. You see extremes gets eyeballs and sells newspapers (or used to).
So they have moved onto the Trenberth’s ‘Where’s Waldo’ idea that the heat somehow is hiding in the deep oceans and if nothing else this threatens sea life and coral and fisheries and will eventually reemerge to destroy life as we know it. But the oceans have shown no trend down to 300m in the tropical Pacific which the theory says should be warming most significantly.
Trenberth continues to embarrass himself and the science with claims like “Global warming is continuing but it’s being manifested in somewhat different ways.” (like cooling and more snow - makes perfect sense). But depending on where you are, the media is starting to regard global warming as a joke. Even here in the US, some writers are paying attention - even at the Washington Post where Ed Rogers wrote:
Two things are happening that undermine President Obama and the Democrats’ attempts to control our lives via climate change policy. First, according to a Pew Research Center for the People & the Press poll, fewer and fewer Americans say global warming is a serious problem. Only 33 percent of Americans now say global warming is a serious problem, compared to 39 percent six months ago.
And second, the globe is not getting warmer or at least, it hasn’t in the last 15 years. As the March 30 print edition of The Economist reported, “Over the past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth’s surface have been flat while greenhouse gas emissions have continued to soar.”
Much of this resulted from the winters in the northern and southern hemisphere which instead of disappearing became as bad as they have seen in decades even centuries. What to do? First they proclaimed with the first winter or two that that was weather not climate. That argument was made fun of in the media along with the UKMO forecasts which were biased by their belief in the AGW theory and consistently too warm for the last decade. So along came little Jennifer Francis of Rutgers who happened to notice that warm water in the North Atlantic (around the Barents and Kara Sea) entered the arctic and led to melting of ice and subsequent warming a few years later. This of course has ben used by yours truly and other meteorologists and written on by Polyakov of the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska. See the University of Alaska Fairbanks IARC analysis here
The National Snow and Ice Data Center, before it was taken over by extremists in the record-setting (since satellite monitoring began in 1979) summer melt season of 2007, noted the importance of both oceans in the arctic ice.
“One prominent researcher, Igor Polyakov at the University of Fairbanks, Alaska, points out that pulses of unusually warm water have been entering the Arctic Ocean from the Atlantic, which several years later are seen in the ocean north of Siberia. These pulses of water are helping to heat the upper Arctic Ocean, contributing to summer ice melt and helping to reduce winter ice growth.
Another scientist, Koji Shimada of the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, reports evidence of changes in ocean circulation in the Pacific side of the Arctic Ocean. Through a complex interaction with declining sea ice, warm water entering the Arctic Ocean through Bering Strait in summer is being shunted from the Alaskan coast into the Arctic Ocean, where it fosters further ice loss. Many questions still remain to be answered, but these changes in ocean circulation may be important keys for understanding the observed loss of Arctic sea ice.”
See my story that shows this is the case.
She then theorized that this lack of arctic ice caused a polar amplification of the jet stream causing large waves instead of a more gentle, more zonal east west flow that bring warmer ocean are inland into North America, Europe. This amplification is what delivers the cold and snow to Eurasia and North America. This was of course jumped on by Jeff Masters now part of the new NBC Universal embarrassment conglomerate called the Weather Company that now even is affiliated with the lefty warmists from Climate Central like Heidi Cullen who embarrassed herself in front of the EPW this week. They fail to explain why if the ice returned to normal in October why we had the record snows and cold in the late winter well into the spring from late February to May in both the US and Europe.
But the story now shift to the southern hemisphere where a major cold wave and snow event lasting a week is afflicting South America. You see the same amplified pattern we saw in the Northern Hemisphere is occurring down under.
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The snow has been falling in Argentina and Uruguay and soon will begin in Brazil. These places have seen snow in recent years, a throwback to the 1960s in much the same way as the cold and snow in the Northern Hemisphere has resembled the snowy 1960s.
Uruguay, July 2013
Brazil, 1965
If the polar amplification theory were to hold then the antarctic must be melting right? Rignot (another warmist wingnut) said days ago the antarctic ice cap is breaking up. The data shows we are nearly 2 STD positive and nearing the new record.
