A New Index to Willis’s Posts

by Willis Eschenbach, January 20, 2018 in WUWT


Well, my old index to my posts was out of date, and I finally got tired of not being able to find things that I’ve written. This is me trying to figure it out.

So I wrote a program in the computer language “R”. It takes as input a list of URLs of my writings, and it goes and scrapes each post. As output it gives me the name of the post, the category if any, and the first few lines of text.

What do the Ice Core Bubbles Really Tell Us?

by Tim Ball, January 20, 2108


The short answer to the question posed in the title to this article is virtually and practically nothing. They definitely do not tell us what is claimed, that is, accurate representation of the state of the atmosphere including temperature in individual years. This is why one of the world’s experts on atmospheric chemistry and ice cores Zbigniew Jaworowski M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., wrote,

“It was never experimentally demonstrated that ice core records reliably represent the original atmospheric composition.”

(…)

Rare Weather Station: Unchanged Over 138 Years, Data Show No CO2 Impact On Temperature!

by P Gosselin, January 19, 2018 in NoTricksZone


In Germany there is one weather station that has be intact and unchanged for some 138 years.

It has never been moved and never been corrupted by the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Moreover it has consistently used the same instrumentation and computation method over the entire period, thus making it rare indeed. Few station can boast having those instrumentation qualities.

That measurement station is one operated at the Klostergarten of the St. Stephan Abbey in Augsburg just northwest of Munich.

The Antarctic Centennial Oscillation: A Natural Paleoclimate Cycle in the Southern Hemisphere That Influences Global Temperature

by W.J. Davis et al., January 8, 2018 in Climate


We report a previously-unexplored natural temperature cycle recorded in ice cores from Antarctica—the Antarctic Centennial Oscillation (ACO)—that has oscillated for at least the last 226 millennia. Here we document the properties of the ACO and provide an initial assessment of its role in global climate.

See also here

New Study Identifies Thermometer for the Past Global Ocean

by UC San Diego, January 4, 2018


There is a new way to measure the average temperature of the ocean thanks to researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego. In an article published in the Jan. 4, 2018, issue of the journal Nature, geoscientist Jeff Severinghaus and colleagues at Scripps Oceanography and institutions in Switzerland and Japan detailed their ground-breaking approach.

Study: Climate models underestimate cooling effect of daily cloud cycle

by Princeton University, January 10, 2018 in WUWT


Princeton University researchers have found that the climate models scientists use to project future conditions on our planet underestimate the cooling effect that clouds have on a daily — and even hourly — basis, particularly over land.

The researchers report in the journal Nature Communications Dec. 22 that models tend to factor in too much of the sun’s daily heat, which results in warmer, drier conditions than might actually occur. The researchers found that inaccuracies in accounting for the diurnal, or daily, cloud cycle did not seem to invalidate climate projections, but they did increase the margin of error for a crucial tool scientists use to understand how climate change will affect us.

GLOBAL TEMPERATURE IN 2017: NOT A RESURGENCE OF GLOBAL WARMING

by Dr David Whitehouse, January 17, 2018 in GWPF


It is clear that 2017 was a very warm year. Tomorrow, NOAA, NASA and the UK Met Office will announce by how much. It won’t be a record-breaker, but it will be in the top five, and that has already started comments about why it has been so hot. After all, the record-setting El Niño temperatures of the 2015-16 are over – so why did it remain so hot? The reason, according to some, is clear: the resurgence of global warming. The year 2017 is the hottest non-El Niño year ever and therefore signifies a dramatic increase of global warming after 20-years or so when the global temperature hasn’t done very much.

See also here

Earth’s Rotation Is Mysteriously Slowing Down: Experts Predict Uptick In 2018 Earthquakes

by Tevor Nace, November 20, 2017 in WhoaScience


Scientists have found strong evidence that 2018 will see a big uptick in the number of large earthquakes globally. Earth’s rotation, as with many things, is cyclical, slowing down by a few milliseconds per day then speeding up again.

You and I will never notice this very slight variation in the rotational speed of Earth. However, we will certainly notice the result, an increase in the number of severe earthquakes.

Geophysicists are able to measure the rotational speed of Earth extremely precisely, calculating slight variations on the order of milliseconds. Now, scientists believe a slowdown of the Earth’s rotation is the link to an observed cyclical increase in earthquakes.

Seafloor Volcano Pulses May Alter Climate

by Columbia University, February 5, 2015


Vast ranges of volcanoes hidden under the oceans are presumed by scientists to be the gentle giants of the planet, oozing lava at slow, steady rates along mid-ocean ridges. But a new study shows that they flare up on strikingly regular cycles, ranging from two weeks to 100,000 years—and, that they erupt almost exclusively during the first six months of each year. The pulses—apparently tied to short- and long-term changes in earth’s orbit, and to sea levels–may help trigger natural climate swings. Scientists have already speculated that volcanic cycles on land emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide might influence climate; but up to now there was no evidence from submarine volcanoes. The findings suggest that models of earth’s natural climate dynamics, and by extension human-influenced climate change, may have to be adjusted

Further proof El Ninos are fueled by deep-sea geological heat flow

by Janes E Kamis, January, 27 in CliateChangeDispatch


The 2014-2017 El Nino “warm blob” was likely created, maintained, and partially recharged on two separate occasions by massive pulses of super-heated and chemically charged seawater from deep-sea geological features in the western North Pacific Ocean. This strongly supports the theory all El Ninos are naturally occurring and geological in origin. Climate change / global warming had nothing to do with generating, rewarming, intensifying, or increasing the frequency of the 2014-2017 El Nino or any previous El Nino.

If proven correct, this would revolutionize climatology and key aspects of many interrelated sciences such as oceanography, marine biology, glaciology, biogeochemistry, and most importantly meteorology. Information supporting a geological origin of El Ninos is diverse, reliable, and can be placed into five general categories as follows: (…)

See also here

The Rise and Fall of the Catastrophic Man-Made Global Warming Theory

by Ron Clutz, January 12, 2010 in ClimateChangeDispatch


The Pomeroy essay focuses on theories in the field of psychology and describes stages through which they rise, become accepted, challenged and discarded.

It has long seemed to me that global warming/climate change theory properly belongs in the field of social studies and thus should demonstrate a similar cycle.

See also here

Fracking firm Cuadrilla to reignite West Sussex plans

by Jillian Ambrose, January 9, 2018, in TheTelegraph Business


Cuadrilla will be allowed to test wells in the Sussex countryside until 2021 to see whether the fossil fuel flows from underground limestone rock could be a commercial source of homegrown energy.

The unanimous approval of the county council does not include permission to use the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, but is nonetheless likely to reignite local opposition.

A candid climate scientist explains how to ‘fix’ the debate

by Larry Kummer, January 11, 2018 in WUWT


Summary: Here are brief excerpts and my comments from a speech by an eminent climate scientist. It illuminates important aspects about one of the great public policy debates of our time. He was speaking candidly to his peers, but we can also learn much from it.

“Some Thoughts from a Reluctant Participant”

Presentation by Richard Alley.

At the Forum on Transforming Communication in the Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise — Focusing on Challenges Facing Our Sciences.

Given at the 2018 Annual Conference of the American Meteorological Society, 7 January 2018.

Extinction and global warming 250 million years ago

by U. of Bristol, January 10, 2018 in A Watts, WUWT


One of the key effects of the end-Permian mass extinction, 252 million years ago, was rapid heating of tropical waters and atmospheres.

How this affected life on land has been uncertain until now.

In a new study published today, Dr Massimo Bernardi and Professor Mike Benton from the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol show how early reptiles were expelled from the tropics.

On Science and Nonscience

by Neil Lock, January 11, 2018 in WUWT


What is science?

According to Webster’s, science is: “knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws.”

The way I see it, science is a method of discovering truths. For the idea to make any sense at all, though, we need first to agree that scientific truth is objective. Now, a particular truth or fact may of course be unknown, or poorly understood, or wrongly apprehended, at a particular time. But in science, one man’s truth must be the same as another’s. (…)

Study: Climate models underestimate cooling effect of daily cloud cycle

by Princeton University, January 10, 2018 in A. Watts WUWT


Princeton University researchers have found that the climate models scientists use to project future conditions on our planet underestimate the cooling effect that clouds have on a daily — and even hourly — basis, particularly over land.

The researchers report in the journal Nature Communications Dec. 22 that models tend to factor in too much of the sun’s daily heat, which results in warmer, drier conditions than might actually occur. The researchers found that inaccuracies in accounting for the diurnal, or daily, cloud cycle did not seem to invalidate climate projections, but they did increase the margin of error for a crucial tool scientists use to understand how climate change will affect us.