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.”

September 2018 Global Surface (Land+Ocean) and Lower Troposphere Temperature Anomaly Update

by Bob Tisdale, October 18, 2018 in WUWT


This post provides updates of the values for the three primary suppliers of global land+ocean surface temperature reconstructions—GISS through September 2018 and HADCRUT4 and NOAA NCEI (formerly NOAA NCDC) through August 2018—and of the two suppliers of satellite-based lower troposphere temperature composites (RSS and UAH) through September 2018. It also includes a few model-data comparisons.

This is simply an update, but it includes a good amount of background information for those new to the datasets. Because it is an update, there is no overview or summary for this post. There are, however, simple monthly summaries for the individual datasets. So for those familiar with the datasets, simply fast-forward to the graphs and read the summaries under the headings of “Update”.

THE UN’S DOOMSDAY CLIMATE CLOCK

by GWPF, October 18, 2018 TheWallStreetJournal


In case you hadn’t heard we’re all doomed, yet the world mostly yawned. This is less complacency than creeping scientific and political realism.

The U.N. panel says the apocalypse is nigh—literally. According to its calculations, global carbon emissions must fall 45% by 2030—twice as much as its earlier forecasts—and the world must wean itself entirely off fossil fuels over three decades to prevent a climate catastrophe that will include underwater coastlines and widespread drought and disease.

These reductions are “possible within the laws of chemistry and physics,” said the report’s co-author Jim Skea, and that’s a relief. But he added: “Doing so would require unprecedented changes,” and the report said some methods “are at different stages of development and some are more conceptual than others, as they have not been tested at scale.”

Substantial changes in air pollution across China during 2015 to 2017

by University of Leeds, October 17, 2018 in ScienceDaily


A study by the University of Leeds has examined measurements from more than 1600 locations in China and found that more than 50 per cent of the locations showed a significant decrease in concentrations of sulphur dioxide and fine particulates that make up a large portion of air pollution.

The team used datasets from 2015 to 2017 consisting of hourly assessments of concentrations of Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), Ozone (O3), and fine particles measuring less than 2.5 μm (PM2.5).

Les limites des lois de la physique dans la transition énergétique

by Alain Préat, 17 octobre 2018, in ScienceClimatEnergie


Bertrand Cassoret a récemment publié un excellent ouvrage [1] sur le sujet. Cet auteur est ingénieur et docteur en génie électrique et s’est lancé sans a priori dans le dédale des ‘promesses’ des énergies vertes en tentant de préciser ce qu’il en est à partir d’une quantification rigoureuse des rendements énergétiques réels. Pourquoi ‘réels’ ? Simplement parce qu’il faut débusquer tout ce qui n’est pas mis en avant (principalement pertes énergétiques cachées) et surtout mettre à plat les ordres de grandeurs du monde de l’énergie. Sa conclusion sera sans appel « même si l’efficacité énergétique est utile et même indispensable, elle ne sera pas suffisante… il est nécessaire de modifier l’usage que l’on fait des appareils consommateurs ». Autre conclusion sans appel « mon objectif n’est pas de critiquer les énergies renouvelables, ni les nécessaires mesures d’efficacité, mais plutôt de montrer qu’elles pèsent bien peu face à l’ampleur des problèmes ».

Figure 1 : Image du trafic aérien du 29/06/2018 par le site    FlightRadar24 (©Filght Radar14) [4]

Oil Production at 100 million bbl/d: “Twin peaks straining the system to the limit”? Or just another day at the office in a highly resilient industry?

by  David Middleton, October 15, 2018 in WUWT


From the International Energy Agency’s Oil Market Report (OMR):

Home » Newsroom » News » 2018 » October

OMR: Twin Peaks

12 October 2018

Both global oil demand and supply are now close to new, historically significant peaks at 100 mb/d, and neither show signs of ceasing to grow any time soon. Fifteen years ago, forecasts of peak supply were all the rage, with production from non-OPEC countries supposed to have started declining by now.

 

Le catastrophisme climatique des années 60 à 80 à l’épreuve des faits

by Cédric Moro, 15 octobre 2018 in MythesMancies&Mathématiques


Les discours alarmistes sur le climat ne datent pas d’hier. Grâce à la numérisation des archives audio-visuelles et à leur mise en ligne sur internet, il est possible aujourd’hui de démentir les prévisions climato-catastrophistes assénées de manière très officielle dans la deuxième moitié du siècle dernier. Beaucoup des déformations de nos discours sur la réalité tendent à puiser leurs racines dans nos représentations mentales du monde. Nous verrons donc que ces représentations alarmistes naissent dans un contexte idéologique nouveau : mutation de l’eugénisme, collapsologisme et décroissance.

IPCC achieves net zero credibility

by Barry Brill, October 14, 2018 in WUWT


The recently released IPCC SR15 reports (at A1) that global warming is likely to reach 1.5°C between 2032 and 2050 and (at B) will probably bring species extinction, weather extremes and risks to food supply, health and economic growth. If we are to avoid this, net CO2 emissions will need to decline by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030, reaching net zero by 2050 (C1), followed by extensive removals (C5). The required energy investment alone will be $2.4 trillion per year.

Is this possible?

As at 2015, which was not materially different from 2010, more than half the planet’s total CO2 emissions (36Gt) were sourced from just three countries:

….

Reliable? CRU, NASA, BEST, NOAA Land Temp Data Conflict By Up To 90% (0.8°C), Spawning ‘Large Uncertainty’

by K. Richard, October 8, 2018 in NoTricksZone


A new paper documents “remarkably different” land temperatures from one instrumental data set to another. In some regions there is as much as an 0.8°C conflict in recorded temperature anomalies for CRU, NASA, BEST, and NOAA. The relative temperature trend differences can reach 90% when comparing instrumental records. Consequently, the uncertainty in instrumental temperature trends — “0.097–0.305°C per decade for recent decades (i.e., 1981–2017)” —  is as large or larger than the alleged overall warming trend itself for this period.

Reconstruction of Prehistoric Landfall Frequencies of Catastrophic Hurricanes in Northwestern Florida from Lake Sediment Records

by Kam-biu Liu & Miriam L. Fearn, September 2000,  in QuaternaryResearch


Sediment cores from Western Lake provide a 7000-yr record of coastal environmental changes and catastrophic hurricane landfalls along the Gulf Coast of the Florida Panhandle. Using Hurricane Opal as a modern analog, we infer that overwash sand layers occurring near the center of the lake were caused by catastrophic hurricanes of category 4 or 5 intensity. Few catastrophic hurricanes struck the Western Lake area during two quiescent periods 3400–5000 and 0–1000 14C yr B.P. The landfall probabilities increased dramatically to ca. 0.5% per yr during an “hyperactive” period from 1000–3400 14C yr B.P., especially in the first millennium A.D. The millennial-scale variability in catastrophic hurricane landfalls along the Gulf Coast is probably controlled by shifts in the position of the jet stream and the Bermuda High.

Study: climate was more variable during the last inter-glacial period

by Anthony Watts, October 12, 2018 in WUWT


Century-scale climate variability was enhanced when the Earth was warmer during the Last Interglacial period (129-116 thousand years ago) compared to the current interglacial (the last 11,700 years), according to a new UCL-led study.

The findings, published today in Nature Communications and funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Australian Research Council (ARC), reveal that the Last Interglacial period was punctuated by a series of century-scale arid events in southern Europe and cold water-mass expansions in the North Atlantic.

Failure of ‘World’s Biggest Solar Project’ in Saudi Arabia Is No Surprise

by Jason Deign, October 2, 2018 in gym


Renewables developers eyeing Saudi Arabia remain wary of the market following the news that the world’s biggest solar project has been canceled.

The $200 billion, 200-gigawatt solar plant planned by SoftBank and the Saudi Public Investment Fund had raised skepticism among developers when it was announced in March, partly because of technical concerns over how it might be integrated into the grid.

The main worry, though, was that the megaproject appeared to have been approved independently of plans for an orderly ramp-up of solar through a tender program managed by the Saudi Renewable Energy Project Development Office (REPDO).

Ocean Temperatures Have Been Rising Since 19thC

by P. Homewood, October 12, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120401135345.htm

 

The significance of course is that the warming of the oceans began long before any impact from CO2 emissions.

HH Lamb has written extensively about how sea temperatures in the Atlantic fell radically during the LIA. Is the warming trend since then merely a return to earlier conditions?

McIntyre: ‘a reductio ad absurdum of tree ring chronologies as useful temperature proxies’

by A. Watts, October 11, 2018 in WUWT


Steve McIntyre has a look at the “revised” PAGES2K temperature proxy dataset that includes tree rings and river sediments. He finds the usual ridiculous problems from the past, such as upside down data and river sediment accumulations that have more to do with building a dam than climate.

See also here

Richard Lindzen Lecture at GWPF: ‘Global Warming for the Two Cultures’

by R. Lindzen, Ocotber2, 2018 in A. Watts, WUWT


The climate system

The following description of the climate system contains nothing that is in the least controversial, and I expect that anyone with a scientific background will readily follow the description. I will also try, despite Snow’s observations, to make the description intelligible to the non-scientist.

Conclusion

So there you have it. An implausible conjecture backed by false evidence and repeated incessantly has become politically correct ‘knowledge,’ and is used to promote the overturn of industrial civilization. What we will be leaving our grandchildren is not a planet damaged by industrial progress, but a record of unfathomable silliness as well as a landscape degraded by rusting wind farms and decaying solar panel arrays. False claims about 97% agreement will not spare us, but the willingness of scientists to keep mum is likely to much reduce trust in and support for science. Perhaps this won’t be such a bad thing after all – certainly as concerns ‘official’ science.

There is at least one positive aspect to the present situation. None of the proposed policies will have much impact on greenhouse gases. Thus we will continue to benefit from the one thing that can be clearly attributed to elevated carbon dioxide: namely, its effective role as a plant fertilizer, and reducer of the drought vulnerability of plants. Meanwhile, the IPCC is claiming that we need to prevent another 0.5◦C of warming, although the 1◦C that has occurred so far has been accompanied by the greatest increase in human welfare in history. As we used to say in my childhood home of the Bronx: ‘Go figure’.

Most US newspapers failed to even mention the new IPCC climate change report

by Meteor Blades, October 11, 2018 in RedGreen&Blue


Media Matters scrutinized the top 50 U.S. newspapers between 9 AM and noon ET on Monday and found most did not mention on their website homepages the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sunday release of its report on the devastating impacts of a global temperature increase of 1.5-degree Celsius (2.7-degree Fahrenheit) above the temperature of the pre-industrial era.

UN’s IPCC Ignores Astronomical Costs Of Cutting CO2 Versus Doing Nothing

by Bjorn Lomborg, October 10, 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch


The IPCC report significantly underestimates the costs of getting to zero emissions. Fossil fuels provide cheap, efficient power, whereas green energy remains mostly uncompetitive.

Switching to more expensive, less efficient technology slows development. In poor nations that means fewer people lifted out of poverty.

In rich ones, it means the most vulnerable are hit by higher energy bills.

The IPCC says carbon emissions need to peak right now and fall rapidly to avert catastrophe.

Models actually reveal that to achieve the 2.7-degree goal the world must stop all fossil fuel use in less than four years.

Yet the International Energy Agency estimates that in 2040 fossil fuels will still meet three-quarters of world energy needs, even if the Paris agreement is fully implemented.

Evolutions récentes du CO2 atmosphérique (2/3)

by JC Maurin, 4 octobre 2018 in Science,Climat,Energie


  • Pour les derniers millénaires, les proxies archives glaciaires montrent une corrélation entre rapport isotopique (« température ») et taux de COsubsistant dans les microbulles. Toutefois les valeurs numériques de taux de CO2 doivent être prises avec précaution: l’enregistrement comporte à minima un biais « passe bas » qui efface les extremums. Si la corrélation est bien réelle, en revanche des affirmations telles que « les taux de CO2 des derniers millénaires sont toujours inférieurs aux taux après 1958 », ou bien « une variation de 1°C entraîne une variation de 12 ppm » ne sont pas démontrées.

  • Le COne précède jamais l’augmentation de la température, et cela depuis au moins le Pléistocène (240 000 ans) où la démonstration a bien été établie (cf. Fig. 8). Le COn’est donc pas le ‘bouton’ contrôlant l’évolution de la température.

  • Les concentrations anciennes de COatmosphérique sont sous-estimées et les données de Vostok non seulement donnent un ‘ background’ plus faible que les données fournies par l’analyse des stomates (Fig.10,) mais ne voient pas les pics de concentrations plus élevés de CO2. Ainsi affirmer que les teneurs actuelles en CO2n’ont jamais été aussi élevées, même à une échelle géologique très restreinte (telle que Quaternaire) est trompeur.

  • Pour les dernières décennies, les mesures contemporaines montrent une corrélation entre température de surface des océans sous les tropiques et variation annuelle du taux de CO2. La variation annuelle c’est aussi la différence entre entrées et sorties. Les mesures contemporaines montrent également une corrélation entre température des océans sous les tropiques et variation annuelle du δ13C. Ces 2 corrélations sont nettes lors des forts épisodes El Niño de 1998 et 2016.

  • Nous exploiterons ces corrélations dans la troisième partie qui montrera que le modèle anthropique du GIEC n’est pas en accord  avec les mesures du δ13C  et ne peut rendre compte des évolutions récentes du CO2 .

IPCC Now Claims All Warming Since End Of Little Ice Age Is Man-Made

by B. Peiser, October 10, 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch


So the very first sentence of the SR15 Summary for Policy Makers, after the Introduction, consists of a statement which is not well supported by the totality of the available scientific literature and which is at odds with the IPCC’s own findings in the AR5 Working Group 1 Report of just 5 years ago! Not a good start. —Climate Scepticism, 9 October 2018

 

Yes, the Ocean Has Warmed; No, It’s Not ‘Global Warming’

by P. Homewood, October 10, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


Contrary to recent press reports that the oceans hold the still-undetected global atmospheric warming predicted by climate models, ocean warming occurs in 100-year cycles, independent of both radiative and human influences.

At a press conference in Washington, D.C., on March 24, 2000, Dr. James Baker, Administrator of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), announced that since the late 1940s, there “has been warming to a depth of nearly 10,000 feet in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.” “In each ocean basin, substantial temperature changes are occurring at much deeper depths than we previously thought,” Dr. Baker said, as indicated by research conducted at NOAA’s Ocean Climate Laboratory. He was referring to a paper published in Science magazine that day, prepared by Sydney Levitus, John Antonov, Timothy Boyer, and Cathy Stephens, of the NOAA Center.

For 15 years, modellers have tried to explain their lack of success in predicting global warming. The climate models had predicted a global temperature increase of 1.5°C by the year 2000, six times more than that which has taken place. Not discouraged, the modellers argue that the heat generated by their claimed “greenhouse warming effect” is being stored in the deep oceans, and that it will eventually come back to haunt us. They’ve needed such a boost to prop up the man-induced greenhouse warming theory, but have had no observational evidence to support it. The Levitus, et al. article is now cited as the needed support.

#DataGate! First ever audit of global temperature data finds freezing tropical islands, boiling towns, boats on land

by Mc Lean in JoNova, October 8, 2018 in JoNOva


What were they thinking?

The fate of the planet is at stake, but the key temperature data set used by climate models contains more than 70 different sorts of problems.  Trillions of dollars have been spent because of predictions based on this data – yet even the most baby-basic quality control checks have not been done.

Thanks to Dr John McLean, we see how The IPCC demands for cash rest on freak data, empty fields, Fahrenheit temps recorded as Celsius, mistakes in longitude and latitude, brutal adjustments and even spelling errors.

Why. Why. Why wasn’t this done years ago?

So much for that facade. How can people who care about the climate be so sloppy and amateur with the data?

L’écologie politique sera scientifique ou ne sera plus (partie 2)

by JP Riou, 9 octobre 2018 in EuropeanScientist


L’ écologie a renoué avec l’environnement le lien fondamental et sacré qui le relie à l’homme. Par cette communion, elle remplit le vide laissé par les religions dans un contexte d’explosion technologique. Mais elle fait semblant d’ignorer que le fossé s’élargit de toutes parts entre la déclinaison politique de ses principes et le bilan de ses résultats.

La dimension mondiale du phénomène et les sommes inédites qui lui sont consacrées justifient une tentative d’analyse de son origine et de sa démarche, ainsi que de ses ressorts cachés et des conséquences géopolitiques qu’on peut en attendre.

Ces 2 faces de l’écologie politique sont l’objet des 2 parties du présent article.

Pour la première parie voir ici

La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse