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.
unclassified

The extraordinary climate events of 2022-24

by J. Vinos, March 24, 2024 in ClimateEtc

The unlikely volcano, the warmest year, and the collapse of the polar vortex.

The climate events of 2022-24 have been were truly extraordinary. From an unlikely undersea volcanic eruption to the warmest year on record to the collapse of the polar vortex after three sudden stratospheric warming events. This rare convergence presents a unique learning opportunity for climatologists and climate aficionados alike, offering insights into a climate event that may not be repeated for hundreds or even thousands of years.

  1. January 2022, the unlikely volcano

Never before have we witnessed an undersea volcanic eruption with a plume capable of reaching the stratosphere and depositing a large amount of vaporized water. This extraordinary event occurred in January 2022 when the Hunga Tonga volcano erupted. The conditions for such an event are rare: the volcano must be deep enough to propel enough water with the plume, but not too deep to prevent it from reaching the stratosphere. Most undersea volcanoes do not produce plumes at all, which makes Hunga Tonga’s eruption all the more remarkable.

The Hunga Tonga volcano occupied a unique “sweet spot” at a depth of 150 meters the day before the eruption. In addition, the eruption itself must be exceptionally powerful for water vapor to rise into the stratosphere. The January 2022 eruption of Hunga Tonga was the most powerful in 30 years, since the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.

Figure 1. The Hunga Tonga eruption from space.

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  1. 2023, the hottest year on record

Beginning in June 2023, the last seven months of the year marked the warmest period on record, significantly exceeding previous records. Such an event is quite remarkable, given the considerable temperature variability observed from month to month. But how unlikely is it?

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  1. January-March 2024, the collapse of the polar vortex

The polar vortex is a circular wind pattern that develops on rotating planets with an atmosphere. It results from the conservation of potential vorticity, a property depending on the Coriolis force and the potential temperature gradient. The potential temperature refers to the portion of the temperature of an air parcel that is not affected by its potential energy, and is often defined as the temperature the parcel would have if it were brought to the surface (1,000 hPa).

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  1. What can we expect in the near future?

The unlikely volcanic eruption is the likely cause of the extraordinary warming, which in turn led to the occurrence of the unprecedented three SSW events. Our understanding of the effects of these events supports this interpretation.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

3 New Studies Confirm Sea Levels Were 5 to 9 Meters Higher 7,000-5,000 Years Ago Than Today

by K. Richard,  Apr 1, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Modern relative sea levels are near the lowest in the last 7,000 years.

Two studies, independently published, identified Mid-Holocene sea levels in northern Norway (north of the Arctic Circle) as being 7 to 9 meters higher than today before declining to the present (Balascio et al., 2024, Nielsen et al., 2024). [emphasis, links added]

This region of the Arctic was warm enough to support human settlements and boat harbors during the Medieval Warm Period.

As the climate deteriorated into the Little Ice Age cooling centuries after the Medieval warmth, the accompanying sea level fall led to abandoned residences, ships, and harbors.

The seas had become too shallow to sail in.

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climate-debate

MWP 1.5C Warmer Than 1900–Says HH Lamb

by P. Homewood, Apr 1, 2024 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

The Central England Temperature series is the longest running in existence, but still only goes back to 1659, pretty much the depth of the Little Ice Age, so it tells us little of real meaning.

However there exist many very real measures of temperatures going back much further – and I am not referring to the fraudulently used tree rings and the like.

HH Lamb published this chart in his book “Climate: Past, Present and Future” in 1977:

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Australia, biology+acidification, climate-debate

The State of the Great Barrier Reef 2024(.pdf)

by P. Ridd, Mar 2204, in AustralianEnvironmentFoundation

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Table of Contents
Chapter 1: What is the Great Barrier Reef? 4
Chapter 2: The Great Barrier Reef and its coral: The Data. 11
2.1 The area and number of coral reefs on the Great Barrier Reef 11
2.2 Coral Cover: the amount of coral on the Great Barrier Reef. 11
2.3 Coral growth rates (calcification) 19
Chapter 3: Hot-water ‘bleaching’ on the Great Barrier Reef 23
3.1 Introduction 23
3.2 Are bleaching events a new phenomenon? 23
3.3 Corals and their algal friends. 25
3.4 Bleaching is not usually lethal: it is a survival strategy. 27
3.5 Analysis of past GBR bleaching events. 29
3.6: Excuses for Failed Bleaching Predictions 31
3.7 Corals Like it Hot. 33
Chapter 4: Impact of agriculture on coral 35
4.1 Introduction. 35
4.2 Water flushing time of the GBR. 36
4.3: Nutrient ‘pollution’. 38
4.4 Sediment ‘pollution’. 42
4.5 Pesticides. 49
Chapter 5: Stretching the GBR to the coast. 54
5.1 Introduction. 54
5.2 Inshore Reefs. 54
5.3 Mangrove Swamps. 61
5.4 Seagrass beds. 63
5.5 Coastal Freshwater ecosystems. 68
5.6 Importance of Coastal ecosystems to the Great Barrier Reef. 69
Chapter 6 Summary and conclusions 71
Appendix Usefulness of coral cover measurements. 74
About the Author 79
Acknowledgments

climate-debate

Calls for inquiry into Climate Change Committee

by P. Homewood, Mar 11, 2024 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

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climate-debate

More New Studies Indicate There Has Been No Climate-Induced Precipitation Trend Since The 1800s

by K. Richard, Mar 11, 2024 in NoTricksZone

CO2-induced global warming was supposed to intensify the hydrological cycle and extreme precipitation. It hasn’t.

New research (Mitchell and Knapp, 2024) at a southeastern United States study site indicates there has been no significant trend in either total precipitation or intense rainfall events (IRE) over the last 250 years (1770-2020).

However, there was more IRE precipitation from 1936-1959 than from 1960-2020. In fact, the most recent 60 years has the lowest record of extreme precipitation during the study, with averages of 81.20 mm for 1770–1935, 230.45 mm for 1936–1959, but just 168.27 mm during 1960–2020.

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climate-debate

No, CNN, Climate Change Is Not Driving Doomsday Glacier’s Decline

by S. Burnett, Mar 5, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

A CNN story implies that supposed human-caused climate change is causing the Thwaites Glacier to melt, causing sea level rise. This is false.

Data show that Antarctica has not been warming. Also, the study CNN cited itself shows the glacier has declined dramatically and recovered repeatedly in the past, all without human contribution, suggesting the present decline is part of a natural cycle. [emphasis, links added]

At approximately the size of Florida, the Thwaites Glacier is the broadest glacier on Earth. The Thwaites Glacier is often referred to as the “Doomsday Glacier,” based on the belief that a complete collapse would cause as much as two feet of sea level rise over time.

The CNN story, “The ‘Doomsday Glacier’ is rapidly melting. Scientists now have evidence for when it started and why,” discusses a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which determined when the present decline began.

“By analyzing marine sediment cores extracted from beneath the ocean floor, researchers found the glacier began to significantly retreat in the 1940s, likely kicked off by a very strong El Niño event — a natural climate fluctuation which tends to have a warming impact,” reports CNN.

“Since then, the glacier has been unable to recover, which may reflect the increasing impact of human-caused global warming, according to the report.”

Although the commencement of … Thwaites’ decline may now have been determined, any prognostications about future trends for the glacier are pure speculation, unsupported by historical evidence or data about present Antarctic trend.

The underlying reports determined that the Thwaites glacier’s decline commenced in the 1940s probably prompted by a powerful El Nino event that warmed the abutting waters.

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climate and geology

The Anthropocene is dead. Long live the Anthropocene

by P. Voosen, Mar 5, 2024 in AAASScience

For now, we’re still in the Holocene.

Science has confirmed that a panel of two dozen geologists has voted down a proposal to end the Holocene—our current span of geologic time, which began 11,700 years ago at the end of the last ice age—and inaugurate a new epoch, the Anthropocene. Starting in the 1950s, it would have marked a time when humanity’s influence on the planet became overwhelming. The vote, first reported by The New York Times, is a stunning—though not unexpected—rebuke for the proposal, which has been working its way through a formal approval process for more than a decade.

“The decision is definitive,” says Philip Gibbard, a geologist at the University of Cambridge who is on the panel and serves as secretary-general of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), the body that governs the geologic timescale. “There are no outstanding issues to be resolved. Case closed.”

 

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unclassified

A New 1787-2005 Temperature Reconstruction Determines The Coldest 50-Year Period Was 1940-1993

by K. Richard, Mar 4, 2024 in NoTricksZone

The warmest 50-year period in northeastern China occurred from 1844-1893.

Li et al., 2024

“Compared with single years, in general, high or low temperatures that persist for many years will more significantly affect the growth of trees [30]. When we defined years with T12-1 ≥ −10.73 °C (Mean + 1σ) and T12-1 ≤ −12.61 °C (Mean − 1σ) as extreme warm years and cold years, respectively, the reconstruction for the period of 1787–2005 contained 31 cold years and 36 warm years (Table 4). The extreme cold/warm events lasting for three or more consecutive years were discovered in 1965–1967 and 1976–1978/1791–1798, 1844–1849 and 1889–1891. An 11-year smoothing average of the reconstructed T12-1 series was performed to reveal multi-year and interdecadal variations and to detect the several prolonged cold and warm periods (Figure 5d). After smoothing with an 11-yr moving average, cold periods occurred in 1822–1830 (mean T12-1 = −12.7 °C) and 1957–1970 (mean T12-1 = −12.7 °C), while a warm period occurred in 1787–1793 (mean T12-1 = −10.4 °C) (Figure 5d). Rapid and sustained cooling was observed in the reconstructed series in the years 1790–1826 (T12-1 range −10.3 °C to −12.8 °C, mean = −12.0 °C) and 1939–1969 (T12-1 range −11.6 °C to −12.7 °C, mean = −12.1 °C), where the rates of cooling were about 0.067 °C/year and 0.035 °C/year, respectively (Figure 5d). The two cooling events may be due to the decrease in solar activity [48,49,50]. Using a 50-year time scale, the highest temperature occurring during 1787–2005 was from 1844 to 1893 (T12-1 range −12.79 °C to −9.41 °C, mean = −11.15 °C), similar results were also obtained by Zhu et al. and Jiang et al., while the lowest temperature was from 1940–1993 (T12-1 range −13.57 °C to −10.26 °C, mean = −12.13 °C) (Figure 5d) [33].”

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climate and geology

How Geology And Rocks Tell The Story Of Earth’s Climatic Past

by. J. Duhamel, Mar 4, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

I am a geologist which means I have rocks in my head and some of those rocks have recorded the climate history of Earth. Here is their story.

We will start with the big picture.

The graphic below [after the jump] shows the estimated temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) content for the past 600 million years. [emphasis, links added]

The blue line is the estimated temperature; the black line is the estimated CO2 content of the atmosphere.

Notice that for much of the past 600 million years, the temperature has been about 12°C warmer than it is now and life has flourished. (Note that the climate crazies claim that if the global temperature increases by 2°C above present, we will die.)

CO2 temps graph

Click to enlarge

The dips in the temperature curve are ice ages. Ice ages have occurred on a cycle of about 145 million years. Ice ages consist of glacial epochs and warmer interglacial periods. We are now in an interglacial period. (In the popular vernacular, glacial epochs are often called “ice ages.”)

The glacial epoch cycle happens whenever our solar system, in its travels around the center of our galaxy, goes through some spiral arms of the galaxy with very dense clusters of stars that bombard the Earth with more cosmic rays, which produce more clouds and other effects in the atmosphere, which limit the amount sunlight that gets to Earth’s surface.

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climate-debate

Carbon NetZero: A Ridiculous Solution to an Imaginary Problem VIDEO

Dr. Patrick Moore, March 4, 2024 in FriendsofScience  

VIDEO 57’54”

3 900 vues 28 févr. 2024
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlcAKE04YvM

Carbon NetZero: A Ridiculous Solution to an Imaginary Problem – Dr. Patrick Moore presents a bit of his personal history as a Greenpeace Warrior, and now a compendium of his work as a warrior for common sense on climate and environmental problems. Drawing on some of the work from his book “Fake and Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom,” Dr. Moore exposes many of these climate and environmental myth

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climate-debate

Warming Earth Has Changed U.S. Hardiness Zones

by  K. Hansen, March 4, 2024 in WUWT

Several times I have had readers at WUWT ask in comments:  “If the climate is changing, why haven’t the planting zone maps changed?”

Well, they have and they do.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture issues a new U.S.D.A. “Plant Hardiness Zone Map” periodically.  A new version of the map was just released on Nov. 15, 2023.  I became aware of it because my wife is an avid gardener and follows our local agricultural County Cooperative Extension news.

When she followed the link to the new Plant Hardiness map and checked our very local area, she was surprised to see that it had “warmed” here by 5°F.   Here is the bit of the page she was looking at:

She was a bit perplexed by this news, as we have been having not “hot” years but cooler years recently. It took me a minute to sort through it to see that the drop down was not clear on what temperature change they were talking about.  That temperature change elevated us one half a zone from zone 5b to zone 6a.

 

 

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better to know...?, climate-debate

EXCLUSIVE: A Third of U.K. Met Office Temperature Stations May Be Wrong by Up to 5°C, FOI Reveals

by C. Morrison, March 1, 2024 in TheDailySceptic

Nearly one in three (29.2%) U.K. Met Office temperature measuring stations have an internationally-defined margin of error of up to 5°C. Another 48.7% of the total 380 stations could produce errors up to 2°C, meaning nearly eight out of ten stations (77.9%) are producing ‘junk’ or ‘near junk’ readings of surface air temperatures. Arguably, on no scientific basis should these figures be used for the Met Office’s constant promotion of the collectivist Net Zero project. Nevertheless, the state-funded operation frequently uses them to report and often catastrophic rises in temperature of as little as 0.01°C.

Under a freedom of information request, the Daily Sceptic has obtained a full list of the Met Office’s U.K. weather stations, along with an individual class rating defined by the World Meteorological Office. These CIMO ratings range from pristine class 1 and near pristine class 2, to an ‘anything goes’ or ‘junk’ class 5. The CIMO ratings penalise sites that are near any artificial heat sources such as buildings and concrete surfaces. According to the WMO, a class 5 site is one where nearby obstacles “create an inappropriate environment  for a meteorological measurement that is intended to be representative of a wide area”. Even the Met Office refers to sites next to buildings and vegetation as “undesirable”. It seems class 5 sites can be placed anywhere, and they come with a WMO warning of “additional estimated uncertainties added by siting up to 5°C”; class 4 notes “uncertainties” up to 2°C, while class 3 states 1°C. Only 13.7%, or 52 of the Met Office’s temperature and humidity stations come with no such ‘uncertainty’ warnings attached.

The above graph shows the percentage totals of each class. Class 1 and 2, identified in green, account for just 6.3% and 7.4% of the total respectively. Class 3 identified as orange comes in at 8.4%. The graph shows the huge majorities enjoyed by the darkening shades of red showing classes 4 and 5. It is possible that the margins of error identified for classes 3, 4 and 5 could be a minus amount – if for instance the measuring device was sited in a frost hollow – but the vast majority are certain to be pushed upwards by heat corruptions.

 

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unclassified

Europe’s Consensus On Climate Is Crumbling

by W. Münchau, Feb 29, 202 in ClimateChangeDispatch

At stake in the European elections in June this year will be everything that defines the modern EU: a large volume of net zero legislation, a values-based foreign policy, and ever-more intrusive business regulation.

Polls suggest the centrist majority that has supported these policies is growing slimmer. [emphasis, links added]

Ursula von der Leyen [pictured above] has been the quintessential representative of that majority. Born in Brussels, German by nationality, proposed by France, she was the perfect candidate for European Commission president in late 2019.

Now she is seeking a second term. Whether she will succeed will depend to a large extent on whether the centrist four-party coalition that supported her in 2019 will hold.

All over Europe, we are now seeing a backlash against the kind of policies the Von der Leyen Commission represents.

The far right is part of that response, but the main political shift has been inside Von der Leyen’s own political group, the European People’s Party (EPP), of which the German CDU/CSU is the largest member.

This backlash follows one of the most hectic political phases in recent EU history. When Covid struck in early 2020, Von der Leyen was instrumental in setting up the EU’s recovery fund to help countries deal with the economic consequences of the pandemic.

Then came the Green Deal, a hefty tranche of legislation on renewable energy, land use, forestry, energy efficiency, emission standards for cars and trucks, and a directive on energy taxes.

There was also a tightening of standards on pesticides, air quality, water pollution, and wastewater.

Farmers are resisting this program because it affects their livelihoods. Industrialists, too, are unhappy. A big part of the Green Deal was its industrial policy; the flagship legislation was the Net Zero Industry Act.

The industry used to be the EU’s strongest supporter.

But with the new laws came new bureaucracy: now, all EU-funded investment must include a green component of at least 30 percent, while a carbon border adjustment mechanism, to take effect in 2026, will penalize imports that do not meet EU carbon-emission standards. Together, EU legislation in the last few years amounts to a near-total corporate regime change.

Compliance with some regulations is virtually impossible for companies without dedicated legal teams. It is going to get worse.

Under discussion right now is a supply-chain law that would make European companies responsible for human rights abuses in their supply chain – including the suppliers of their suppliers.

I expect that the hyperactive phase of this green agenda will end with the elections in June. Some of it might even go into reverse. I am even starting to doubt whether the EU will ever enforce the 2035 target for phasing out fossil-fuel-driven cars.

This is an industrial-policy disaster in the making because Europe’s carmakers are having trouble selling their electric cars.

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climate and geology

Geologically Generated Ice Cycles And Climate-Related Phenomena

by J.E. Kamis, Feb 28, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

The term “Ice Age” implies that covering Earth’s surface with ice and then melting it is a single event.

As explained below, this process is not a single event but rather a reoccurring cycle that has three distinct phases: Ice Melt/End Phase, Ice Increase/Recovery Phase, and Normal Ice Extent/Stable Phase.

Ice Melt/End Phase

Approximately every 100,000 years, the Earth’s glaciers and seas reach their maximum extent. Suddenly and within 5,000 years nearly all the ice melts. I term this the Ice Melt Phase.

So, what causes this rapid melting of the ice? It is a geologically induced pulse of heat and gas emitted from all of Earth’s geological features. A more detailed explanation of the Ice Melt Phase follows.

In 1941 Serbian mathematician Milutin Milankovitch discovered that every 100,000 years, the Earth’s orbit around the sun, tilt angle of its axis, and wobble-type movement around the axis changes. Scientists called this process a Milankovitch Cycle.

Milankovitch concluded that these astronomical changes affected Earth’s long-term climate. Others have shown that these astronomical changes also act to greatly increase the gravitational stress on Earth.

Figure 1. 50,000-mile-long interconnected network of ocean floor fault zones and ice extent during an Ice Cycle. (Image credit Wikipedia, some labeling by J. Kamis).

In my opinion, this stress activates all of Earth’s geological features, most importantly the 50,000-mile-long interconnected network of deep ocean-floor fault zones (Figure 1). These fault zones form the boundary between continents and large segments of ocean-floor rock layers.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Meteorologist Debunks TIME Mag’s Claim That Jan 2024 Was Hottest On Record

by A. Watts, Feb 19, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

An article in TIME Magazine (TIME) claims that January 2024 was the hottest ever on record for the planet. Titled, 2024 Had the Hottest January on Record Following 2023’s Hottest Year on Record the article is based on a single source of temperature data.

Data from multiple other sources of temperature measurements refute this claim. [emphasis, links added]

TIME refers to the Copernicus EU climate service as the source for its alarming claim. Copernicus EU issued a press release claiming:

January 2024 was the warmest January on record globally, with an average ERA5 surface air temperature of 13.14°C, 0.70°C above the 1991-2020 average for January and 0.12°C above the temperature of the previous warmest January, in 2020.

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The month was 1.66°C warmer than an estimate of the January average for 1850-1900, the designated pre-industrial reference period.

The problem with that is that they are using a reference period of 1850 to 1900 that no other climate data source uses; a period, not coincidentally, more than 100 years of global warming ago when the Earth was cooler than today.

For example, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) produced a map of the globe that shows a significantly lower global temperature for January 2024.

The GISS global value was just 1.20°C compared to the 1.66°C claimed by Copernicus is different because NASA GISS is using a base period of 1951 to 1980.

Copernicus seemingly cherry-picked the reference period to fit the climate crisis narrative, and TIME was too uninterested in seeking and presenting the truth to investigate the extraordinary claim, instead reporting it as an unchallenged fact.

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climate-debate

The Hockey Stick Trial: How Science Died In A D.C. Courtroom

by R .Darwall, Feb 20, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

“Science,” wrote the philosopher Karl Popper, “is one of the very few human activities – perhaps the only one – in which errors are systematically criticized and fairly often, in time, corrected.”

The sub-title of Popper’s 1963 book Conjectures and Refutations, in which he argued that science progresses through inspired conjectures checked by attempts to refute them through criticism, is “The Growth of Scientific Knowledge.” [emphasis, links added]

Now, a six-person jury in Washington, DC has refuted Popper’s formulation of the uniqueness of science, finding in favor of climate scientist Michael Mann in the defamation suit he brought against Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn dating back to 2012.

Central to Mann’s case was his attempt to reconstruct global temperature over the previous millennium – the iconic “hockey stick” graph.

The graph shows global temperatures purportedly falling for centuries and suddenly shooting upward with the advent of the Industrial Revolution.

Mann’s hockey stick representation was derived principally from selected tree-ring data based on the assumption that tree rings constitute accurate proxies for temperature and are not contaminated by confounding factors such as rainfall, seasonal variability, and levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The results that Mann produced are also sensitive to decisions on and application of statistical techniques.

There can be little doubt of the hockey stick’s historical importance in developing and propagating what became the dominant scientific paradigm of climate change.

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climate-debate

Climate Model Bias 1: What is a Model?

by A. May, Feb 29, 2024 in WUWT

There are three types of scientific models, as shown in figure 1. In this series of seven posts on climate model bias we are only concerned with two of them. The first are mathematical models that utilize well established physical, and chemical processes and principles to model some part of our reality, especially the climate and the economy. The second are conceptual models that utilize scientific hypotheses and assumptions to propose an idea of how something, such as the climate, works. Conceptual models are generally tested, and hopefully validated, by creating a mathematical model. The output from the mathematical model is compared to observations and if the output matches the observations closely, the model is validated. It isn’t proven, but it is shown to be useful, and the conceptual model gains credibility.

Models are useful when used to decompose some complex natural system, such as Earth’s climate, or some portion of the system, into its underlying components and drivers. Models can be used to try and determine which of the system components and drivers are the most important under various model scenarios.

Besides being used to predict the future, or a possible future, good models should also tell us what should not happen in the future. If these events do not occur, it adds support to the hypothesis. These are the tasks that the climate models created by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP)[1] are designed to do. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)[2] analyzes the CMIP model results, along with other peer-reviewed research, and attempts to explain modern global warming in their reports. The most recent IPCC report is called AR6.[3]

In the context of climate change, especially regarding the AR6 IPCC[4] report, the term “model,” is often used as an abbreviation for a general circulation climate model.[5] Modern computer general circulation models have been around since the 1960s, and now are huge computer programs that can run for days or longer on powerful computers. However, climate modeling has been around for more than a century, well before computers were invented. Later in this report I will briefly discuss a 19th century greenhouse gas climate model developed and published by Svante Arrhenius.

Besides modeling climate change, AR6 contains descriptions of socio-economic models that attempt to predict the impact of selected climate changes on society and the economy. In a sense, AR6, just like the previous assessment reports, is a presentation of the results of the latest iteration of their scientific models of future climate and their models of the impact of possible future climates on humanity.

Introduction

Modern atmospheric general circulation computerized climate models were first introduced in the 1960s by Syukuro Manabe and colleagues.[6] These models, and their descendants can be useful, even though they are clearly oversimplifications of nature, and they are wrong[7] in many respects like all models.[8] It is a shame, but climate model results are often conflated with observations by the media and the public, when they are anything but.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Green Billionaires Press Hollywood to Promote Armageddon Climate Messages in Movies

by C. Morrison, Feb27, 2024 in TheDailySceptic

 

Green billionaires are pouring money into discreet campaigns to persuade Hollywood writers to catastrophise the climate in future film and television scripts. One of their main vehicles is Good Energy, which tells writers that showing anger, depression, grief or other emotion in relation to the climate crisis, “can only make characters more relatable”. Los Angeles-based Good Energy is funded by numerous billionaire foundations including Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Sierra Club and the Climate Emergency Fund; the latter operation is part-funded by Aileen Getty and is one of the paymasters of the Just Stop Oil pests.

Good Energy aims to weave climate alarm into all types of film-making, “especially” if it is not about climate. With the support of Bloomberg, it recently published ‘Good Energy – A Playbook for Screenwriting in the Age of Climate Change’. It claims the Playbook is “now the industry’s go-to guide to incorporating climate into any storyline or genre”. As with almost all green campaigning groups, Good Energy would not exist without the support of billionaire funding. These operations seek a supra-national collectivist Net Zero solution to a claimed climate emergency. Good Energy acknowledges it would not exist without this funding, adding, “as collaborators and champions, each has provided a unique contribution for which we are endlessly grateful”.

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better to know...?

Susan Crockford: State of the Polar Bear Report 2023 (pdf)

by S. Crockford, 2023

Key Findings
* There were no reports from the Arctic in 2023 indicating polar bears were being harmed due to lack of summer sea ice habitat, in part because Arctic sea ice in summer has not declined since 2007. 
 
* Contrary to expectations, a study in Svalbard found a decrease in polar bears killed in defense of life or property over the last 40 years, despite profound declines in sea ice over the last two decades. 
 
* A survey of Southern Hudson Bay polar bears in 2021 showed an astonishing 30% increase over five years, which adds another 223 bears to the global total. 
 
* A concurrent survey of Western Hudson Bay polar bears in 2021 showed that numbers had not declined since 2011, which also means they have not declined since 2004. Movement of bears across boundaries with neighbouring subpopulations may account for the appearance of a decline, when none actually occurred. 
 
* The IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group has ignored a 2016 recommendation that the boundaries of three Hudson Bay subpopulations (Western HB, Southern HB, and Foxe Basin) be adjusted to account for genetic distinctiveness of bears inhabiting the Hudson Bay region; a similar boundary issue in the western Arctic between the Chukchi Sea, and the Southern and Northern Beaufort subpopulations, based on known movements of bears between regions, has been acknowledged since 2014 but has not yet been resolved. 
 
* The US Fish and Wildlife Service and the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group, in their 2023 reports, failed to officially acknowledge the new-found South-East Greenland population as the 20th subpopulation, despite undisputed evidence this is a genetically distinct and geographically isolated group. Numbers are estimated at 234 individuals.
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climate-debate

After All the Media Hype, Wildfires Across Southern Europe Were Completely Normal in 2023

by C. Morrison , Feb25, 2024 in TheDailySceptic

Writing in the Daily Telegraph last July, Suzanne Moore reported that the “world is on fire – and we can’t ignore it any longer”. She was noting the usual outbreaks of summer wildfires in southern Europe and suggested a retreat by cautious holiday makers in Rhodes away from one conflagration was “what climate refugees look like”. The Guardian was in similar hysterical mode observing that the lesson from Greece was “the climate crisis is coming for us all”. Such was the level of Thermogeddon interest last summer it is curious that final figures for areas burnt during the year are missing from mainstream media. In the five largest southern European countries for which the EU provides separate data – Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece – 2023 was only the 20th highest in the modern satellite burnt acreage record going back to 1980.

This is perhaps not surprising. Fire ‘weather’ is a potent tool in stoking up general climate anxiety and helps promote the need for a collectivist Net Zero political solution. The Guardian used video footage of tourists moving away from one wildfire last year to claim “survival mode” could easily pass for a “TV climate crisis awareness raising campaign”. An Agence France-Presse report in the Guardian quoted EU spokesman Balazs Ujvari as stating that fires are getting more severe. “If you look at the figures every year in the past years, we are seeing trends which are not necessarily favourable.”

Let us look at some of the figures, starting first with the graph below compiled by the investigative climate writer Paul Homewood.

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unclassified

Why Climate Scientists were Duped into Believing Rising CO2 will Harm Coral and Mollusks

by J. Steele, Feb 24, 2024 in WUWT

Coral build reefs by producing limestone, or calcium carbonate. The great diversity of shell building mollusks, like clams and oysters, also build their shells out of calcium carbonate.  So, scientists assumed that these organisms just pulled carbonate ions from the surrounding sea water and joined it with abundant calcium ions to make reefs and shells, a process referred to as “calcification”. Thus, many scientists then expressed their heart-felt concerns that more CO2 will reduce the ocean’s carbonate ions and thus stress coral reef building and mollusk shell building.

Indeed, the increasing absorption of human produced carbon dioxide by the oceans can very slightly lower pH. In other words, more CO2 increases the oceans’ concentration of H+ ions. It is also unassailable science that when CO2 enters the water, it interacts with water molecules to produce both H+ ions and bicarbonate ions.  However, those H+ ions can then interact with carbonate ions and convert them to also form bicarbonate ions and reduce the pool of available carbonate ions. So, NOAA and hundreds of internet websites falsely told the world that “Ocean acidification slows the rate at which coral reefs generate calcium carbonate, thus slowing the growth of coral skeletons.”

However, climate scientists were apparently very ignorant regards the physiology of reef building and shell making.  In order for charged ions to pass through an organism’s lipid membranes and enter its calcification chambers, a specialized channel or transporter is required. But for over a decade now, the search for carbonate transporters has failed to find any such transporters in any of these organisms. However, abundant bicarbonate transporters (green rectangles) have been found and deemed important for making reefs and shells.

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climate-debate, unclassified

Impacts and risks of “realistic” global warming projections for the 21st century

by N. Scafetta, Feb 2024, in GeoscienceFrontier

  • Highlights

    The IPCC AR6 assessment of likely impacts and risks by 21st-century climate changes is highly uncertain.

    • Most climate models, however, run too hot, and the SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5 scenarios are unlikely.

    • New climate change projections for the 21st century were generated using best-performing climate models,

    • Empirical climate modeling of natural cycles, and calibration on lower troposphere temperature data.

    • Net-zero emission policies are not necessary because SSP2-4.5 is sufficient to limit climate change hazards to manageable levels

    • …

La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse