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.

NOAA Bureaucrats Falsely Claim ‘Extraordinary’ Sea Level Rise

by H.S. Burnett, July 18, 2020 in ClimateRealism


The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which relies on perpetuation of the Climate Delusion to maintain high funding, is falsely claiming there has been “extraordinary” sea level rise since 2000. Fox News and other media outlets are devoting substantial attention to the assertion by NOAA bureaucrats. However, there is simply nothing extraordinary about recent sea level rise.

According to Fox News, NOAA claims “Communities in coastal areas of the U.S. saw record-setting high-tide flooding last year, part of a trend of rising seas … [and an] ‘extraordinary’ rise in high-tide flooding since 2000.”

“Damaging floods that decades ago happened only during a storm now happen more regularly, even without severe weather,” Nicole LeBoeuf, acting assistant administrator for NOAA’s National Ocean Service, told reporters in a conference call.

Even if high-tide flooding has increased in recent years, natural factors are the primary cause.

As detailed in Climate at a Glance: Sea Level Rise: Data shows global sea level has been rising at a relatively steady pace of approximately one foot per century since at least the mid-1800s, which was long before coal power plants and SUVs. Moreover, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms here has been no significant recent acceleration.

Global sea level has risen approximately 400 feet since the beginning of the end of the most recent ice age—approximately 20,000 years ago. The rate of sea level rise has risen and fallen at various times since then, slowing and increasing on the order of tens, hundreds, and thousands of years over the past 20,000 years. All of that variance had  nothing to do with human activities. Indeed, as NASA reports, sea level always rises between ice ages as ice sheets retreat. During the last interglacial period between ice ages, seas were four to six meters higher than we are experiencing today….

More Proof That Geologic Forces Are Melting Thwaites and Pine Island Glaciers

by J.E. Kamis, July 20, 2020 in ClimateChangeDispatch


As previously explained before, increased melting/ice loss of Antarctica’s Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers is the result of geologically induced heat flow emitted from underlying bedrock “hotspots,” not climate change (Figure 1).

All but a very minor amount of Antarctica’s glacial ice melting occurs in the western portion of this continent. The most rapid and greatest ice mass loss areas are in West Antarctica.

They are positioned directly above geographically extensive and high heat flow geological features. This association is thought to be strong evidence of a cause and effect relationship.

Discussion of evidence supporting the contention that the melting of Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers is the result of bedrock heat flow begins with a review of the regional geology (refer to Figure 1).

The Pluton Rich “hotspot” is a 61,000-thousand-square-mile area that is home to numerous high-heat-flow lava pockets that are bounded and fueled by deep earth reaching faults.

Several detailed research studies document the existence and configuration of this area. This lies along the West Antarctic Rift.

The Mount Erebus Volcanic Complex “Hotspot” is the most geologically active portion of Antarctica. It is a 25,000-square-mile high-heat-flow area, much of which is absent of glacial ice.

The absence of glacial ice across a huge portion of West Antarctica is extremely unusual and exceedingly difficult to explain by invoking global warming.

Figure 1. NASA map of Antarctica’s ice sheet thickness 1992-2017. Greatest ice thickness losses shaded red. The outline of three regional sub-glacial geological Hotspots” are outlined in red (Image by NASA, most labeling by J. Kamis).

Environmental Facts Vs. Environmental ‘Fact-Checkers’

by C Rossiter, July 17, 2020 in ClimateChangeDispatch


Stacey Abrams, who ran for governor of Georgia, and Tom Steyer, who ran for president of the United States, are now trying to run me out of town.

Abrams, Steyer, and the leaders of 17 large environmental lobbies recently asked Facebook to ban a research group that I direct—the CO2 Coalition, made up of 55 climate scientists and energy economists.

The annual budgets of these lobbies total over half a billion dollars, and Steyer alone is worth $1.6 billion.

Their alarmist view of our supposedly impending environmental doom predominates in mainstream media, centering on the impact on the earth of emissions of carbon dioxide—a non-polluting, mild-warming gas, and an important source of plant and plankton food.

By contrast, the CO2 Coalition’s annual budget is half a million dollars. Like all scientists and economists who ask for any proof of the looming apocalypse, we are excluded from the mainstream-media discussion.

You might wonder: how did the Steyer-Abrams crowd even notice us, let alone conclude that we posed a threat to their enforced consensus, which calls for an end to the affordable, reliable energy that powers over 80 percent of the world?

The answer is found in the work of a Silicon Valley computer entrepreneur named Eric Michelman, who became fabulously wealthy creating a modification of the computer mouse.

For more than a decade now, Michelman has devoted his wealth to squelching media debate on climate change—a successful dry run for the cancel culture that we see engulfing many other issues today.

In 2016, Michelman was the founding and lead funder of a group called Climate Feedback, whose purpose is to “fact-check” and label as “false” any and all deviant thoughts about fossil-fueled climate catastrophe.

The group has been certified as an unbiased source on climate issues by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which was founded by the Tampa Bay Times and operates the left-leaning PolitiFact.

At some point, Facebook turned its censorship oversight over to the Poynter Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network.

That’s when our organization’s problems started.

In September 2019, a “false” label appeared on Facebook when the Washington Examiner posted an article I had written there with Dr. Patrick Michaels, our senior fellow and a former president of the American Association of State Climatologists.

The op-ed described the poor performance of climate models that had projected alarming increases in future temperatures. The “false” label triggered a wave of censorship from Facebook’s algorithms, blocking reposting and advertising.

Climate Predictions “Worse Than We Thought”

by P.J. Michaels, July 14, 2020 in RealClearEnergy


As the temperature of the eastern U.S. normally reaches its summer maximum around the last week of July, every year at this time we are bombarded with tired “climate change is worse than we thought” (WTWT) stories. These stories take time to produce, from imagination to final copy to editing to publication, so they have usually been submitted well in advance of the summer peak. Hence, orchestrated fear.

For once, I’m in agreement about the WTWT meme, but it’s about the climate models, not the climate itself.

Climate Models: No Warming For 30 Years – Possibly

by Maher et al., May 12, 2020 in GWPF


A new study demonstrates how a prolonged warming pause or even global cooling may happen in coming years despite increasing levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases — caused by natural climatic variability.

Natural climatic variability has always been a topic that contains a lot of unknowns, but it has been rarely explicitly stated just how little we know about it. Such variability has been habitually underplayed as it was “obvious” that the major driver of global temperature was the accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, with natural variability a weaker effect.

But the global temperature data of this century demonstrate that natural variability has dominated in the form of El Ninos. ‘Doesn’t matter’, came the reply, ‘just wait and the signal of greenhouse warming will emerge out of the noise of natural climatic variability.’ How long will we have to wait for that signal? Quite a long time, according to some researchers as more papers acknowledge that natural climatic variability has a major, if not a dominant influence on global temperature trends.

With the usual proviso concerning climatic predictions there seems to be a growing number of research papers suggesting that the global average temperature of at least the next five years will remain largely unchanged. The reason: natural climatic variability.

Only last week the UK Met Office produced figures suggesting that there is only a 1 in 34 chance that the 1.5°C threshold will be exceeded for the next five year period. Now a new paper by climate modellers extends such predictions, suggesting that because of natural variability the average global temperature up to 2049 could remain relatively unchanged – even with the largest increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

Using two types of computer models in a first of its kind study, Nicola Maher of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany, and colleagues writing in Environmental Research Letters looked at the 2019-2034 period concluding that,

East European Nations Reject New Climate Targets

by GWPF/Reuters, July 14, 2020


The European Union remains deeply divided over plans to increase its CO2 emissions targets, with East European ministers refusing to commit to bigger cuts.

The EU has agreed to unilaterally cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030. This target has been criticised by climate activists who claim that more radical cuts are needed to prevent ‘catastrophic’ climate change.

Responding to this campaign, the European Commission plans to publish an impact assessment of the additional cost of a revised CO2 target to 50% or 55% by 2030. The EU would then need to agree a new target with member states and lawmakers.

According to Reuters, a meeting of environment ministers from the EU’s 27 member states failed to find agree on whether the target should be raised at all.

“Some are sceptical,” German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze said after the meeting.

On Monday, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic and Hungary wrote to the European Commission, announcing that they will not support a new CO2 target until they have seen the Commission’s economic impact assessment.

Help! A Short History of Climate Alarmism

by GWPF, July 15, 2020


One of the perennial sources of amusement among sceptics is to look back at the crazy things scientists and activists were saying about global warming back in the early days, when the scaremongering first kicked off.

Who can forget, for example, James Hansen’s notorious speculation in 1988 that large chunks of Manhattan would disappear under the rising waters in the first decades after the millennium? Fortunately, being a thick-skinned fellow, the failure of even small chunks of New York to disappear in the last thirty years since seems to have dented his confidence not one jot, and he cheerfully fends of allegations of alarmism, putting them down to the ignorance of the general public.

Or what about climate scientist David Viner at the University of East Anglia who told the Independent 20 years ago – apparently with a straight face – that snowfall was going to become “a very rare and exciting event” and that children “just aren’t going to know what snow is”? That one hasn’t turned out too well either.

Atmospheric CO2 during the Mid-Piacenzian Warm Period and the M2 glaciation

by de la Vega et al., 2020 in Nature OPEN  ACCESS


Abstract

The Piacenzian stage of the Pliocene (2.6 to 3.6 Ma) is the most recent past interval of sustained global warmth with mean global temperatures markedly higher (by ~2–3 °C) than today. Quantifying CO2 levels during the mid-Piacenzian Warm Period (mPWP) provides a means, therefore, to deepen our understanding of Earth System behaviour in a warm climate state. Here we present a new high-resolution record of atmospheric CO2 using the δ11B-pH proxy from 3.35 to 3.15 million years ago (Ma) at a temporal resolution of 1 sample per 3–6 thousand years (kyrs). Our study interval covers both the coolest marine isotope stage of the mPWP, M2 (~3.3 Ma) and the transition into its warmest phase including interglacial KM5c (centered on ~3.205 Ma) which has a similar orbital configuration to present. We find that CO2 ranged from 389+388389−8+38ppm to 331+1311,331−11+13,ppm, with CO2 during the KM5c interglacial being 371+3229371−29+32ppm (at 95% confidence). Our findings corroborate the idea that changes in atmospheric CO2 levels played a distinct role in climate variability during the mPWP. They also facilitate ongoing data-model comparisons and suggest that, at present rates of human emissions, there will be more CO2 in Earth’s atmosphere by 2025 than at any time in at least the last 3.3 million years.

Evolution after Chicxulub asteroid impact: Rapid response of life to end-cretaceous mass

by Geological Society of America, July 14, 2020 in ScienceDaily


The impact event that formed the Chicxulub crater (Yucatán Peninsula, México) caused the extinction of 75% of species on Earth 66 million years ago, including non-avian dinosaurs. One place that did not experience much extinction was the deep, as organisms living in the abyss made it through the mass extinction event with just some changes to community structure.

New evidence from International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 364 of trace fossils of burrowing organisms that lived in the seafloor of the Chicxulub Crater beginning a few years after the impact shows just how quick the recovery of the seafloor ecosystem was, with the establishment of a well-developed tiered community within  approximately 700,000 years after the event.

Siberia on fire – every summer

by Pasi Autio, July 14, 2020 in WUWT


Northern hemisphere summer – the season when forest fires in Siberia are on the loop. And usually every single new article about the Siberian forest fires somehow links them to climate change. Therefore it is good time to see how the forest fires has changed during the years. Is there really an increasing trend of Siberia forest fires as the news suggests and what is continuously predicted based on climate models?

With an area of 13.1 million square kilometres (5,100,000 sq mi), Siberia accounts for 77% of Russia’s land area. Majority of the Siberia is sparsely inhabited wilderness with little or no roads. Therefore, what sets on fire, usually burns until rain or other natural factor ends the fire. Southern Siberia also has extensive logging.

Getting reliable fire area data based on available literature seems to be problematic. According to the literature (1) USSR-era fire area data is unreliable and was consistently and severely underreporting fires on sparsely populated areas due to incomplete reporting structure that left most of the country unmonitored (6). The situation was improved only after western satellite data was taken in use by post-USSR Russia. But considering the size of Siberia and the fact that it is very sparsely populated, it is not wonder that no reliable data can be generated without the help of satellites. But even on satellite era some smaller fires goes undetected due to cloud cover or sensor detection limits (6).

After extensive literature study, I found no actual study providing satellite-based dataset for Siberian forest fires for post-USSR era either, which is strange considering how much coverage the Siberian forest fires have got lately. There seem to be an effort going on to create such a dataset for USSR-era years, however, by digitizing old satellite images taken since 1979, but let’s discuss that later a bit more.

Annual burned area in Siberia 1997-2016

Wildfire, Siberia: 123rf.com

Figure: Natural forest fire in Russia.

Acid Oceans? & Oyster Shells

by Jim Steele, July 14, 2020 in WUWT


(I wrote a white paper for the CO2  Coalition, providing more details and references to peer reviewed science regards how marine life counteracts ocean acidification. That paper can be downloaded here )

Search the internet for “acid oceans” and you’ll find millions of articles suggesting the oceans are becoming more corrosive due the burning of fossil fuels, and “acid oceans” are threatening marine life. Although climate modelers constantly claim the oceans’ surface pH has dropped since the 1800s, that change was never measured, as the concept of pH was not created until the early 1900s by beer-makers.

In 2003 Stanford’s Dr. Ken Caldeira coined the term “ocean acidification” to generate public concern about increasing CO2  . As New Yorker journalist Elizabeth Kolbert reported, “Caldeira told me that he had chosen the term ‘ocean acidification’ quite deliberately for its shock value. Seawater is naturally alkaline, with a pH ranging from 7.8 to 8.5—a pH of 7 is neutral—which means that, for now, at least, the oceans are still a long way from actually turning acidic.” Nonetheless Caldeira’s term “ocean acidification” evoked such undue fears and misunderstandings, we are constantly bombarded with catastrophic media hype and misdiagnosed causes of natural change.

For example, for nearly a decade the media has hyped the 2006-2008 die-off of larval oysters in hatcheries along Washington and Oregon. They called it a crisis caused by rising atmospheric CO2  and the only solution was to stop burning fossil fuels. But it was an understanding of natural pH changes that provided the correct solutions. Subsurface waters at a few hundred meters depth naturally contain greater concentrations CO2  and nutrients and a lower pH than surface waters. Changes in the winds and currents periodically bring those waters to the surface in a process called upwelling. Upwelling promotes a burst of life but also lowers the surface water pH.  Not fully aware of all the CO2  dynamics, the hatcheries had made 3 mistakes.

‘Most Of The Globe’ Could Experience ‘No Warming’ For 30 Years Due To Temperature-Driving Internal Variability

by Maher et al., July 13, 2020 in K.Richard/NoTricksZone


A new study documents the dominance of internal variability in decadal-scale global temperature changes and suggests we may experience a global cooling trend during the next 15 or even 30 years despite rising greenhouse gases.

Maher et al. (2020) acknowledge that internal variability in global surface temperature variations is “a difficult concept to communicate” because we have very few observations of its impact and so we must rely on assumptions about how the climate system might work.

Those who try to explain how internal variability affects global surface temperature often use the “Butterfly Effect” paradigm; they assume that small changes now can lead to larger changes decades from now.

Because global temperature trends are “largely determined by internal variability”, global cooling or another warming hiatus could very well be observed over the next decade. Actually, as Maher and colleagues explain, “even out to thirty years large parts of the globe (or most of the globe in MPI-GE and CMIP5) could still experience no-warming due to internal variability“.

BBC Asks Dr. Willie Soon to Respond to Climate Conspiracy Claims

by Eric Worall, July 13, 2020 in WUWT


The BBC has belatedly decided they need at least a little input from one of the targets of their latest big oil climate conspiracy propaganda piece. Dr. Willie Soon does not hold back in his response.

Note some of the links take you to a “You are leaving the mail.com service” page. This is a harmless artefact caused by copying Dr. Soon’s email, click continue to see the referenced document.


Dear Ms. Keane,

I am wary of responding to your false allegations, since your questions seem somewhat loaded. Disappointingly, they appear to repeat the dishonest and misleading claims of the former Greenpeace USA research director, Kert Davies (now running the so-called “Climate Investigations Center”), whose research we have shown to be disingenuous in Section 2 of our attached 2018 report on Greenpeace (Attachment 1). Unfortunately, the premise of your series seems to be the dangerous conspiracy theories promoted by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway in their 2010 book Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change and their 2014 film of the same name. I’ve attached a short 3-page .pdf (Attachment 2) summarizing just a few examples of the poor scholarship and bizarre hypocrisies in Oreskes & Conway’s conspiracy theories.

The BBC has an established history of stifling genuine scientific inquiry and nuanced debate on climate change since its infamous 2006 Climate Change – the Challenge to Broadcasting? seminar, as described in detail in Andrew Montford’s short book The Propaganda Bureau and summarized in various blogs in 2012, e.g., hereherehere and here.

It is also regrettable that you attempted to contact me in such a roundabout way, i.e., by going through the Heartland Institute, rather than emailing me directly here at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. I am not pleased that you saw fit to circulate your letter, with its numerous libellous comments, to a third party.

The BBC seems to encourage the unethical pseudo-journalistic practice of selectively quoting and cherry-picking out-of-context interviewees who disagree with the narrative of the program, in order to make the interviewees seem foolish or uninformed. Richard North, summarized this unethical practice well in this 2011 essay: https://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2011/01/on-being-stitched-up.htmlThis was a particular concern when I considered whether to reply to your allegations.

I am hoping that you have more journalistic integrity than your BBC colleagues who have carried out unethical “hatchet jobs” in the past. I suspect that you may not be planning to “fairly and accurately reflect any comments” as you promised me.

Nonetheless, given the number of false allegations you are threatening to broadcast, I feel compelled to respond. I have copied this letter a number of friends and colleagues who might be interested to see the questions you have asked me and my responses.

I have copied and pasted your letter to me below. Your letter is in bold face: and my responses are in Roman face.

Will you change course in your grave misunderstanding on this timely subject and uphold honest debate and discussion on climate science?

Yours faithfully,

Willie Soon

Carbon dioxide level unprecedented in 15 MY… More evidence it’s not the climate control knob!avid Middl

by David Middleton, July 10, 2020 in WUWT


If the Earth was 3-4 °C warmer with a much higher sea level 3.3 million years ago, with about the same CO2 concentration, what does this say about the potency of it as a climate control knob?

The last time CO2 levels were this low, Earth was in the deepest ice age of the Phanerozoic Eon, the Pennsylvanian (Late Carboniferous)-Early Permian.

Figure 5. Phanerozoic temperatures (pH-corrected) and carbon dioxide. The Miocene is the first epoch of the Neogene Period (Berner et al, 2001 and Royer et al., 2004) (older is toward the left).

HIGHEST U.S. TEMPERATURES ON RECORD BY STATE

by Cap Allon, July 12, 2020 in Electroverse


Historical documentation destroys the man-made global warming theory.

While those in control of the temperature graphs are all too happy to fraudulently increase the running average, what they haven’t (yet) had the balls to do is rewrite the history books.

As Tony Heller uncovers on his site realclimatescience, NASA routinely cools the past and heats the present, so to give the illusion of a greater warming trend — and comparisons between old and new graphs instantly reveals this fraud:

In 1999, NASA’s James Hansen reported 0.5C US cooling since the 1930’s:

By 2016, the same NASA graph has eliminated that 1930-1999 cooling:

Decadal Climate Prediction? Might As Well Throw A Dice!

by P. Homewood, July 12, 2020 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


https://hadleyserver.metoffice.gov.uk/wmolc/

The WMO has collated global temperature projections from twelve different organisations, covering this year and the next five years. They were produced in 2019.

It is totally clear that there is very little agreement between any of them, other than a warm Arctic.

An unkind person might call them a waste of space!

Arctic Ocean changes driven by sub-Arctic seas

by University of Alaska Fairbank, July 12, 2020 in WUWT


New research explores how lower-latitude oceans drive complex changes in the Arctic Ocean, pushing the region into a new reality distinct from the 20th-century norm.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks and Finnish Meteorological Institute led the international effort, which included researchers from six countries. The first of several related papers was published this month in Frontiers in Marine Science.

Climate change is most pronounced in the Arctic. The Arctic Ocean, which covers less than 3% of the Earth’s surface, appears to be quite sensitive to abnormal conditions in lower-latitude oceans.

“With this in mind, the goal of our research was to illustrate the part of Arctic climate change driven by anomalous [different from the norm] influxes of oceanic water from the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, a process which we refer to as borealization,” said lead author Igor Polyakov, an oceanographer at UAF’s International Arctic Research Center and FMI.

Although the Arctic is often viewed as a single system that is impacted by climate change uniformly, the research stressed that the Arctic’s Amerasian Basin (influenced by Pacific waters) and its Eurasian Basin (influenced by Atlantic waters) tend to differ in their responses to climate change.

Since the first temperature and salinity measurements taken in the late 1800s, scientists have known that cold and relatively fresh water, which is lighter than salty water, floats at the surface of the Arctic Ocean. This fresh layer blocks the warmth of the deeper water from melting sea ice.

IMAGE: A MAP OF THE ARCTIC OCEAN SHOWS THE LOCATION OF THE AMERASIAN AND EURASIAN BASINS. ARROWS SHOW THE PATH OF WARM, FRESH PACIFIC WATER AND WARM, SALTY ATLANTIC WATER INTO… view more CREDIT: GRAPHIC ADAPTED FROM POLYAKOV ET AL. 2020, FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE PAPER.

Facebook Accused of Allowing Climate Deniers to Promote Their Views

by Eric Worrall, July 8, 2020 in WUWT


A group calling themselves climate power have demanded Facebook take a more aggressive stance against people who promote what they claim are climate lies. The signatories to their open letter include failed radical green Democrat candidate Tom Steyer, and former Clinton administration chief of staff John Podesta.

10 fallacies about Arctic sea ice & polar bear survival refute misleading ‘facts’

by S. Crockford, July 8, 2020 in WUWT


This updated blog post of mine from last year is as pertinent now as it was then: it’s a fully-referenced rebuttal to the misleading ‘facts’ so often presented this time of year to support the notion that polar bears are being harmed due to lack of summer sea ice. Polar Bears International developed ‘Arctic Sea Ice Day’ (15 July) to promote their skewed interpretation of polar bear science at the height of the Arctic melt season. This year I’ve add a ‘Polar Bears and the Arctic Food Chain‘ graphic, which readers are free to download and share. For further information, see “The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened“.

Remember when we were told: “The Arctic Is On Fire, and We Should all Be Terrified”? It’s SNOWING there now.

by Anthony Watts, July 7, 2020 in WUWT


From the “weather is not climate”, you идиот department comes this about face by climate change nature.

Remember just a couple of weeks ago we were lectured to about the dangers of climate change turning towns around the Arctic circle into easy-bake ovens?

Well, I pointed out how absurd this all was, especially since it also happened 100 years ago, before the climate change was even a glimmer in leftists eyes. And, because with 24 hour sunlight at the peak of the summer solstice, the area is bound to get hot, because there’s no “night” to cool off. Of course, that didn’t stop opportunistic trough-feeding scientists like Mark “the Arctic is screaming” Serreze from taking advantage of the situation, claiming it was all part of a disturbing pattern.

Naturally, the visual that was produced on Twitter to scare people was pretty convincing to the non-thinking media types that pounced on the story.

Facebook Censor Mike Schellenberger For Telling The Truth

by P. Homewood, July 8, 2020 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1280598424174292992

Not for the first time, Facebook have acted on the request of a fake Factcheck from climate activists.

Readers may recall a similar occurrence a few months ago, when Facebook objected to an article about the Australian bushfires. which originated from the NSW firefighters association. As with this one, Facebook were acting upon a “Factcheck” from an outfit called Climate Feedback.

As I showed at the time, the “Factcheck” was totally erroneous. At the time, I wrote to Climate Feedback and asked them to retract, as this was the only way Facebook were prepared to reverse their objection. I received no reply.

No surprise then that the censorship of Schellenberger this time is the result of a “Factcheck” from the same Climate Feedback group.

Mike Schellenberger gives a lot more detail in his twitter feed, linked above.

Flawed Models: New Studies Find Plants Take Up “More Than Twice As Much” CO2 Than Expected

by Fritz Vahrenholt, July 7, 2020 in NoTricksZone


First, the global mean temperature of satellite based measurements was surprisingly much higher in May 2020 than in April. In contrast, the global temperatures of the series of measurements on land and sea decreased. The difference can be explained by the fact that under warm El-Nino conditions the satellite measurements lag about 2-3 months behind the earth-based measurements.

From November 2019 to March 2020 a moderate El-Nino was observed, which has now been replaced by neutral conditions in the Pacific. Therefore, it is to be expected that also the satellite based measurements, which we use at this point, will show a decrease in temperatures within 2-3 months.

The average temperature increase since 1981 remained unchanged at 0.14 degrees Celsius per decade. The sunspot number of 0.2 corresponded to the expectations of the solar minimum.

The earth is greening

Don’t Panic: Leading Scientists See Little Global Warming, Just ‘Natural Variability’

by F. Vahrenholt, July 6, 2020 in ClimateChangeDispatch


A commentary titled “‘Just don’t panic – also about climate change’” by Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt appearing at German site achgut.comtells us there’s no need for panic with respect to climate change, as leading scientists dial back earlier doomsday projections.

No warming until 2050

Vahrenholt claims a negative Atlantic oscillation is ahead of us and the expected second weak solar cycle in succession will reduce anthropogenic warming in the next 15-30 years.

He cites a recent publication by Judith Curry, who sees a pause in the temperature rise until 2050 as the most likely scenario.

Vahrenholt and Curry are not alone when it comes to believing natural-variability-watered-down warming is in the works.

Also, IPCC heavyweight Jochem Marotzke from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg takes a similar stand in a publication in the Environmental Research Letters.

In the paper, Marotzke concludes that all locations examined show “a cooling trend or lack of warming trend” and that there is “no warming due to natural cooling effects” and that in calculations up to 2049.

The researchers find “a large part of the earth will not warm up because of internal variability.”

Distancing from alarmists Schellnhuber, Rahmstorf

And recently The Max Planck Institute Director Marotzke said in an interview with Andreas Frey of the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung (FAZ) that there was no need to panic, thus clearly splitting from the doomsday scenarios put out by his alarmist colleagues Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber and Stefan Rahmstorf.

In the FAZ interview, Marotzke also said there was no need to worry that the port city of Hamburg would be flooded in 2100: “Hamburg will not be threatened, that is totally clear.”

Areas not going to be wiped out

Marotzke then told the FAZ that the fears that children have today for the future are not absolutely well-founded, and that entire areas are not going to be wiped out, as often suggested by alarmists.

Sensational French models

DESPITE THE LIES, THE SPIN, AND THE PROPAGANDA, ANTARCTIC SEA ICE IS GROWING — BOTH EXTENT AND CONCENTRATION GREATER NOW THAN IN 1980

by Cap Allon, July 6, 2020 in Electroverse


The UN and their scraggly little offshoot, the IPCC, are at it again — obfuscating data in order to push their fraudulent catastrophic global warming agenda.

According to the IPCC, and picked up the usual AGW propaganda rags such as the Guardian: “the South pole is warming three times faster than rest of the world.”

The Guardian articledated June 30, 2020 continues in predictably befogging fashion: “Dramatic change in Antarctica’s interior in past three decades a result of effects from tropical variability working together with increasing greenhouse gases.”

But, 1) the MSM have a habit of claiming everywhere is warming faster than everywhere else:

And 2), the actual data reveals quite the opposite re Antarctica.

As @Harry_Hardrada recently pointed out on Twitter, there was a larger extent and concentration of Antarctic Sea Ice in June 2020 than back in June 1980:

Robert Felix over at iceagenow.com dives into the data, adding that sea ice extent today stands at 700,000 sq km (270,272 sq miles) greater than in 1980.

And in case you’re having a hard time reading the numbers, Felix breaks them down for you:

Sea ice extent in June 2020 = 13.2 million sq km
Sea ice extent in June 1980 = 12.5 million sq km

Sea ice concentration in June 2020 = 10.6 million sq km
Sea ice concentration in June 1980 = 9.6 million sq km

Fact-checked!

That’s enough extra ice to entirely cover Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, South Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Ohio and all six New England states. Oh, and throw in Washington, D.C. for good measure. (Which might be a good idea.)

 See also THE ARCTIC IS ON FIRE, AND WE SHOULD ALL BE TERRIFIED” — FACT CHECK: IT’S CURRENTLY SNOWING IN VERKHOYANSK

Hot Summer Epic Fail: New Climate Models Exaggerate Midwest Warming by 6X

by Dr Roy Spencer, July 3, 2020 in GlobalWarming


For the last 10 years I have consulted for grain growing interests, providing information about past and potential future trends in growing season weather that might impact crop yields. Their primary interest is the U.S. corn belt, particularly the 12 Midwest states (Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Michigan) which produce most of the U.S. corn and soybean crop.

Contrary to popular perception, the U.S. Midwest has seen little long-term summer warming. For precipitation, the slight drying predicted by climate models in response to human greenhouse gas emissions has not occurred; if anything, precipitation has increased. Corn yield trends continue on a technologically-driven upward trajectory, totally obscuring any potential negative impact of “climate change”.

What Period of Time Should We Examine to Test Global Warming Claims?

Based upon the observations, “global warming” did not really begin until the late 1970s. Prior to that time, anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions had not yet increased by much at all, and natural climate variability dominated the observational record (and some say it still does).

Furthermore, uncertainties regarding the cooling effects of sulfate aerosol pollution make any model predictions before the 1970s-80s suspect since modelers simply adjusted the aerosol cooling effect in their models to match the temperature observations, which showed little if any warming before that time which could be reasonably attributed to greenhouse gas emissions.

This is why I am emphasizing the last 50 years (1970-2019)…this is the period during which we should have seen the strongest warming, and as greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, it is the period of most interest to help determine just how much faith we should put into model predictions for changes in national energy policies. In other words, quantitative testing of greenhouse warming theory should be during a period when the signal of that warming is expected to be the greatest.

50 Years of Predictions vs. Observations

Now that the new CMIP6 climate model experiment data are becoming available, we can begin to get some idea of how those models are shaping up against observations and the previous (CMIP5) model predictions. The following analysis includes the available model out put at the KNMI Climate Explorer website. The temperature observations come from the statewide data at NOAA’s Climate at a Glance website.

For the Midwest U.S. in the summer (June-July-August) we see that there has been almost no statistically significant warming in the last 50 years, whereas the CMIP6 models appear to be producing even more warming than the CMIP5 models did.