by P. Homewood, September 5, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
This article in something called Inside Climate News seems to be typical of many I have seen this year: Because we have had much attention in the media on heat waves this year, there must be an upward trend in heat waves and that is a warning signal that man-made global warming is destroying the planet. Typical of these articles are a couple of features
Declaration of a trend without any actual trend data, but just a single data point of events this year
Unstated implication that there must be a trend because the author can’t remember another year when heat wave stories were so prevalent in the media
Unproven link to man-made global warming, because I guess both involve warmth.
The Northern Territory holds enough natural gas to supply Australia for 200 years-plus and is comparable to the shale resources that have revolutionised the US energy sector, Resources and Northern Australia Minister Matt Canavan says.
Such abundant gas should enable Australia to reduce its current high energy prices, which were the fault of southern states preventing development, Senator Canavan told an NT Resources Week conference in Darwin.
by P. Homewood, September 6, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
A lot of people have said they remember the summer of 1976 being hotter than this year. And they would be right.
According to CET data, at their peak temperatures went much higher and for longer than they did this summer. The only factor that kept the two summer remotely close was that in 1976 temperatures fell away during the middle of July to below average for a while.
Le blanchissement des coraux est un phénomène dont on entend souvent parler dans les médias. Il s’agirait d’un grave problème environnemental, dont la fréquence augmente, et qui pourrait mener à la perte totale des récifs coralliens. Le réchauffement climatique global, qui serait causé par l’augmentation de la concentration atmosphérique en CO2 est, bien entendu, pointé du doigt. Cependant, le blanchissement des coraux n’est-il pas un phénomène très ancien? Est-il seulement causé par des variations de température? Quel recul avons-nous à ce sujet? Une récente publication de Nicholas Kamenos et Sebastian Hennige, deux chercheurs anglais des Universités de Glasgow et d’Édimbourg, apporte de nouveaux éléments.
These ‘Conferences of the Parties’, or COPs as they are usually termed, involve all of the members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and take place towards the end of the year. This year will see the 24th COP take place in Katowice, Poland.
Over the years the COPs have developed a style all of their own. Indeed, some observers have even gone as far as to suggest that each year sees less and less by way of meaningful activity, and more and more liturgy and ritual.
In Part A of the Great Debate series (see here) we discussed Dr. David Karoly’s and Dr. William Happer’s arguments regarding how unusual recent global warming is and how we know the recent observed increase in CO2 is due to human activities. In Part B we examined their thoughts on the amount of warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions and the accuracy of the calculation. In Part C we discussed the dangers of global warming, the calculation of the vital value of ECS (the equilibrium climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2), and discuss the need to do something about climate change. In this final part of the series I will summarize the debate and provide my thoughts.
In Part A of the Great Debate series (see here) we discussed Dr. David Karoly’s and Dr. William Happer’s arguments regarding how unusual recent global warming is and how we know the recent observed increase in CO2 is due to human activities. In Part B we examined their thoughts on questions three and four. Number 3 is “How do we know that the increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have caused most of the recent global warming?” Number 4 is “Climate models have been used to compute the amount of warming caused by human activities, how accurate are they?”
For an introduction to the debate and links to the original documents see Part A. In Part C we will examine the predictions that global warming and more CO2 are dangerous and that we (as a global society) need to do something about it.
In Part A of the Great Debate series (see here) we discussed Dr. David Karoly’s and Dr. William Happer’s arguments regarding how unusual the recent global warming is and how we know the recent observed increase in CO2 is due to human activities. In Part B we will examine their thoughts on questions three and four.
3. How do we know that the increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have caused most of the recent global warming?
4. Climate models have been used to compute the amount of warming caused by human activities, how accurate are they?
For an introduction to the debate and links to the original documents see Part A.
La Lettre d’information 7 sort légèrement du cadre prévu à l’origine pour ces Lettres. Elle se rapporte à des commentaires qu’elles ont suscités et qui sont parus dansL’1Dex. L’1Dex est un média alternatif valaisan, dont le motto est « Pour un Valais
critique et libertaire ». Grâce au libéralisme de son rédacteur en chef, Me Stéphane Riand, et de son équipe dirigeante, les voix discordantes, les pensées de contre-courant, les points de vue tenus pour hérétiques, tout ce qui se heurte aux interdits des presses bien-pensantes, peuvent se faire entendre. De l’air frais sur la « Panurgie ». C’est ainsi que mes Lettres d’information ont connu une diffusion inespérée. L’1Dex offre aussi à ses lecteurs la possibilité de réagir avec des commentaires, qui sont le plus souvent anonymes. L’ignorance générale où l’on est des questions relatives au climat, ajoutée à l’illusion qu’un consensus se serait établi parmi les scientifiques, comme on le laisse entendre dans les milieux de la climatologie officielle, expliquent la cacophonie et la variété ébouriffante de certains de ces commentaires. Pour des raisons que j’expose plus loin, je ne m’y suis guère arrêté jusqu’ici. De par le contexte même, le contenu de la présente Lettre est plus local. Néanmoins, on passe à la généralité par des extrapolations simples.
New evidence now updates and confirms a column I wrote in June 2014 that some or all of the highly publicized melting of western coastal Antarctic glaciers may be caused by seabed volcanoes rather than having much or anything to do with climate change.
An article published in June 22 edition of the journal Nature Communications reports that an international team of scientists tracing a chemical signature of helium in the seawater discovered that contemporary volcanic heat is causing observed melting beneath the massive west Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS.)
The results of their analysis revealed that warming in this high Arctic site had proceeded at four times the global mean rate calculated in other data sets. However, Ding et al. note that over the last decade (2005-2014), “the warming rate in Ny-Ålesund slowed to 0.03 ± 1.85°C per decade,” which is essentially indicative of no-trend in the data. Lead-lag analysis further revealed that “Ny-Ålesund and global temperature variations were remarkably consistent, with a lag time of 8-9 years.” Consequently, the researchers say that “the ‘warming hiatus’ many scientists [have] studied also appears in Ny-Ålesund, it just started later than [that observed in] other areas.”
A remarkable essay by esteemed oceanographer Carl Wunsch.
While doing a literature survey for my paper on Climate Uncertainty and Risk, I came across a remarkable paper published in 2010 by MIT oceanographer Carl Wunsch, entitled Towards Understanding the Paleocean.
The paper is remarkable for several reasons — not only that it was published but that the paper was apparently invited by journal editor.
The paper is well worth reading in its entirety, for a fascinating perspective on paleo-oceanography and paleoclimatology. Here I provide excerpts of relevance to the sociology of climate science:
Science is of course a human enterprise full of the imperfections of humanity. It’s more competitive than it’s ever been and there are more scientists than ever. So many want to communicate their science and this is wonderful. But the media, especially social media, can bring out a nasty streak in some especially when they take the moral high ground: ‘Some people should not be debated.’ ‘We are too right to be challenged.’ ‘Excommunicate!’
by F. Sotiropoulos, September 2018, in Stony Brook University/ published in Nature
The use of in-stream flow (or hydrokinetic) energy converters in rivers appears to offer another workable and effective option to expand renewable energy and limit carbon emissions in the United States. While the potential for in-stream flow energy harvesting systems has already been demonstrated for rivers with fixed beds, researchers now developed a scaled demonstration of hydrokinetic energy generated from a river channel with a sandy bed. Their findings, detailed in a new paper published in Nature Energy, showed that the model hydrokinetic power plant can generate energy effectively and safely without undermining the stability of the river geomorphic environment.
by P. Homewood, September 2, 2108 in NotaLofPeopleKnowThat
Something so extraordinary has lately been going on at the other end of the world that, if it did not run so flatly contrary to the prevailing groupthink of our time, it would surely have made big headlines over here.
But the real significance of this has only now come to light with the unveiling by Australia’s new energy minister, Angus Taylor, of the country’s wholly new energy policy, which completely reverses that of the Turnbull government.
by Claire Stam, 31 août 2018 in Euratciv/LaTribuneGenève
Alors qu’elle avoue la part de responsabilité de l’Allemagne dans le changement climatique, et carrément au passage, l’échec de la transition énergétique dans son pays, Angela Merkel s’est pourtant exprimée à la télé pour s’opposer aux objectifs climatiques plus ambitieux proposés par l’Union européenne qui cherche à trouver une solution face à un changement climatique de plus en plus rapide. Un article de notre partenaire Euractiv.
by P. Homewood, September 2, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
Global temperatures fell back to 0.19C in August. This means the YTD average is 0.23C, putting them back to roughly where they were in 2002.
Arctic sea ice is tracking close to 2014, which finished with one of the highest minimums in the last decade. Current extent is well above the last three years.
February 15, 2016 was the beginning of an in-depth debate on man-made climate change between two well-known experts in the field, Dr. William Happer and Dr. David Karoly, hosted by TheBestSchools.org. Both have been heavily involved in atmospheric research since the 1980s, but they have landed on opposite sides of the debate.
…
Is recent global warming unusual?
How do we know the excess CO2, and other greenhouse gases, are from human activities?
How do we know that the increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have caused most of the recent global warming?
Climate models have been used to compute the amount of warming caused by human activities, how accurate are they?
How do we know global warming and more CO2 will have substantial adverse impacts on humans and the planet?
by Paul Homewood, September 1, 208 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
With one day to go, it is clear that 2018 has been one of the hottest summers on record for the UK, however, the margin between the mean temperatures at the top of the league tables (records dating back to 1910) is so small that at this point it is impossible to say if 2018 will be an outright winner. It is very close to the record-breaking summers of 2006 (15.78C), 2003 (15.77C), and 1976 (15.77C) all of which are within 0.01C of each other.
The margin is so small that different datasets and different regions of the UK will have different ranking. Usually we will only quote statistics to the nearest 0.1C as differences smaller than this could result from small numerical differences arising from the statistical calculations. A more comprehensive analysis of the 2018 summer data will be undertaken early next week and data for summer 2018 will continue to be analysed over the coming months.
Malgré des températures particulièrement élevées ces dernières semaines sur l’Hémisphère Nord, voire exceptionnelles sur l’Europe, le déclin des glaces de l’Arctique s’est vu ralenti.
Au 23 août, l’étendue des glaces de l’Arctique était d’approximativement 4.945 millions de kilomètres carrés. Des niveaux toujours particulièrement bas au regard de la moyenne observée sur la période 1981-2010 (6.866 millions de km2, soit un déficit de 28%). Néanmoins, ce niveau n’est « que » le 6e plus bas observé à cette date, très loin de la triste année 2012 (une superficie inférieure à 4 millions de km2 à la fin août). Une timide amélioration, puisque l’étendue de ces glaces avait alors été la 4e plus faible jamais observée sur l’ensemble du mois de juin.
Graphique de l’étendue des glaces de l’océan Arctique (en millions de km2) – Zachary Michael Labe
The playbook is well-known: After a drought, heat wave or flood occurs, journalists and climate alarmists fall all over themselves in the race to issue shrill warnings that this is only the beginning and that it is known that evil climate change is behind it.
This summer of 2018 we experienced again a Central European heat wave. However the usual alarmists failed again to provide any solid statistics on the frequency of heat waves during the last 100 and 1000 years.
Here we are glad to help out by presenting the latest results on heat wave trend in North America. Let’s begin with a spring heat wave in the USA in 2012 which was examined by Dole & Hoerling (2014) within a long-term context. The authors see a purely natural cause behind the unusual heat:
by Tony Heller, August 31, 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch
Summer is over, and Greenland’s surface has gained 510 billion tons of ice over the past year – about 40% above normal. The surface mass budget is snow/ice accumulation minus melt.
Earth’s surface has undergone unprecedented warming over the last century, and especially in this century.
Every single year since 1977 has been warmer than the 20th century average, with 16 of the 17 warmest years on record occurring since 2001, and 2016 being the warmest year on recorded history. A study from 2016 found that without the emissions from burning coal and oil, there is very little likelihood that 13 out of the 15 warmest years on record would all have happened.
After nearly every hurricane, heatwave, drought, or other extreme weather event, commentators rush to link the disaster with climate change. But what does the science say?
In this fully revised and updated edition of Disasters & Climate Change, renowned political scientist Roger Pielke Jr. takes a close look at the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the underlying scientific research, and the climate data to give you the latest science on how climate change is related to extreme weather.
What he finds may surprise you and raise questions about the role of science in political debates.
La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse
