Archives par mot-clé : Alarmism

climate-debate

21st Century Global Disasters

by P. Homewood, Aug 13, 2023 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

A new peer-reviewed paper out this week by Alimonti and Mariani asks whether global disasters have increased. Their answer is that they have not (and if the name sounds familiar, it is the same Alimonti whose paper is being improperly retracted — more fresh info on that in the coming days).

As I read their paper today I noticed that the time series they reported from the EM-DAT databaselooked a bit different than that I had last explored and presented here at THB late last year. So today I downloaded the most recent data from EM-DAT, and indeed there has been some changes to the most recent three years, presumably due to late entries into the database (however I will enquire as all post-hoc dataset updates should be documented). EM-DAT has been funded since the late 1990s by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Below is the updated time series of global hydrological, climatological and meteorological disasters in the EM-DAT database, along with the linear trend, over the period 2000 to 2022.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

The Climate Crisis Frenzy Is a Mass Hysteria Movement

by W. Kovacs, Aug 11, 2023 in WUWT

Climate fear-mongering, eco-anxiety counseling and a rocky road to Third World status

 

Ever since the Biden administration promised to eliminate fossil fuels, climate activists have combined their quest to use the government to control society with creating a collective group possessed by illusions and excessive fears that climate change is destroying Planet Earth. This Climatism Collective believes that dismantling society will enable government to prevent the end of the world.

Researchers refer to such collective fears as mass hysteria. They consider it a psychogenic illness, “a condition that begins in the mind rather than the body.” It involves people feeling anxious, sick or crazed, notwithstanding the absence of any physical reason for their condition.

A recent Lancet study of 10,000 young people, ages 16–25, found that 59% were extremely worried about climate change, and 84% were at least moderately worried. The respondents suffered from sadness, anxiety and anger and felt powerless, helpless and guilty.

The authors concluded that climate anxiety is so great that these young people believe humanity is doomed, everything they value is being destroyed, and they should refrain from having children. They also believe government could protect them if it would listen to their feelings, validate and respect their beliefs and demands, and implement policies that eliminate fossil fuel use and “unsustainable” lifestyles.

Mass hysteria episodes have been recorded since the Middle Ages. There have been witch trials, screaming trances and even a “dancing plague” in 1518, with stressed-out participants dancing for weeks, sometimes until they were so tired they died.

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climate-debate

‘Less ice means more conflicts with polar bears’ narrative not supported by scientific evidence

by S. Crockford, Apr 18, 2023 in WUWT

 

In another failed prediction, a new study on the number of polar bears killed in self-defense in Svalbard, Norway did not find the expected correlation with lack of sea ice or more tourists (Vongraven et al. 2023). Contrary to expectations, fewer bears were actually killed in self-defence as sea ice declined between 1987 and 2019.

Money Quote from the abstract:

“…ice cover had no significant impact on the odds for a [polar bear] kill.”

It seems the warning from polar bear specialist Andrew Derocher a few months ago was just plain wrong:

“Poor ice conditions for polar bears at Svalbard this year. Low ice will make tough hunting conditions this coming spring. Time to plan for more human-bear conflicts unless conditions change.” [13 Feb 2023 tweet, my bold]

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From the Discussion section of the Vongraven paper (pg. 9), my bold:

“More bears on land for longer periods during which more people were accessing the same habitats could have been expected to increase the number of bear-human interactions, and the number of bears killed in defence of life and property. Despite a positive relationship between number of tourists and number of kills at a given time, the total numbers of bears killed did not increase over the years of the study and per-capita kills strongly declined. … This overall reduction in kills, despite greatly reduced sea ice habitat availability and more polar bears spending more time on land, may reflect success of the Svalbard Environmental Act of 2001.”

Nice save there, at the end. Hey, this wasn’t a failure of our prediction that loss of sea ice due to global warming would cause more polar bears to be killed because they attacked people, it’s a resounding victory for a law prohibiting people “seeking out” polar bears! As noted in the next two sentences:

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better to know...?, climate-debate

A Misunderstanding Of Clouds Is Driving Global Warming Fervor

by R. Barmby, Apr 10, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

I’ve looked at climate change from both sides now, and I have found common ground between proponents and skeptics of the belief that climate change is largely caused by humans.

When it comes to forecasting global temperatures, distinguished experts in both camps agree a dominant variable cannot be simulated in computer models because clouds get in the way.

Among the proponents is Dr. Bjorn Stevens, a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessment Report 5 (2014). Dr. Stevens is also the director at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, Germany, and a cloud expert. [emphasis, links added]

In a recent interview, he acknowledged the contribution of clouds to global warming is overestimatedin the IPCC’s “Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis.”

“Clouds are tricksters,” he said, referring to their complexity. However, he said, many scientists use oversimplified representations of clouds in modeling “as a guide because they are easier to simulate. This makes the climate models less accurate.”

On the skeptic side is Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, a former lead author for IPCC Assessment Report 3 and now a vocal critic of the IPCC.

In a recent podcast, the interviewer noted that Lindzen had published sufficient research papers to earn 80 PhDs. (Lindzen humbly declined the praise.)

Lindzen, professor emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, points out that IPCC models rely on the assumption that water vapor and clouds amplify the greenhouse gas effects of CO2 in order to achieve forecasts of catastrophic global warming.

The IPCC theory is that a warmer atmosphere will have a higher content of water vapor – itself a greenhouse gas – that adds to the warming caused by CO2.

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climate-debate

New Study: Sea Levels Have Receded Over Last 1500 Years, Including Since 1800s, Along India’s Coasts

by K. Richard, April 3, 2023 in NoTricksZone

Contrary to alarmist claims, the seas have been retreating and the coasts have been expanding seaward along the coasts of southern India since the early 1800s.

Korkai was a port city, capital, and the principal trade center for India’s Pandya Kingdom from the 6th to 9th centuries CE.

While Korkai was situated on the sea coast during the early stages of the Medieval  Warm Period, the city center is now approximately 5 or 6 km from the coast. This confirms the sea has substantially receded since then.

Nautical maps from the 1805-1828 period clearly affirm the coast of southern India has continued expanding seaward in the last 200 years, despite the reported rise in relative sea level (Gupta and Bhoolokam Rajani, 2023).

In other words, much more coastal land area is above sea level today than during the Little Ice Age, or when CO2 levels were said to be 280 ppm.

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climate-debate

The Latest UN Climate Report Is Bumper-Sticker Climate Science

by J. Curry, Mar 29, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued a new Synthesis Report, with fanfare from the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres:

“The climate time-bomb is ticking but the latest IPCC report shows that we have the knowledge & resources to tackle the climate crisis. We need to act now to ensure a livable planet in the future.”

The new IPCC Report is a synthesis of the three reports that constitute the Sixth Assessment Report, plus three special reports. [emphasis, links added]

This Synthesis Report does not introduceany new information or findings.

While the IPCC Reports include some good material, the Summary for Policy Makers for the Synthesis Report weakly emphasizes justified findings on climate impacts driven by extreme emission scenarios and politicized policy recommendations on emissions reductions.

The most important finding of the past five years is that the extreme emissions scenarios RCP8.5 and SSP5-8.5, commonly referred to as “business-as-usual” scenarios, are now widely recognized as implausible.

These extreme scenarios have been dropped by the UN Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Climate Agreement.

However, the new Synthesis Report continues to emphasize these extreme scenarios, while this important finding is buried in a footnote:

“Very high emission scenarios have become less likely but cannot be ruled out.”

The extreme emissions scenarios are associated with alarming projections of 4-5°C of warming by 2100.

The most recent Conference of the Parties (COP27) is working from a baseline temperature projectionbased on a medium emissions scenario of 2.5°C by 2100.

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unclassified

Climate Doomsayers Are Always Wrong — But Cling To Their Anti-Human Faith

by D. MCCarthy, Mar 28, 2023 in ClilmateChangeDispatch

What does it take to avert the end of the world?

For most of human history, this has been a question for religion. And the answer has usually been that human beings must repent of their sins.

They must surrender some comfort and luxury to appease angry gods. In primitive times, worshippers might sacrifice a bull — or even a human being. [emphasis, links added]

Today climate science provides an end-times prophecy that works in much the same way as the religious apocalypticism of old.

Religion enchants the world, lending spiritual significance to every part of life. Climate change makes everything from charging your iPhone to skipping beef for dinner a potentially salvific act.

Cattle once again have to be sacrificed — they emit too much methane and CO2.

And the dietary laws that climate science prescribes are as exacting as those of any religion. Every day is a fast day when you subsist on tofu and insect protein.

Purity and ritual cleanliness are religious concepts that find a remarkable parallel in the way of life that climate science promotes.

By default, Apple’s phones are now set to “clean energy charging” mode, which takes longer to recharge the battery but contributes in however small a way to saving us from the weather.

Well-educated liberals laugh when a televangelist claims a hurricane is God’s punishment for America’s acceptance of homosexuality.

Yet liberals also believe the weather is a moral force, punishing Americans for the sins of capitalism.

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unclassified

Inventing The Apocalypse: Climate Doomsday Predictions Haven’t Aged Well

by B. Adams, Mar 27, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

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Climate scientists and alarmists have prophesied the planet’s imminent demise nearly every year now dating back to at least the end of the Second World War.

“We don’t have 12 years to save the climate. We have 14 months,” the now-defunct ThinkProgress predicted 43 months ago.

Former French prime minister Laurent Fabius warned 3,239 days ago that the international community had only “500 days to avoid climate chaos.”

Earlier, in 2009, Gordon Brown, the U.K.’s prime minister at the time, said we had “fewer than fifty days to save our planet from catastrophe.”

Also in 2009, former vice president Al Gore declared that “there is a 75% chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years.”

In 2013, mid-melt, the Guardian ran the following headline: “US Navy predicts summer ice-free Arctic by 2016.”

The ice is still there.

“NASA Scientist: We’re Toast,” reads the headline of an Associated Press report from 2008.

In 2007, the IPCC predicted the Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. The U.N.’s chief climate science body retracted the claim in 2010, explaining the prediction wasn’t based on any peer-reviewed data, but on a media interview with a scientist conducted in 1999.

In 2006, Gore claimed that unless world leaders took “drastic measures” to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, Earth would surpass the “point of no return” in ten years — a “true planetary emergency,” he called it.

The year 2016 came and went, and now we’re being told the early 2030s are the real point of no return.

The Guardian, citing a “secret report,” warned in 2004 that “major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020.”

The year 2022 was the U.K.’s warmest since they started keeping records in 1884. The heat was, of course, blamed on climate change.

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better to know...?

Theologian Thunberg and the pseudo-religion

by B. Muehlenberg, Mar 26, 2023 in Spectator

Imagine that: it seems that Greta Thunberg is now a top theologian…? Yes, I realise that honorary degrees are usually not worth the paper they are printed on, but in what has to be the joke of the decade, climate change activist (and some may say, alarmist) Greta Thunberg has been awarded an honorary doctorate in theology from the Theology Faculty at the University of Helsinki.

The 20-year-old Swede has already been honoured with a doctorate by the Belgian University of Mons, and was named Time’s ‘Person of the Year’ in 2019. She is held up by many as our ‘only hope’ to stop the apocalypse. About the only accolade left is to proclaim her to be the long-awaited Messiah.

Yet as far as I can tell, Thunberg does not have a theological bone in her body – certainly not any Christian ones. If that is the case, why do we have another Woke university declaring her a theologian worthy of praise? Wow, not bad for a day’s work…

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climate-debate

The IPCC’s Dangerous Dance With Climate Misinformation And Political Demands

by R. Pielke Jr., Mar 23, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an important institution. I have often said that if it did not exist, it would have to be invented. The IPCC is often referred to as a model for how to do a scientific assessment.

Consequently, we should have the highest standards for evaluating its work, not least because climate change is important, and effective mitigation and adaptation policies are essential. [emphasis, links added]

Below I share a brief few critiques of the culminating report of the current IPCC cycle, called the Synthesis Report. The new report covers six IPCC reports published over the past nine years.

Before proceeding, it is crucial to understand that the IPCC is not a single entity or group of people. It is many different groups doing many different things, with many strengths — for instance, WG1 on extremes was particularly good.

The IPCC also has some notable weaknesses — its reliance on out-of-date scenarios most obviously. The Synthesis Report was written by a small group of people.

For better or worse, the work of this small group of people reflects upon the entire IPCC and the years of effort leading to this week’s report.

If I were an IPCC participant not involved with the Synthesis Report, I’d be pretty upset. My view is that the IPCC has strayed far from its role to assess the scientific literature in support of policymaking.

It has increasingly taken on a stance of explicit political advocacy and as it does so it has ignored and even misrepresented relevant science.

The IPCC needs a complete overhaul.

Below are some more detailed thoughts on the Synthesis Report.

Scientific Assessment Minus the Science

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climate-debate

Paul Ehrlich And The Madness Of Climate Alarmists

by J.  Woudhuysen, Jan 12, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch

All forecasters make mistakes. But few forecasters have been as consistently wrong as biologist Paul Ehrlich.

So it was quite surprising to see, on January 1, the once venerable CBS series, 60 Minutes, inviting Ehrlich on the show to give his take on the state of the planet.

Focussing on ‘the vanishing wild’, the interview was essentially a forecast of doom, with Ehrlich warning that Earth is in the midst of a ‘sixth mass extinction’ and that its wildlife is ‘running out of places to live’. [emphasis, links added]

Ehrlich, a Stanford University entomologist, is most infamous for his 1968 doom-mongering tome, The Population Bomb.

In the tradition of Thomas Malthus, the prologue begins with the following warning:

‘The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date, nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.’

In reality, since The Population Bomb was published, rates of starvation have fallen off a cliff, while the world’s population has doubled.

Ronald Bailey, the science correspondent at Reason magazine, notes that the global crude death rate (deaths per 1,000 people) fell ‘from 12.5 in 1968 to seven in 2019, before ticking up to eight in the pandemic year of 2020’.

Ehrlich has been prolific in promoting mistaken forecasts. With Richard L Harriman, he also wrote How To Be a Survivor: A Plan to Save Spaceship Earth (1971).

Then, with his wife Anne, he issued more lurid warnings in books including Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of Species (1981) and The Population Explosion (1991).

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Despite Alarmist Reports, Drought In The Horn Of Africa Not From Climate Change

by L. Lueken, Dec 13, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch

A recent article in Inside Climate News by writer Georgina Gustin leverages a tragic period of severe drought in the Horn of Africa in order to push an alarmist narrative on climate change.

Gustin claims that food security is threatened by climate change and that millions will starve as a result of it. This is false.

Data show that food security has improved over the past decades of warming. [emphasis, links added]

If there is to be a global food crisis, it won’t be climate change that causes it, but rather the heavy-handed and ultimately futile efforts at controlling the weather by regulating how people grow crops and livestock.

The piece, titled “Climate Change is Driving Millions to the Precipice of a ‘Raging Food Catastrophe’,” focuses primarily on the specific example of the severe ongoing drought in Kenya and neighboring Somalia and Ethiopia.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

“There’s No Emergency” – Dissident Climatologist Dr Judith Curry on Climate Change

by J. Curry, Nov 26, 2022 in WUWT

SEE VIDEO 

There are particular fields in which those that stray from the official narrative are instantly shunned as dissidents. Climate change is one of these. Dr Judith Curry, Professor Emeritus and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has become known as one of the outspoken scientists who doubt the “scientific consensus” on climate change. As a result, she was “academically, pretty much finished off” and “essentially unhirable”. However, this didn’t slow down the bold climatologist.

BizNews spoke to Curry about her views on climate change and the impact that human beings have had on the planet. A delightfully fascinating discussion ensued in which Curry explained her objection to the “manufactured consensus of scientists at the request of policy makers” and how far reality really is from the grim picture painted by environmental activists. Curry made sense of recent extreme weather events and indicated that “Earth has survived far bigger insults than what human beings are doing”. An eye-opening interview.

climate-debate

Imperialism Of The Apocalypse

by M. Schellenberger,  Nov 11, 2022

Few appear to care about climate change more than global celebrities. In 2019, Leonardo DiCaprio told the U.N., “Climate Change is our single greatest security threat.” Late last year, DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence starred in the Hollywood climate disaster movie, “Don’t Look Up.” Said Lawrence, “You’re watching these hurricanes now and it’s hard, especially while promoting this movie, not to feel Mother Nature’s rage or wrath.” In a United Nations speech earlier this year, Prince Harry said “Climate change is wreaking havoc on our planet, with the most vulnerable suffering most of all.” All have urged individuals and nations to radically reduce their carbon emissions.

And yet global celebrities are, along with global political leaders, the planet’s biggest climate hypocrites. DiCaprio, Lawrence, Harry, and Meghan have been flying on private jets, partying on gas-guzzling yachts, and riding jet skis for years. Already 400 private jets, which are five to 14 times more polluting than commercial flights, have arrived in Egypt for United Nations annual climate talks. Last year, 40,000 people flew to Scotland, many on private jets, for climate talks, generating an estimated 102,000 tons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of burning 237,000 barrels of oil. After they arrived, they were treated to a video of a talking CGI dinosaur, voiced over by Jack Black, urging African nations to not use fossil fuels.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Shellenberger: Climactivists Turn To Temper Tantrums As Primary Tactic

by M. Schellenberger, Oct 25, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Dumping milk onto floors. Hurling food onto walls. Refusing to eat. Gluing body parts. Throwing paint. Refusing to leave. Threatening to pee and poop in your pants. Screaming accusations.

Are those the behaviors of a toddler’s temper tantrum? Yes. But they’re also the dominant tactics of today’s climate activists. [bold, links added]

Consider the case of Gianluca Grimalda. On October 19, Grimalda, along with 15 other members of a climate activist group called Scientist Rebellion, glued himself to the floor of the visitors center next to a Volkswagon factory in Germany.

The VW security guards brought pizza to Grimalda and the other activist scientists, but Grimalda felt disrespected and so he declared a hunger strike in retaliation.

Grimalda immediately expressed outrage at his treatment. “VW told us that they supported our right to protest,” he complained on Twitter, “but they refused our request to provide us with a bowl to urinate and defecate in a decent manner while we are glued, and have turned off the heating.”

Many were quick to point out the childish nature of the protest. “I’m a serious scientist protesting against fossil fuels,” wrote one user. “Now turn the gas heating on and bring me my potty.”

The activists say that such childish tactics were necessary. Grimalda tweeted that he and his colleagues are protesting “until our demands to decarbonize the German transport sector are met.”

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climate-debate

‘Scam’: Former climate change alarmist says agenda has ‘no foundation’

by J. Summers, Oct 20, 2022 in LifeSite

(LifeSiteNews) — A former climate alarmist appeared on Laura Ingraham’s FOX Newsprogram las week, calling climate alarmism, the belief that the world will suffer catastrophically as a result of  man-made climate change or global warming, a “scam.” 

Tom Harris, Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition, an organization that seeks to promote a better understanding of climate science, toldIngraham that contrary to the mainstream position, there is not an impending climate crisis.  

“I was originally an aerospace engineer,” Harris began, “and I would give speeches, and I wrote articles. I wrote one in the Ottawa Citizen about comparative climatology, how studying the planets helps us understand the earth better. And I used the example of the runaway greenhouse effect on Venus. I said ‘This could happen on the earth, if we don’t reduce carbon dioxide!’”  

“A local professor at Carleton University, a professor of geology, he liked my article so much he used it in his course on climate change,” Harris continued. “But he said to the students, ‘But that part about Venus is wrong. What happened on Venus cannot physically happen on earth,’ and he explained why.” 

Harris claimed that the professor took him to his lab and showed him his findings, as well as those of other scientists, recounting “At times, [carbon dioxide] was 1300% of today, and we were stuck in very cold conditions. So it was all over the board. So I started wondering, ‘Well, maybe he’s right.’”

Harris also stated that the professor introduced him to people that showed him that thousands of scientists who disagree with the so-called “climate consensus,” shattering the proposition that most scientists believe in global warming.

Harris then brought out a book that dismantles the claims of thousands of articles about the climate crisis, showing that “there is no foundation” to the proposition. 

“Here’s a book actually that illustrates that, it’s called Climate Change Reconsidered, and this is on climatechangereconsidered.org,” Harris said. “There are thousands of references here which talk about the fact that there is no foundation to the climate scam. It’s all based on models that don’t work.” 

When asked by Ingraham if the science around climate and climate change was “settled science,” Harris answered in the negative.

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climate-debate

48 Of 79 ‘Catastrophic Climate’ Predictions Have Failed; Other 31 Haven’t Expired Yetrd,

by K. Richard,  Apr 9, 2021 in ClimateChangeDispatch

A new peer-reviewed paper published in the International Journal of Global Warmingidentifies 79 “apocalyptic” predictions formulated since 1970 by “researchers and activists” who “predict cataclysmic events” resulting from “catastrophic climate change.”

Already 48 of these “truly apocalyptic forecasts” have failed. The other 31 are likely just as wrong, but the prediction end dates haven’t expired yet, as “the apocalypse is always about 20 years out.”

Rode and Fischbeck are “professors of Social & Decision Sciences and Engineering & Public Policy” at Carnegie Mellon University.

In a new paper and press release (surprisingly published in AAAS) they have effectively exposed a “string of repeated apocalyptic forecast failures” over the last 50 years made by such activists/scientists as Al Gore, Paul Ehrlich, and Tim Flannery.

Activists/scientists James Hansen and Michael Mann have catastrophic predictions set to expire in the 2030s, and the IPCC had a cataclysmic forecast already fail and 3 others that will expire in 2029 and 2050 (2).

The authors’ intention was to warn the climate science community about the cry-wolf dangers of repeatedly making “extreme climate forecasts” that, when they inevitably fail, “undermine the trust in the underlying science.”

It is highly likely that these warnings will be ignored, however, as “making sensational predictions of the doom of humanity, while scientifically dubious, has still proven tempting for those wishing to grab headlines.”

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unclassified

Claim: The World is On the Brink of Five Climate Tipping Points

by E. Worrall, Sep 12, 2022 in WUWT

Is anyone else fed up with us approaching but never actually crossing all those dangerous tipping points?

World on brink of five ‘disastrous’ climate tipping points, study finds

Giant ice sheets, ocean currents and permafrost regions may already have passed point of irreversible change

Damian CarringtonEnvironment editor
@dpcarringtonFri 9 Sep 2022 04.00 AEST

The climate crisis has driven the world to the brink of multiple “disastrous” tipping points, according to a major study.

It shows five dangerous tipping points may already have been passed due to the 1.1C of global heating caused by humanity to date.

These include the collapse of Greenland’s ice cap, eventually producing a huge sea level rise, the collapse of a key current in the north Atlantic, disrupting rain upon which billions of people depend for food, and an abrupt melting of carbon-rich permafrost.

At 1.5C of heating, the minimum rise now expected, four of the five tipping points move from being possible to likely, the analysis said. Also at 1.5C, an additional five tipping points become possible, including changes to vast northern forests and the loss of almost all mountain glaciers.

In total, the researchers found evidence for 16 tipping points, with the final six requiring global heating of at least 2C to be triggered, according to the scientists’ estimations. The tipping points would take effect on timescales varying from a few years to centuries.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/08/world-on-brink-five-climate-tipping-points-study-finds

The abstract of the study;

Exceeding 1.5°C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points

David I. Armstrong McKay* https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0020-7461 d.mckay@exeter.ac.uk
Arie Staal https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5409-1436
Jesse F. Abrams https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0411-8519
Ricarda Winkelmann https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1248-3217
Boris Sakschewski https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7230-9723
Sina Loriani https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6660-960X
Ingo Fetzer https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7335-5679
Sarah E. Cornell https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4367-1296
Johan Rockström
Timothy M. Lenton* https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6725-7498 d.mckay@exeter.ac.uk

9 Sep 2022

Vol 377, Issue 6611

DOI: 10.1126/science.abn7950

Climate tipping points occur when change in a part of the climate system becomes self-perpetuating beyond a warming threshold, leading to substantial Earth system impacts. Synthesizing paleoclimate, observational, and model-based studies, we provide a revised shortlist of global “core” tipping elements and regional “impact” tipping elements and their temperature thresholds. Current global warming of ~1.1°C above preindustrial temperatures already lies within the lower end of some tipping point uncertainty ranges. Several tipping points may be triggered in the Paris Agreement range of 1.5 to <2°C global warming, with many more likely at the 2 to 3°C of warming expected on current policy trajectories. This strengthens the evidence base for urgent action to mitigate climate change and to develop improved tipping point risk assessment, early warning capability, and adaptation strategies.

Read more (paywalled): https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950

Unfortunately the study is paywalled, so I can’t tell you the timeframe of these alleged tipping points. Not that the predicted dates matter that much – in my experience, tipping point predictions are usually quietly ignored or deleted when the deadline expires.

climate-debate

Nothing Alarming: Europe Data Show No Upward Trend In Droughts And Forest Fires

by P. Gosselin, Aug 24, 2022 in NoTricksZone

German online NOVO-Argumente looks at the forest fire situation in Germany and Europe.

Currently parts of Europe are experiencing severe drought conditions and forest fires are raging in Germany. Climate activists and the mainstream are claiming it’s climate change, and it’s unprecedented.

But NOVO-Argumente looks at the historical data going back decades and finds nothing alarming.

Over the long-term average (1993 to 2019), 1035 forest fires in Germany were recorded with an average of 656 hectares affected. The amount of damage is just 1.38 million euros. Forest fires therefore cost us about as much per year as we spend every 30 minutes on subsidizing solar and wind energy.

“No evidence of an increase in forest fires”

As the following graph shows, there is no evidence of an increase in forest fires over the last 30 years in terms of number and extent. The peaks are not seen in this chart from the Federal Environmental Agency because they are in the past. In 1975, over 8000 hectares burned in Lower Saxony alone. In contrast, in the year 2021, which is not yet recorded in the graph, there were only 548 forest fires in the whole of Germany on a total area of 148 hectares.

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unclassified

Doomsday Climate Predictions Meltdown: Arctic Sea Ice Extent Reaches 12-Year Mid-August High

by P. Gosselin, Aug 12, 2022 in NoTricksZone

According to Al Gore, based on statements and “science” from “leading climate experts”, the Arctic was supposed to be ice-free in the summer already years ago.

Now that the summer ice melt season in the Arctic will end soon, by the middle of next month, it’s a good time to see how Al Gore’s prediction is faring. To do this we look at the latest from data the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC):

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better to know...?

Get Ready For The 100 Year Long Climate “Emergency”

by F. Menton, July 22, 2022 in MahattanContrarian

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Here’s the problem. There is no sense in which the climate is an “emergency” within the ordinary meaning of that word in the English language. Predictions by climate models of a few degrees of temperature rise over the next century are the opposite of an “emergency.” Indeed, the statutes granting various “emergency” powers to the Executive all deal with the question of time periods too short to give the Congress time to enact legislation appropriate to the situation at hand. That circumstance is the opposite of what we have with the climate.

But if you are on the left, or a climate activist, this situation is just too important to wait for Congressional action that may never come. An “emergency” must be declared, to last for — how long? A hundred years? During which time, the bureaucrats can issue whatever orders they want, and spend whatever funds they want, all in the name of saving the planet. None of which will or can have any effect on the 85% (and growing) of world carbon emissions that come from outside the U.S. and which the U.S. government cannot affect in any way.

It’s all a huge insult to the intelligence of the American people. I doubt that the courts will be fooled, most particularly the Supreme Court.

climate-debate, Cooling

LARGEST SUMMER SEA ICE EXTENT SINCE 2008 TRAPS ARCTIC SHIPS; + COLDEST JULY AIRMASS IN 70 YEARS BLOWS THROUGH THE BERING STRAIT

by Cap Allon, July 19, 2022 in Electroverse

The mainstream are heat-chasers. They report only on stories that fit the AGW Party agenda. This cherry-picking leads to a painfully misinformed public when it comes to the climate–which is exactly where they want us.

It usually stands, however, that if the MSM goes silent on a particular locale then it’s probably because that particular locale isn’t ‘behaving’ as they would like.

ase in point today: we have the Arctic and Greenland refusing to play ball.

Earth’s most-northern reaches are actually experiencing persistent and long-lasting COOLING, which is far more telling than a brief burst of heat in, for example, Western Europe, which, 1) is forecast to be over before it’s even really begun, and 2) can be tied to entirely natural forcings–namely low solar activity and a violently ‘buckling’ jet stream flow (more on that below).

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climate-debate

The Two Degree Limit

by Andy May, July 19, 2022 in WUWT

For decades We have been told that we must not let global warming exceed two degrees Celsius above the “pre-industrial” global average temperature. Recently the IPCC lowered this limit to 1.5°C. In the latest IPCC report, called AR6, pre-industrial is defined as before 1750, but they use global temperatures from 1850-1900 as representative of the period because global average surface temperatures are not available for 1750.[1] The U.S., Europe, and much of Asia were industrialized by 1900, so their numbers are clearly not representative of the period of interest, unless temperatures remained constant from 1750 to 1900, which is unlikely.

Why the focus on 2°? In a 2014 comment in Nature, David Victor and Charles Kennel tell us that there is little scientific basis for the 2°C figure, but it was a simple focal point and it “sounded bold and perhaps feasible.” (Victor & Kennel, 2014). Then they admit the goal is “effectively unachievable.”

What is the “pre-industrial?” Did it have an ideal climate that we wish to return to? The year 1750 was in the coldest and most miserable part of the Little Ice Age (LIA). The LIA was the coldest period in the Holocene Epoch, or since the last glacial period ended about 12,000 years ago, at least in much of the Northern Hemisphere.

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