climate-debate

Early 20th century global warming

by Judith Curry, January 25, 2019 in ClimateEtc.

A careful look at the early 20th century global warming, which is almost as large as the warming since 1950.  Until we can explain the early 20th century warming, I have little confidence IPCC and NCA4 attribution statements regarding the cause of the recent warming.

This is an issue that has long interested me.  Peter Webster wrote a previous post Mid 20th Century Global(?) Warming, which focused on the warm bump that culminated in the 1940’s.  My interest in this period was reignited while working on my report Sea Level and Climate Change.  Then, the recent paper by Zanna et al. discussed in Ocean Heat Content  Surprises further made the wheels turn.

In response to the Ocean Heat Content thread, David Appell posted a link to this paper on twitter:

The early 20th century warming: Anomalies, causes and consequences

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climate-debate

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.

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climate and geology, climate-debate

New Paper: PETM Was Caused by Climate Change… Ancient Climate Change Caused Climate Change… AEUHHH????

by David Middleton, January 23, 2019 in WUWT

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Note how the PETM (55 Ma) is about as far from a CO2 analog to modern times as it possibly could be… unless the PETM stomata data are correct, in which case AGW is even more insignificant than previously thought.

Regarding temperatures, the PETM is also about as far from being an analog to modern times as it possibly could be.

 

Figure 2.  High latitude SST (°C) From benthic foram δ18O.  Funny how the PETM is often cited as a nightmarish version of a real-world RCP8.5… While the warmer EECO is a climatic optimum. (Zachos et al., 2001). Note: Older is to the right.

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climate-debate

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.

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climate-debate

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.

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sciences-general

Meteoroid Hits the Moon During Recent Lunar Eclipse

by Anthony Watts, January 22, 2019 in WUWT

This is a treat. On Jan. 21st, a meteoroid slammed into the Moon. We know this because many amateur astronomers witnessed the explosion and recorded video and photos. The fireball was visible against the shadowy backdrop of a total lunar eclipse. Video of the event follows.

We know this because many amateur astronomers witnessed or photographed the explosion. Petr Horálek was one of them; he captured the fireball from Boa Vista, one of the islands of Cape Verde …

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better to know...?, climate-debate

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, 2014; Yeo and Kim, 2015;  Wielicki et al., 2002; Douglass and Knox, 2014; Sejrup et al., 2010; Large and Yeager, 2012; Irvine, 2015; Cess and Udelhofen, 2003; Clark, 2010; Ogurtsov et al., 2017; Fleming, 2018; Zherebtsov et al., 2019).

 

Image Source: Mao et al., 2019

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See also here (numerous interesting comments)  here

 

climate-debate, energy and fields

Les émissions de CO2 des États-Unis en forte hausse en 2018

by Connaissance des Energie, 22 janvier 2019

Après trois années de baisse, les émissions américaines de CO2 liées à l’énergie auraient augmenté de 3,4% en 2018 selon les dernières estimations du cabinet Rhodium Group. Explications.

Une hausse des émissions malgré la baisse de consommation de charbon

Les émissions américaines de CO2 liées à l’énergie auraient connu en 2018 (+ 3,4%) leur deuxième plus forte hausse annuelle des deux dernières décennies, après 2010 (+ 3,8% dans un contexte de reprise économique après la crise de 2008) selon les dernières estimations de Rhodium Group publiées le 8 janvier.

La consommation de charbon a pourtant significativement baissé aux États-Unis en 2018 selon l’EIA. Dans le secteur électrique, le « King Coal » s’efface peu à peu au profit du gaz naturel, plus compétitif (avec l’exploitation du gaz de schiste) : la part du charbon dans la production nationale d’électricité aurait atteint 28% en 2018 (et pourrait encore diminuer à 26% en 2019), contre 35% pour le gaz naturel selon le Short-Term Energy Outlook de l’EIA publié en décembre dernier.

climate-debate

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.