Sorry guys, it doesn’t fly. Try the sun, which years ago, I was told by Hurd ‘Doc’ Willett led to periods of great amplification and persistence like we are seeing (near solar minima).
Indeed Hansen’s own modeler, Drew Shindell has shown the low solar (low UV) Maunder minimum led to widespread cold but Atlantic blocking in the models that included ozone and UV.
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But should they agree with the Russian scientists that we are heading into a Maunder and it will have a significant impact, its all over for the movement. But if Festinger is right, look for them to find another excuse like particulates from China coal plants, just like the cults awaiting the spaceship to take them away say they must have miscalculated on the date and time and will find another day to meet. When they fail, they are forgotten. Remember the hype about the catastrophic solar event in 2012? The Millennium bug that cost trillions? Will we look back on the AGW movement that almost destroyed Europe’s economy and threatens the US and think of the 1980s to 2000s as the good old days with the climate optimum we should of enjoyed instead of wasting trillions to end?
David R. Legates, Ph.D.
Recently, my fellow evangelical scientists and academics sent a letter to the United States Congress urging immediate legislation on climate change. In an effort to care for the planet - God’s second greatest gift to humanity - they argue that our uncontrolled use of fossil fuels will disproportionately affect the poor, the vulnerable, and the oppressed.
I applaud their concern for the environment and for those in defense of whom Jesus commanded us to be especially diligent. But their call to reduce carbon emissions would do more harm than good, especially to the “least of these” as referenced by Christ.
Average global temperatures have not risen over at least the past fifteen years. Dr. John Christy, a fellow evangelical Christian and a highly respected climatologist, testified to Congress that in the United States, we have seen virtually no change in daily maximum temperature, while most of the warming is confined to increases in daily minimum temperatures. (Nighttime temperatures are driven by turbulence [or lack of it] near the surface, not CO2 warming. By contrast, daytime maximum temperature is a much better measure of warming from greenhouse gases. The lack of a signal in daily maximum temperature suggests that the rate of warming due to CO2 is relatively small.) That and the lack of warming for at least a decade and a half implies the effect of CO2 warming is much smaller than climate models suggest.
Contrary to claims in the recent letter, a report issued last summer by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on extreme events indicated that droughts “have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter, for example, in Central North America.” The percentage of the United States classified in moderate-to-extreme dryness and wetness as presented by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows high variability but no significant trend. NOAA also concludes that snowfall records show no long-term trend and that recent record snowfalls are the result of natural variability, not global warming. Hurricane activity globally is at a thirty-year low, and the frequency of moderate to severe tornadoes (EF3-EF5) has not increased. Sea levels have been rising at about the same pace since well before greenhouse gases began to rise from fossil fuel emissions.
Draconian legislation to curtail energy use by restricting fossil fuel emissions will have little, if any, impact on Earth’s climate. A 50% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050 would only reduce global average temperature in 2100 by an inconsequential 0.07C. Even an elimination of all CO2 emissions by the United States would prevent only 0.17C of warming.
Instead of fighting global warming, the most important environmental task facing Christians today is economic development, because poverty is the greatest threat to both human well-being and the environment.
We need to find more efficient ways to use energy and more sources for energy to keep the cost low. Why? If we make energy so expensive that only the rich can afford it, then the poor and the vulnerable will be denied access. That will condemn them to a life of poverty, sickness, and low life expectancy.
Moreover, the environment itself suffers because when a people are in dire need of food, clothing, shelter, and other necessities, they cannot be concerned with environmental issues. The Ganges River, for example, is both the source of ‘clean’ drinking water and the reservoir for untreated sewage. Why? Because the people are so poor. Technological development would enable them to afford water and sewage treatment. High-tech, high-yield farming methods would increase food supplies. Natural gas and electricity would heat homes and cook food without cutting forests and burning wood and dung, which degrade indoor air quality and cause lethal lung infections. Refrigeration would mean the poor do not have to choose between eating spoiled food and going hungry.
Furthermore, oppression thrives when energy is restricted. Totalitarian regimes remain in power by keeping their subjects poor and deprived of technological amenities. Freedom spreads when people have time and ability to travel and communicate, to develop ideas and concepts, and to organize against a common enemy and for a better way of life. Energy, therefore, is the life blood to ending poverty and oppression.
In the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-28), Jesus told of a master who entrusted his money to three servants. The first two put the talents to use and presented the master with more than they had been given. The third, whom Christ called ‘worthless’, hid his talent in the ground.
Often we think of the talents as money or ability, but they really stand for every resource. If we needlessly leave resources ‘hidden’ in the ground, will we be met with the same rebuke from the “Master of All Creation”?
In America and around the world, people are hurting now. I pray that my Brothers and Sisters in Christ see their need and respond accordingly, rather than limiting energy affordability and making life today more difficult for the poor, the vulnerable, and the oppressed.
Dr. David R. Legates, a Christian and a Professor of Climatology at the University of Delaware, is a Senior Fellow of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation - a coalition of clergy, theologians, scientists, economists, and policy experts committed to bringing a balanced Biblical view of stewardship to environmental and developmental issues.
Evangelical Scientists and Academics’ Mistaken in Urging Congress to Act on Climate
by E. Calvin Beisner
Climatologist Dr. David Legates’s response above to the letter from “evangelical scientists and academics” urging Congress to immediate action to fight global warming by reducing fossil fuel use points out some of its factual inaccuracies and the harms that would be done by acting on its advice.
It’s also interesting to look at the letter as an example of misleading policy-related communications.
One would naturally expect that a letter addressing climate change and starting with “As evangelical scientists and academics, we understand climate change is real and action is urgently needed” would have among its signers a host of climate scientists. Indeed, a reporter for ClimateWire, a publication of Environment & Energy Publishing, Inc., thought so. She emailed me asking, “Did you expect this collection of 200 Evangelical scientists, all with degrees in climate science, to promote their studies with a faith-led banner?”
But out of the 194 signers, we’ve been able to identify only five climate scientists (2.6%), while by far the largest field of study represented is biology, with 117 (60.3%). Heres the complete breakdown:
Atmospheric Science/Meteorology/Climatology: 5 (2.6%)
Biology : 117 (60.3%)
Chemistry: 29 (14.9%)
Computer Science and Mathematics: 3 (1.5%)
Engineering: 10 (5.6%)
Environmental Sciences: 2 (1.3%)
Geography: 1 (0.5%)
Geology: 11 (5.7%)
Medicine: 1 (0.5%)
Paleontology: 2 (1.3%)
Physics: 10 (5.6%)
Unidentified: 3 (1.5%)
No wonder the organizers listed only names and institutions, not the fields in which they taught! The vast majority are not climate scientists and almost certainly are unfamiliar with the enormous controversy raging among climatologists, meteorologists, and other climate scientists over such fundamental questions as “How much warming - after climate feedbacks would be cause by doubled atmospheric CO2 concentration?” Granted the mainstream media’s failure to report it, almost none would be familiar with the fact that there’s been no statistically significant global warming for at least 15 years, probably over 17, and possibly as many as 23 a fact nearly impossible to reconcile with the theories behind the computer climate models underlying fears of dangerous warming.
Conspicuously absent from the list of signers are economists - of any specialty whatever, but particularly of environment, energy, and development - who would have the expertise to evaluate the probable impact of climate policy on human welfare. Many such scholars believe rushing to replace fossil fuels with “Green” energy would cause enormous harm to the world’s poor.
That raises an irony in the recent letter. It cites Romans 13:10 as saying “Love does no harm to its neighbor,” and argues from it that we must cut fossil fuel use to prevent global warming. But raising the price of energy, as would necessarily happen under the letter’s prescription, harms the very people the signers say they want to protect. Indeed, over 28,000 people died in the U.K. in the bitter winter of 2011-2012 because high energy prices, driven upward by Britain’s aggressive policy to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar, forced them into “fuel poverty”: they couldn’t afford both food and heat for their homes.
Evangelicals need to do much better than to repeat the mantras of global warming alarmists. They need to study the controversy in depth for themselves. The letter’s signers could do worse than to begin by reading the Cornwall Alliance’s A Renewed Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Examination of the Theology, Science, and Economics of Global Warming.