Tous les articles par Alain Préat

Full-time professor at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium apreat@gmail.com apreat@ulb.ac.be • Department of Earth Sciences and Environment Res. Grp. - Biogeochemistry & Modeling of the Earth System Sedimentology & Basin Analysis • Alumnus, Collège des Alumni, Académie Royale de Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux Arts de Belgique (mars 2013). http://www.academieroyale.be/cgi?usr=2a8crwkksq&lg=fr&pag=858&rec=0&frm=0&par=aybabtu&id=4471&flux=8365323 • Prof. Invited, Université de Mons-Hainaut (2010-present-day) • Prof. Coordinator and invited to the Royal Academy of Sciences of Belgium (Belgian College) (2009- present day) • Prof. partim to the DEA (third cycle) led by the University of Lille (9 universities from 1999 to 2004) - Prof. partim at the University of Paris-Sud/Orsay, European-Socrates Agreement (1995-1998) • Prof. partim at the University of Louvain, Convention ULB-UCL (1993-2000) • Since 2015 : Member of Comité éditorial de la Revue Géologie de la France http://geolfrance.brgm.fr • Since 2014 : Regular author of texts for ‘la Revue Science et Pseudosciences’ http://www.pseudo-sciences.org/ • Many field works (several weeks to 2 months) (Meso- and Paleozoic carbonates, Paleo- to Neoproterozoic carbonates) in Europe, USA (Nevada), Papouasia (Holocene), North Africa (Algeria, Morrocco, Tunisia), West Africa (Gabon, DRC, Congo-Brazzaville, South Africa, Angola), Iraq... Recently : field works (3 to 5 weeks) Congo- Brazzaville 2012, 2015, 2016 (carbonate Neoproterozoic). Degree in geological sciences at the Free University of Brussels (ULB) in 1974, I went to Algeria for two years teaching mining geology at the University of Constantine. Back in Belgium I worked for two years as an expert for the EEC (European Commission), first on the prospecting of Pb and Zn in carbonate environments, then the uranium exploration in Belgium. Then Assistant at ULB, Department of Geology I got the degree of Doctor of Sciences (Geology) in 1985. My thesis, devoted to the study of the Devonian carbonate sedimentology of northern France and southern Belgium, comprised a significant portion of field work whose interpretation and synthesis conducted to the establishment of model of carbonate platforms and ramps with reefal constructions. I then worked for Petrofina SA and shared a little more than two years in Angola as Director of the Research Laboratory of this oil company. The lab included 22 people (micropaleontology, sedimentology, petrophysics). My main activity was to interpret facies reservoirs from drillings in the Cretaceous, sometimes in the Tertiary. I carried out many studies for oil companies operating in this country. I returned to the ULB in 1988 as First Assistant and was appointed Professor in 1990. I carried out various missions for mining companies in Belgium and oil companies abroad and continued research, particularly through projects of the Scientific Research National Funds (FNRS). My research still concerns sedimentology, geochemistry and diagenesis of carbonate rocks which leads me to travel many countries in Europe or outside Europe, North Africa, Papua New Guinea and the USA, to conduct field missions. Since the late 90's, I expanded my field of research in addressing the problem of mass extinctions of organisms from the Upper Devonian series across Euramerica (from North America to Poland) and I also specialized in microbiological and geochemical analyses of ancient carbonate series developing a sustained collaboration with biologists of my university. We are at the origin of a paleoecological model based on the presence of iron-bacterial microfossils, which led me to travel many countries in Europe and North Africa. This model accounts for the red pigmentation of many marble and ornamental stones used in the world. This research also has implications on the emergence of Life from the earliest stages of formation of Earth, as well as in the field of exobiology or extraterrestrial life ... More recently I invested in the study from the Precambrian series of Gabon and Congo. These works with colleagues from BRGM (Orléans) are as much about the academic side (consequences of the appearance of oxygen in the Paleoproterozoic and study of Neoproterozoic glaciations) that the potential applications in reservoir rocks and source rocks of oil (in collaboration with oil companies). Finally I recently established a close collaboration with the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences of Belgium to study the susceptibility magnetic signal from various European Paleozoic series. All these works allowed me to gain a thorough understanding of carbonate rocks (petrology, micropaleontology, geobiology, geochemistry, sequence stratigraphy, diagenesis) as well in Precambrian (2.2 Ga and 0.6 Ga), Paleozoic (from Silurian to Carboniferous) and Mesozoic (Jurassic and Cretaceous) rocks. Recently (2010) I have established a collaboration with Iraqi Kurdistan as part of a government program to boost scientific research in this country. My research led me to publish about 180 papers in international and national journals and presented more than 170 conference papers. I am a holder of eight courses at the ULB (5 mandatory and 3 optional), excursions and field stages, I taught at the third cycle in several French universities and led or co-managed a score of 20 Doctoral (PhD) and Post-doctoral theses and has been the promotor of more than 50 Masters theses.
energy and fields

Asia Building Hundreds Of Coal Power Plants

by P. Homewood, Oct 29, 2021 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

UDANGUDI, India/TOKYO, Oct 29 (Reuters) – On the coastline near India’s southern tip, workers toil on a pier carrying a conveyor belt that cuts a mile into the Indian Ocean where the azure waters are deep enough for ships to berth and unload huge cargoes of coal.

The belt will carry millions of tonnes of coal each year to a giant power plant several kilometres inland that will burn the fuel for at least 30 years to generate power for the more than 70 million people that live in India’s Tamil Nadu state.

The Udangudi plant is one of nearly 200 coal-fired power stations under construction in Asia, including 95 in China, 28 in India and 23 in Indonesia, according to data from U.S. nonprofit Global Energy Monitor (GEM).

This new fleet will produce planet-warming emissions for decades and is a measure of the challenge world leaders face when they meet for climate talks in Glasgow, where they hope to sound the death knell for coal as a source of power.

Coal use is one of the many issues dividing industrialised and developing countries as they seek to tackle climate change.

Many industrialised countries have been shutting down coal plants for years to reduce emissions. The United States alone has retired 301 plants since 2000.

But in Asia, home to 60% of the world’s population and about half of global manufacturing, coal’s use is growing rather than shrinking as rapidly developing countries seek to meet booming demand for power.

More than 90% of the 195 coal plants being built around the world are in Asia, according to data from GEM.

Tamil Nadu is India’s second-most industrialised state and is one of the country’s top renewable energy producers. But it is also building the most coal-fired plants in the country. read more

“We cannot depend on just solar and wind,” a senior official at Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corp told Reuters.

“You can have the cake of coal and an icing of solar,” he said, declining to be named as he was not authorised to speak to media.

Full story here.

 

climate-debate

Skeptics to attend UN summit in Scotland – Will praise Greta’s ‘Blah Blah Blah’ view of UN’s futile climate summits

by Marc Morano, Oct 28, 2021 in ClimateDepot

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano and a contingent of climate skeptics will descend upon the UN climate summit in Glasgow Scotland next week. The climate skeptics will be joining a growing coalition of climate activists who realize that UN summits are meaningless and will support the accurate claims of Schwarzenegger, Greta, Kerry, Hansen and others.

’30 years of blah blah blah’: Thunberg (correctly) questions value of climate talks – Greta: “There is no Planet Blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” … “Net zero, blah, blah, blah. Climate neutral, blah, blah, blah. This is all we hear from our so-called leaders — words, words that sound great but so far, has led to no action or hopes and dreams. Empty words and promises.”

Watch: Greta is right! Climate Summits are “blah blah blah.” – Morano Minute E19

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John Kerry again admits climate futility: If U.S. & China ‘could go to zero (CO2 emissions) tomorrow… the world would still have a problem’

Flashback: Kerry admits zero emissions in US wouldn’t make difference in climate change

Flashback 2015: Then Sec. of State John Kerry explains climate futility: If U.S. zeroed out CO2 emissions, it ‘still wouldn’t be enough to offset the carbon pollution coming from the rest of the world’

‘Fraud, Fake…Worthless Words’: NASA’s James Hansen on UN Paris Pact – “[The Paris agreement] is a fraud really, a fake…It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.” 

2019: UN Paris Climate Accord debunked by former UN IPCC chair Bob Watson – ‘Insufficient to address climate change’

Climate movement grandpa James Hansen declares the Green New Deal is ‘nonsense’ – ‘We need a real deal which understands how economics works’

2019: Progressive feminist Naomi Wolf rips the Green New Deal as ‘fascism’ – ‘I WANT a Green New Deal’ but ‘this one is a straight up power grab’

2021: MIT climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen: “Increasing emissions from China, India, and the rest of the developing world swamp the small reductions in the Anglosphere and the European Union. Indeed, if emissions from the Anglosphere and the EU were to cease (which is, of course, an impossibility), it would make little difference.“

Saving the Earth — again?! 

The United Nations admitted that the much-hailed 2015 “historic” UN Paris climate pact did not “save” the planet and is instead “not enough” to prevent a climate change catastrophe! Despite being praised by former Vice President Al Gore, former Sec. of State John Kerry and many others, it appears the UN is demanding even more climate “action” to address what it claims is a climate problem.

Flashback 2019: UN admits ‘historic’ Paris climate pact did not save Earth after-all! Now says: Cutting CO2 ‘not enough’

UN in 2019: We must change food production to save the world, says leaked report – Cutting carbon from transport and energy ‘not enough’ IPCC finds

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climate-debate

New Data Suggest Greenland’s Relative Sea Levels Were 6 Meters Higher 1,500-2,000 Years Ago

by K. Richard, Oct 28, 2021 in NoTricksZone

The discovery of whale bones and marine shells at ancient beach sites 32 to 36 meters above today’s shorelines have been dated to the Early to Middle Holocene. Beach ridges were still several meters higher than today during Roman and Medieval times.

The relative sea levels of the ancient past can be discerned by identifying the span of years marine shells were deposited on ancient beaches. Also, whales were as likely to wash up on shore thousands of years ago as they do today.

A new study (Souza et al., 2021) uses an alternative dating method to identify when beach ridge systems were still collection sites for sea shells along the west coast of Greenland (Disko Island). The authors find it “particularly interesting” that beach ridges were still elevated ~6 meters above modern sea levels less than 2,000 years ago, as previous studies have suggested the Disko Bay region’s sea levels should have fallen to below present sea level by this time.

The authors also determined the marine shells located 32 meters above present Disko Island shorelines can be dated to about 5,300 years ago. Whale carcasses collected at sites elevated 36 meters above modern have been dated to the Early Holocene.

The highest sea levels of the Holocene, or the Holocene Marine Limit, has been dated to ~9000 years ago. At that time deposits of sea shells on the southwest coast of Disko were as much as “~70 to 80 m above present sea level.”

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Cooked Up Consensus: Lynas et al “Should Rather Be Classified As Propaganda, Bad Science”…”Truly Brazen”

by P. Gosselin, Oct 26, 2021 in NoTricksZone

Martin Landvoigt writes on truth and consensus, climate models, the “fundamental and methodological difficulties” in climate science and how “hard, robust evidence is largely lacking” and so it’s “a matter of weakly substantiated opinions”.

Climate consensus and the climate

By Martin Landvoigt at Philosophieren für alle), Die kalte Sonne
(Text excerpt translated, subtitles added by P. Gosselin)

On this basis, the argument of the supposed consensus in climate science has been presented several times and repeatedly.

Numerous studies are supposed to prove this. In particular, the study: Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature – John Cook, Dana Nuccitelli, Sarah A Green, Mark Richardson, Bärbel Winkler, Rob Painting, Robert Way, Peter Jacobs and Andrew Skuce – Published 15 May 2013.

Cook et al 2013 refuted

Arguably the most influential study used by U.S. presidents and other top-level decision makers as evidence for climate policy. Nevertheless, it can be considered refuted:

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climate-debate

Dr Roger Pielke, Jr -What does IPCC AR6 say on Scenarios and Extreme Weather?

by C. Rotter, Oct 29, 2021 in WUWT

An ICSF & Clintel Zoom presentation held on 27th October, 2021

Roger Pielke, Jr. describes himself as an “undisciplined professor” of science, policy and politics. He holds degrees in mathematics, public policy and political science, all from the University of Colorado. In 2006, Roger received the Eduard Brückner Prize in Munich, Germany, for outstanding achievement in interdisciplinary climate research. Formerly a Scientist at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research, in 2012 Roger was awarded an honorary doctorate from Linköping University in Sweden and was also awarded the Public Service Award of the Geological Society of America. He is also author, co‐author or co‐editor of seven books, including The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics, The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politicians Won’t Tell you About Global Warming and The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change. His most recent book is The Edge: The War against Cheating and Corruption in the Cutthroat World of Elite Sports.

Abstract: In his lecture, Roger will give valuable insights on the recently‐released IPCC WG1 AR6 Report; describing it as a “code red for humanity” was not only wrong, it was irresponsible. Instead of apocalyptic warnings about “immediate risk” a top line message of this report should be: The Extreme Scenario that IPCC Saw as Most Likely in 2013 is Now Judged Low Likelihood, an incredible change in such a short time since the AR5 Report, which has not been highlighted by the media. Roger will also show that the IPCC has systematically and very helpfully gone through a large list of extreme‐weather phenomena in the detailed AR6 Report. Their results are quite surprising: floods, hurricanes, tropical cyclones, meteorological and hydrological droughts are not more frequent. Nor are tornadoes, hail, lightning or strong winds more frequent. However heatwaves are more frequent, as is extreme precipitation, and there are two other types of drought, namely agricultural and ecological drought, which have increased. It is very appealing, even seductive, for activists and the media to latch on to extreme events (as inaccurately summarized in the SPM), but at some point we have to say that objective science and its communication matters on this issue. This is a lecture and discussion of wide interest and is highly relevant in the lead‐up to COP26.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

No signs of a climate emergency for W. Hudson Bay polar bears this year ahead of UN climate meeting

by  S. Crockford’s Polar Bear Science, Oct 17, 2021 in WUWT

Reposted from Dr. Susan Crockford’s Polar Bear Science

By Susan Crockford,

Posted on October 15, 2021 | Comments Offon No signs of a climate emergency for W. Hudson Bay polar bears this year ahead of UN climate meeting

I’ve been told that another complete aerial survey of the Western Hudson Bay polar bear subpopulation (from the Nunavut to Ontario boundaries) was conducted in August this year and that the bears have been hanging out further south than usual. It will be years before the results of the population count are published, of course (especially if it’s good news) but my contacts also say virtually all of the bears are in great condition again this year.

This is significant because W. Hudson Bay bears are one of the most southern subpopulations in the Arctic (only Southern HB bears live further south) and older data from this region is being used to predict the future for the entire global population based on implausible model projections (Molnar et al. 2020). And scary predictions of future polar bear survival are often taken to be proxies for future human disasters (see ‘Polar bears live on the edge of the climate change crisis‘), a point that some activists will no doubt make in the coming weeks, as the long-awaited UN climate change bash #26 (COP26) gets underway in Glasgow, Scotland on October 31.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

September Mean Temps In Northern Europe See Little Change Over Past Decades…Snow, Frost Arrive

by P. Gosselin, Oct 17, 2021 in NoTricksZone

Today we look at September mean temperatures at the stations across northern Europe for which the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) have enough data. We find fall is not being pushed back as we should expect in a warming world.

The JMA has published the data for September and again we see a continuing warming hiatus.

First we look at the September trends from 6 stations in Ireland since 1991:

 

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climate-debate

How good have climate models been at truly predicting the future?

by Gavin, Dec 4, 2019 in RealClimate

A new paper from Hausfather and colleagues (incl. me) has just been published with the most comprehensive assessment of climate model projections since the 1970s. Bottom line? Once you correct for small errors in the projected forcings, they did remarkably well.

Climate models are a core part of our understanding of our future climate. They also have been frequently attacked by those dismissive of climate change, who argue that since climate models are inevitably approximations they have no predictive power, or indeed, that they aren’t even scientific.

In an upcoming paper in Geophysical Research Letters, Zeke Hausfather, Henri Drake, Tristan Abbott and I took a look at how well climate models have actually been able to accurately project warming in the years after they were published. This is an extension of the comparisons we have been making on RealClimate for many years, but with a broader scope and a deeper analysis. We gathered all the climate models published between 1970 and the mid-2000s that gave projections of both future warming and future concentrations of CO2 and other climate forcings – from Manabe (1970) and Mitchell (1970) through to CMIP3 in IPCC 2007.

We found that climate models – even those published back in the 1970s – did remarkably well, with 14 out of the 17 projections statistically indistinguishable from what actually occurred.

We evaluated these models both on how well modeled warming compared with observed warming after models were published, and how well the relationship between warming and CO2 (and other climate forcings) in models compares to observations (the implied transient climate response) (see Figure). The second approach is important because even if an old model had gotten all the physics right, the future projected warming would be off if they assumed we would have 450 ppm CO2 in 2020 (which some did!). Future emissions depend on human societal behavior, not physical systems, and we can usefully distinguish evaluation of climate models physics from paths of future concentrations.

Figure 2 from Hausfather et al (2019) showing the comparisons between model predictions and observations for a) the temperature trends (above) and b) the implied Transient Climate Response (TCR) which is the trend divided by the forcing and scaled to an equivalent 2xCO2 forcing.

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better to know...?

Urban areas more likely to have precipitation-triggered landslides, exposing growing populations to slide hazards

by American Geophysical Union, Oct 12, 2021 in ScienceDaily

Urban areas may be at greater risk for precipitation-triggered landslides than rural areas, according to a new study that could help improve landslide predictions and hazard and risk assessments.

Landslides cause thousands of deaths and billions of dollars of damage annually. With over half of the world’s population in urban areas, and both urbanization and precipitation extremes expected to increase in the future, understanding how urban landscapes are affected by precipitation-triggered landslides is a pressing need.

The new study used a large database of precipitation-triggered landslides across the Pacific coast of the U.S. and isolated the influence of precipitation changes using a specific type of computer model. When the researchers controlled for other factors, like slope steepness, rock type, and wildfire, they found that urban landslide hazard was up to 10 times more sensitive to variations in precipitation than in rural areas. That means that the same increase in rainfall in rural and urban areas could be 10 times more likely to cause a landslide in a city.

The new research is published in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, which publishes high-impact, short-format reports with immediate implications spanning all Earth and space sciences.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Where Have All The Disasters Gone?

by W. Essenbach, Oct 14, 2021 in WUWT

I read today that the EU is using an estimate of US$68 per tonne of CO2 emissions for the purported cost of the damages done by CO2. This is known by a Newspeak term as the “Social Cost Of Carbon”.

It made me wonder—using this estimate, what is the overall total estimated damage done by humans from emitting CO2?

The answer is $97 TRILLION dollars since 1950.

YIKES! That’s about five times the 2020 US Gross Domestic Product (the value of everything produced in the US during that year).

So I thought I’d take a look at the various largest weather-related disasters. I got the big-disaster data from Wikipedia here and arranged it by type of disaster. All values are in 2020 dollars, that is to say, they’re adjusted for inflation. Here is the result.

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better to know...?

Aussie Met Bureau – making up 13 years of missing temperature data

by D. Mason-Jones, Oct 15, 2021 in WUWT

Upon finding a 13-year gap in its data for an important weather station in Queensland, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology homogenised data from 10 other locations to fill-in the missing years. One of these places was more than 400km away and another almost 2.5 degrees of latitude further South.

Is the resulting data credible? No, is the conclusion reached in a research Report by Australian scientist, Dr. Bill Johnston.

When the US Army Air Force (USAAF) closed its heavy bomber transit base at Charleville at the end of the Second World War the aerodrome reverted to civilian status. The base had been a link in the ferry route delivering aircraft from factories in the US to the war zone.

 

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better to know...?, climate-debate

4 More New Reconstructions Affirm The Medieval Warm Period Was ‘Warmer Than Today’

by K. Richard, Oct 14, 2021 in NoTricksZone

From Russia to the Indian Ocean to Antarctica, surface temperatures were much warmer than  they are today during Medieval times.

1. The Eastern Russia region was 1.5°C warmer than now during the Medieval Warm Period. The modern warm-up began centuries ago and temperatures have declined in the last few centuries. Relative sea levels were 1 m higher than now 1,000 years ago.

Nazarova et al., 2021

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2. Scientists use coral fossil evidence to suggest mean sea surface temperatures (SST) during the Medieval Climate Anomaly were “warmer than today”. At the two Indian Ocean study sites, there has been no obvious SST warming since 1982.

Yudawati Cahyarini et al., 2021

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3. The modern (1994-2004) surface temperatures in the South China Sea are colder now than any time in the last 6000 years. Except for a brief interval ~500 years ago, SSTs have been consistently 2-4°C warmer than today since the middle Holocene.

Zhou et al., 2021

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4. Modern sea ice extent for Antarctica’s Ross Sea is more extensive today (and temperatures cooler) than nearly any time in 6000 years.  It was warmer with less sea ice 1.6 to 0.7k years ago. Penguin numbers decline with cooling/increased sea ice.

Xu et al., 2021

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climate-debate

The crafty language of climate alarmism

by D. Wojick, Oct 4, 2021 in CFact

Disinformation word cloud concept. Vector illustration

I am constantly entertained by the artful ways alarmists bend language to their will. This often happens as science stories percolate through the media. Each step is a bit of a stretch, maybe not an obvious lie. But the sequence of stretches takes us so very far from the truth that we wind up in alarmville.

We just had a beauty kicked off by the great green Washington Post. What makes this especially funny is they are reporting their very own research, so there is no question of misunderstanding it. Just stretching it bit by bit, here and there.

The study itself is simple enough. When really bad, damaging weather hits it is normal to declare a federal disaster. This which allows Federal agencies to take certain actions, including loans and tax relief. This is done at the county scale. So WashPo looked at all of the disaster declarations in the last three months and determined the cumulative fraction of the US population that lived in those counties.

Since some disasters, especially from hurricanes, cover more than one entire state, it is no surprise that this added up to about a third of the national population. So far so good. This is science of a crude sort, basically adding stuff up.

The stretching begins when they report their study. First we get the headline, which is all that most people will read. Here is the main headline:

“Nearly 1 in 3 Americans experienced a weather disaster this summer“

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better to know...?, climate-debate

“Climate Emergency” – Nothing But Politics And Propaganda Unsupported By Scientific Data

by  L. Hamlin, Oct 6, 2021 in WUWT

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The “climate emergency” claim hyped by Scientific American and other political climate alarmist entities is based on the completely fallacious statement that “the planet is heating up way to fast” with that flawed claim representing nothing but politics and propaganda that is disproved by actually measured global temperature anomaly temperature measurements between 1988 and 2021 as well as being directly contradicted by the more than 5 year-long declining global temperature anomaly data presented by all 5 major global temperature anomaly measurement systems between 2016 and 2021.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

SHARP UPTICK IN ARCTIC SEA ICE: EXTENT ON COURSE TO BE THE HIGHEST IN 15 YEARS

by Cap Allon, Aug 28, 2021 in Electroverse

Arctic Sea Ice Extent has been holding exceptionally well during the 2021 summer melt season.

Throughout August, higher volumes than usual have survived due to cold conditions and favorable wind patterns.

As a result, Arctic Sea Ice Extent is now the highest in 8 years, and, if this year’s trajectory continues for another week or two (which is expected), 2021 will achieve the ‘healthiest’ extent of the past 15 years (since 2006).

Only 2014, 2013, and 2009 remain in its way–though the gap is narrowing, fast:

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Stalled: September Arctic Sea Remains Surprisingly Stable Over Past Decade, “Long Way From Predicted “Ice Free”

by P. Gosselin, Sept 10, 2021 in NoTricksZone

This year’s Arctic sea ice minimum reaches third highest level in a decade, latest data show.

Die kalte Sonne here presents its latest climate video. The first part looks at this year’s Arctic sea ice melt season. Now that it’s September, sea ice extent has just about reached its minimum for the year and soon the annual refreeze will begin.

We recall that years ago alarmist scientists and wacko activists, like al Gore, predicted an ice free Arctic by now. Today we look at the most recent data and we see that we are a very long way from that point.

Very slow August melt this year

What follows is the chart from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC):

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climate-debate

CET 30-Year Averages

by P. Homewood, Sept 7, 2021 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

The World Meteorological Organisation is clear about defining climate average:

image

It is disappointing then that the Met Office still continues to use the 1981-2010 period as its base. By doing this, of course, it exaggerates temperature increases in the UK.

If we look at the Central England Temperature mean temperatures, for example, we see that both winter and spring this year were colder than average, whilst summer was only 0.3C warmer:

 

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Countdown to COP26 on the road to failure

by D. Wojick, Sept 7, 2021 in Fact 

It is less than 60 days until COP26 convenes in Glasgow. We can expect a flood of climate horror stories (including flooding). But there will also be some discussion of the actual issues, so here is a brief breakdown of the big four.

Keep in mind that the alarmists have a bit of a civil war going on, between what I call the moderates and the radicals. The moderates have been at it for over 30 years and the radicals are fed up. The moderates now have a net zero target of 2050, while the radicals want 2030, so the difference is pretty stark. The last two COPs were partly paralyzed by this split, especially COP25. This fight will be a major factor in Glasgow.

The first two big issues are old business, money business to be precise. Of course it is all about money but these two are that by name — trading and finance.

Trading

The first big money issue is finalizing and launching the emissions trading scheme. This is part of the so-called Paris rule book, which was supposed to be settled well before now. The developed countries are depending on buying emission indulgences, which the developing countries dearly want to sell to them. This is the “net” in net zero.

Also some countries have indulgences left over from the now ended Kyoto trading. They want to bring these forward to be included in the new scheme. Some moderates oppose this.

The real problem is the radicals despise emission trading. They want every country to eliminate its own emissions, at home. Thus their target is actually more like gross zero, although some might allow domestic offsets. That issue has yet to really arise, but the trading fight froze COP25.

Finance

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climate-debate

Change Climate in 15 Minutes

by J. Curry, Sept 3, 2021 in ClimateEtc

In a recent invited talk at the American Chemical Society annual meeting, I attempted to explain the climate debate in 15 minutes.

This talk was given in a session on sustainability. Other invited speakers included James Green (NASA Chief Scientist), Marilyn Brown (Georgia Tech) . Our talks were followed by a panel discussion. This was an extremely interesting session, but was not recorded owing to an ACS glitch (you can read the abstracts at the link above).

My presentation slides can be downloaded [here].

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climate-debate

The New Pause lengthens yet again

by C. Monckton of Brenchley, Sept 2, 2021 in WUWT

The New Pause has again lengthened by another two months. On the normative UAH lower-troposphere dataset there has been no global warming over the 6 years 8 months from January 2015 to August 2021. As always, the Pause is calculated as the longest period ending in the present that shows no warming trend, taken as the least-squares linear-regression trend on the UAH satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomalies for the lower troposphere:

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better to know...?, minerals and ores

Lithium: How the Taliban will fight climate change?

by D.Middleton, Aug 24, 21, 2021 in WUWT

Afghanistan is the “the Saudi Arabia of lithium” –a metal that is essential for electric vehicle batteries and battery storage technologies. According to the International Energy Agency these technologies account for 30 percent of the current global demand for lithium. Demand for lithium is projected to increase 40-fold above 2020 levels by 2040, along with rare earth elements, copper, cobalt, and other minerals in which Afghanistan is also naturally rich.

China currently controls the supply chains for most of the production and/or processing of these minerals. Now China may have another source.

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energy and fields

Six States Provide 55% of US Primary Energy… (And Federal Oil & Gas Leasing to Resume!)

by D. Middleton, Aug 31, 2021 in WUWT

AUGUST 31, 2021
Six U.S. states accounted for over half of the primary energy produced in 2019

In 2019, the top six primary energy-producing states—Texas, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and North Dakota—accounted for 55 quadrillion British thermal units (quads), or 55% of all of the primary energy produced in the United States. In 2000, these six states had accounted for 39% of the nation’s primary energy production, indicating that primary energy production has become more concentrated to the top producing states.

Primary energy production in the United States grew 40% from 2009 to 2019, driven largely by increased crude oil and natural gas production in Texas, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and North Dakota. During that period, advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling made drilling for previously inaccessible crude oil and natural gas more economical in the United States. Between 2009 and 2019, production of primary energy more than doubled in Texas and Oklahoma, more than tripled in Pennsylvania, and more than quadrupled in North Dakota.

[…]

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better to know...?, climate-debate

ANTARCTIC SEA ICE ‘REBOUND’ SURPRISES SCIENTISTS — MSM SILENT

by Cap Allon, Aug 25, 2021 in Electroverse

Just two years ago, many mainstream media outlets declared that sea ice at the South Pole was melting at an “astonishing” rate.

As recently pointed out by notrickszone.com, German national daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported in June 2019 that Antarctic sea ice had “shrunk 1.8 million square kilometers”, writing: “the massive disappearance of ice is astonishing”.

And while the reporting was technically factual, it has proven to be yet more AGW-driving obfuscation and cherry-picking rather than well-founded indications of a concerning climatic trend.

And now, in 2021, as the ice sharply rebounds, these same MSM outlets have fallen silent–which is speaking volumes…

 

Sea ice at the South Pole has rebounded in 2020 and 2021, to the levels of some 3-decades ago.

Moreover, the trend of the past 40+ years (the satellite era) remains one of significant growth (of approx 1% per decade).

In 2021, Antarctic sea ice is actually tracking well-above the multidecadal average (shown below).

MASSIVE SEA ICE REBOUND GOES UNREPORTED

The climate-ambulance chasing MSM have stopped reporting on the state of the ice across the Southern Hemisphere.

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CLASSIC DISINFORMATION TECHNIQUE

“Researchers are in agreement that the decline in Antarctic sea ice from 2016 to 2019 is due to natural causes,” writes Die kalte Sonne. “Obviously this is not a good topic for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, who prefer not to report on the ice recovery.”

Not informing the public about the most recent developments, but instead leaving them with a false impression based on carefully cherry-picked data from two years prior, is a classic disinformation technique that has long been perfected by the activist media.

For more on Antarctica, see:

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climate-debate

Re-evaluating the role of solar variability on Northern Hemisphere temperature trends since the 19th century

by W. Soon et al., 2015 in EarthScienceReviews

Abstract

Debate over what influence (if any) solar variability has had on surface air temperature trends since the 19th century has been controversial. In this paper, we consider two factors which may have contributed to this controversy:

1.

Several different solar variability datasets exist. While each of these datasets is constructed on plausible grounds, they often imply contradictory estimates for the trends in solar activity since the 19th century.

2.

Although attempts have been made to account for non-climatic biases in previous estimates of surface air temperature trends, recent research by two of the authors has shown that current estimates are likely still affected by non-climatic biases, particularly urbanization bias.

With these points in mind, we first review the debate over solar variability. We summarise the points of general agreement between most groups and the aspects which still remain controversial. We discuss possible future research which may help resolve the controversy of these aspects. Then, in order to account for the problem of urbanization bias, we compile a new estimate of Northern Hemisphere surface air temperature trends since 1881, using records from predominantly rural stations in the monthly Global Historical Climatology Network dataset. Like previous weather station-based estimates, our new estimate suggests that surface air temperatures warmed during the 1880s–1940s and 1980s–2000s. However, this new estimate suggests these two warming periods were separated by a pronounced cooling period during the 1950s–1970s and that the relative warmth of the mid-20th century warm period was comparable to the recent warm period.

We then compare our weather station-based temperature trend estimate to several other independent estimates. This new record is found to be consistent with estimates of Northern Hemisphere Sea Surface Temperature (SST) trends, as well as temperature proxy-based estimates derived from glacier length records and from tree ring widths. However, the multi-model means of the recent Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) climate model hindcasts were unable to adequately reproduce the new estimate — although the modelling of certain volcanic eruptions did seem to be reasonably well reproduced.

Finally, we compare our new composite to one of the solar variability datasets not considered by the CMIP5 climate models, i.e., Scafetta and Willson, 2014’s update to the Hoyt and Schatten, 1993 dataset. A strong correlation is found between these two datasets, implying that solar variability has been the dominant influence on Northern Hemisphere temperature trends since at least 1881. We discuss the significance of this apparent correlation, and its implications for previous studies which have instead suggested that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide has been the dominant influence.

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