 

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climate-debate

Study Claiming Insect Decline Due To Global Warming Is Based On Faulty Temperature Data.

by P. Homewood, January 20, 2019 in NotaLotofPeople KnowThat

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Clearly the whole study is worthless, and the paper should be withdrawn.

There are some alarming facts about all of this:

1) Why did the researchers not suspect that the temperature data looked hopelessly wrong at the outset?

2) Why did peer review not do the basic checks that I did?

3) The study carries out some mindbendingly complex statistical analysis, linking arthropod decline to rising temperatures. But how can this analysis have been robust, when the temperature data was hopelessly wrong?

The conclusion is that the faulty temperature data matched the researchers’ expectations of climate warming, and consequently they never bothered to crosscheck. It would after all have been extremely simple to have asked the people who maintain the data.

Whether or not arthropods are in decline I have no idea. But by blaming non existent climate warming, there is a very real danger that the true cause is being missed. Indeed, looking at those graphs, it may well be climate cooling that is responsible.

I plan to contact PNAS, who published the paper, to request that it be withdrawn.

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only geology

Fake Science: “The Anthropocene Is Coming to Mars”… From Where?

by David Middleton, January 18, 2019 in WUWT

“The Anthropocene as a geological epoch is not formally recognized”… So… “The term Anthropocene has” NOT “been widely used for the current period in Earth’s geological history“.  It may be frequently used by activists and scientists who are ignorant of basic geology, but geologically speaking the term “Anthropocene” does not exist in any relationship to any period, epoch, age, era or eon in Earth’s geological history.

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Yes, we have no Anthropocene, we have no Anthropocene today… Sung to the tune of Yes, We Have No Bananas.

climate-debate

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:

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climate-debate

THE ROAD FROM PARIS: CHINA’S CLIMATE U-TURN

by Presse Release, GWPF,  December 12, 2018

For all its green talk, China is sticking to fossil fuels

London, 12 December – While leaders of western countries fret about their greenhouse gas emissions in Katowice, China is forging ahead with new projects and investments in coal and gas. According to a new paper from the Global Warming Foundation (GWPF), the Communist Party’s survival depends on delivering economic growth and cleaner air.

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press and newspapers

Key Democratic Lawmakers Skeptical of Carbon Tax

by P. Hirschfeld, January 15 2019 in VPRNews

A growing number of climate advocates say increasing the price of fossil fuels is the surest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but leaders in the House and Senate are resisting calls for a carbon tax in Vermont.

During the last two legislative sessions, lawmakers introduced several bills that would have assessed a new tax on carbon-emitting fossil fuels. Last week, on the opening day of the legislative session, 40 or so people rallied in the Statehouse cafeteria against a carbon tax.

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climate-debate

Simplest climate model yet – a bathtub

by Charles the moderator, January 18, 2019 in WUWT

Climate change: How could artificial photosynthesis contribute to limiting global warming?

Scientists calculate areas needed for forestation and artificial photosynthesis.

After several years during which global emissions at least stagnated, they rose again somewhat in 2017 and 2018. Germany has also clearly missed its climate targets. In order to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, only about 1100 gigatonnes of CO2 may be released into the atmosphere by 2050[1]. And In order to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, only just under 400 gigatonnes of CO2 may be emitted worldwide. By 2050, emissions will have to fall to zero even. Currently, however, 42 gigatonnes of CO2 are added every year.

Almost all the various scenarios require “negative emissions”

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climate-debate

700,000 Square Kilometers Of Added Green Vegetation, Climate Change Shrinks Sahara Desert By Whopping 8%!

by P. Gosselin, January 16, 2019 in NoTricksZone

Recently, CO2 Science brought up a paper in Nature Communications.

Using satellite images, Venter et al. 2018 found an eight percent increase in woody vegetation in sub-Saharan Africa over the last three decades, underscoring the global “greening trend”.

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According to Wikipedia, the Sahara covers a vast area of some 9.2 million square kilometers. Eight percent of that translates into more than 700,000 square kilometers. That’s an area that’s almost as big as Germany and France combined! This is profound.

In other words, it’s well over 10,000 Manhattans!

Recent study by Venter et al finds that the Sahara has shrunk by 8% over the past three decades. NASA image, public domain.

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climate-debate

Media Reports of +40% Adjustment in Ocean Warming Were Greatly Exaggerated

by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D., January 16, 2019

Summary:The recently reported upward adjustment in the 1971-2010 Ocean Heat Content (OHC) increase compared to the last official estimate from the IPCC is actually 11%, not 40%. The 40% increase turns out to be relative to the average of various OHC estimates the IPCC addressed in their 2013 report, most of which were rejected. Curiously, the new estimate is almost identical to the average of 33 CMIP climate models, yet the models themselves range over a factor of 8 in their rates of ocean warming. Also curious is the warmth-enhancing nature of temperature adjustments over the years from surface thermometers, radiosondes, satellites, and now ocean heat content, with virtually all data adjustments leading to more warming rather than less.

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See also here

better to know...?, climate-debate

Hump day hilarity – the progression of climate narrative names

by Anthony Watts, January 16, 2019 in WUWT

I had a predictable and laughable Twitter dialog today with the editor of the bought and paid for climate activist site known as “The Carbon Brief”. He was bent out of shape because I pointed out that while he thought the reason for the stepping down of Lord Lawson at The Global Warming Policy Foundation in the UK was due to the lack of traffic and interest in the organization, it [the lowered traffic] really is because of two reasons:

  1. The public is getting bored with it, possibly due to all the fear-mongering promoted by irresponsible journalists.

  2. There’s been a shift from the use of the term “global warming” to other terms, perhaps in a desperate bid to “keep it fresh”. …

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climate-debate

Regional Models: 3-10°C Warming In The Next 80 Years. Observations: No Warming In The Last 40-100 Years.

by K. Richard, January 14, 2019 in NoTricksZone

There are large regions of the globe where observations indicate there has been no warming (even cooling) during the last decades to century. Climate models rooted in the assumption that fossil fuel emissions drive dangerous warming dismiss these modeling failures and project temperature increases of 3° – 10°C by 2100 for these same regions anyway.

Image Source: Partridge et al., 2018

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biology+acidification, sciences-general

Scientists identify two new species of fungi in retreating Arctic glacier

by Research Organization of Information and Systems, January 15, 2019 in ScienceDaily

Two new species of fungi have made an appearance in a rapidly melting glacier on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic, just west of Greenland. A collaborative team of researchers from Japan’s National Institute of Polar Research, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Tokyo, Japan, and Laval University in Québec, Canada made the discovery.

The scientists published their results on DATE in two separate papers, one for each new species, in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.

“The knowledge of fungi inhabiting the Arctic is still fragmentary. We set out to survey the fungal diversity in the Canadian High Arctic,” said Masaharu Tsuji, a project researcher at the National Institute of Polar Research in Japan and first author on both papers. “We found two new fungal species in the same investigation on Ellesmere Island.”

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unclassified

Pas de réchauffement pour les zones éloignées des océans

by Dr. Jean N., 16 janvier 2019 in ScienceClimatEnergie

La théorie radiative de l’effet de serre prédit que la température de la basse atmosphère augmente lorsque le taux de CO2 croît. Si l’on prend par exemple une très vaste région, comme la Chine centrale ou le Midwest américain, qui couvrent tous deux des centaines de milliers de km2, on devrait donc observer un accroissement des températures moyennes de la basse atmosphère en fonction du temps. Effectivement, dans ces régions, et comme pour tout l’hémisphère Nord, le taux de CO2 n’a fait qu’augmenter depuis le début des mesures par spectrométrie infra-rouge en 1959. Cependant, une étude récente vient de montrer que la température moyenne n’aurait pas augmenté dans ces vastes régions, et ce malgré l’augmentation du taux de CO2 atmosphérique. L’étude en question a été publiée dans Energy & Environment en 2018 par deux chercheurs danois de la Danish Technical University, Frank Lansner et Jens Pedersen. Il faut rester prudent, mais si cette étude est confirmée, il s’agirait d’un sérieux problème pour la théorie radiative de l’effet de serre.

 

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Figure 1. Anomalie de température pour la Sibérie centrale entre 1900 et 2010 (voir article)

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climate-debate

Antarctic Losing Tiny Amounts Of Ice (Or Maybe It’s Gaining Ice, NASA Is Not Sure!)

by P. Homewood, January 15, 2019 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

Antarctica is shedding ice at a staggering rate.

Scientists have discovered global warming has caused the melting of the ice on the continent to increase sixfold since 1979.

This phenomenal rate of melting has seen global sea levels rise by more than half an inch – and experts predict it will get worse. 

Scientists have predicted a ‘multi-meter sea level rise from Antarctica in the coming centuries’ as a result of the vast loss of ice.

Researchers discovered that, between 1970 and 1990, the continent was shedding an average of 40 gigatons of ice mass annually.

This jumped to an average of 252 gigatons a year between 2009 and 2017.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6590841/Antarctica-losing-SIX-TIMES-ice-year-1970s.html#newcomment

 

You may of course recall that it was only three years ago that the same NASA, who are behind this latest scare story, were telling us that the ice cap was actually growing in Antarctica. But more of that in a minute.

There are several aspects to this latest story that need closer examination.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

Il y a pléthore de gaz et de pétrole ! Vous êtes au courant ?

by Michel Gay, 13 janvier 2019 in Contrepoints

Du gaz et du pétrole de schiste sont découverts à profusion dans le monde, notamment aux États-Unis. Qui en parle dans nos grands media ? Serait-ce politiquement incorrect de l’évoquer ?

LE SUCCÈS DU PARI DU GAZ ET DU PÉTROLE DE SCHISTE

Le Texas aux États-Unis regorge de pétrole et de gaz de schiste au point que les gazoducs existants sont saturés ! Le gaz doit même être « torché » ou « éventé ».

En attendant la mise en service de nouvelles capacités de transport, la production doit être réduite faute de pouvoir exporter les quantités extraites. La production de pétrole de schiste doit aussi être réduite en parallèle car il est extrait avec le gaz (et vice-versa).

Des projets sont en développement pour évacuer le gaz vers le Golfe du Mexique pour le liquéfier (GPL) et pouvoir ainsi l’exporter par bateau méthanier.

PREMIER PRODUCTEUR DE PÉTROLE

Les États-Unis ont dépassé la Russie et l’Arabie Saoudite pour devenir le premier producteur de pétrole brut  en 2018 a annoncé l’agence américaine de l’énergie (EIA).

Après avoir stagné autour de 6 millions de barils par jour (Mb/j) en moyenne de 1933 à 2013, la production a grimpé à 9,4 Mb/j en 2017, puis à 10,4 Mb/j en 2018, et elle passera à 11,5 Mb/j 2019.

La surabondance de gaz de schiste associé à l’extraction du pétrole de schiste a fait chuter les prix au terminal gazier à l’ouest du Texas jusqu’à 1 dollar par million d’unité thermique britannique (dollar/MM-Btu), alors qu’il vaut 13 à 14 dollars/MM-Btu sur le marché européen.

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climate-debate

New GWPF Paper Shows Hurricanes Are Not Getting Worse

by P. Homewood, January 14, 2019 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2019/01/Homewood-Hurricanes.pdf

I am pleased to report that the GWPF have now published my latest paper on hurricane trends.

It demonstrates that, contrary to popular myth, hurricanes are not getting more frequent or more powerful.

The paper is based throughout on official data, scientific papers and IPCC reports.

Here is the Executive Summary:

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La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse