climate-debate

Ancient methane might not pose a major climate risk

by Nature, February 21, 2020

Bubbles in Antarctic ice suggest that warming will not result in massive release of long-buried methane.

Runaway global warming driven by the release of methane from the Arctic seems less likely than some scientists have feared.

Methane and its components can be locked up for millennia in permafrost — a frozen mixture of soil and ice — and in deposits of crystal-like structures called methane hydrates. Methane released by modern organic materials contains a form of carbon that methane from ancient sources does not, allowing scientists to distinguish between the two types.

Michael Dyonisius at the University of Rochester in New York and his colleagues analysed Antarctic ice cores to determine the origins of methane released during a warming period that ended the last ice age. The warming raised global temperature by roughly 4ºC — slightly more than the rise projected to occur by 2100 in most scenarios of human-induced climate change.

The team’s results suggest that methane emissions during that big thaw were dominated by emissions from wetlands, not by the release of ancient methane from melting permafrost and methane hydrates. The authors conclude that modern climate change is unlikely to trigger a massive release of ancient methane.

climate-debate

Study: Computer Models Overestimate Observed Arctic Warming

by Craig Idso, February 26, 2020 in ClimateChageDispatch

Paper Reviewed:
Huang, J., Ou, T., Chen, D., Lun, Y. and Zhao, Z. 2019. The amplified Arctic warming in recent decades may have been overestimated by CMIP5 models. Geophysical Research Letters 46: 13,338-12,345.

Policies aimed at protecting humanity and the environment from the potential effects of CO2-induced global warming rely almost entirely upon models predicting large future temperature increases.

But what if those predictions are wrong? What if a comparison between model projections and observations revealed the models are overestimating the amount of warming?

Would climate alarmists admit as much and back away from promoting extreme policies of CO2 emission reductions?

Probably not — at least based upon the recent rhetoric of each of the candidates seeking the Democrat Party’s nomination for President of the United States, all of whom continue to call for the complete elimination of all CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use within the next three decades, or less.

But for non-ideologues who are willing to examine and accept the facts as they are, the recent work of Huang et al. (2019) provides reason enough to pause the crazy CO2 emission-reduction train.

In their study, the five researchers set out to examine how well model projections of Arctic temperatures (poleward of 60°N) compared with good old-fashioned observations.

More specifically, they used a statistical procedure suitable for nonlinear analysis (ensemble empirical mode decomposition) to examine secular Arctic warming over the period 1880-2017.

Observational data utilized in the study were obtained from the HadCRUT4.6 temperature database, whereas model-based temperature projections were derived from simulations from 36 Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) global climate models (GCMs).

Figure 1. Observed and model-predicted rates of nonlinear, secular warming in the Arctic (60-90°N) over the period 1880-2017. The black and red dashed lines indicate the 10th and 90th percentiles for temperature means. Adapted from Huang et al. (2019).

As indicated there, the model-estimated rate of secular warming (the solid red line) increased quite sharply across the 138 year period, rising from a value of around 0°C per decade at the beginning of the record to a value of 0.35°C per decade in the end.

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climate-debate

Studies Show Glaciers Worldwide Were Smaller Than Today

by Die Kalte Sonne & P. Gosselin, February 26, 2020 in ClimateChangeDispatch

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

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 AD 1860, 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.

Here we present sub-annually resolved concentration records of refractory black carbon (rBC; using soot photometry) as well as distinctive tracers for mineral dust, biomass burning and industrial pollution from the Colle Gnifetti ice core in the Alps from AD 1741 to 2015. These records allow precise assessment of a potential relation between the timing of observed acceleration of glacier melt in the mid-19th century with an increase of rBC deposition on the glacier caused by the industrialization of Western Europe. Our study reveals that in AD 1875, the time when rBC ice-core concentrations started to significantly increase, the majority of Alpine glaciers had already experienced more than 80 % of their total 19th-century length reduction, casting doubt on a leading role for soot in terminating of the Little Ice Age. Attribution of glacial retreat requires expansion of the spatial network and sampling density of high alpine ice cores to balance potential biasing effects arising from transport, deposition, and snow conservation in individual ice-core records.”

Also, a glacier history of the Alps since the end of the last ice age was published in 2009 by Susan Ivy-Ochs and colleagues.

Between 10,500-3300 years before today, glaciers were mostly smaller than today and ended 200 meters above modern levels. The Alpine glaciers expanded during the cold period of migration and the Little Ice Age.

Want to know more about glacier history? Here’s the abstract:

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better to know...?, climate-debate

The Death Of Science Is The Real Climate Emergency

by M. Phillips, February 25, 2020 in ClimateChangeDispatch

A few commentators have begun to stumble towards the fact that the policy of becoming “carbon neutral” by 2050, as adopted by the UK and the EU, would undo modernity itself.

On Unherd, Peter Franklin observes that, if carried through, the policy will have a far greater effect than Brexit or anything else; it will transform society altogether.

“It will continue to transform the power industry, and much else besides: every mode of transport; how we build, warm and cool our homes; food, agriculture and land use; trade, industry, every part of the economy”.

Franklin is correct. Even so, he seems not to grasp the full implications of the disaster he intuits – because he thinks there’s some kind of middle way through which the imminent eco-apocalypse can be prevented without returning Britain to the Middle Ages.

In a similar vein, he quotes Rachel Wolf, a co-author of the 2019 Conservative manifesto, who is prone to the same kind of magical thinking. She wrote:

“Government has committed to ‘net zero’ greenhouse gas emissions because it does not want the side effects of the energy sources we have used for centuries to destroy the planet. At the same time, we do not want to return to an era where children (and their mothers) regularly died, and where the majority of people lived in what would now in the UK be considered wholly unacceptable poverty. This is a staggering challenge.”

This is what we might call an understatement. What is truly staggering is, first, that any sentient person thinks this can be done and, second, that it should be done.

 

Continuer la lecture de The Death Of Science Is The Real Climate Emergency →

climate and geology

Australian fires: Climate ‘truth bomb’?

by Alan Longhurst, February 24, 2020 in WUWT

Recipe for Australia’s climate ‘truth bomb’:  dubious manipulations of the historical temperature record, ignorance of the climate dynamics of the Southern Hemisphere, and ignorance of Australia’s ecological and social history.

A correspondent of The Guardian newspaper writes that her personal ‘climate truth bomb’ hit her while she was picking ash from her glass at a wine tasting event – the Sydney Harbour bridge being dimly seen through the murk of bushfires. The truth came to her, she wrote, in the eloquent rage of Greta Thunberg and also in heat, smoke and fire.

Although anthropogenic climate change sells well, especially at The Guardian, their Sydney correspondent cannot be so ignorant about the climate of Australia or about bushfires as she pretends. Put briefly, bushfires in Australia and elsewhere have two main sources: from thunderstorms or from human activity, deliberate or otherwise – cigarette butts, sparks from brakes on railway trains, from incautious welding on farm machinery and from electric transmission lines. In California, where almost 2 million acres burned in 2018 and claimed many lives, the electricity supply company now closes down its transmission lines in windy conditions to prevent sparking and fires.

As she should have known, climate change or not, that ash in The Guardian correspondent’s wine was very probably caused by the direct action of an Australian citizen. In the current drought, 36% of fires have been judged to be accidental, 37% as suspicious, 13% as deliberate and only 6% as natural. And that pattern is not new: Australia has a serious arson problem. “In short, up to 85 bushfires begin every day because someone leaves their house and decides to start one,” said Dr. P. Reid of the Australian Center for Research in Bushfires and Arson

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climate-debate

Débattre du climat : quel contenu ?

by M. de Rougemont, 25 février 2020 in EuropeanScientist

Dès lors que la moindre critique est faite à propos de la doxa climatique son auteur se verra systématiquement désigné comme négationniste. Si, par-dessus le marché, ladite critique est pleine de bon sens, alors des caciques de ce système s’empressent de publier une tribune publique afin de mettre l’intru au pilori, évitant bien d’entrer en matière et de traiter des questions posées. Il s’agit de bien rappeler qui a droit à la parole et de rappeler aux non-sachants que le débat est clos car la cause est entendue. Un bizarre syndicat international de presse dictant la bien-pensance climatique a d’ailleurs décidé que laisser s’exprimer des voix critiques serait leur faire une part trop belle. La célérité et le ton de ces répliques témoignent pourtant d’une grande inquiétude car faire taire l’intrus n’a jamais été une manifestation de force et de tranquillité. Cela laisse même à penser que s’il y avait complot, ce serait plutôt celui destiné à éviter à tout prix la nécessaire dispute autour d’un sujet si important.

Nonobstant la clôture bien prématurée de ce débat jamais initié, il faut en décrire les chapitres qui devraient le composer.  Ce drame climatique se déroule sur trois scènes : scientifique, stratégique et politique.

SCIENCE ET PSEUDO-SCIENCE

Les données issues de moins de deux siècles d’observations directes, dont moins de cinquante ans par satellite, et de la paléoclimatologie nous enseignent les variations passées et certaines corrélations ou manques de corrélation. Ces données ne font pas l’objet de réfutations majeures et fondées. Un réchauffement est donc bien constaté depuis la fin du petit âge glaciaire coïncidant avec le début de l’ère industrielle ; il est de l’ordre de 0.8 à 1 °C avec des fluctuations dont certaines restent encore inexpliquées.

Continuer la lecture de Débattre du climat : quel contenu ? →

climate-debate

New Study: A Massive Cooling Of 2°C In 8 Years (2008-2016) Has Jolted Large Regions Of The North Atlantic

by K. Richard, February 14, 2020 in NoTricksZone

From 2008 to 2016 a widespread cooling ranging from 0.6°C to more than 2.0°C has chilled effectively the entire oceanic region from E. Canada to N. Iceland to S. Europe. The cooling persists year-round and extends from the surface down to depths of 800 m.

 

Image Source: Bryden et al., 2020

A year ago scientists revealed a large swath of the North Atlantic surface had cooled at a rate of -0.78°C per decade between 2004 and 2017 (Fröb et al., 2019).

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better to know...?, climate-debate

New Study: Greenland’s Largest Glacier Has Rapidly Thickened Since 2016…Fueled By 1.5°C Regional Ocean Cooling

by K. Richard, February 17, 2020 in NoTricksZone

Greenland’s largest glacier (Jakobshavn) has quite abruptly thickened since 2016. The thickening has been so profound the ice elevations are nearly back to 2010-2011 levels. The nearby ocean has cooled ~1.5°C – a return to 1980s-era temperatures.

The world’s glaciers have not been following along with the CO2-driven catastrophic melting narrative.

Alaska

For example, in a study of 50 Alaskan glaciers for the warming period between 1972-2012, researchers (McNabb and Hock, 2014) found there was
“…no corresponding change in the number of glaciers retreating nor do we see corresponding acceleration of retreat rates. To the contrary, many glaciers in the region have advanced…”

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Jan 2020: Coldest ever day in Greenland -65C comes, goes, no one notices

by JoNova, February 2020

The coldest ever day recorded in Greenland stands at -63.3 C  (minus 81 F).  But on January 2nd in 2020, after Greenland suffered a century of global warming, the thermometer at Summit Camp sunk to at least -64.9C. I say, at least, because it may have been even colder. Sharp eyes of Cap Allon at Electroverse saw it hit minus 66C. Ryan Maue also saw it and predicted there would be cold as the Arctic Oscillation broke down.

I sought confirmation at the time (among the Bushfire days in Australia). I looked for any official tweet even, but couldn’t find any. How’s that work — a new all time record for a whole continent for any month of the year, and no one who was paid to care about these things even writes a paragraph?

Good for Paul Homewood, who wrote to the DMI (Danish Met Institute) and has now confirmed that the NOAA GeoSummit  records showed it got down to -64.9 C, an all time record.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Do We Really Have Only 12 Years to Live?

by Andy May, February 23, 2020 in WUWT

Why have uninformed celebrities and politicians been telling everyone, who will listen, we are all going to die in a climate catastrophe in 10 to 30 years? U.N. General Assembly President María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés of Ecuador warned us…

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However, these absurd statements are not supported by even the most fanatical climate alarmists, like Kate Marvel (NASA), Gavin Schmidt (NASA), Katharine Hayhoe (Texas Tech), or Andrea Dutton (University of Florida) (link). The original inspiration for these statements came from a 2018 IPCC report entitled Global Warming of 1.5°C. Even the alarmist Scientific American does not think the world is ending in twelve years.

We will discuss this IPCC report below, but first let’s look at some critical evidence that is not in the report. As usual the IPCC dodges the current benefits of warming and additional CO2, so we need to fill in this gap.

A little over two years ago I posted an essay entitled “Calculating the Cost of Global Warming,” it did not calculate a cost, but discussed calculations made by others. Global warming and the increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere are not existential threats to mankind or to nature. Global warming will not go “runaway,” this idea, discussed here, has been discredited by climate change skeptics and by climate alarmists alike (see here and here for examples). So, given that global warming and additional CO2 will not harm us, we are reduced to a discussion of the economic impacts and benefits, both positive and negative, of global warming and additional CO2.

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Figure 2. A graph of CMIP5 global tropospheric temperatures (5-year averages) versus satellite and weather balloon observations. These predictions are for the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5, a moderate case. Source: House of Representatives report by Dr. John Christy.

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climate-debate

THE UN ADMITS THAT THE PARIS CLIMATE DEAL WAS A FRAUD

by Poppallov, February 24, 2020 in Electroverse

In an editorial piece published in the Investor’s Business Daily Saturday 11th February 2017, we are told about a United Nations climate report that environmentalists undoubtedly don’t want anybody to read. It states in plain English “that even if every country abides by the grand promises they made last year in Paris to reduce greenhouse gases, the planet would still be doomed…”

When President Obama hitched America to the Paris accords in 2016, he declared that it was “the moment that we finally decided to save our planet.” And when Trump pulled out of the deal this year, he was berated by legions of environmentalists for killing it.

But it turns out that the Paris accord was little more than a sham that will do nothing to “save the planet.”

According to the latest annual UN report on the “emissions gap,” the Paris agreement will provide only a third of the cuts in greenhouse gas that environmentalists claim is needed to prevent catastrophic warming. If every country involved in those accords abides by their pledges between now and 2030 — which is a dubious proposition — temperatures will still rise by 3 degrees Celsius by 2100. The goal of the Paris agreement was to keep the global temperature increase to under 2 degrees.

The measures submitted included: “Boosting renewable energy’s share to 30%. Pushing electric cars to 15% of new car sales, up from less than 1% today. Doubling mass transit use. Cutting air travel CO2 emissions by 20%. And coming up with $1 trillion for “climate action.”

Central to the report, “phasing out coal consumption … is an indispensable condition for achieving international climate change targets.” That means halting all new coal plants shutting down those currently in use.

Which is quite a big ask, as there are currently 273 gigawatts of coal capacity under construction around the world, and another 570 gigawatts in the pipeline, according to the UN. That’s a 42% increase in global energy production from coal. Which doesn’t consider the 22 coal-fired power stations to be built at 17 locations in Japan to replace their aging nuclear plants. These new installations will on their own produce more carbon dioxide annually than all the passenger cars sold in the United States each year.

So, with all the hype in the media about “climate change” and with NOAA admitting to data manipulation, as well as acknowledging that the climate has been cooling for the past 10 years, when is the UN going to shut-up shop and call an end to this panhandling charade?
climate-debate

Melanie Phillips: The Real Western Civilisation Emergency

by Melanie Phillips, February 22, 2020 in GWPF

The “climate emergency”, which we are told threatens the imminent collapse of civilisation and the extinction of humanity, is a dogma being enforced by a culturally totalitarian tyranny. Threatening the living standards of millions, permitting no challenge and wrecking the livelihoods and reputations of any who dares dissent, it has been created by a repudiation of science, humanity and reason: the very markers of modernity and the west. This is the real emergency.

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better to know...?, climate-debate, to keep an eye on...

Unexpected ice

by N. Vizcarra, February 2020 in EarthData/NASA

Paul Holland, a climate modeler with the British Antarctic Survey, has spent the last ten years studying Antarctica’s sea ice and the Southern Ocean. Lately, he has been scrutinizing the seasons of Antarctica and how fast the ice comes and goes. Holland thinks these seasons may be a key to a conundrum: If Earth’s temperatures are getting warmer and sea ice in the Arctic has been shrinking fast, why then is sea ice in the Antarctic slowly increasing?

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Spring surprise

Holland used data from NASA’s National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center (NSIDC DAAC) to calculate the ice concentration rate of growth for each single day, which he called intensification; and the total ice area rate of growth, which he called expansion. “I did that for all thirty years of data and plotted the trends,” he said. Holland’s plots showed that the different regions in the Southern Ocean contributed to the overall increase, but they had very diverse trends in sea ice growth. This suggested that geography and different wind patterns played a role. So to gain more insight Holland looked at seasonal wind trends for the different regions.

Holland found that winds were spreading sea ice out in some regions and compressing or keeping it intact in others and that these effects began in the spring. It contradicted a previous study in which, using ice drift data, Holland and Ron Kwok from the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) found that increasing northward winds during the autumn caused the variations.

“I always thought, and as far as I can tell everyone else thought, that the biggest changes must be in autumn,” Holland said. “But the big result for me now is we need to look at spring. The trend is bigger in the autumn, but it seems to be created in spring.”

“Paul has created two more sea ice metrics that we can use to assess how Antarctic sea ice is responding,” said researcher Sharon Stammerjohn, referring to the measures of intensification and expansion. The new metrics help assess how the system is responding as opposed to simply monitoring the state of the system. “Say your temperature is at 99.2 degrees Fahrenheit,” Stammerjohn said. “You don’t have any insight to that temperature unless you take it again an hour later and you see that it changed to 101 degrees. Then you can say, okay, my system is responding to something.”

climate-debate

Expert: German Coal Exit Will Cost 80 Billion Euros, But “Changes Europe CO2 Emissions By 0”

by P. Gosselin, February 22, 2020 in NoTricksZone

The German government recently decided to exit from coal generated power by 2038, and now one expert says that the exit is going to cost handsomely, and bring zero result. Still, that 2038 target is too slow for some.

That’s how German politicians make decisions on things that concern the economy and environment. The German government’s aim of a coal phaseout is to contribute to protecting the climate. In reality, it will have no impact at all.

German online FOCUS magazine reports here: “80 billion euros are to be given to the affected regions and companies in the coming years as aid and compensation.”

But for some experts, the 2018 target date for completing the coal exit is too late, and thus risks seeing Germany emitting another 140 million tonnes of extra CO2 between 2020 and 2040 by exiting so slowly, so claims the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW).

To keep that 140 million ton figure in a global perspective, it is barely a drop in the bucket when compared to the 33 billion tonnes emitted globally and annually. The climate is not even going to notice it.

 

Continuer la lecture de Expert: German Coal Exit Will Cost 80 Billion Euros, But “Changes Europe CO2 Emissions By 0” →

climate-debate

Quantifying Futility: an estimate of future Global CO2 emissions

by C. Rotter, February 21, 2020 in WUWT

Reposted from edmhdotme

Following the thinking of the late Prof David Mackay using “back of the envelope calculations”, this post makes estimates of the likely future growth in global CO2 emissions to put the efforts at CO2 emissions reduction in the Western World into the context of a probable and inevitable future for Global CO2 emissions.

Two scenarios are considered.  They set the range of outcomes:

  1. The Underdeveloped world and India presently at a level of ~1.9tonnes/head/annum attain the global average level of CO2 emissions/head/annum of 2018:  4.46tonnes/head/annum.  This results in Global CO2 emissions growing by 18.5Gigatonnes/annum to reach ~52Gigatonnes/annum.  This level is close to the current CO2 emissions/head/annum in France.
  2. The Underdeveloped world and India eventually attain the level of CO2 emissions/head current in China:  6.78tonnes/head/annum.  This level is also close to the average 2018 CO2 emissions/head/annum in the EU(28). This would result in Global CO2 emissions growing by ~33.5Gigatonnes/annum to reach ~67Gigatonnes/annum.

These values set a range of estimates and show how the inevitable CO2 emissions growth in the Developing World would swamp any savings made by Western nations in the name of controlling climate.  This point was amply made by Berkley Professor Richard  Muller in 2010, before he set up the BEST temperature record.  His graph is shown below:  this post just puts some more precise values on the extent that the Underdeveloped world will wholly overwhelm any efforts in the West to reduce Global  CO2 emissions and thus attempt to influence Global temperature.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Study: Large Part Of 20th-Century Warming Caused By CFCs

by Prof. F. Vahrenholtz, February 20, 2020 in ClimateChaneDispatch

A few days ago, an international research group from the USA, Canada, and Switzerland led by Lorenzo Polvani of Columbia University (New York) published a sensational study in Nature climate change, which attributes a large part of the warming of the 20th century to CFCs (“Substantial twentieth-century Arctic warming caused by ozone-depleting substances“).

Using ten climate models, the researchers calculated the global and Arctic temperature development, once with CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) in the atmosphere and once without.

According to these models, from 1955 to 2005, global temperatures increase by 0.59°C with CFCs and by 0.39°C without CFCs. One-third of the warming is therefore not caused by CO2 but by the CFCs.

If the remaining warming for CO2 is converted over the five decades, average warming of 0.08°C per decade remains. Not exactly a lot. CFCs have a 19,000-23,000 times stronger forcing than CO2.

Half of Arctic warming due to CFCs

Continuer la lecture de Study: Large Part Of 20th-Century Warming Caused By CFCs →

better to know...?, energy and fields

RETOUR SUR 2019

by Samuel Furfari, 21 février 2020, in ScienceClimatEnergie

L’année 2019 aurait été celle de l’hystérie climatique. Les manifestations des jeunes qui ont suivi avec enthousiasme les conseils d’une jeune suédoise ont donné à des politiciens en quête de raison d’être une opportunité pour montrer qu’ils s’occupent de la jeunesse, mais aussi de l’environnement ou plus précisément de « sauver la Planète ».
Qui n’est pas en faveur de la protection de l’environnement ?
Qui n’est pas attentif à la santé ?
L’occasion rêvée pour redonner du sens à la politique était trop belle, d’autant plus qu’il y avait en 2019 l’élection d’un nouveau parlement européen. L’inflation de promesses inconsidérées ne s’est pas fait attendre. Elle a abouti le 11 décembre 2019 à la publication d’une nouvelle stratégie de la Commission européenne appelée « Green Deal » et à son adoption par le Conseil européen le 13 décembre, avec un parlement européen qui en veut encore plus.

L’inflation des promesses est à son comble, tout comme le budget qu’il va falloir débourser pour atteindre ces promesses, destinées en fait à redonner une raison d’être à une Union européenne en manque de projets enthousiasmants pour ses citoyens et ignorée par les pays qui dirigent  les grands enjeux géopolitiques comme l’a manifestement montré le camouflet infligé à Angel Merkel lors de la conférence sur la Libye à  Berlin le 21 janvier 2020 .

Pourtant, sur le front de l’énergie, et non des politiques énergétiques, le début de la révolution annoncée n’a même pas commencé. Au contraire, la toute-puissance des énergies fossiles a été confirmée voire renforcée. La nouvelle géopolitique de l’énergie, qui a été créée grâce à l’abondance des énergies fossiles, s’est affermie et est entérinée par une grande partie du business de l’ énergie.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Britain’s Floods Have Nothing To Do With Climate Chang

by J. Delingpole, February 19, 2020 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Boris Johnson’s Greenest Government Evah has come up with a brilliant new excuse to duck its responsibilities for all the floods now swamping parts of Britain: climate change ate our homework.

From Hereford to Shrewsbury and South Wales to North Yorkshire, swathes of Britain are underwater thanks to flooding in the aftermath of Storm Dennis, which so far has claimed five lives.

There are currently more than 400 flood warnings around Britain, with more heavy rain forecast to come.

But the government has effectively absolved itself of responsibility by pinning the blame on ‘climate change.’

Environment Secretary George ‘Useless’ Eustice has said in an interview with LBC radio that the scale of the flooding is due to the ‘nature of climate change.’

Sir James Bevan, the chief executive of the Environment Agency, has gone a step further by blaming ‘the climate emergency.’

None of this is true. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that these floods are anything other than an entirely normal, cyclical event which has been repeated many times over many centuries — with or without the contribution of anthropogenic CO2.

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Also : TWO NAMED STORMS HIT THE UK WITHIN TWO SUCCESSIVE WEEKENDS — “CLIMATE CHANGE TO BLAME!” BARK THE ILL-INFORMED

climate-debate

Sea Level Rise Is Accelerating (If You Ignore Pre 1970 Data!)

by P. Homewood, February 19, 2020 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

This has to go down as one of the most fraudulent climate studies yet!

Want to know how sea level in your area is changing due to global warming and other factors? Our ‘report cards’ can help. Updated by the Virginia Institute of Marine Science each year as annual tide-gauge data become available, they display recent sea-level trends and project sea-level height to the year 2050 for 32 localities along the U.S. East, Gulf, West, and Alaskan coasts.

Report Card Components

Our report cards have 3 components: the 2050 projection, recent trends in the rates of sea-level change, and an explanation of processes affecting sea level at each locality.

The annotated chart below, using the latest data from Norfolk, Virginia, briefly explains the data and statistical approaches we use in our 2050 projections. Visit an individual locality for details on all its report-card components. You can also compare sea-level trends, projections and processes among localities and by region. For full technical details, read our report.

https://www.vims.edu/research/products/slrc/index.php

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better to know...?, climate-debate

The UN’s Planet Saving Delusion

by Donna Laframboise, February 19, 2020 in BigPictureNews

The UN couldn’t help Haiti recover from an earthquake. But it imagines we’d all perish without it.

UNESCO is supposed to be about cultural preservation. Toward the end of last year, its in-house magazine nevertheless published a special issue on climate change. The official editorial employs the usual cliches. Catastrophic consequences. The “greatest global challenge of our times.” Blah, blah.

Hilariously, this editorial implies that, without a UN plan, the planet simply won’t survive. Earth to UNESCO: could we spend five minutes talking about how the UN has failed – tragically and comprehensively – to save Haiti?

That nation has less than 12 million people. It’s slightly smaller than the US state of Maryland. Because it comprises half of an island, its borders are well-defined. The UN has had a significant presence there since 2004, yet Haiti remains a basket case.

After a devastating earthquake struck in 2010, rebuilding was a huge job at which the UN was spectacularly inept. But that isn’t the half of it. UN peacekeepers then infected the already traumatized local population with cholera.

The peacekeepers were from Nepal, which had just experienced a cholera outbreak. The UN took no steps to ensure its personnel weren’t carrying the disease. Nor did it establish proper sanitation at their encampment. Untreated sewage got dumped into the country’s most important river, contaminating water that was used for drinking, cooking, and bathing.

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climate-debate

Is “All-Time Antarctic 20.75C Record High Temperature” Just A Sensational Hoax? Station Data Show Only 16C

by P. Gosselin, February 17, 2020 in NoTricksZone

In Germany there have been rumors that the alleged Antarctic Seymour Island “all-time Antarctic record high” of 20.75°C set on February 9th is a hoax – originating by the AFP news agency and then spread by The Guardian.

The alleged 20.75°C was supposedly logged by Brazilian scientists and was supposedly almost a full degree higher than the previous record of 19.8C, taken on Signy Island in January 1982, The Guardian blared with much alarm, citing its own rush job chart.

Currently the WMO is seeking to obtain the actual temperature data for Seymour Island, part of a chain of islands off the Antarctic peninsula.

WMO cites media as source!

The WMO website itself is citing the media as its source, writing: “Media reports say that researchers logged a temperature of 20.75°C. Mr Cerveny cautioned that it is premature to say that Antarctica has exceeded 20°C for the first time.”

Thermometer data show only 16°C!

According to German Facebook site Klima.Wissen here and its readers, the “all-time record high reading” of 20.75°C appears to have its origins from the AFP news agency. It was then picked up by the always climate sensational The Guardian. But now the whole story is beginning to appear as just big sensational hoax.

First, WetterOnline.de here shows that the high temperature on February 9th at the Seymour Island station (Base Murambio) was merely 16°C!

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climate-debate

HEAVY SNOW AND FREEZING TEMPERATURES HIT SOUTH KOREA — AT LEAST 3 PEOPLE KILLED IN SEOUL

by Cap Allon, February 17, 2020 in Electroverse

Seoul received its largest single-day snowfall of the season on Monday as 4.1cm (1.6 inches) settled in South Korea’s capital city, adding to the 3.9cm (1.54 inches) from the previous day, the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) said.

 

The Monday morning mercury plunged to -5.5C 22.1F) in Seoul, with a harsh windchill making it feel more like –10.5C (13.1F). The KMA added that temps will dip even further tomorrow (Tues), to -8C (17.6F).

Icy roads resulted in a 20 vehicle pile-up inside a tunnel connecting Suncheon and Wanju in North Jeolla on Monday, leaving three people dead and another 38 others injured, according to police.

A chemical truck carrying sodium hydroxide was one of the vehicles involved in the accident. Police said the truck caught fire and caused a toxic gas leak in the tunnel, hindering rescue efforts.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Plausible scenarios for climate change: 2020-2050

by Judith Curry, February 13, 2020 in WUWT

A range of scenarios for global mean surface temperature change between 2020 and 2050, derived using a semi-empirical approach. All three modes of natural climate variability – volcanoes, solar and internal variability – are expected to act in the direction of cooling during this period.

In the midst of all the angst about 1.5oC or 2.0oC warming or more, as defined relative to some mythical time when climate was alleged to be ‘stable’ and (relatively) uninfluenced by humans, we lose sight of the fact that we have a better baseline period – now. One advantage of using ‘now’ as a baseline for future climate change is that we have good observations to describe  the climate of  ‘now’.

While most of the focus of climate projections is on 2100, the period circa 2020-2050 is of particular importance for several reasons:

  1. It is the period for meeting UNFCCC targets for emissions reductions

  2. Many financial and infrastructure decisions will be made on this time scale

  3. The actual evolution of the climate over this period will influence 1) and 2) above; ‘surprises’ could have adverse impacts on decisions related to 1) and 2).

Figure 1: CO2-induced warming as a function of cumulative emissions and TCRE. Millar et al

 

Continuer la lecture de Plausible scenarios for climate change: 2020-2050 →

climate-debate

Polar bear habitat at mid-winter as extensive as 2013 & better than 2006

by S. Crockford, February 14, 2020 in PolarbearScience

Arctic sea ice at the middle of winter (January-March) is a measure of what’s to come because winter ice is the set-up for early spring, the time when polar bears do most of their feeding on young seals.

[Mid-winter photos of polar bears are hard to come by, partly because the Arctic is still dark for most hours of the day, it’s still bitterly cold, and scientists don’t venture out to do work on polar bears until the end of March at the earliest]

At 12 February this year, the ice was similar in overall extent to 2013 but higher than 2006.

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climate-debate

Bjorn Lomborg Fighting Australia’s Fire Myths

by P. Homewood, January 29, 2020 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

https://www.facebook.com/bjornlomborg/photos/a.221758208967/10158703983303968/?type=3&theater

As he points out in the article:

Australia is the world’s most fire-prone continent. In 1900, 11 per cent of its surface burned annually. These days, 5 per cent of the country burns every year. By the end of the century, if we do not stop climate change, higher temperatures and an increase in aridity will likely mean a 0.7 percentage point increase in burnt area, an increase from 5.3 per cent of Australia to 6 per cent.

Unfortunately, many reports on Australia’s fires have exploited the carnage to push a specific agenda, resting on three ideas: that bushfires are worse than ever, that this is caused by global warming, and that the only solution is for political leaders to make even bigger carbon-cut promises.

Globally, bushfires burn less land than it used to. Since 1900, global burnt area has reduced by more than one-third because of agriculture, fire suppression and forest management. In the satellite era, NASA and other groups document significant decreases.

Surprisingly, this decrease is even true for Australia. Satellites show that from 1997 to 2018 the burnt area declined by one-third. Australia’s current fire season has seen less area burned than in previous years. Up to January 26, bushfires burned 19.4 million hectares in Australia — about half the average burn over the similar timeframe of 37 million hectares in the satellite record. (Actually the satellites show 46 million hectares burnt, but 9 million hectares are likely from prescribed burns.)

When the media suggests Australia’s fires are “unprecedented in scale”, it is wrong. Australia’s burnt area declined by more than a third from 1900 to 2000, and has declined across the satellite period. This fire season, at the time of writing, 2.5 per cent of Australia’s area has burned compared with the past 10 years’ 4.8 per cent average by this point.

What is different this year is that fires have been mostly in NSW and Victoria. These are important states with a little more than half the country’s population — and many of its media outlets.

But suggesting fires are caused by global warming rests on cherrypicking these two regions with more fire and ignoring the remaining 87 per cent of Australia’s landmass, where burned area has declined.

I certainly would take issue with the claim aridity will increase, as we know that rainfall has generally been greater since the 1970s than before.

Lomborg goes on to make the points I have made regularly, that there are many practical ways to reduce the risk of severe fires, and that even if Australia went totally net zero, it would have no effect whatsoever on their climate.

Well worth a read though.

La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse