Archives par mot-clé : Fun?/Discussion

What’s Natural? Changing Sea Levels – Part 1

by Jim Steele, February 23, 2019 in WUWT


Local sea levels appear to rise when ocean volumes increase, but also when the land sinks. Scientists increasingly warn that coastal cities are sinking much faster than ocean volumes are rising. Pumping out groundwater not only causes lands to sink, it increases the oceans’ volume. China’s Huanghe Delta is sinking 10 inches a year. Southeast Asian cities battle sinking rates of 1.2 to 2.4 inches per year. Regions around Houston, Texas had sunk 10 feet by 1979; a disaster waiting to happen where hurricanes commonly generate 15-foot storm surges. Likewise, New Orleans was doomed by sinking 1.4 inches per year. Built on marshland, San Francisco’s airport sinks 0.4 inches per year.
In contrast, ocean warming plus added glacial meltwater are estimated to have only added 0.06 inches per year to sea level from 1850 to 1990, punctuated by decades that accelerated sea level rise to 0.14 inches a year. Still, that fastest rate of modern sea level rise remains only one-tenth of New Orleans’ sinking rate.

Changement climatique : ce que je sais

by Ph.  Laget, 23 février 2019, in MythesManciesMathématiques


En matière climatique, ce que je sais c’est que je ne sais rien. Ou pas grand-chose. Je n’ai rien appris durant mes études sur ce sujet (je suis ingénieur en Mathématiques Appliquées). Mes sources d’information, comme n’importe quel citoyen, se limitent à la lecture de quelques études de spécialistes qui se prétendent experts en climatologie (je n’ai aucun moyen de vérifier le degré de leur expertise), et aux médias qui tentent de vulgariser certaines de ces études. Ces travaux font souvent appel à des calculs sophistiqués que je n’ai pas les moyens ni le temps de vérifier.

Je sais que des scientifiques prétendent avoir démontré qu’il y a un réchauffement climatique global, que sa cause est essentiellement anthropique, et que ses conséquences sont dommageables pour l’homme. Je sais qu’il y a d’autres spécialistes, que les médias appellent climato-sceptiques (certains d’entre eux préfèrent se nommer climato-réalistes), qui disent que c’est faux, et que les causes des perturbations sont surtout naturelles (activité solaire, désynchronisation des champs magnétiques du soleil, modification de l’axe magnétique de la terre, effets des nuages et de la vapeur d’eau, éruptions volcaniques, …).

New York Times hit with backlash for labeling Princeton physicist a ‘climate denialist’

by Valerie Richardson, February 21, 2019 in TheWsahingtonPost


Princeton professor emeritus William Happer’s role in forming a White House climate security committee didn’t sit well with a number of media outlets, including The New York Times, which called the eminent physicist a “denialist.”

The headline prompted a backlash from those who object to applying a derogatory label associated with Holocaust disbelief to scientists and others who challenge worst-case climate-change scenarios.

New Explanation For Missing Global Warming? Scientists Claim Extratropical Volcanoes Underestimated!

by P. Gosselin , February 19, 2019 in NoTricksZone


Readers should note that among climate modelers volcanoes and atmospheric aerosols have been a favorite way of fudging climate models to explain away inconvenient cooling periods that weren’t supposed to happen in a system that is supposed to be dominated by trace gas CO2.

Extratropical volcanoes influence climate more than assumed

Study shows surprisingly strong cooling after volcanic eruptions in mid and high latitudes

NASA hides page saying the Sun was the primary climate driver, and clouds and particles are more important than greenhouse gases

by P. Homewood, February 18, 2019 i


Here’s the text from the original page (my bolding).

NASA 2010: What are the primary forcings of the Earth system?

The Sun is the primary forcing of Earth’s climate system. Sunlight warms our world. Sunlight drives atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns. Sunlight powers the process of photosynthesis that plants need to grow. Sunlight causes convection which carries warmth and water vapor up into the sky where clouds form and bring rain. In short, the Sun drives almost every aspect of our world’s climate system and makes possible life as we know it.

Earth’s orbit around and orientation toward the Sun change over spans of many thousands of years. In turn, these changing “orbital mechanics” force climate to change because they change where and how much sunlight reaches Earth. (Please see for more details.) Thus, changing Earth’s exposure to sunlight forces climate to change. According to scientists’ models of Earth’s orbit and orientation toward the Sun indicate that our world should be just beginning to enter a new period of cooling — perhaps the next ice age.

Repost from JoNova

WHAT DO KIDS WANT? CLIMATE ACTION. WHEN DO THEY WANT IT? DURING DOUBLE MATHS

by Rod Liddle, February 17, 2019 in GWPF/SundaTimes


Such a hectic life these kids lead. On Friday, my lovely 13-year-old daughter was out on the streets of Canterbury with her schoolmates demanding something be done, right now, about climate change, because adults are letting us down and it’s our future and it isn’t fair that horrid right-wing old white men are deliberately destroying the planet.

The next day she was at Gatwick with her mum, off for a half-term ski trip to Norway. I hope she got the irony: all those emissions, just so she could have a chance to snap her femur in half. Still, at least she wasn’t going to the Alps, where the wilderness has been murdered by skiers, the mountains stripped of forest and festooned with lifts and blue runs created by snow machines. Is there a more environmentally ruinous pastime than skiing?

Le réchauffement climatique d’origine anthropique

by G. Geuskens, 14 février 2019, in ScienceClimatEnergie


Le climat peut changer, comme il l’a toujours fait et continuera à le faire sous l’action de variables naturelles. Les activités humaines peuvent-elles avoir une influence comme le prétend la théorie du réchauffement climatique d’origine anthropique ? Cette théorie est basée sur l’existence d’un hypothétique effet de serre défini comme un phénomène radiatifcausé par des gaz tels la vapeur d’eau ou le CO2 qui absorbent une fraction du rayonnement infrarouge émis par la Terre et le réémettent  ensuite dans toutes  les directions et notamment vers la surface terrestre dont la température serait, de ce fait, plus élevée qu’en l’absence de gaz absorbant l’infrarouge. L’effet de serre résulterait donc essentiellement de l’émission par les molécules de CO2 d’un rayonnement  de fluorescence  dans le domaine infrarouge [1]. Cette définition est claire et scientifiquement valable car conforme au principe de réfutabilité défini par Karl Popper. Nous l’examinerons à la lumière de théories physiques bien établies et de faits expérimentaux connus.

1. Le CO2 dans les basses couches atmosphériques

Refutation of the the Belgian climate manifesto by the Climate Intelligence Foundation.

by Dr. Hans Labhom, February 8, 2019, in WUWT


Terrifying climate propaganda

Irresponsible misuse of models

Science differs from religion because theoretical claims have to be verified with observations. If model results can predict measurements in advance (which is quite different than explaining them afterwards!) then you can say the model validated and then apply it in practice. But if that is not the case, then you cannot sell the model as truth and using it in practice is irresponsible.

Far more complicated than simple, linear CO2 relationship

The current climate model (‘IPCC model’) systematically yields highly overstated predictions compared to measurements and can therefore not be used to form climate policy – especially if that policy results in extremely high costs and destabilises vital parts of the energy infrastructure.
We are not just saying that. Already some of the most renowned scientists have preceded us (e.g. Freeman Dyson, Frederic Seitz, Robert Jastrow, William Nierenberg), including Nobel Prize winners (e.g. Ivar Giaever and Robert Laughlin). They also argue that the earth’s climate is far too complicated to be explained by a simple one-dimensional CO2 relationship.

The Obvious Biomass Emissions Error

by Steve Goreham, February 7, 2019 in WUWT


When Thomas Edison established his Pearl Street power plant in New York City in 1892, he used coal for fuel, not wood. Wood fuel could not compete with the cost of coal in 1892 and it still can’t today. Nevertheless, burning of biomass is widely regarded as sustainable and promoted as a solution for climate change, especially in Europe.

Today, Europe produces about 17 percent of its energy and 29 percent of its electricity from renewable sources. Biomass accounts for about 19 percent of the electricity generated from renewables. Since 2000, Europe’s biomass consumption for energy production is up 84 percent.

For example, biomass fuel produced 18 percent of Denmark’s electricity in 2017. For the last two decades, Denmark has been reducing coal-fired power plant output, but adding biomass-powered plants. Since 2000, Denmark’s use of coal fuel for electricity decreased 63 percent. But the use of biomass fuel for electricity in Denmark increased by a factor of five, almost exactly replacing the decline in coal output. About three-quarters of the biomass consumed by Denmark is wood, with most of it imported.

Here we go again! Media hypes alleged ‘Hottest year’ declarations as 2018 cools, slips to 4th ‘warmest’ – Book excerpt

by Marc Morano ,February 6, 2019 in ClimatDepot


Another year, another claim of “hottest” or “warmest years.” So-called “Hottest year” claims are purely political statements designed to persuade the public that the government needs to take action on man-made climate change. Once again, the media and others are hyping temperature changes year-to-year so small as to be within the margin of error.

Such temperature claims are based on year-to-year temperature data that differs by only a few hundredths of a degree to up to a few tenths of a degree—differences that were within the margin of error in the surface data.

Here are the AP’s and NASA’s claims out today: (A full debunking of these “hottest year”claims follows below.)

40 ans après la révolution en Iran, l’arme géopolitique du pétrole a fait long feu

by Samuel Furfari, 5 février 2019 in L’Echo


La stratégie des anciens président iranien et vénézuélien – Ahmadinejad et Chavez comme Maduro à sa suite – qui rêvaient de mettre à genoux les États-Unis grâce à leurs réserves de pétrole, a lamentablement échoué. Qui plus est, l’Iran et le Venezuela ne sont pas des pays où il fait bon vivre…

Climate change might not slow ocean circulation as much as thought

by Carolyn Grambling, January 31, 2019 in ScienceNews


New findings from an international ocean observing network are calling into question the long-standing idea that global warming might slow down a big chunk of the ocean’s “conveyor belt.” The first 21 months of data from sensors moored across much of the North Atlantic are giving new insight into what controls the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a system of currents that redistributes heat around much of the Western Hemisphere.

Reassessing the RCPs

by Kevin Murphy in Judith Curry, January 28, 2019 in ClimateEtc.


A response to: “Is RCP8.5 an impossible scenario?”. This post demonstrates that RCP8.5 is so highly improbable that it should be dismissed from consideration, and thereby draws into question the validity of RCP8.5-based assertions such as those made in the Fourth National Climate Assessment from the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Analyses of future climate change since the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report (AR5) have been based on representative concentration pathways (RCPs) that detail how a range of future climate forcings might evolve.

Several years ago, a set of RCPs were requested by the climate modeling research community to span the range of net forcing from 2.6 W/m2 to 8.5 W/m2 (in year 2100 relative to 1750) so that physics within the models could be fully exercised. Four of them were developed and designated as RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5. They have been used in ongoing research and as the basis for impact analyses and future climate projections.

Figure 2. History and forecasts of CO2 concentration. RCP8.5 is defined by 936 ppm in 2100.

Veteran Swiss Meteorologist Slams Media For “Making It Up”…NOAA: Polar Vortex Term “Nothing New…Appeared In 1853”

by P. Gosselin, February 10, 2019 in NoTricksZone


Charismatic Swiss meteorologist Jörg Kachelmann posted a comment at Twitterwhere he wondered what flagship German ZDF television was thinking when its evening news announced the polar vortex was some sort of new phenomenon arising from global warming.

Recently in the media we’ve been hearing a lot about the junk science that a warmer Arctic is somehow miraculously producing extreme cold over vast neighboring continents.

NOAA: “Polar vortex nothing new […] term appeared in 1853”

 

The science behind the polar vortex.(NOAA)Download

Réponse à la pétition “Plus d’ambitions climatiques”

by SCE-info, 31 janvier 2019 in ScienceClimatEnergie


Chers Collègues scientifiques signataires de la pétition (ici),

Vous avez signé une pétition en tant qu’académique scientifique. Tous les signataires le sont-ils ? Avez-vous remarqué des signataires qui n’ont pas existé ou qui sont décédés ? Trofik Lysenkom, inconnu sur Google, par contre Trofim Lysenko a bien existé (1898-1976) et reste de triste mémoire dans le monde scientifique. Outre cet aspect cocasse, il y a plus grave : en tant que signataires vous cautionnez que la science est dite (‘the science is settled’) et si tel est bien le cas alors vous ignorez de très nombreuses publications scientifiques, émanant de scientifiques de ‘haut vol’ qui montrent que le doute est permis, qu’il doit rester la règle en science, et que la climatologie ne se résume pas aux énoncés simplistes de la pétition (qui ne mentionne aucune références pour argumenter). Bien entendu vous avez peut-être lu des articles et vous vous êtes fait une opinion. Dans ce cas, vous avez exercé votre esprit critique et vous avez tout compris de la climatologie. Il n’y a donc plus de doute pour vous, et du fait de votre signature la science est effectivement dite. L’essentiel des politiques et médias, bien qu’ils n’aient pas une grande connaissance scientifique, pensent comme vous.

Dans cet article, qui se veut une ouverture au débat, nous allons donner notre point de vue aux questions qui ont suscité votre adhésion. Nous ne ferons pas de politique, notre site Science, Climat et Energie (SCE) ayant une vocation scientifique. Nous souhaitons cependant que ceux qui n’ont pas fait l’effort de lire la manière dont les publications sont validées par le GIEC aillent consulter le site du GIEC.

Vous l’aurez compris, la climatologie est une science jeune, fort complexe, et contrairement aux affirmations et ‘matraquages’ quotidiens, elle est loin d’être comprise.

Passons maintenant aux éléments factuels.

Ocean Warming in Climate Models Varies Far More than Recent Study Suggests

by Roy Spencer, January 17, 2019 in GlobalWarming


I wanted to expand upon something that was mentioned in yesterday’s blog post about the recent Cheng et al. paper which was widely reported with headlines suggesting a newer estimate of the rate of ocean warming is 40% higher than old estimates from the IPCC AR5 report in 2013. I demonstrated that the new dataset was only only 11% warmer when compared to the AR5 best estimate of ocean warming during 1971-2010.

The point I want to reemphasize today is the huge range in ocean warming between the 33 models included in that study. Here’s a plot based upon data from Cheng’s website which, for the period in question (1971-2010) shows a factor of 8 range between the model with the least ocean warming and the model with the most warming, based upon linear trends fitted to the model curves:

Yearly ocean heat content (OHC) changes since 1971 in 33 models versus the recent Cheng reanalysis of XBT and Argo ocean temperature data for the surface to 2,000m layer. The vertical scale is in both ZettaJoules (10^21 Joules) and in deg. C (assuming an ocean area of 3.6 x 10^14 m^2). The Cheng et al. confidence interval has been inflated by 1.43 to account for the difference between the surface area of the Earth (Cheng et al. usage) and the actual ocean surface area.

Encore des observations n’allant pas dans le sens de la théorie!

by Jean, N. 25 janvier 2019 in ScienceClimatEnergie


En octobre 2017 un article signé Carl Brehmer[1] et traitant de la théorie de l’effet de serre radiatif était publié sur le site web de l’association anglaise Principia Scientific International[2]. Dans cet article, l’auteur utilisait des données fournies par les stations météorologiques SURFRAD et démontrait que la théorie de l’effet de serre ne pouvait pas expliquer les observations. Si l’auteur a raison, il s’agit encore d’un sérieux problème pour la théorie. Dans le présent article nous allons suivre les pas de Carl Brehmer mais nous allons faire nos propres calculs en employant une autre méthodologie. Arriverons-nous aux mêmes conclusions?

.

Figure 1. Les stations SURFRAD de la NOAA aux Etats-Unis

The CO2 Derangement Syndrome – a historical overview

by Anthony Watts, January 23, 2019 in WUWT


Guest essay by Dr. Norman Page

A very large majority of establishment academic climate scientists have succumbed to a virulent infectious disease – the CO2 Derangement Syndrome. Those afflicted  by this syndrome  present with a spectrum of symptoms .The first is an almost total inability to recognize the most obvious Millennial and 60 year  emergent patterns which are trivially obvious in solar activity and global temperature data.

….

Munich Conference: Leading Danish Astrophysicist Says Solar Activity Has Significant Impact On Global Climate

by Prof. H. Svensmark, January 22, 2019 in NoTricksZone


Danish Professor Henrik Svensmark is a leading physicist of cosmic radiation. At the end of last year he made a presentation at the 12th International Climate Conference in Munich, where he demonstrated that the climate is indeed modulated in large part by cloud cover, which in turn is modulated by solar activity in combination with cosmic rays.

His theory is that cosmic rays, which are extremely fast-flying particles – which originate from dying supernovae – travel through the cosmos, strike the Earth’s atmosphere and have a major impact on cloud cover and thus climate on the Earth’s surface.

This, Svensmark says, has been confirmed in numerous laboratory experiments.

Is ocean warming accelerating faster than thought? In a word, no.

by Nic Lewis, January 22, 2019 in WUWT


There are a number of statements in Cheng et al. (2019) ‘How fast are the oceans warming’, (‘the paper’) that appear to be mistaken and/or potentially misleading. My analysis of these issues is followed by a reply from the paper’s authors.

Contrary to what the paper indicates:

  • Contemporary estimates of the trend in 0–2000 m depth ocean heat content over 1971–2010 are closely in line with that assessed in the IPCC AR5 report five years ago

  • Contemporary estimates of the trend in 0–2000 m depth ocean heat content over 2005–2017 are significantly (> 95% probability) smaller than the mean CMIP5 model simulation trend.

New Paper: Modern Warming Was Driven By ‘Primarily Natural’ Factors. Global Cooling Has Now Begun.

by K. Richard, January 21, 2019 in NoTricksZone


Four climate scientists assert (1) the last ~130 years of temperature changes fit “perfectly” into statistical indices of natural variation, and (2) a long-term deep cooling of the Earth system has recently commenced.

An analysis published in the journal Atmospheric and Climate Sciences by 4 climate scientists reveals the 1880-2013 temperature changes fit “perfectly” (0.9 correlation) into a calculation utilizing 15,295 periodic functions of natural variation.

The authors claim this affirms that the non-anthropogenic “major climate factors” (i.e., solar-cloud and ENSO forcing) can still be considered the “main reason” driving modern warming (Lakshmi and Tiari, 2015; Hassan et al., 2016; McLean, 2014Yeo and Kim, 2015;  Wielicki et al., 2002; Douglass and Knox, 2014; Sejrup et al., 2010Large and Yeager, 2012Irvine, 2015; Cess and Udelhofen, 2003; Clark, 2010Ogurtsov et al., 2017; Fleming, 2018Zherebtsov et al., 2019).

 

Image Source: Mao et al., 2019

See also here (numerous interesting comments)  here

 

Does The Climate-Science Industry Purposely Ignore A Simple Aspect of Strong El Niño Events That Causes Long-Term Global Warming?

by Bob Tisdale, January 20, 2019 in WUWT


It was a little more than 10 years ago that I published my first blog posts on the obvious upward steps in the sea surface temperatures of a large portion of the global oceans…upward steps that are caused by El Niño events…upward steps that lead to sunlight-fueled, naturally occurring global warming.

There is a very simple explanation for those El Niño-caused upward shifts that also make themselves known in the sea surface temperature data for much larger portion of the global oceans than I first presented a decade ago…the upward steps that are blatantly obvious in the satellite-era (starts November 1981) of sea surface temperature data for the South Atlantic, Indian and West Pacific Oceans, as shown in Figure 1, which together cover about 52% of the surfaces of the global oceans.

 

NEW PAPER DOCUMENTS MAIN REASONS FOR INTERNATIONAL CONTROVERSY ABOUT THE IPCC’S SR1.5 REPORT

by  Press Release, GWPF, December 20, 2018


London, 20 December: One of Europe’s most eminent climate scientists has documented the main scientific reasons why the recent UN climate summit failed to welcome the IPCC’s report on global warming of 1.5°C.

In a paper published today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation Professor Ray Bates of University College Dublin explains the main reasons for the significant controversy about the latest IPCC report within the international community.

The IPCC’s Special Report on a Global Warming of 1.5°C (SR1.5) was released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in advance of the recent COP24 meeting in Katowice, Poland, but was not adopted by the meeting due to objections by a number of governments.

Professor Bates examines some key aspects of the SR1.5 report. He assesses if the IPCC report exhibits a level of scientific rigour commensurate with the scale of its extremely costly and highly disruptive recommendation that carbon emissions be reduced to zero by mid-century.

The paper concludes that such a level of scientific rigour is not present in the report. Specifically, SR1.5 is deficient in scientific rigour in the following respects: