by CFACT, June 6, 2018
There’s periods where it’s busy and quiet and busy and quiet, but no trend,” said Landsea, “There’s no statistical change over a 130-year period. Since 1970, the number of hurricanes globally is flat. I haven’t seen anything that suggests that the hurricane intensity is going to change dramatically. It looks like a pretty tiny change to how strong hurricanes will be. It’s not zero, but it’s in the noise level. It’s very small.”
(…)
by Andy May, June 9, 2018 in WUWT
Some have speculated that the distribution of relative humidity would remain roughly constant as climate changes (Allen and Ingram 2002). Specific humidity can be thought of as “absolute” humidity or the total amount of water vapor in the atmosphere. We will call this amount “TPW” or total precipitable water with units of kg/m2. As temperatures rise, the Clausius-Clapeyron relationship states that the equilibrium vapor pressure above the oceans should increase and thus, if relative humidity stays the same, the total water vapor or specific humidity will increase. The precise relationship between specific humidity and temperature in the real world is unknown but is estimated to be between 0.6 to 18% (10-90%ile range) per degree Celsius from global climate model results (Allen and Ingram 2002) …
…
by Dr. Willie Soon et al., June 13, 2018
Recently, a new paper which we co-authored with five other researchers was published in Earth-Science Reviews entitled, “Comparing the current and early 20th century warm periods in China”. The paper is paywalled, but the journal has kindly allowed free access to the article until 20th July 2018 at this link here. If you’re reading this post after that date, you can download a pre-print here: Soon et al, 2018 ESR – China SAT trends (PDF)
The Supplementary Information and data for the paper is available here (Excel file) : Soon et al, 2018 ESR – China SAT trends – SI
The paper is quite technical and focuses specifically on Chinese temperature trends. But, we think that it will still be of interest to many readers here, especially anybody who is interested in any of the following topics:
Urbanization bias
The homogenization of temperature data
The “early 20th century warm period” found in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, and
Comparing temperature proxies to instrumental records
by Dr. Benny Peiser, June 13, 2018 in ClimateChangeDispatch
Voters across Europe have lost faith in politics partly because of “unachievable targets” on renewable energy, said German Energy Minister Peter Altmaier, who rejected calls from a group of other EU countries to boost the share of renewables to 33-35% of the bloc’s energy mix by 2030. —EurActive, 12 June 2018
The German government is about to concede officially that the country is on course to widely missing its 2020 climate target. —Clean Energy Wire, 12 June 2018
…
by Dr. Tim Ball, August 31, 2014 in WUWT
Lack of information is a major problem in reconstructing and understanding climate and climate mechanisms. H.H.Lamb gave it as his reason for creating the Climatic Research Unit (CRU).
Notice he is talking about “the facts”, which includes data and other measures. Chief among the other measures are accurate chronologies, which is why he discusses dates and dating methods at some length in Volume 2 of his Climate, Present, Past and Future.
Lamb also divided climate studies into three major areas based on time and method. The secular or instrumental period covers at most 100 years. Few stations are longer and almost all are in Western Europe or eastern North America. The historical period includes the recorded works of humans and covers at most 3000 years. The biologic/geologic record covers the remainder of time. The degree of accuracy diminishes both in measures, such as temperature and precision of dates, as you go back in time. One tragedy of the “hockey stick” rarely discussed was that it misused and demeaned the value of one of the few measures that transcends two or three of these divisions.
(…)
by Judith Curry, June 12, 2018 in ClimateEtc.
My presentation is provided here. This is being posted at the start of the event.
I HUGELY appreciate the comments that you provided on that one slide [link], both in the comments and sent via email. I definitely got the message.
I will be very interested in your reactions to my presentation [ debate ]. My talking points are provided below, with some of the ppt slides
(…)
by Anthony Watts, June 12, 2018 in WUWT
WUWT reader “ES” writes: It is not bad enough we have global warning but, now we have warming on the moon. “increased from 1.6 C to 3.5 C over the roughly six-year period measurements were being taken.”
Astronauts’ movement increased subsurface temperatures on the moon, study finds.
