Archives de catégorie : climate-debate

Ignoring Climate Alarmists, UK Government Promises More Flights And Bigger Airports

by P. Homewood, December 18, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


The Department for Transport publishes a long-awaited aviation strategy today that pledges to deliver “greater capacity at UK airports”.

It raises the prospect of airports other than Heathrow growing and accepting more flights if tough environmental and noise restrictions are met.

The strategy also outlines plans for the biggest overhaul of Britain’s airspace in more than 50 years to create new flight paths into the biggest airports. GPS-style technology will allow aircraft to fly along more accurate paths below 30,000ft instead of being led by ground beacons, which space planes out over a wide arc several miles across.

It will mean a considerable increase to the 600 or so dedicated flight paths that are in operation today

Max Planck Institute Director: “Low Probability” CO2 Reductions Will Have Impact On Climate Next 20 Years!

by P. Gosselin, December 19, 2018 in NoTricksZone


(German text translated/edited by P Gosselin)

Jochem Marotzke, director of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPIM), wondered whether CO2 savings could really have a direct influence on the temperature in the near future. In a new paper (Marotzke 2018), the Hamburg-based climate researcher simulates the temperature profile of the 2030s predicted by climate models and uses once again a conventional emission profile (Scenario RCP 4.5), and once a politically reduced emission scenario.

Conclusion: Most likely, there would probably be no difference as natural climate variability prevails over these time scales. The paper was published in WIRE’s Climate Change and can be downloaded free of charge as a pdf:

 …

Obsessing Over Global Temperatures

by Ron Clutz, December 18, 2018 in ScienceMatters


Over the last 40 years global-mean surface air temperature – ‘global temperature’ for short – has gained an extraordinary role in the science, politics and public discourse of climate change. What was once a number crudely calculated through averaging together a few dozen reasonably well-spaced meteorological time series, has become reified as an objective entitythat simultaneously measures Earth System behaviour, reveals the future, regulates geopolitical negotiations and disciplines the human imagination. Apart perhaps from GDP rarely can so constructed an abstract entity have gained such power over the human world.

Did Katowice Actually Achieve Anything?

by P. Homewood, December 18, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


Negotiators in Poland have finally secured agreement on a range of measures that will make the Paris climate pact operational in 2020.

Last-minute rows over carbon markets threatened to derail the two-week summit – and delayed it by a day.

Delegates believe the new rules will ensure that countries keep their promises to cut carbon.

The Katowice agreement aims to deliver the Paris goals of limiting global temperature rises to well below 2C.

“Putting together the Paris agreement work programme is a big responsibility,” said the chairman of the talks, known as COP24, Michal Kurtyka.

“It has been a long road. We did our best to leave no-one behind.”

BBC Confirms: Fake African Penguin Climate Claim ‘Was Misleading’

by Dr. Penny Peiser, December 17, 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch


You may recall the BBC’s news story a couple of months ago, claiming that African penguin populations were declining because of climate change.

The report from South Africa, which then followed, made no mention of climate change at all but instead laid the blame fairly and squarely on overfishing.

This is not an isolated instance of false claims being made about climate change by the BBC. They now seem to be making a habit of it. — Paul Homewood, Not A Lot Of People Know That, 15 December 2018

 

Modern Climate Wavelet Patterns

by Renee Hannon, December 17, 2018 in WUWT


Wavelet analyses of modern global temperature anomalies provides an excellent visualization tool of temperature signal characteristics and patterns over the past 150 years. Scafetta recognized key temperature oscillations of about 9, 20 and 60-years using power spectra of global surface temperature anomalies. There has been much discussion about the 60-year quasi-oscillation both in WUWT and publications.

Detrending the temperature time series and removing the 60-year underlying trend enables insights into the interplay of interannual and decadal scales. Wavelet analyses reveals these periodic signals have distinguished patterns and characteristics that repeat over time suggesting natural external and internal influences. Interannual wavelet patterns that consist of 9-year and 3 to 5-year quasi-oscillations are repeated and dominate over 70% of the instrumental record. The 3 to 5-year discontinuous breakouts are coincident to El Niño and La Niña events of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). A period of quiescence from 1925 to 1960 is devoid of most wavelet signals suggesting different or transitional climate processes.

A Fabricated ‘Uptick’? Marcott’s 2013 Hockey Stick Graph Debunked By Marcott’s Own 2011 Ph.D Thesis

by K. Richard, December 13, 2018 in NoTricksZone


Almost immediately after it was introduced to the public, the lead author of Marcott et al. (2013) squelched the narrative that said the hockey-stick-shaped reconstruction he and his colleagues produced is a robust representation of modern global-scale temperature changes.

In an interview with Marcott published by RealClimate.org, it was acknowledged that the “uptick” does not represent a global-scale reconstruction, as it is based on only a few proxy records and lacks statistical significance. 

Despite this admitted lack of supporting evidence for the 20th century’s “uptick”, the Marcott et al. (2013) “hockey stick”-shaped graph has nonetheless been unskeptically cited by other authors nearly 700 times.

Ten years ago, @AlGore predicted the North polar ice cap would be gone. Inconveniently, it’s still there

by Antony Watts, December 16, 2018 in WUWT


On December 14, 2008, former presidential candidate Al Gore predicted the North Polar Ice Cap would be completely ice free in five years. As reported on WUWT, Gore made the prediction to a German TV audience at the COP15 Climate Conference:

 

 

“…it is the change in temperature compared to what we’ve been used to that matters.” – Part 2

by Bob Tisdale, December 15, 2018 in WUWT


In this post, we’re going to present graphs that show the annual lowest TMIN and highest TMAX Near-Land Surface Air Temperatures (not in anomaly form) for ten (10) Countries in an effort to add some perspective to global warming. The list of countries, which follows, includes the countries with the highest populations.

And, as always with my posts, as part of the text, there are hyperlinks to the data that were used to prepare the graphs. Just click on the links if you’re looking for the data. 

INITIAL NOTES

First of all, TMIN is described by Berkeley Earth as the “Mean of Daily Low Temperatures”, while TMAX is described as the “Mean of Daily High Temperatures”. Berkeley Earth provides monthly TMIN and TMAX data until partway through 2013. The start month for these individual-country datasets at Berkeley Earth depends on data availability from the individual country. Sometimes they start in the early 1800s, maybe even the mid-to-late 1700s for countries to be included in future posts (like the United Kingdom), and other times they start in the mid-to-late 1800s, so I’ve chosen 1900 as the start year for this post. The year 1900 is the end year of the IPCC’s new definition of “pre-industrial” times, so starting the graphs in 1900 is also appropriate in that respect.

NOAA: El Niño is expected to form and continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2018-19

by Anthony Watts, December 13, 2018 in WUWT


EL NIÑO/SOUTHERN OSCILLATION (ENSO) DIAGNOSTIC DISCUSSION
issued by CLIMATE PREDICTION CENTER/NCEP/NWS and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society 13 December 2018
ENSO Alert System Status: El Niño Watch
Synopsis: El Niño is expected to form and continue through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2018/19 (~90% chance) and through spring (~60% chance).

Ce que la liste des participants à la COP24 dit sur la science climatique

by Rémy Prud’homme, décembre 2018, in MythesManciesMath.


La COP est une conférence internationale qui depuis 24 ans tient chaque année la réunion de la dernière chance pour sauver la planète. Vous croyez peut-être que la planète avait été sauvée lors de la COP21 à Paris. Erreur. Tout reste à faire. C’est ce qui justifie la COP24, qui se tient cette année en Pologne. Le secrétariat de la COP24 publie en ligne la liste de ses participants, sur près de 1100 pages.

Plus de 21 000 participants. Sans compter les 1500 journalistes accrédités, qui sont rémunérés par leurs médias, pas par les contribuables. Ces 21 000 participants sont pour 14000 des délégués des gouvernements, et pour 6000 des représentants d’ONGs prétendument intéressées et compétentes. (Le solde est composé de membres d’organisations du système des Nations-Unies).

Le coût de la fête est élevé. Les seuls frais de déplacement et de séjour pour cette COP de 15 jours s’élèvent sans doute (sur la base de 10000 € par participant) à plus de 200 millions d’euros. On pourrait y ajouter le coût du temps passé par les participants. S’ils y passent en moyenne une semaine, cela fait 21000 semaines, soit environ 500 personnes-années. A 50000 euros/an, 25 millions d’euros, qui s’ajoutent aux frais de déplacement. C’est de quoi doubler le niveau de vie annuel de 2 ou 3 millions d’enfants au Malawi.

Going To Zero

by Willis Eschenbach, December 12, 2018 in WUWT


I keep reading about all kinds of crazy schemes to reduce US CO2 emissions. Now, I don’t think that CO2 is the secret knob that controls the climate. I think that the earth has a host of emergent thermoregulatory mechanisms that act to keep the temperature within narrow limits (e.g. 0.6°C temperature change over the entire 20th Century). I don’t believe the claims that the modern changes in CO2 will affect the temperature.

But solely for the purposes of this post, let’s assume that the alarmists are correct. And for purposes of discussion only, let’s assume that the Earth’s temperature is free to go up and down any amount. Let’s assume that CO2 is, in fact, the secret control knob that controls the temperature of the earth. And let’s further assume that the pundits are right that the “climate sensitivity” is three degrees of warming for every doubling of CO2.

And finally, let’s assume that in 2018 the US magically stopped emitting any CO2 at all.

With all of those assumptions as prologue, here’s the question of interest.

Other things being equal, if the US stopped emitting CO2 entirely in 2018, and stayed at zero CO2 emissions indefinitely, how much cooler would that make the planet in the year 2050?

Five degrees cooler? Two degrees? One degree?

 

 

Figure 1. Historical CO2 emissions. Data from CDIAC and BP Statistical Review of World Energy

Late Summer Arctic Ice Volume Has Been Growing Since 2007…Contradicts Earlier Climate Predictions

by Kirye, December 12, 2018 in NoTricksZone


The media, alarmist scientists and many leading policymakers often tell the public “the Arctic is rapidly melting”. And if a poll were done today, a vast majority of the people in Japan and elsewhere would say this is true. Unfortunately they have become the victims of “fake news”.

Luckily we have some hard data from the Arctic. And if one looks at them, it is true that sea ice has seen a declining trend – if we go back 40 years.

Yet, if we look at the past 12 years, we see that the trend for minimum has stopped, and one could argue even reversed:

NASA: Global Warming Promotes Arctic Sea Ice Growth

by Eric Worrall, December 11, 2018 in WUWT


According to NASA, the increased rate of thickening of sea ice in the Arctic is due to Global Warming.

Read more: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/wintertime-arctic-sea-ice-growth-slows-long-term-decline-nasa

The abstract of the study:

Read more: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2018GL079223

I guess we should count ourselves lucky the world isn’t currently in a cooling phase, otherwise we might lose the Arctic icepack altogether.

 

The List Grows – Now 85 Scientific Papers Assert CO2 Has A Minuscule Effect On The Climate

by K. Richard, December 10, 2018 in NoTricksZone


“The results of this review point to the extreme value of  CO2 to all life forms, but no role of  CO2 in any significant change of the Earth’s climate. … Many believe and/or support the notion that the Earth’s atmosphere is a ‘greenhouse’ with CO2 as the primary “greenhouse” gas warming Earth. That this concept seems acceptable is understandable—the modern heating of the Earth’s atmosphere began at the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850. The industrial revolution took hold about the same time. It would be natural to believe that these two events could be the reason for the rise in temperature. There is now a much clearer picture of an alternative reason for why the Earth’s surface temperature has risen since 1850.”
There is no correlation of CO2 with temperature in any historical data set that was reviewed”.

‘Glimmer Of Hope’ For Great Barrier Reef As Study Shows Tolerance To Climate Change

by Nick Visser, December 10, 2018 in Huffpost


Last year’s oceanic heat wave wasn’t as destructive as one the year before, scientists said.

The Great Barrier Reef fared better during an oceanic heat wave last year than during sizzling weather a year earlier that caused hundreds of miles of corals to bleach, according to a study published Monday that suggests the massive structure may be growing more tolerant to climate change.

The report in the journal Nature Climate Change analyzed how corals along the Great Barrier fared in back-to-back mass bleaching events. The reef ― a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the largest living structure on the planet ― was cooked by overheated seawater in 2016 and again in 2017, with images of sickly white coral horrifying people around the globe.

See also here

Climate change: COP24 fails to adopt key scientific report

by P. Homewood, December 9, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


Attempts to incorporate a key scientific study into global climate talks in Poland have failed.

The IPCC report on the impacts of a temperature rise of 1.5C, had a significant impact when it was launched last October.

Scientists and many delegates in Poland were shocked as the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait objected to this meeting “welcoming” the report.

It was the 2015 climate conference that had commissioned the landmark study.

“…it is the change in temperature compared to what we’ve been used to that matters.” – Part 1

by Bob Tisdale, December 8, 2018 in WUWT


In this post, we’re going to present monthly TMIN and TMAX Near-Land Surface Air Temperature data for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres (not in anomaly form) in an effort to add a little perspective to global warming. And at the end of this post, I’m asking for your assistance in preparing a post especially for you, the visitors to this wonderful blog WattsUpWithThat.

INTRODUCTION FOR THE “GLOBAL WARMING IN PERSPECTIVE” SERIES

A small group of international unelected bureaucrats who serve the United Nations now wants to limit the rise of global land+ocean surface temperatures to no more 1.5 deg C from pre-industrial times…even though we’ve already seen about 1.0 deg C of global warming since then. So we’re going to put that 1.0 deg C change in global surface temperatures in perspective by examining the ranges of surface temperatures “we’ve been used to” on our lovely shared home Earth.

The source of the quote in the title of this post is Gavin Schmidt, who is the Director of the NASA GISS (Goddard Institute of Space Studies). It is from a 2014 post at the blog RealClimate, and, specifically, that quote comes from the post Absolute temperatures and relative anomalies (Archived here.). The topic of discussion for that post at RealClimate was the wide span of absolute global mean temperatures [GMT, in the following quote] found in climate models. Gavin wrote (my boldface):

GREENLAND ICE SHEET SIXTH HIGHEST ON RECORD

by GWPF, December 7, 2018


The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) also performs daily simulations of how much ice or water the Ice Sheet loses or accumulates. Based on these simulations, an overall assessment of how the surface mass balance develops across the entire Ice Sheet is obtained (Fig. 4).

At the end of the 2018 season (31 August 2018), the net surface mass balance was 517 Gt, which means that 517 Gt more snow fell than the quantity of snow and ice that melted and ran out into the sea. This number only contains the balance at the surface, and thus not the total balance, which also includes melting of glaciers and calving of icebergs.

Although the total SMB  (Surface Mass Budget) for the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 seasons are similar, development during the two seasons has been very different. Last year, the season began by gaining a lot of mass during the winter, whilst the development in SMB from the summer onwards reflected the long-term average. During the 2017-2018 season, SMB remained in line with the average from 1981-2010 until the summer, after which the development in SMB was higher than average.

The clever ruse of rising sea levels

by J.  Lehr & T. Harris, December 6, 2018 in WUWT


For the past 50 years, scientists have been studying climate change and the possibility of related sea level changes resulting from melting ice and warming oceans. Despite the common belief that increasing levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere could result in catastrophic sea level rise, there is no evidence to support this fear. Tax monies spent trying to solve this non-existent problem are a complete waste.

The Increasing Surface Mass Balance of Two Antarctic Glaciers

by Engel, Z.  et al., December 6, 2018 in CO2Sci/J.ofGlaciology


The polar regions of the Earth have long been depicted as canary-in-the-coal-mine sentinels of climate change, given that climate models project that CO2-induced global warming will manifest itself here, first and foremost, compared to other planetary latitudes. Consequently, researchers are frequently examining the Arctic and Antarctic for evidence of recent climate change.

Clearly, as demonstrated here and in other studies (see, for example, The Antarctic Peninsula: No Longer the Canary in the Coal Mine for Climate Alarmists and the references therein) there is a canary in the Antarctic alright, but it is alive and well. And these counter-observations do not bode well for climate models and their projections of CO2-induced global warming.

Figure 1. Surface mass-balance records for glaciers around the northern Antarctic Peninsula. Source: Engel et al. (2018).

CO2 Emissions Hit Record Highs In 2018, Despite Billions Spent On UN Climate Summits

by Michael Bastach, December 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch


Global carbon dioxide emissions will likely hit record highs this year, according to a new report released Wednesday as United Nations diplomats meet in Poland to hash out details of the Paris climate accord.

Global emissions will rise roughly 3 percent to 37.1 gigatons in 2018, according to the Global Carbon Project (GCP).

The rise in emissions was largely fueled by an uptick in coal-fired power generation in China and India.

“Emissions in China, India, and the US are expected to increase in 2018, while emissions in the [European Union] are expected to decline, and all other countries combined will most likely increase,” reads the report by GCP, which tracks emissions.

The Arctic: we don’t know as much about environmental change in the far north as we’d like to think

by Charles the moderator, December 5, 2018 in WUWT


From The Conversation

December 4, 2018 9.58am EST

The first International Polar Year, held over 1882–1883, was an important event for science. The year was the brainchild of Austrian explorer Karl Weyprecht who, after a few years on different research missions, realised that scientists were missing the big picture by not sharing information with each other.

In 1875, at the annual meeting of German Scientists and Physicians in Graz, Austria, he proposed the setting up of an observational network of research stations to monitor the Arctic climate. It was the beginning of collaborative research in the region. Today, data collected 134 years ago on temperature, air pressure, or wind speed is still freely available.

There have been two more International Polar Year events since that inaugural one, most recently in 2007–2008, along with numerous other collaborative expeditions and research missions aimed at understanding aspects of Arctic biology, ecology, climate or geology.