better to know...?, press and newspapers

What the Economic Models of Nobel Laureate William Nordhaus Say on Climate Change

by Robert P. Murphy, October 22, 2018 in The IndependantInstitute/FEE

 

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Conclusion

…

First, Nordhaus shows that aggressive mitigation policies can be a cure worse than the disease, and he specifically includes the United Nation’s latest goal in his examples of such misguided goals. Second, Nordhaus’s estimate of the optimal carbon tax (for the year 2025, for example) has almost tripled in less than a decade. Third, far from being tied to specific analyses of particular threats, Nordhaus’s global damage estimate was largely driven by a simple survey of experts, and this figure was furthermore manipulated arbitrarily by Nordhaus in light of new developments. The public would be very surprised to learn just how crude the “settled science” underlying various proposals to limit climate change really is.

better to know...?, climate-debate

Observations: Polar Bears Continue To Thrive, Grow In Number, Shredding Forecasts Of Climate Doom

by K. Richard, October 25, 2018 in NoTricksZone

Ten years ago, polar bears were classified as an endangered species due to model-based assumptions that said the recession of Arctic sea ice would hamper the bears’ seal-hunting capabilities and ultimately lead to starvation and extinction.

The Inuit, who have observed these bears catch seals in open water for generations, disagree.  At least this is what scientists have found upon investigation.

“There is no evidence that the fast reduction of sea-ice habitat in the area has yet led to a reduction in population size.” (Aars et al., 2017 )
Inuit observations: “… back in early 80s, and mid 90s, there were hardly any bears … there’s too many polar bears now.  Bears can catch seals even—even if the—if the ice is really thin … they’re great hunters those bears … they’re really smart … they know how to survive.” (Wong et al., 2017)

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See also here

climate-debate

Some Failed Climate Predictions

by Andy May, October 30, 2018 in WUWT

Here, for the first time in public, is Javier’s entire collection of massive, “consensus” climate science prediction failures. This collection is carefully selected from only academics or high-ranking officials, as reported in the press or scientific journals. Rather than being exhaustive, this is a list of fully referenced arguments that shows that consensus climate science usually gets things wrong, and thus their predictions cannot be trusted.

To qualify for this list, the prediction must have failed. Alternatively, it is also considered a failure when so much of the allowed time has passed that a drastic and improbable change in the rate of change is required for it to be true. Also, we include a prediction when observations are going in the opposite way. Finally, it also qualifies when one thing and the opposite are both predicted.

A novelty is that I also add a part B that includes obvious predictions that consensus climate science did not make. In science you are also wrong if you fail to predict the obvious.

A. Failed predictions

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climate-debate

PAGES2K: North American Tree Ring Proxies

by Steve McIntyre, October 24, 2018 in ClimatAudit

The PAGES (2017) North American network consists entirely of tree rings. Climate Audit readers will recall the unique role of North American stripbark bristlecone chronologies in Mann et al 1998 and Mann et al 2008 (and in the majority of IPCC multiproxy reconstructions).  In today’s post, I’ll parse the PAGES2K North American tree ring networks in both PAGES (2013) and PAGES (2017) from two aspects:

…

Conclusions

  • ex post screening based on recent proxy trends necessarily biases the resulting data towards a Hockey Stick shape – a criticism made over and over here and at other “ske;ptic” blogs, but not understood by Michael (“I am not a statistician”) Mann and the IPCC paleoclimate “community”;

  • the PAGES 2017 North American tree ring network has been severely screened ex post from a much larger candidate population: over the years, approximately 983 different North American tree ring chronologies have been used in MBH98, Mann et al 2008, PAGES 2013 or PAGES 2017. I.e. only ~15% of the underlying population was selected ex post – a procedure which, even with random data, would impart Hockey Stick-ness to any resulting composite

  • despite this severe ex post screening (in both PAGES 2013 and PAGES 2017), the composite of all data other than stripbark bristlecones had no noticeable Hockey Stick-ness and does not resemble a temperature proxy.

  • …
energy and fields

Global nuclear power capacity expected to reach 536GW by 2030

by GlobalData Energy, October23, 2018

Nuclear technology is a major base-load power-generating source and accounted for 10.5% of global power generation in 2017 as per GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

The nuclear power sector is growing in many countries as demand for electricity increases. The company’s latest report ‘Nuclear Power – Thematic Report’ reveals that some 31 countries are currently operating nuclear reactors for their electricity generation. Countries with significant nuclear power capacity are the US, France, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea, Canada, and Ukraine, with more than ten gigawatts (GW) installed capacity each. Germany, the UK, Sweden, India, Spain, Belgium, and Taiwan have five to ten GW installed nuclear power capacity each.

The global cumulative installed nuclear power capacity in 2010 was 376GW, of which more than 100GW was in the US alone.

…

only geology

USGS issues first USA Volcano Threat Assessment in over a decade

by Anthony Watts, October 24, 2018 in WUWT

18 volcanoes in the USA are classified as “very high threat”, many are in the Pacific Northwest.

Here the .pdf (USGS, 2018)

The United States has 161 young, active volcanoes within its borders. Since 1980, there have been 120 eruptions and 52 episodes of notable volcanic unrest at 44 U.S. volcanoes.

The U.S. Geological Survey systematically assesses U.S. volcanoes considered to be active or potentially active, and publishes a volcanic threat assessment that ranks the volcanoes based on 24 hazard and exposure factors. Last published in 2005, this 2018 update considers (1) field and laboratory research that adds or removes volcanoes from the list of potentially active volcanoes, and (2) updates the hazard and exposure factors used to produce a relative threat ranking of volcanoes.

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climate-debate

Climate Book By Japanese Physics Professor: “The Globe Isn’t Warming Anymore”…IPCC “Scientifically Immoral”

by Kirye, October 23, 2048 in NoTricksZone

Dr. Fukai also points out that global vegetation coverage increased by 11% in 29 years, from 1982 to 2010, as increasing CO2 has helped the greening of the Sahel and Sahara Desert. He contradicts the often heard media claims that drought is spreading globally, writing: “The media spread the word that desertification is progressing globally, but practically the desert is greening through CO2.” […] “Everyone should be aware that increasing CO2 concentrations in atmosphere is not in itself harmful, but it’s a good thing.”

No correlation

Dr. Fukai also shows that the earth’s temperature change is not simple and does not correlate at all with CO2. He shows graphs from D. M. Etheridge et al., Mauna Loa Observatory and the temperature data from Moberg et al. (2005).

Chart: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/contributions_by_author/moberg2005/nhtemp-moberg2005.txt 

The retired Japanese professor writes that at around 1000 A.D. — the Medieval Warm Period — there were no signs showing CO2 concentration was higher. A temperature graph using data from Moberg et al. (2005) shows the Medieval Warm Period appears clearly and that CO2 was in fact around 280 ppm at that time.

…

climate-debate

DEFRA VERSUS MET OFFICE Fact-checking the state of the UK climate

by Paul Homewood, October 2018, in GWPF

This paper (.pdf 17 pages) reports the results of a detailed analysis carried out using published UK Met Office data up to 2017. These show:

  • UK temperatures rose during the 1990s and early 2000s. This rise is associated with a similar increase in near-coastal sea surface temperatures. There has been no rise in the last decade.
  • Seasonal temperatures have followed a similar pattern: a rise during the 1990s, but a levelling off since.
  • This sudden rise in UK land temperature is not unprecedented, with the Central Eng- land Temperature series (CET) showing a similar occurrence in the early 18th century.
  • Analysis of CET shows that despite the rise in average summer temperatures, there has been no increase in the highest daily temperatures, or the frequency of extreme high temperatures, in recent years. In fact the opposite is true. Heatwaves were far more intense in 1975 and 1976, when there were thirteen days over 30◦C. By contrast, between 2007 and 2017 there have only been two such days. (Note that there was also only been one day over 30◦C in the summer of 2018). The highest daily temperature on CET was 33.2◦C, set in 1976 and equalled in 1990.
  • …
climate-debate

President “Trump thinks scientists are split on climate change”… He’s right, Dana Nuccitelli is wrong

by David Middleton, October 23, 2018 in WUWT

Scientists are very divided on climate change

Much of my rebuttal was put together from prior WUWT posts on this subject, there’s at least one new addition to the vast evidence of scientific division (Stenhouse et al., 2017).

Stenhouse et al., 2014   told us that atmospheric scientists are very divided on climate change over the past 150 years.

…
89% × 59% = 52%… A far cry from the oft claimed 97% consensus.

…

climate-debate

Why Some Scientists Say Global Warming Is Out And Global Cooling Is In

by J. Haskins & H.S. Burnett, October 23, 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch

In a world riddled with climate-change doomsday predictions, a small but growing number of scientists are saying the highly touted climate models predicting steadily increasing global temperature due to humans’ carbon-dioxide emissions are wrong and that Earth could soon face something even direr: global cooling.

One such climate scientist is Valentina Zharkova, an astrophysicist at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom.

Zharkova and her team of researchers say that based on mathematical models of the Sun’s magnetic activity, it’s likely Earth will experience decreasing magnetic waves over a 33-year period beginning in 2021.

Zharkova is not alone.

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climate-debate

19th century glacier retreat in the Alps preceded the emergence of industrial black carbon deposition on high-alpine glaciers

by M. Sigl et al., October 16, 2018 in TheCryosphere

Abstract. Light absorbing aerosols in the atmosphere and cryosphere play an important role in the climate system. Their presence in ambient air and snow changes the radiative properties of these systems, thus contributing to increased atmospheric warming and snowmelt. High spatio-temporal variability of aerosol concentrations and a shortage of long-term observations contribute to large uncertainties in properly assigning the climate effects of aerosols through time.

Starting around AD1860, many glaciers in the European Alps began to retreat from their maximum mid-19th century terminus positions, thereby visualizing the end of the Little Ice Age in Europe. Radiative forcing by increasing deposition of industrial black carbon to snow has been suggested as the main driver of the abrupt glacier retreats in the Alps. The basis for this hypothesis was model simulations using elemental carbon concentrations at low temporal resolution from two ice cores in the Alps.

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sciences-general

Mars: Oxygen-rich, life-supporting liquid water?

by California Institute of Technology, October 22, 2018 in ScienceDaily

A team led by scientists at Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which Caltech manages for NASA, has calculated that if liquid water exists on Mars, it could — under specific conditions — contain more oxygen than previously thought possible. According to the model, the levels could even theoretically exceed the threshold needed to support simple aerobic life.

That finding runs contrary to the current, accepted view of Mars and its potential for hosting habitable environments. The existence of liquid water on Mars is not a given. Even if it is there, researchers have long dismissed the idea that it might be oxygenated, given that Mars’s atmosphere is about 160 times thinner than that of Earth and is mostly carbon dioxide.

…

climate-debate

Why CO2 Is Not A Climate Control Knob

by A. Bright-Paul, October 22, 2018 in ClimateChageDispatch

As the Earth rotates on its own axis, one-half of the Earth is cooling while the other half is warming up.

So the Earth is warming and cooling daily and the temperature is changing 3,600 times every hour in every location all over the world, as there are 3,600 seconds in every hour.

As the Earth is traveling around the Sun in an ellipse at 66,000 miles per hour and is tilted and wobbling as it spins, so the Earth has seasons, as the angle to the Sun varies.

So the temperatures in the spring and summer are usually warmer than in the autumn and winter when temperatures decline.

So there is a massive number of different temperatures over the whole Earth, constantly changing and always in flux.

…

climate-debate

Weak sun and El Nino events may create a colder and snowier than normal winter season in much of the eastern half of the USA

by Anthony Watts, October 22, 2018 in WUWT

The fast approaching solar minimum and its potential impact on the upcoming winter season

By Meteorologist Paul Dorian

Overview

In the long term, the sun is the main driver of all weather and climate and multi-decadal trends in solar activity can have major impacts on oceanic and atmospheric temperatures. In addition, empirical observations have shown that the sun can have important ramifications on weather and climate on shorter time scales including those associated with the average solar cycle of around 11-years. For example, there is evidence that low solar activity during solar minimum years tend to be well-correlated with more frequent “high-latitude blocking” events compared to normal and this type of atmospheric phenomenon can play an important role in the winter season.

…

his plot shows the daily observations of the number of sunspots during the last four solar cycles back to 1 January 1977 according to Solar Influences Data Analysis Center (SIDC). The thin blue line indicates the daily sunspot number, while the dark blue line indicates the running annual average. The current low sunspot activity is indicated by the arrow at the lower right of the plot. Last day shown: 30 Sep 2018. Data source: climate4you.com.

climate-debate

Evidence of the Medieval Warm Period in Australia, New Zealand and Oceania

by S. Lüning, January 9, 2018 in WUWT

The climate of the pre-industrial past is of greatest importance to the ongoing climate discussion. Current climate can only be understood when interpreting it in the paleoclimatological context of the past few thousand years. Until not too long ago it was thought that the pre-industrial climate was monotonous and constant. This idea was e.g. promoted by Mann et al. whose famous hockey stick curve featured prominently in the IPCC report of 2001. Over the last 15 years, however, a large number of studies changed this view by providing robust evidence for the existence of significant natural climate variability. Of particular interest are the past 1000 years which commenced with the generally warm ‘Medieval Climate Anomaly’ (MCA, aka ‘Medieval Warm Period’, MWP), that eventually passed into the ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA), before returning to the warm climate of the current ‘Modern Warm Period’ of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

There have been controversial debates about the existence of the MWP, …

unclassified

Higher sea surface temperature in the northern South China Sea during the natural warm periods of late Holocene than recent decades

by Hong Yan et al., November 2014, in ChineseSciBull

The large-scale syntheses of global mean temperatures in IPCC fourth report suggested that the Northern Hemisphere temperature in the second half of the 20th century was likely the highest in at least the past 1,300 years and the 1990s was likely the warmest decade. However, this remains debated and the controversy is centered on whether temperatures during the recent half century were higher than those during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA, AD 800–1300) and the Roman Warm Period (RWP, BC 200–AD 400), the most recent two natural warm periods of the late Holocene. Here the high resolution sea surface temperatures (SSTs) of two time windows around AD 990 (±40) and AD 50 (±40), which located in the MCA and RWP respectively, were reconstructed by the Sr/Ca ratio and δ 18O of Tradacna gigas shells from the northern South China Sea. The results suggested that the mean SSTs around AD 990 (±40) and AD 50 (±40) were 28.1 °C and 28.7 °C, 0.8 °C and 1.4 °C higher than that during AD 1994–2005, respectively. These records, together with the tree ring, lake sediment and literature records from the eastern China and northwest China, imply that the temperatures in recent decades do not seem to exceed the natural changes in MCA, at least in eastern Asia from northwest China to northern SCS.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Le réchauffement climatique pour les deux cultures

by Richard Lindzen, 21 octobre 2018, Conférence GWPF, in Skyfall

Traduction par Volauvent.

Il y a plus d’un demi-siècle, C.P. Snow (romancier et physicien anglais qui a également occupé plusieurs postes importants dans la fonction publique britannique et brièvement au sein du gouvernement britannique) a examiné de manière célèbre les implications de « deux cultures » :

Bien des fois, j’ai assisté à des rassemblements de personnes qui, selon les normes de la culture traditionnelle, sont considérées comme très éduquées et qui ont exprimé leur incrédulité face à l’analphabétisme des scientifiques. Une ou deux fois, j’ai été provoqué et j’ai demandé à la compagnie combien d’entre eux pourraient décrire la deuxième loi de la thermodynamique. Ils répondaient froidement : c’était aussi toujours négatif. Pourtant, je demandais quelque chose qui était l’équivalent scientifique de : avez-vous lu un ouvrage de Shakespeare ?

Je crois maintenant que si j’avais posé une question encore plus simple – telle que : que voulez-vous dire par masse ou accélération, qui est l’équivalent scientifique de : pouvez-vous lire ? – pas plus d’un diplômé sur dix aurait eu l’impression que je parlais la même langue que lui. Ainsi, le grand édifice de la physique moderne se construit, et la majorité des personnes les plus intelligentes du monde occidental en ont à peu près le même aperçu que leurs ancêtres néolithiques en auraient eu.

Je crains que peu de choses n’aient changé depuis l’évaluation de Snow, il y a 60 ans. Certains pourraient soutenir que l’ignorance de la physique n’a pas d’incidence sur la capacité politique, mais elle a très certainement une incidence sur la capacité des politiciens non scientifiques à traiter des problèmes théoriquement fondés sur la science. Le manque de compréhension est également une invitation à l’exploitation malveillante. Compte tenu de la nécessité démocratique pour les non-scientifiques de prendre position sur des problèmes scientifiques, la croyance et la foi remplacent inévitablement la compréhension, même si des récits simplifiés à outrance de façon triviale rassurent les non-scientifiques sur le fait qu’ils ne sont pas totalement dénués de « compréhension scientifique ». Le sujet du « réchauffement global » offre de nombreux exemples de tout cela.

Je voudrais commencer cette conférence par une tentative visant à forcer les scientifiques du public à se familiariser avec la nature réelle du système climatique et à aider les non-scientifiques motivés de ce public susceptibles de faire partie du groupe « Un sur dix » de Snow à aller au-delà des simplifications excessivement triviales.

…

better to know...?

Pas d’erreurs pour l’Arctique!

by Paul Berth, 21 octobre 2018 in ScienceClimatEnergie

Comme mentionné dans un article précédent, le DMI (Danish Meteorological Institute) publie régulièrement l’évolution temporelle, mois par mois, de l’étendue de la glace de l’Arctique en millions de km2. Le dernier graphique publié (Fig. 1) nous montre l’étendue de la glace au mois de septembre entre 1979 et 2018 (c’est au mois de septembre que l’étendue de glace arctique est la plus faible, moins de 10 millions de km2). Une droite, dont la pente est négative, est tracée parmi les points : tous les 10 ans, la surface semble diminuer de 11,4%. Si l’on extrapole la droite ont peut calculer qu’il n’y aura plus de glace en Arctique dans 60 ans. Cependant, ne remarquez-vous rien d’étrange sur ce graphique?

….

climate-debate

New Science: Arctic AND Antarctic Sea Ice More Extensive Today Than Nearly All Of The Last 10,000 Years

by K. Richard, October 18, 2018 in NoTricksZone

It is often claimed that modern day sea ice changes are “unprecedented”, alarming, and well outside the range of natural variability.  Yet scientists are increasingly finding that biomarker proxies used to reconstruct both Arctic and Antarctic sea ice conditions since the Early Holocene reveal that today’s sea ice changes are not only not unusual, there is more extensive Arctic and Antarctic sea ice during recent decades than there has been for nearly all of the last 10,000 years.

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climate-debate

Trump s’interroge sur les causes du changement climatique

by Tom Harris & Jay Lehr, 20 octobre 2018 in Contrepoints

Le 14 octobre dernier, durant une interview sur la chaine de télévision CBS, le président américain a exprimé à juste titre son scepticisme concernant le rôle de l’homme sur le changement climatique.

Contrairement à l’affirmation d’Al Gore daté du 12 octobre selon laquelle seuls « quelques rares marginaux » dans la communauté scientifique ne partageraient pas l’avis du GIEC, de nombreux chercheurs sont en désaccord avec les conclusions faites par l’agence internationale.

En effet, c’était un euphémisme pour le président américain de déclarer durant l’interview « qu’il y a des scientifiques qui réfutent cela », en parlant d’un lien entre la fonte de glace au Groenlandet du changement climatique anthropique.

Le 8 octobre dernier, durant sa conférence devant la Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) située à Londres, le professeur Richard Lindzen a mentionné « la découverte faite conjointement par la NOAA (la National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) et l’Institut Météorologique Danois, à savoir que la masse de glace du Groenland a effectivement augmenté ».

…

climate-debate

CNN: “Climate change endangers dozens of World Heritage sites”… Unmitigated horst schist

by David Middleton, October 19, 2018 in WUWT

Holocene Sea Level

I didn’t take the time to look up the dates of these World Heritage sites… But I’m going to guess they’re OLD.  Many of them probably date back to the Early to Mid-Holocene.  [My bad… That was a bad guess.  The Late Holocene (Meghalayan Age) begins in 4200 BP (2250 BC)]  Here’s a Holocene sea level reconstruction for the Arabian Gulf, with a recent reconstruction of global sea level since 1800 (Jevrejeva et al., 2014) and the satellite sea level trend from CU…

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better to know...?

LES EVENEMENTS CLIMATIQUES EXTREMES DU PASSE (19)

by John Moreau, 20 octobre 2018 in Belgotopia

« Le contenu de la mémoire est fonction de la vitesse de l’oubli »

Désormais, chaque inondation quelque peu catastrophique, chaque tornade, chaque anomalie météorologique est rattachée au réchauffement climatique qui parait-il nous menace, mais dont en plus l’homme serait responsable !

Pourtant, la consultation de chroniques ou récits anciens est révélatrice de précédents tout aussi apocalyptiques,  et relativise la notion même de « changements climatiques », ainsi que la définition d’un « climat stable » qui n’a jamais existé mais qu’on voudrait instaurer à tout prix.

 

AUX ENVIRONS DE 1850, FIN DU « PETIT AGE GLACIAIRE » et début d’un réchauffement du climat, surtout perceptible en hiver.

…

Pour l’ensemble des épisodes :

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2015/02/27/sur-les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-1/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/sur-les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-2/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2015/04/15/sur-les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-3/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2015/05/05/sur-les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-4/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2015/06/01/sur-les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-5/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2015/06/15/sur-les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-6/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2015/06/24/sur-les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-7/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/sur-les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-8/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2015/09/04/les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-dans-lhistoire-9/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2015/09/30/les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-du-passe-10/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2015/10/28/les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-du-passe-11/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2015/11/25/les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-du-passe-12/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2017/03/10/les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-du-passe-13/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2017/03/21/les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-du-passe-14/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2017/05/23/les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-du-passe-15/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2017/09/04/les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-du-passe-16/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2017/09/06/les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-du-passe-17/

https://belgotopia.wordpress.com/2018/03/25/les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-du-passe-18/

https://belgotopia.com/2018/10/20/les-evenements-climatiques-extremes-du-passe-19/

 

better to know...?

Claim: Air Pollution, Not Greenhouse Gases, Is the Main Cause of Global Warming

by Anthony Watts, October 19, 2018 in WUWT

NOTE: I don’t necessarily agree with this [at all], but I thought it worth exposing – Anthony

In a recent article in the Journal of Geography, Environment and Earth Science International, Transdyne Corporation geoscientist J. Marvin Herndon makes the startling claim that climate scientists, including the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have been chasing the wrong culprit for global warming and climate change.

From the article, “Fig. 3 is a copy of [Gottschalk’s] Fig. 2 to which has been added three relative-value proxies that represent major activities that produce particulate pollution.”

From the article, “Fig. 3 is a copy of [Gottschalk’s] Fig. 2 to which has been added three relative-value proxies that represent major activities that produce particulate pollution.”

…

La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse