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climate-debate

Climate Past Far From Settled: 7 Major Temperature Reconstructions Find No Agreement

by P. Gosselin, Mar 29, 2022 in WUWT    

A new paper published in open access publishing MDPI looks at seven prominent hemispheric and global temperature reconstructions for the past 2000 years (T2k).

The analysis conducted by the authors found that some reconstructions “differed from each other in some segments by more than 0.5 °C” whilst some show negligible pre-industrial climate variability (“hockey sticks”).

Those showing variability would suggest natural factors playing a greater role than those that claim climate had been rather constant over the past 2000 years.

Abstract: Global mean annual temperature has increased by more than 1 °C during the past 150 years, as documented by thermometer measurements. Such observational data are, unfortunately, not available for the pre-industrial period of the Common Era (CE), for which the climate development is reconstructed using various types of palaeoclimatological proxies. In this analysis, we compared seven prominent hemispheric and global temperature reconstructions for the past 2000 years (T2k) which differed from each other in some segments by more than 0.5 °C. Whilst some T2k show negligible pre-industrial climate variability (“hockey sticks”), others suggest significant temperature fluctuations. We discuss possible sources of error and highlight three criteria that need to be considered to increase the quality and stability of future T2k reconstructions. Temperature proxy series are to be thoroughly validated with regards to (1) reproducibility, (2) seasonal stability, and (3) areal representativeness. The T2k represents key calibration data for climate models. The models need to first reproduce the reconstructed pre-industrial climate history before being validated and cleared for climate projections of the future. Precise attribution of modern warming to anthropogenic and natural causes will not be possible until T2k composites stabilize and are truly representative for a well-defined region and season. The discrepancies between the different T2k reconstructions directly translate into a major challenge with regards to the political interpretation of the climate change risk profile. As a rule of thumb, the larger/smaller the pre-industrial temperature changes, the higher/lower the natural contribution to the current warm period (CWP) will likely be, thus, reducing/increasing the CO2 climate sensitivity and the expected warming until 2100.

climate-debate, energy and fields, renewable energy

Fossil Fuels v Renewable Energy

by P. Homewood, Mar 31, 2022 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

solutions and products automatically come to the fore, without the need for subsidies, regulations and mandates.

If renewable energy is all that is promised, it will do the same.

There is of course no doubt that the cheap, abundant and reliable energy provided by fossil fuels has transformed society and made all of us better off than ever before in so many ways.

We get rid of them at our peril!

So far, our transition to renewable energy in the UK has been painfully slow and extremely expensive. Wind and solar power still supply only 3% of the UK’s total energy consumption after two decades of trying. Meanwhile, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, subsidies for renewables were expected to cost £12 billion in 2021/22. This actually understates the reality because it does not include all of the indirect costs involved in grid balancing and so on, meaning the true cost is probably over £15 billion.

It is of course true that the recent rocketing of gas prices has reset the agenda. But it is important to note that the current price does not reflect the cost of extracting gas. It is the result of an imbalance in supply and demand. Such imbalances have occurred before, and a normally functioning market would quickly increase gas production, driving prices back down to historic levels.

But even before those price rises, it was being claimed that wind and solar power were cheaper than fossil fuel. However such claims fail to take into account the additional system costs imposed by their intermittency.

Moreover, claims that offshore wind costs are now down to around £40/MWh simply are not supported by the evidence. The claims are derived from the prices agreed for Contracts for Difference, the government subsidy mechanism. However, wind farms are under no legal obligation to actually take up these contracts; they are effectively only options.

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climate-debate

34 Years of Flawed, Failed & Grossly Misrepresented Global Sea Level Rise Speculation

by L. Hamlin, Mar 30, 2022 in WUWT

For decades climate alarmists in the UK, EU and U.S. have been making flawed and failed exaggerated claims regarding accelerating global level sea level rise being caused by increasing man made CO2 emissions as one means of politically bullying the world’s nations into mandating immensely costly, bureaucratically onerous and completely ineffective global CO2 reductions from these nations.

The flawed CO2 reduction schemes in the EU and UK have created significant declines in energy availability and reliability because of these nations excessive reliance on unreliable, nondispatchable, backup power reliant and costly renewable energy. These politically contrived emissions and energy incompetent policies have resulted in greatly increasing energy costs for EU and UK nations that negatively impacted their economies while significantly increasing their dependence on energy from other nations.

This energy dependence includes greatly increased needs for natural gas, petroleum and coal supplies obtained through other nations and especially from Russia which (before sanctions) provided about 40% of the EU’s natural gas energy as well as being the EUs main supplier of crude oil (27%) and hard coal (49%). This data and other information concerning the EU and UK self-inflicted climate alarmist driven energy and economic debacle is addressed here, here and here.

The EUs efforts to build additional liquified natural gas terminals to wean itself off Russian gas is estimated to take at least three years with existing available import shipping facilities already maxed out. Renewables would take even longer. Any new LNG cargoes will have higher costs than the existing Russian pipelines. EU policy makers are stuck with politically damaging options including rationing energy and using more coal which means dumping climate goals. When push comes to shove emission reductions will take second place to economic survival with this huge energy and emissions policy turnaround already underway and being led by Germany.

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climate-debate

A Brief Summary Of How ‘Global Warming’ Science Has Changed Since 1998

by K. Richard, Mar 31, 2022 in NoTricksZone

Two weeks before Dr. Michael E. Mann and colleagues published their 23 April 1998 “hockey stick” chart in Nature, a peer-reviewed journal published a paper asserting “an overwhelming majority of climate scientists” (50 out of 60) view catastrophic human-caused global warming – and even global warming itself – as an “unsupported assumption”.

At the time, satellite data indicated the lower troposphere had cooled by 0.13°C between 1979 and 1994. The Arctic had cooled by -0.88°C since the 1940s.

It was thought the IPCC had just (1995) perpetrated a “disturbing corruption of the peer-review process” in manipulating the conclusions of scientists to support favored government policies.

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