Kerala Floods “Likely Due To Climate Variability, Not AGW”–New Study

by P. Homewood, January 5, 2019 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


Since there is no increase in mean and extreme precipitation in Kerala over the last six decades, the extreme event during August 2018 is likely to be driven by anomalous atmospheric conditions due to climate variability rather anthropogenic climate warming. The severity of the Kerala flood of 2018 and the damage caused might be affected by several factors including land use/ land cover change, antecedent hydrologic conditions, reservoir storage and operations, encroachment of flood plains, and other natural factors. The impacts of key drivers (anthropogenic and natural) on flood severity need to be established to improve our understanding of floods and associated damage.

http://www.geosocindia.org/index.php/jgsi/article/view/137443

Storage wars

by Charles the moderator, January 5, 2019 in WUWT


UC Santa Barbara researcher conducts first-ever global-scale evaluation of the role of soil minerals in carbon storage

University of California – Santa Barbara

One answer to our greenhouse gas challenges may be right under our feet: Soil scientists Oliver Chadwick of UC Santa Barbara and Marc Kramer of Washington State University have found that minerals in soil can hold on to a significant amount of carbon pulled from the atmosphere. It’s a mechanism that could potentially be exploited as the world tries to shift its carbon economy.

“We’ve known for quite a long time that the carbon stored on minerals is the carbon that sticks around for a long time,” said Chadwick, co-author of the paper, “Climate-driven thresholds in reactive mineral retention of soil carbon at the global scale,” published in the journal Nature Climate Change. How much carbon the soil can take and how much it can keep, he said, are dependent on factors including temperature and moisture.

“Terrifying Sea-Level Prediction Now Looks Far Less Likely”… But “marine ice-cliff instability” is “just common sense”

by David Middleton, January 5, 2019 in WUWT


Marine ice cliff instability (MICI) “has not been observed, not at such a scale,” “might simply be a product of running a computer model of ice physics at a too-low resolution,” ignores post glacial rebound, couldn’t occur before ” until 2250 or 2300″… Yet “the idea is cinematic,” “it’s just common sense that Antarctic glaciers will develop problematic ice cliffs” and something we should plan for…

“Our results support growing evidence that calving glaciers are particularly sensitive to climate change.”  Greenland’s climate is always changing… Always has and always will change… And the climate changes observed over the last few decades are not unprecedented. The Greenland ice sheet is no more disappearing this year than it was last year and it is physically impossible for the ice sheet to “collapse” into the ocean.

Figure 6. Jakobshavn Isbrae. (Wikipedia and Google Earth)