What is the Meaningful 97% in the Climate Debate?

by Tim Ball, September 29, 2018 in WUWT


In media interviews or discussions with the public, the most frequent opening challenge is; “But don’t 97% of scientists agree?” It is usually said obliquely to imply that you know a lot, and I don’t understand, but I assume you are wrong because you are in the minority. I don’t attempt to refute the statistics. Instead, I explain the difference in definitions between science and society. Then I point out that the critical 97% figure is that at least 97% of scientists have never read the claims of the IPCC Reports. How many people reading this article have read all the IPCC Reports, or even just one of them? If you have, it is probably the deliberately deceptive Summary for Policymakers (SPM). Even fewer will have read the Report of Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis. Naively, people, especially other scientists, assume scientists would not falsify, mislead, misrepresent, or withhold information. It is worse, because the IPCC deliberately created the false claim of consensus.

NASA: The chill of solar minimum is being felt in our atmosphere – cooling trend seen

by Anthony Watts, September 28, 2018 in WUWT


These results come from the SABER instrument onboard NASA’s TIMED satellite. SABER monitors infrared emissions from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances that play a key role in the energy balance of air 100 to 300 kilometers above our planet’s surface. By measuring the infrared glow of these molecules, SABER can assess the thermal state of gas at the very top of the atmosphere–a layer researchers call “the thermosphere.”

When the thermosphere cools, it shrinks, literally decreasing the radius of Earth’s atmosphere. This shrinkage decreases aerodynamic drag on satellites in low-Earth orbit, extending their lifetimes. That’s the good news. The bad news is, it also delays the natural decay of space junk, resulting in a more cluttered environment around Earth.

US Coal Use Hits 35-Year Low, But Exports Are Booming

by J. Hopkins, September 28, 2018 in ClimateChageDispatch


Foreign markets are lining up to purchase American coal by widening amounts as U.S. coal consumption reaches its lowest level in more than three decades.

Power plants’ consumption of coal dropped to 298 million short tons in the first half of 2018, a sharp fall from 312 million in the same period last year, according to a Thomson Reuters report.

This marks the lowest level of consumption since 1983 and a reflection of the coal industry’s declining status as natural gas continues to grow.

Coal-fired generation diminished by 32 billion kilowatt-hours during the first six months of 2018.

IT’S ALL OVER: EU ABANDONS NEW 2030 CLIMATE TARGET

by Deutsche Press Agentur, September 28, 20108 in GWPF


Contrary to what has been announced, Cañete has not submitted the proposal to the EU member states, the German Press Agency in Brussels has learned. The idea was met with opposition by, among others, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the German industry. Other EU countries also rejected it. Global climate policy is in crisis since US President Donald Trump quit the Paris climate agreement of 2015.

See also here

Quakes, Pollution and Flaming Fauces : The UK media on shale gas.

by Andrew Montford, September 27, 2018 in GWPFbriefing34


The briefing, published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation, focuses on the output of the BBC and the Guardian, and outlines many examples of biased coverage.

However, it wasn’t always this way, as author Andrew Montford explains:

“When shale gas first came on the scene, coverage was very positive: gas was seen as a low-carbon alternative to coal. It was only when it looked as though it would price renewables out of the market that the scare stories and bias began”.

Large stretches of coral reefs can be rehabilitated

by University of California – Davis, September 27, 2018 in ScienceDaily


For the study, published this week in the journal Restoration Ecology, researchers installed 11,000 small, hexagonal structures called “spiders” across 5 acres of reef in the center of Indonesia’s Coral Triangle. Coral diversity is the highest on Earth in that region but is threatened by human activity, including overfishing, pollution and climate change.

Between 2013 and 2015, researchers attached coral fragments to the structures, which also stabilized rubble and allowed for water to flow through freely.

A CORAL SUCCESS STORY

Live coral cover on the structures increased from less than 10 percent to more than 60 percent. This was more than what was reported for reefs in many other areas of the Coral Triangle, at a cost of about $25 per square meter.

Plate tectonics may have been active on Earth since the very beginning

by University of Tennessee at Knoxville, September 26, 2018 in ScienceDaily


A new study suggests that plate tectonics — a scientific theory that divides the earth into large chunks of crust that move slowly over hot viscous mantle rock — could have been active from the planet’s very beginning. The new findings defy previous beliefs that tectonic plates were developed over the course of billions of years.

The paper, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, has important implications in the fields of geochemistry and geophysics. For example, a better understanding of plate tectonics could help predict whether planets beyond our solar system could be hospitable to life.

“Plate tectonics set up the conditions for life,” said Nick Dygert, assistant professor of petrology and geochemistry in UT’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and coauthor of the study. “The more we know about ancient plate tectonics, the better we can understand how Earth got to be the way it is now.”

Now at least 10 years with sea ice at 2050-like levels yet polar bears are still abundant

by Polar Bear Science, September 27, 2018


We’ve hit the seasonal Arctic sea ice minimum for this year, called this morning by US NSIDC for 19th and 23rd of Septmeber: 4.59 mkm2, the same extent as 2008 and 2010. This is not a “ho-hum” year for polar bears: it means that since 2007, they have triumphed through 10 or 11 years1 with summer ice coverage below 5.0 mkm2 —  levels that in 2007 were expected to cause catastrophic declines in numbers.

France to cut renewable growth

by The Energy Advocate, September 26, 2018


The French Government will drastically reduce the growth of its renewable spending in 2019, with the ecology ministry’s draft budget showing a 1.3% rise, which will effectively be flat after inflation.

Total spending on renewable projects will equate to €7.3 billion and will mostly go towards wind and solar schemes.

The move will force France to seek alternative forms of energy after last year France had to import UK coal power to fuel the country as temperatures plummeted in the winter months.

Sea Level Speculation Irresponsibly Threatens Property Owners

by Jim Steele, September 26, 2018 in WUWT


The suggested steady 3.3 mm/year rise since 1992 conflicted with CO2-driven model predictions of acceleration. So, based on the difficulties of calibrating altimetry with tide gauge data, various researchers claimed satellite drift and biases had over-estimated early estimates of sea level rise from 1994-2002. Various adjustments were then evoked, and varying rates of sea level rise published. New global sea level estimates rose at an accelerating rate from 1.8 in 1993 to 3.9 mm/yr today, others at 2.2 mm/yr in 1993 to 3.3 mm/yr in 2014, yet others found satellite adjustments lowered the average rate of sea level rise to 2.6 mm/yr over that same period. Elsewhere Harvard geophysicists were analyzing the effects of mass change on the earth’s rotation and wobble and were disturbed by the misfit between geophysical observations and sea level estimates. They argued that only if 20thcentury sea level rise was limited to 1.2 mm/yr could there be a good fit with geophysical expectations.

Another Dis-alarming Analysis of Arctic Sea Ice David Middleton / 17 hours ago September 26, 2018

by David Middleton, September 26, 2018 in WUWT


Anthony recently posted an excellent Arctic sea ice analysis by Ron Clutz.  In a similar vein, I decided to look at Arctic sea ice from a couple of other dis-alarming perspectives.

We keep hearing about the Arctic being ice-free anytime from next month up until a continuously rolling forward decade or so.  One question that has to be answered is:

What does ice-free mean?

When does ice-free mean ice-free?

First, we need to clarify what exactly an “ice-free” Arctic summer is.

By “ice-free”, scientists usually mean a sea ice extent of less than one million square kilometres, rather than zero sea ice cover.

–Dr Alexandra Jahn, Assistant Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and Fellow at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado. Carbon Brief, August 25, 2016.

The Shameful Politicization Of Hurricanes

by H.S. Burnett, September 26, 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch


Here are several facts that dispel these myths.

First, although the Atlantic hurricane season is not over yet, thus far, the number of hurricanes occurring this year is below average.

During a typical six-month Atlantic hurricane season, 12 named storms form, six become hurricanes, and three of those become major hurricanes – meaning Category 3 or higher.

This season, 10 named storms have formed in the Atlantic Basin, three of which became hurricanes.

Two other hurricanes briefly became minor storms off the west coast of Africa – and only Florence became a major hurricane.

Furthermore, only one has made landfall in the United States: Florence.

Before the above-average Atlantic hurricane season of 2017, the United States experienced the longest period in recorded history, nine years, without a major hurricane (Category 3 or higher) striking the country.

China coal power building boom sparks climate warning

by Matt McGraph, September 27, 2018 in BBCNews


Building work has restarted at hundreds of Chinese coal-fired power stations, according to an analysis of satellite imagery.

The research, carried out by green campaigners CoalSwarm, suggests that 259 gigawatts of new capacity are under development in China.

The authors say this is the same capacity to produce electricity as the entire US coal fleet.

See also here

The Great Global Warming Hoax?

by The Middlelbury Community Network, September 2018

Editor’s Introductory Note: Our planet has been slowly warming since last emerging from the “Little Ice Age” of the 17th century, often associated with the Maunder Minimum.  Before that came the “Medieval Warm Period“, in which temperatures were about the same as they are today.  Both of these climate phenomena are known to have occurred in the Northern Hemisphere, but several hundred years prior to the present, the majority of the Southern Hemisphere was primarily populated by indigenous peoples, where science and scientific observation was limited to non-existent.  Thus we can not say that these periods were necessarily “global”.

However, “Global Warming” in recent historical times has been an undisputable fact, and no one can reasonably deny that.

….

Summary – Exactly what have we learned here?

1.  The “Greenhouse Effect” is a natural and valuable phenomenon, without which, the planet would be uninhabitable.2.  Modest Global Warming, at least up until 1998 when a cooling trend began, has been real.

3.  CO2 is not a significant greenhouse gas; 95% of the contribution is due to Water Vapor.

4.  Man’s contribution to Greenhouse Gasses is relatively insignificant.  We didn’t cause the recent Global Warming and we cannot stop it.

5.  Solar Activity appears to be the principal driver for Climate Change, accompanied by complex ocean currents which distribute the heat and control local weather systems.

6.  CO2 is a useful trace gas in the atmosphere, and the planet would actually benefit by having more, not less of it, because it is not a driver for Global Warming and would enrich our vegetation, yielding better crops to feed the expanding population.

7.  CO2 is not causing global warming, in fact, CO2 is lagging temperature change in all reliable datasets.  The cart is not pulling the donkey, and the future cannot influence the past.

8.  Nothing happening in the climate today is particularly unusual, and in fact has happened many times in the past and will likely happen again in the future.

9.  The UN IPCC has corrupted the “reporting process” so badly, it makes the oil-for-food scandal look like someone stole some kid’s lunch money.  They do not follow the Scientific Method, and modify the science as needed to fit their predetermined conclusions.  In empirical science, one does NOT write the conclusion first, then solicit “opinion” on the report, ignoring any opinion which does not fit their predetermined conclusion while falsifying data to support unrealistic models.

10.  Polar Bear populations are not endangered, in fact current populations are healthy and at almost historic highs.  The push to list them as endangered is an effort to gain political control of their habitat… particularly the North Slope oil fields.

11.  There is no demonstrated causal relationship between hurricanes and/or tornadoes and global warming.  This is sheer conjecture totally unsupported by any material science.

12.  Observed glacial retreats in certain select areas have been going on for hundreds of years, and show no serious correlation to short-term swings in global temperatures.

13.  Greenland is shown to be an island completely surrounded by water, not ice, in maps dating to the 14th century.  There is active geothermal activity in the currently “melting” sections of Greenland.

14.  The Antarctic Ice cover is currently the largest ever observed by satellite, and periodic ice shelf breakups are normal and correlate well with localized tectonic and geothermal activity along the Antarctic Peninsula.

15.  The Global Warming Panic was triggered by an artifact of poor mathematics which has been thoroughly disproved.  The panic is being deliberately nurtured by those who stand to gain both financially and politically from perpetuation of the hoax.

16.  Scientists who “deny” the hoax are often threatened with loss of funding or even their jobs.

17.  The correlation between solar activity and climate is now so strong that solar physicists are now seriously discussing the much greater danger of  pending global cooling.

18.  Biofuel hysteria is already having a disastrous effect on world food supplies and prices, and current technologies for biofuel production consume more energy than the fuels produce.

19.  Global Warming Hysteria is potentially linked to a stress-induced mental disorder.

20. In short, there is no “climate crisis” of any kind at work on our planet.

Retracing Antarctica’s glacial past

by Louisiana State University, September 25, 2018 in ScienceDaily


More than 26,000 years ago, sea level was much lower than it is today partly because the ice sheets that jut out from the continent of Antarctica were enormous and covered by grounded ice — ice that was fully attached to the seafloor. As the planet warmed, the ice sheets melted and contracted, and sea level began to rise. Researchers have discovered new information that illuminates how and when this global phenomenon occurred.

More recently in 2002, in the northern part of Antarctica called the Antarctic Peninsula, the Larsen Ice Shelf collapsed. The collapse of this ice shelf quickly led to inland glaciers buttressed by the Larsen Ice Shelf to break up and melt. Scientists have thought that a similar process could have occurred when the Ross Ice Shelf collapsed thousands of years ago in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

However, Bart and colleagues from the University of South Florida, Auburn University and the Polish Academy of Sciences found that there was a centuries-long delay from when the Ross Ice Shelf collapsed and the grounded ice began to contract. In the Ross Sea, the delay was between 200 to 1,400 years later. This new information adds a layer of complexity for sea level rise computer simulations and predictions.

The ‘Trick’ of Anomalous Temperature Anomalies

by Kip Hansen, September 25, 2018 in WUWT


It seems that every time  we turn around, we are presented with a new Science Fact that such-and-so metric — Sea Level Rise, Global Average Surface Temperature, Ocean Heat Content, Polar Bear populations, Puffin populations — has changed dramatically — “It’s unprecedented!” — and these statements are often backed by a graph illustrating the sharp rise (or, in other cases, sharp fall) as the anomaly of the metric from some baseline.  In most cases, the anomaly is actually very small and the change is magnified by cranking up the y-axis to make this very small change appear to be a steep rise (or fall).

A Test of the Tropical 200- to 300-hPaWarming Rate in Climate Models

by R. McKitrick and J. Christy, July 6, 2018 in AGU100


Abstract
Overall climate sensitivity to CO2
doubling in a general circulation model results from a complex
system of parameterizations in combination with the underlying model structure. We refer to this as the modelsmajor hypothesis, and we assume it to be testable. We explain four criteria that a valid test should meet: measurability, specificity, independence, and uniqueness. We argue that temperature change in the
tropical 200- to 300-hPa layer meets these criteria. Comparing modeled to observed trends over the past
60 years using a persistence-robust variance estimator shows that all models warm more rapidly than
observations and in the majority of individual cases the discrepancy is statistically significant. We argue that
this provides informative evidence against the major hypothesis in most current climate models.

Ancient Mars had right conditions for underground life, new research suggests

by Brown University, September 24, 2018 in ScienceDaily/EPSL


A new study shows evidence that ancient Mars probably had an ample supply of chemical energy for microbes to thrive underground.

“We showed, based on basic physics and chemistry calculations, that the ancient Martian subsurface likely had enough dissolved hydrogen to power a global subsurface biosphere,” said Jesse Tarnas, a graduate student at Brown University and lead author of a study published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters. “Conditions in this habitable zone would have been similar to places on Earth where underground life exists.”

New research shows that ancient Mars likely had ample chemical energy to support the kinds of underground microbial colonies that exist on Earth.
Credit: NASA / JPL

Geologists: No Link Between Climate Warming And Rock Slides in European Alps!

by P. Gosselin, September 23, 2018 in NoTricksZone


Last year, August, 2017, a massive rockslide occurred on the north flank of the Piz Cengalo (3369 m) in the Swiss Alps, above the village of Bondo, located near the border to Italy.

No data suggesting warming is behind rock slides

In total some 4 million tonnes of rock and mud came tumbling down. The dramatic incident highlighted the hazards posed by rock slides for villages located near the picturesque mountains of the European Alps.

Though rockslides are not unusual, there has been growing scrutiny behind their causes lately. Unsurprisingly climate alarmists are opportunistically pointing the finger at climate warming.

 

 

The BBC’s Naive View of the UN’s Climate Machine

by Donna Laframboise, September25, 2018 in BigPictureNews


SPOTLIGHT: Bureaucracies put their trust in other bureaucracies.

BIG PICTURE: A few weeks back, Joanne Nova perfectly captured the position of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) regarding the scandalous UN entity known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

A recent internal document gives BBC journalists advice about how to report on climate matters. In Nova’s words, it declares that the “IPCC is God, can not be wrong.”

The document’s exact words:

30 YEARS AGO OFFICIALS PREDICTED THE MALDIVES WOULD BE SWALLOWED BY THE SEA. IT DIDN’T HAPPEN

by Michael Bastasch, September 21, 2018 in TheDailyCaller


Environmental officials warned 30 years ago the Maldives could be completely covered by water due to global warming-induced sea level rise.

That didn’t happen. The Indian Ocean did not swallow the Maldives island chain as predicted by government officials in the 1980s.

In September 1988, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported a “gradual rise in average sea level is threatening to completely cover this Indian Ocean nation of 1196 small islands within the next 30 years,” based on predictions made by government officials.

Then-Environmental Affairs Director Hussein Shihab told AFP “an estimated rise of 20 to 30 centimetres in the next 20 to 40 years could be ‘catastrophic’ for most of the islands, which were no more than a metre above sea level.”

Arctic Ice Made Simple

by Ron Clutz, September 22, 2018 in ScienceMatters


People are overthinking and over-analyzing Arctic Ice extents, and getting wrapped around the axle (or should I say axis).  So let’s keep it simple and we can all readily understand what is happening up North.

I will use the ever popular NOAA dataset derived from satellite passive microwave sensors.  It sometimes understates the ice extents, but everyone refers to it and it is complete from 1979 to 2017.  Here’s what NOAA reports (in M km2):

A Geological Feud Over the Meghalayan? Or Just More Rubbish Published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science of America?

by David Middleton, September 24, 2018 in WUWT


Alternate Title: Yes, We Have No Anthropocene, We Have No Anthropocene Today! (Sung to the tune of Yes, We Have No Bananas)

 

Figure 4 from Finney & Edwards.  “Workflow for approval and ratification of a Global Standard Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) proposal. Extensive discussion and evaluation occurs at the level of the working group, subcommission, and International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) Bureau. If approved at these successive levels, a proposal is forwarded to the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) for ratification. This process is also followed for other ICS decisions on standardization, such as approval of names of formal units, of revisions to the units, and to revision or replacement of GSSPs.”

500 Million Years of Unrelatedness between Atmospheric CO2 and Temperature

by Davis W.J., 2017 in Climate/CO2Science


One final gem from Davis’ work is a pronouncement that follows a discussion on the lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature across the historical record, where he aptly reminds us that “correlation does not imply causality, but the absence of correlation proves conclusively the absence of causality.” Consequently, there should be no more doubt regarding the ineffectiveness of atmospheric CO2 to control or drive climate change. It is simply nothing more than a bit player, whose influence has been continually overestimated by climate alarmists. The big question now is whether or not 500 million years of these data will convince them otherwise!

from Davis 2017

Egalement: Le changement climatique : la règle en géologie

Iceland’s monster volcano charging up for eruption

by Anthony Watts, September 20, 2018 in WUWT


The Katla volcano, hidden beneath the ice cap of Mýrdalsjökull glacier in Iceland, has historically erupted violently once every 40-80 years.  In-as-much as it’s last such eruption took place one hundred years ago, in 1918, Katla’s next eruption is long overdue.

An eruption in Katla would dwarf the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption, scientists have warned.

A new study by Icelandic and British geologists showed that Katla is emitting enormous quantities of CO2 – at least 20 kilotons of CO2 every day. Only two volcanoes worldwide are known to emit more CO2, Evgenia Ilyinskaya a volcanologist with the University of Leeds told the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service RÚV.

N ICE CAULDRON IN MÝRDALSJÖKULL Geothermal activity in the volcano’s caldera melts the glacier, creating cauldrons in the ice. Photo/Fréttablaðið