…
by JoNova, June 12, 2018 inJoNovaBlog
After half a billion million years of climate change, I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, that life on Earth (and specifically corals) have so many ways to cope with the climate changing. After all, it’s natural (if you are trained by Greenpeace) to assume that corals can only survive in a world with one constant stable temperature just like they never had.
One more tool in the coral-reef-workshop
Corals don’t just have a tool-box, they have a Home Depot Warehouse. h/t to GWPF
(..)
by Tony Heller, June 11, 2018 in The DelporableClimScienceBlog
Arctic sea ice volume is the highest for the date in 13 years, and melt is the slowest on record.
by Bonner Cohen, May 13, 2018 in CFACT
The Kremlin has masterminded an elaborate scheme to undermine American fossil-fuel production and distribution, concludes a report by the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
Released March 1, the report, “Russian Attempts to Influence U.S. Domestic Energy Markets by Exploiting Social Media,” reveals how Russia has teamed up with U.S. and European environmental groups to use such popular outlets as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to turn American public opinion against the domestic oil and natural gas industry.
With the United States having surpassed Russia as the world’s largest producer of natural gas, and now ranking as the world’s fastest-growing producer of oil, the Russians have reason to fear what is more than a little competition. Saying America’s soaring energy development “poses a direct threat to Russian energy interests,” the report explains: …
by Florida State University, June 11, 2018 in ScienceDaily
Global climate change, fueled by skyrocketing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, is siphoning oxygen from today’s oceans at an alarming pace — so fast that scientists aren’t entirely sure how the planet will respond.
(…)
Millions of years ago, scientists discovered, powerful volcanoes pumped Earth’s atmosphere full of carbon dioxide, draining the oceans of oxygen and driving a mass extinction of marine organisms.
…
by Amanda Morris, June 4, 2018 inNorthwesternUniversity
A tiny clue found in ancient sediment has unlocked big secrets about Greenland’s past and future climate.
Just beyond the northwest edge of the vast Greenland Ice Sheet, Northwestern University researchers have discovered lake mud that beat tough odds by surviving the last ice age. The mud, and remains of common flies nestled within it, record two interglacial periods in northwest Greenland. Although researchers have long known these two periods — the early Holocene and Last Interglacial — experienced warming in the Arctic due to changes in the Earth’s orbit, the mix of fly species preserved from these times shows that Greenland was even warmer than previously thought.
by Ross C.L. et al., 2017, June 10, 2018 in CO2Science
The global increase in the atmosphere’s CO2 content has been hypothesized to possess the potential to harm coral reefs directly. By inducing changes in ocean water chemistry that can lead to reductions in the calcium carbonate saturation state of seawater (Ω), it has been predicted that elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 may reduce rates of coral calcification, possibly leading to slower-growing — and, therefore, weaker — coral skeletons, and in some cases even death.
As we have previously pointed out on our website, however (see The End of the Ocean Acidification Scare for Corals and A Coral’s Biological Control of its Calcifying Medium to Favor Skeletal Growth), such projections often fail to account for the fact that coral calcification is a biologically mediated process, and that out in the real world, living organisms tend to find ways to meet and overcome the many challenges they face; and coral calcification in response to ocean acidification is no exception.
(…)
by Kenneth Richard, June 7, 2018 in NoTricksZone
It has long been established in the scientific literature (and affirmed by the IPCC) that CO2 concentration changes followed Antarctic temperature changes by about 600 to 1000 years during glacial-interglacial transitions throughout the last ~800,000 years (Fischer et al., 1999; Monnin et al., 2001; Caillon et al., 2003; Stott et al., 2007; Kawamura et al., 2007).
In contrast, two new papers cite evidence that the timing of the lagged CO2 response to temperature changes may have ranged between 1300 and 6500 years in some cases. It would appear that a millennial-scale lagged response to temperature undermines the claim that CO2 concentration changes were a driver of climate in the ancient past.
by Anthony Watts, June 10, 2018 i
On June 8th, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) made its first official announcement via press release that 12 big Northern California wildfires in October 2017 were caused by problems associated with electric utility power lines.
The October 2017 Fire Siege involved more than 170 fires and burned at least 245,000 acres in Northern California. About 11,000 firefighters from 17 states and Australia helped battle the blazes. They concluded that 12 Wildfires in Mendocino, Humboldt, Butte, Sonoma, Lake, and Napa Counties were caused by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) “power and distribution lines, conductors and the failure of power poles.”
The words “global warming” and “climate change” were conspicuously absent from the announcement even…
by Dr. Roy Spencer, June 7, 2018 in WUWT
The Version 6.0 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for May, 2018 was +0.18 deg. C, down a little from the April value of +0.21 deg. C :
by Javier, June 7, 2018 in WUWT
Solar cycle 24 is ending and we are approaching a time of minimal solar activity between solar cycles 24 and 25, known as a solar minimum. Despite claims that we understand how the Sun works, our solar predictive skills are still wanting, and the Sun continues to be full of surprises.
The surprising 2008 solar minimum
Solar scientists did not pay much attention to the early warning signs that the Sun was behaving differently during solar cycle 23 (SC23), and to most the surprise came when the expected solar minimum failed to show up in 2006. The SC23-24 minimum took place two years later (Dec 2008, according to SIDC), and despite showing only a tiny difference in total solar irradiation compared to previous minima of the space age, it displayed significantly reduced solar wind speed and density, extreme-UV flux was 10% reduced, the polar fields were 50% smaller, and the interplanetary magnetic field strength was 30% below past minima.
…
par Professeur Alain Préat, 9 juin 2008, in ScienceClimatEnergie
Trois révolutions énergétiques depuis à peine plus d’un siècle. Nous sommes entrés dans la troisième révolution énergétique. La première vit le jour avec la machine à vapeur et participa à l’essor du charbon, avec la seconde le moteur thermique dérôna le charbon au profit des hydrocarbures, et la troisième révolution industrielle, en cours, est technologique et basée sur les énergies ‘vertes’ ou énergies intermittentes et l’informatique ou le numérique. Cette problématique vient d’être abordée dans un excellent ouvrage paru en 2018 .
Peut-on dire que cette progression récente suivant ces trois phases majeures de la technologie s’est effectuée dans le sens d’un meilleur respect de l‘état de la Planète. Bien que cela soit le discours officiel, rien n’en est moins sûr. Pourquoi ? Tout simplement par le méconnaissance de tout un chacun à comprendre ou savoir ce qui est réellement utilisé dans les énergies vertes et numériques. L’actuelle ‘transition énergétique’ a bon dos et elle a toutes les vertus, elle est propre, quant aux les hydrocarbures, le charbon, l’uranium et CO2 (ennemi n° 1) ils ont tous les maux, et sont tous sales. Il n’est pas un jour où cette opposition nous est rappelée…
(…)
by Anthony Watts, June 7, 2018 in WUWT
More excuses for “the pause”.
A team of researchers from the U.K. Met Office, Sweden and Australia has found that three periods of global warming slowdown since 1891 were likely due to natural causes rather than disruptions to the factors causing global warming. In their paper published on the open access site Science Advances, the group describes their study of global mean surface temperatures (GMST) since the late 19th century and what they found.
In this new paper, the researchers looked at GMST as registered by multiple sources around the globe over the past 127 years, noting the slow march of temperature increases. More specifically, they noted the three previously identified slowdowns in GMST increases—the time periods from 1896 to 1910, from 1941 to 1975, and then from 1998 to 2013. They then looked at factors that could have contributed to these slowdowns and found natural causes for each. (…)
by John Cook, June 2018, in Skeptical Science
|
…
…
…
by Climate Science, June 6, 2018
The following true story is a cautionary tale for scientists against making quick judgements about what seems impossible. Or indeed for any “experts” believing that they know best and ignoring any evidence contrary to what they believe. Does this ring any bells relating to the global warming hypothesis?
(…)
by Anthony Watts, June 6, 2018 in WUWT
We have mentioned countless times on this blog that the warming oceans are evidence that CO2 is not the cause of global warming. To understand the climate you must first understand the oceans. The oceans control the global climate. As the oceans warm, they warm and alter the humidity of the atmosphere above them. The problem is, as we have pointed out countless times, CO2’s only defined mechanism by which to affect climate change is through the thermalization of LWIR between 13 and 18µ.
LWIR between 13 and 18µ doesn’t penetrate or warm the oceans. Visible radiation, mainly from the high energy blue end of the spectrum does. CO2 is transparent to incoming visible radiation. The energy stored in the atmosphere and land is insignificant when compared to the oceans. The oceans contain 2,000x the energy of the atmosphere, so small changes to the oceans can mean big changes in the atmospheric temperature. The oceans also produce vast amounts of CO2 (20 x the amount man produces), and the most abundant and potent greenhouse gas, water vapor.
(…)
by Dr David Whitehouse, June 06, 2016 in GWPF
As far as global temperature goes it’s been a warmish start to the year, though not exceptional. This has led Carbon Brief in its three-monthly “state of the climate” report to predict that this year “is likely” to be as warm as the fourth warmest year since records began about 150 years ago. They say it could be as high as the second or as low as the 12th warmest.
Carbon Brief says, “The first three months of 2018 can give some sense of what to expect for the entire year.” But being based on a quarter of this year’s monthly measurements it could be described as either bold or foolish. Because the prediction is made without a good understanding of what has been happening to the global temperature in the past months it is probably more of the latter.
Nowhere is the Carbon Brief prediction is there any analysis of why 2018 got off to a warm start. Look towards the Tasman Sea that has been adding to global temperatures since late 2017.
The water temperature in the Tasman Sea is well above normal – 6° C more than average for the start of December. New Zealand’s summer was the hottest on record, Tasmania had its hottest November-January on record. It was exceptionally warm on both sides of the Tasman, more than two degrees above average in December and part of January.
(…)
by Ron Cruz, June 5, 2018 in ScienceMatters
Presently sea surface temperatures (SST) are the best available indicator of heat content gained or lost from earth’s climate system. Enthalpy is the thermodynamic term for total heat content in a system, and humidity differences in air parcels affect enthalpy. Measuring water temperature directly avoids distorted impressions from air measurements. In addition, ocean covers 71% of the planet surface and thus dominates surface temperature estimates. Eventually we will likely have reliable means of recording water temperatures at depth.
Recently, Dr. Ole Humlum reported from his research that air temperatures lag 2-3 months behind changes in SST. He also observed that changes in CO2 atmospheric concentrations lag behind SST by 11-12 months. This latter point is addressed in a previous post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?
The May update to HadSST3 will appear later this month, but in the meantime we can look at lower troposphere temperatures (TLT) from UAHv6 which are already posted for May. The temperature record is derived from microwave sounding units (MSU) on board satellites like the one pictured above… (…)
by Prof. Dr. P. Berth, 5 juin 2018, in ScienceClimatEnergie.be
Voici quelques réflexions sur la théorie de l’acidification des océans. Selon cette théorie, le pH des océans diminuerait inlassablement, en raison du CO2 qui ne cesse de s’accumuler dans l’atmosphère.
• Les mesures directes de pH sont récentes et nous n’avons aucun recul. Selon les médias et les ONG écologistes, qui se basent sur le GIEC et sur certaines publications (e.g., Caldeira & Wickett 2003), le pH des océans aurait été de 8.25 en 1750. Cependant, il faut savoir que personne n’a jamais mesuré le pH des océans en 1750, puisque le concept de pH n’a été inventé qu’en 1909 (par le danois Søren P.L. Sørensen), et que les premiers appareils fiables pour mesurer le pH ne sont apparus qu’en 1924… Nous ne sommes donc pas certains de cette valeur de 8.25 pour 1750… La valeur de 8.25 est donc obtenue par des mesures indirectes et n’est donc pas certaine.
• A l’heure d’aujourd’hui, tous les pH sont possibles. Lorsqu’on dit que les océans actuels sont à un pH de 8.1, de quel océan parle-t-on? S’agit-il du pH moyen global? Si c’est de cela qu’on parle, quelle est l’incertitude sur la mesure? (i.e., l’écart-type?). Ceci n’est jamais indiqué. Il faut savoir que si l’on prend un jour de la semaine, tous les pH sont possibles dans les océans, comme l’illustre très bien la figure suivante.
(…)
