Archives de catégorie : climate-debate

climate-debate

Listen to the Trees!

by Jim Steele, August 22, 2019 in WUWT

What’s Natural?

Published in Pacifica. Tribune August 20,2019

This summer I taught a class on the Natural History of the Sierra Nevada for San Francisco State University’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus. The first day we taught students how to identify the trees. Once students know their trees, they can easily see how tree species vary with elevation, temperature, moisture, and snow pack. They can see which species colonize open sunny areas and which trees need shade before they can invade. Old time naturalists used trees to identify “life-zones” where different species of mammals, birds, insects and other plants can be found. Furthermore, when you listen to the trees, you can see change.

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Tree rings indicate the warmest decades of the 20th century were the 1930s and 40s, and temperatures have yet to surpass those decades. This divergence between thermometers and trees is best explained by the fact that instrumental temperatures are biased upwards when taken at hot airports or in areas recently suffering from growing urban heat island effects. In contrast, trees measure temperatures in natural habitat.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Why CO2 is Not the Control Knob of Global Temperature and Observational Proof it is Not Causing Dangerous Warming

by Institute for the Human Environment,   August 2019

There is no debate as to whether or not atmospheric carbon dioxide, or CO2, is a so-called greenhouse gas. When present in the atmosphere, this one-carbon and two-oxygen molecule indeed has the capacity to absorb infrared radiation and warm the planet. There is also no debate as to whether or not the concentration of atmospheric CO2 is rising; over the past two centuries it has increased from a meager 0.028% of the atmosphere by volume to a still-meager 0.041% today. Furthermore, there is no argument that global temperatures are warmer today than they were 50, 100 or even 200 years ago. However, there is much debate on whether or not the modern increase in atmospheric CO2 has caused, or is presently causing, dangerous global warming, warming so severe that it is threatening life all across the planet.

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But how accurate is this narrative?

In answering this question, one need only examine the historic temperature and CO2 records illustrated in Figure 1 more critically. Certainly, these two variables experience a fairly high degree of correlation over the time period shown. However, it doesn’t take a Ph.D. scientist to recognize and understand the fact that correlation among two variables does not prove causation. Every textbook on statistics teaches as much, and they also teach that a hypothesis of causation among two variables can be rejected if there is no statistically significant correlation between them, or if the correlation fails to be maintained in a consistent and expected manner across time.

By applying such principles to the case being considered here, it can confidently be argued that if carbon dioxide is indeed the all-important control knob of temperature that climate alarmists claim it to be, then changes in atmospheric CO2 should always precede changes in temperature. And, because CO2 is a greenhouse gas, to prove causation those changes must always be such that a rise in CO2 induces a corresponding rise in temperature, whereas a decline in CO2 must always induce a corresponding drop in temperature. Consistent observations to the contrary, if present in the historic record, would therefore serve to invalidate a causation claim, as well as demonstrate that atmospheric CO2 is nothing more than a bit player among the many factors that drive climate change.

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Figure 1. 400,000 years of historic temperature and CO2 from the Vostok Ice Core, Antarctica. Source: Petit et al. (1999) Nature 399: 429-436.
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climate-debate

Media Ignore Vast Summer Cold Across Northern Hemisphere; Southern USA, Russia See “Record Lows” In July

by P. Gosselin, August 3, 2019 in NoTricksZone

While the headlines naturally focused on an intense heat wave over a region centered over France and Germany last week, the global warming ambulance chasers worked overtime avoiding and ignoring the real story: vast, continent-wide cold spreading across Russia.

Heat and cold zero-sum

First at the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), Klaus Öllerer reported how the Sahara heat ended up being a “zero-sum” event for the northern hemisphere region of Europe and Asia.

Öllerer wrote last week that despite the heat that took place in large parts of Europe, it was cooler than usual in other neighboring parts. Only a certain area in Central Europe (purple area) was particularly hot. Around it, it was less warm (yellow) and cooler than usual (blue):

Source: wetterzentrale.de

“Even large parts of the Sahara are cooler than usual (blue). This is no wonder, as the heat is now in Europe and cooler air flows into the Sahara,” Öllerer wrote.

“The above-average warm areas balance out with the above-average cold areas,” he concluded. “The current warming is a zero-sum game! Historically, such events have occurred again and again.”

“It is even the case that in cooler times – such as the Little Ice Age – warm summer extremes were more frequent than in the last one hundred years and more,” Öllerer added.

Severe cold across Russia

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climate-debate, to keep an eye on...

Northern Europe July Temperature Sees NO WARMING Over Past Decades. Global July Not A Record High!

by P. Gosselin, August 20, 2019 in NoTricksZone

Parts of Europe have seen a couple of brief but intense heat waves this summer, and so some of the public got brainwashed by the media into thinking the continent’s summer climate is rapidly getting hotter and that all this is the new normal.

Yet, when we examine the unaltered data from the Japan Meteorology Agency (JMA) for locations in northern Europe that have long-term datasets available, we see there has been no July warming trend over the past decades. Media reports suggesting otherwise are nonsense.

Ireland

Looking at 6 stations in Ireland, we have the following for July:

 

Data source: JMA.

Overall, Ireland’s mean July temperatures have been cooling off modestly over the past 3 decades and more, even though three stations are located at airports.

Sweden

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better to know...?, climate-debate

The latest travesty in ‘consensus enforcement’

by Judith Curry, August 14, 2019 in ClimateEtc.

The latest travesty in consensus ‘enforcement’, published by Nature.
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Abstract. We juxtapose 386 prominent contrarians with 386 expert scientists by tracking their digital footprints across ∼200,000 research publications and ∼100,000 English-language digital and print media articles on climate change. Projecting these individuals across the same backdrop facilitates quantifying disparities in media visibility and scientific authority, and identifying organization patterns within their association networks. Here we show via direct comparison that contrarians are featured in 49% more media articles than scientists. Yet when comparing visibility in mainstream media sources only, we observe just a 1% excess visibility, which objectively demonstrates the crowding out of professional mainstream sources by the proliferation of new media sources, many of which contribute to the production and consumption of climate change disinformation at scale. These results demonstrate why climate scientists should increasingly exert their authority in scientific and public discourse, and why professional journalists and editors should adjust the disproportionate attention given to contrarians.
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This ranks as the worst paper I have ever seen published in a reputable journal.  The major methodological problems and dubious assumptions:
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  • Category error to sort into contrarians and climate scientists, with contrarians including scientists, journalists and politicians.
  • Apart from the category error, the two groups are incorrectly specified, with some climate scientists incorrectly designated as contrarians.
  • Cherry picking the citation data of top 386 cited scientists to delete Curry, Pielke Jr, Tol, among others (p 12 of Supplemental Information)
  • Acceptance of the partisan, activist, non-scientist group DeSmog as a legitimate basis for categorizing scientists as ‘contrarian’
  • Assumption that scientific expertise on the causes of climate change relates directly to the number of scientific citations.
  • Assumption that it would be beneficial for the public debate on climate change  for the ‘unheard’ but highly cited climate scientists to enter into the media fray.
  • Assumption that scientists have special authority in policy debates on climate change
The real travesty is this press release issued by UC Merced:
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The harm that this paper does to climate science is an attempt to de-legitimize climate scientists (both academic and non academic), with the ancillary effects of making it more difficult to get their papers published in journals (stay tuned for my latest engagement with the journal peer review process, coming later this month) and the censorship of Nir Shaviv by Forbes (hopefully coming later this week).

climate-debate

Hurricane Camille Remembered

by P. Homewood, August 19, 2019 in NotaLotofPeopoleKnowThat

This month marks the 50th anniversary of Hurricane Camille, the second most powerful to git the US coast. The strongest was the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935.

The NWS has issued this press release:

 

Hurricane Camille
August 17, 1969

Late in the evening on August 17 in 1969, Hurricane Camille made landfall along the Mississippi Gulf Coast near Waveland, MS. Camille is one of only FOUR Category 5 hurricanes ever to make landfall in the continental United States (Atlantic Basin) – the others being the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, which impacted the Florida Keys; Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which impacted south Florida; and Hurricane Michael in 2018, which impacted the Florida panhandle. (Note: It is worth mentioning that the 1928 San Felipe Hurricane made landfall as a Category 5 Hurricane on Puerto Rico)

Camille ranks as the 2nd most intense hurricane to strike the continental US with 900 mb pressure and landfall intensity of 150 knots. Camille ranks just below the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane with 892 mb and 160 knots, while slightly stronger than Hurricane Andrew with 922 mb and 145 knots and Hurricane Michael with 919 mb and 140 knots. The actual maximum sustained winds of Hurricane Camille are not known as the hurricane destroyed all the wind-recording instruments in the landfall area. Re-analysis data found peak winds of 150 knots (roughly 175 mph) along the coast. A devastating storm tide of 24.6 feet occurred west of our area in Pass Christian, MS.

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biology+acidification, climate-debate

CRYING WOLF OVER THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

by Peter Ridd, August 12, 2019 in GWPF

The scare stories about the Great Barrier Reef started in the 1960’s when scientist first started work on the reef. They have been crying wolf ever since.

Scientists from James Cook University have just published a paper on the bleaching and death of corals on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and were surprised that the death rate was less than they expected because of the adaptability of corals to changing temperatures. It appears as though they exaggerated their original claims and are quietly backtracking. To misquote Oscar Wilde, to exaggerate once is a misfortune, to do it twice looks like carelessness, but to do it repeatedly looks like unforgivable systemic unreliability by some of our major science organisations.

It is a well-known phenomenon that corals can adapt very rapidly to high temperatures and that if you heat corals in one year, they tend to be less susceptible in future years to overheating. It is the reason why corals are one of the least likely species to be affected by climate change, irrespective of whether you believe the climate is changing by natural fluctuations or from human influence.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

AUSTRALIA HIT BY ANTARCTIC FRONT WITH TOWNS RECEIVING THEIR FIRST SNOW IN DECADES

by Cap Allon, August 12, 2019 in Electroverse

Regions just 90 minutes from Sydney received extremely rare snow over the weekend, as an intense cold front released from the Antarctic pushed north past Tasmania.

Blackheath resident Erica Mann was ecstatic to find fresh white powder falling in her garden, saying it was the most snow she had ever seen there:

“I opened the curtains and I could see a huge amount of snow on top of the water tank — it was so exciting,” she said. “It’s amazing. I went up the street … and all the houses are completely covered in snow.”

Residents in the Riverina also received a dumping of snow, with some towns recording their first falls in decades. Cootamundra local Steve Theobald said the last time he remembered snow there was 1985(solar minimum of cycle 21), while residents in Tumut –just 300 metres above sea level– said it was their first fall since 2000.

Other towns in southern NSW which recorded rare snow include Adelong, Harden and Batlow.

The powder continued falling through Sunday and finally began abating on Monday.

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See also here (in French)

climate-debate

Analysis: What’s Really Going On In Greenland

by C. Martz, August 12, 2019 in ClimateChangeDispatch

As I’m sure many of my readers are aware, Europe has been having an odd summer as far as temperatures are concerned. The continent has had two major heatwaves this summer; one was in June and the other was in July.

In addition, Greenland has also seen some exceptional “warmth” and lots of ice melt this summer as compared to more recent years.

So, what’s going on? Is climate change to blame? Or, is this a freak of nature?

As with most complicated things in science, the truth is somewhere in between and is not just one way or the other. I hate saying that as a “black and white” person, but it’s an unfortunate fact. One can not make a preconceived notion based on one weather event without looking at a.) the big picture, b.) mechanism, and c.) long-term trends.

The upper air pattern over Europe and Greenland is opposite of what’s been occurring in much of the United States. The U.S. has only had one major heatwave this year, and that in and of itself caused mass hysteria.

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climate and geology, climate-debate

La hausse du niveau de la mer accélère-t-elle l’érosion des côtes? (1/3)

by Y. Battiau-Queney, 15 août 2019 in ScienceClimatEnergie

Il est courant de lire et d’entendre que la hausse du niveau de la mer, l’une des conséquences les plus manifestes du réchauffement climatique, va accélérer l’érosion de nos côtes, menacer de submersion marine de vastes zones littorales urbanisées et faire disparaître nombre d’îles basses habitées. Ces craintes sont-elles justifiées? Comme un consensus ne vaut pas vérité scientifique, on va essayer de démêler le vrai du faux en partant de l’état des connaissances scientifiques sur la hausse du niveau de la mer et analyser ses effets possibles sur les processus d’érosion des côtes.

 

1/ Que sait-on de la hausse du niveau de la mer ?

1.1. État des connaissances sur les variations passées et présentes du niveau de la mer à l’échelle mondiale

Une bonne synthèse récente sur les causes et l’ampleur de la hausse du niveau de la mer se trouve dans Cazenave et Le Cozannet (2014). On y trouvera une très abondante bibliographie antérieure à 2013. Les méthodes utilisées par les scientifiques pour évaluer la tendance moyenne de l’élévation du niveau de la mer dépendent de la période considérée. A l’échelle du Pléistocène (1 800 000 ans) et de l’Holocène (10 000 ans) on dispose d’archives sédimentologiques (repérage d’anciennes plages “soulevées”, analyse de niveaux tourbeux recouverts de sédiments marins, stratigraphie et datation de récifs coralliens …) et de données archéologiques, particulièrement riches sur les côtes méditerranéennes. On sait qu’à plusieurs reprises, pendant les phases interglaciaires du Pléistocène, le niveau de la mer a été supérieur à l’actuel de 5 à 10 m au moins (Planton et al., 2015). À partir du milieu du 19ème siècle, on utilise les données souvent précises des marégraphes installés principalement dans les ports de l’hémisphère nord. Elles fournissent les altitudes relatives du niveau de la mer par rapport aux terres émergées. Depuis 1993, les données satellitaires fournissent des altitudes absolues du niveau de la mer par rapport à l’ellipsoïde terrestre de référence et permettent d’avoir une vision beaucoup plus globale des variations du niveau des océans à toutes les latitudes et longitudes.

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Tableau 1 : variations du niveau de la mer indiquées par les marégraphes (sources: SONEL et GLOSS; Wöppelmann et al., 2014 pour Marseille) (ND= non documenté). Les données dans les colonnes sont exprimées en mm/an.

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climate-debate

MOSCOW ON TRACK FOR COLDEST AUGUST ON RECORD IN BOOKS DATING BACK 150+ YEARS

by Cap Allon, August 13, 2019 in Electroverse

Eastern Europe has been experiencing a miserable summer so far, with temperatures holding well-below average for the majority of the season. And now, following a cold and wet June and July (in which many new daily low temperature records were set), Moscow is currently on course for it’s coldest August in recorded history.

The first week of August in Moscow was pretty chilly, with an average air temperature of just 13C (55.4F) — some 5C below the norm.

The city’s coldest August on record was way back in 1884, when the average daily air temperature for the month was some 4C below the norm. In fact, that August turned out to be colder than the May.

According to www.hmn.ru, the beginning of August in Moscow has been characterized by unusual weather in terms of not only the cold, but also of abundant rainfall and a lack of sunshine.

After the first 7 days, precipitation is already at average levels for the entire month, while the chronic lack of sunshine is within touching distance of Aug 2001’s record-low 181 hours (avg. sun hours for the month of August are 238 hours).

The cold times are returning, clouds are nucleating, all in line with historically low solar activity:

 

climate-debate

Why A ‘Super’ Grand Solar Minimum Is Upon Us

by Cap Allon, November 19, 2018 in PrincipiaScientificInternational

Professor Valentina Zharkova explains and confirms why a “Super” Grand Solar Minimum is upon us: “If the world was looking for an Epiphany moment, this should be it.”

Professor  Zharkova gave a presentation of her Climate and the Solar Magnetic Field hypothesis at the Global Warming Policy Foundation in October, 2018. Even if you believe the IPCC’s worst case scenario, Zharkova’s analysis blows any ‘warming’ out of the water.

Lee Wheelbarger sums it up: even if the IPCC’s worst case scenarios are seen, that’s only a 1.5 watts per square meter increase. Zharkova’s analysis shows a 8 watts per square meter decrease in TSI to the planet.

The information she unveiled should shake/wake you up. Zharkova was one of the few that correctly predicted solar cycle 24 would be weaker than cycle 23 – only 2 out of 150 models predicted this. Her models have run at a 93% accuracy and her findings suggest a SuperGrand Solar Minimum is on the cards beginning 2020 and running for 350-400 years.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Greenland’s ‘Record Temperature’ denied – the data was wrong

by Anthony Watts, August 12, 2019 in WUWT

From the “But, but, wait! Our algorithms can adjust for that!” department comes this tale of alarmist woe. Greenland’s all-time record temperature wasn’t a record at all, and it never got above freezing there.

First, the wailing from news media:

NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/02/climate/european-heatwave-climate-change.html

WAPO: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2016/06/10/greenland-witnessed-its-highest-june-temperature-ever-recorded-on-thursday/

Climate Progress: https://thinkprogress.org/greenland-hits-record-75-f-sets-melt-record-as-globe-aims-at-hottest-year-e34e534e533e/

Polar Portal: http://polarportal.dk/en/news/news/record-high-temperature-for-june-in-greenland/

Now from the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), via the news website The Local, the cooler reality:

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climate-debate, to keep an eye on...

Ten Causes of Warming: The Layperson’s Checklist

by Jim Steele, August 8, 2019 in WUWT

All temperatures are not created equally. Rising temperatures have many causes. Good science demands we explore alternative hypotheses before reaching any conclusions. Below is a list of common causes of warming trends and heat events that everyone should consider in addition to any possible increased greenhouse effect.

1. Heat trapping surfaces: Asphalt and cement not only heat up much faster than natural habitat during the day, those materials hold the heat longer, increasing temperatures at weather stations situated near buildings and near asphalt. More asphalt, more warming, more record temperatures.

2. Loss of Vegetation: During the summer the temperature of a dry dirt road can be 60°F higher at noon, than ground shaded by trees. That’s why our pets instinctively seek the shade. Plants also bring moisture from below the ground that cools the air by evaporative cooling. Increasing deforestation or lost vegetation due to landscape changes cause regional warming trends.

3. Transport of heat: Natural climate oscillations alter air and ocean circulation patterns that can drive more heat from the tropics towards the poles. Europe’s recent heat wave was largely caused by air heated over the baking Sahara Desert and then driven into Europe. Similarly, the latest research finds variations in Arctic sea ice has been dominated by transport of warm Atlantic water heated in the tropics and transported northward via the Gulf Stream.

4. Less cloud cover: Recent research suggests a trend of less cloud cover resulted in increased solar heating of land and oceans. The added solar energy normally reflected by clouds was 2 times greater than what’s believed to be added by increasing carbon dioxide. Two decades of declining cloud cover was similarly shown to cause Greenland’s rapid ice melt between 1995 and 2012.

5. Less Cooling: Windy conditions cool the oceans. The unusually warm ocean conditions that occurred in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, known as the Blob, were caused by decreased winds that reduced normal cooling.

6-10: ….

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climate-debate

AccuWeather Founder/CEO: No Evidence Heatwaves More Common From ‘Climate Change’

by Dr. J. N. Myers, Auhsut 8, 2019 in ClimateChangeDispatch

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First, and most importantly, we warn people all the time in plain language on our apps and on AccuWeather.com about the dangers of extreme heat, as well as all hazards.

Furthermore, that is the reason we developed and patented the AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperature and our recently expanded AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperature Guide, to help people maximize their health, safety and comfort when outdoors and prepare and protect themselves from weather extremes.

The AccuWeather RealFeel Temperature Guide is the only tool that properly takes into account all atmospheric conditions and translates them into actionable behavior choices for people.

Second, although average temperatures have been higher in recent years, there is no evidence so far that extreme heatwaves are becoming more common because of climate change, especially when you consider how many heatwaves occurred historically compared to recent history.

New York City has not had a daily high temperature above 100 degrees since 2012, and it has had only five such days since 2002.

However, in a previous 18-year span from 1984 through 2001, New York City had nine days at 100 degrees or higher.

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biology+acidification, climate-debate

STRANGE CORAL SPAWNING IMPROVING GREAT BARRIER REEF’S RESILIENCE

by University of Queensland, August 7, 2019 in GWPF

The discovery was made by University of Queensland and CSIRO researchers investigating whether corals that split their spawning over multiple months are more successful at spreading their offspring across different reefs.

Dr Karlo Hock, from UQ’s School of Biological Sciences, said coral mass spawning events are one of the most spectacular events in the oceans.

“They’re incredibly beautiful,” Dr Hock said.

“On Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, all coral colonies typically spawn only once per year, over several nights after the full moon, as the water warms up in late spring.”

Study co-author Dr Christopher Doropoulos from the CSIRO Oceans & Atmosphere said sometimes however, coral split their spawning over two successive months.

“This helps them synchronise their reproduction to the best environmental conditions and moon phases,” he said.

“While reproductive success during split spawning may be lower than usual because it can lead to reduced fertilisation, we found that the release of eggs in two separate smaller events gives the corals a second and improved chance of finding a new home reef.”

The research team brought together multi-disciplinary skills in modelling, coral biology, ecology, and oceanography, simulating the dispersal of coral larvae during these split spawning events, among the more than 3800 reefs that make up the Great Barrier Reef.

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climate-debate

Malfeasant Omissions? German Flagship ARD Broadcasting One-Sided, Drama-Making Sea Level Reporting

by Dr. S. Lüning, August 9, 2019 in NoTricksZone

What follows is another example of the tricks the mainstream media use to produce fake drama and urgency concerning sea level rise and climate change – namely omissions – and how geologist Sebastian Lüning held their feet to the fire.

Dr. Sebastian Lüning wrote a complaint to German ARD public broadcasting concerning its December 2, 2018, one-sided reporting of the Indian island of Ghoramara and the sea level rise it is allegedly experiencing. The €6.9 billion euro publicly funded, 22,612-employee ARD is the German equivalent to the UK’s BBC.

What follows is the exchange between Lüning and the ARD editorial staff:

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climate-debate

Evidence that ERA5-based Global Temperatures Have Spurious Warming

by Dr. Roy Spencer, August 6, 2019 in GlobalWarming

“Reading, we have a problem.”

As a followup to my post about whether July 2019 was the warmest July on record (globally-averaged), I’ve been comparing reanalysis datasets since 1979. It appears that the ERA5 reanalysis upon which WMO record temperature pronouncements are made might have a problem, with spurious warmth in recent years.

Here’s a comparison of the global-average surface air temperature variations from three reanalysis datasets: ERA5 (ECMWF), CFSv2 (NOAA/NCEP), and MERRA (NASA/GSFC). Note that only CFSv2 covers the full period, January 1979 to July 2019:

ERA5 has a substantially warmer trend than the other two. By differencing ERA5 with the other datasets we can see that there are some systematic changes that occur in ERA5, especially around 2009-2010, as well as after 1998:

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climate-debate

With Sea-Level Rise, Climate Science Meets Reality

by J. Weatherall, August 6, 2019 in ClimateChangeDispatch

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Numerous satellites utilized by Australian agencies and research bodies are able to take a measure of sea level by way of an altimeter. However, according to the CSIRO, it should not be overlooked that the signal to do so requires

# A satellite in an orbit which repeats the same ground track very closely (within about 1 kilometer)

# A radar system to measure the distance from the satellite to the sea surface to high accuracy. TOPEX/Poseidon and Jason-1 use two radar frequencies, Ku band (13.6GHz) and C band (5.3Ghz).

# A tracking system capable of locating the satellite vertically at any time to within a few centimeters. Some of the components of such a system are:

1/ Systems (usually a combination of GPS, satellite laser ranging and the French DORIS system) to locate the satellite

2/ A high-quality gravity model

3/ A model of the drag from solar wind and the atmosphere

4/ Suitable software to combine all of the above

Other corrections to correct the range:

On the satellite:

1/ A water vapor radiometer to measure the amount of water vapor between the satellite and the sea surface (the water vapor slows down the radar pulse, causing the raw measurement to be too long)

2/ Measurement of the range at two frequencies to estimate the “ionospheric correction” — that is, the degree to which the radar pulse is slowed down by free electrons in the ionosphere

3/ The troughs of waves contribute more to the radar reflection than the crests, so we need correction for this. This is estimated from the wind speed and the wave height, both of which can be estimated from the characteristics of the returned radar pulse.

On the ground:

1/ Ocean tide models to convert the raw altimeter measurement to “de-tided”

2/ Estimates (from a model) of the atmospheric pressure. This is used to calculate a correction to the radar range to compensate for the atmosphere slowing down the radar pulse

3/ A correction for the “inverse barometer” effect, where sea level is depressed in areas of high atmospheric pressure, and vice versa.

No one besmirches the accomplishments of the engineering and technology involved.

However, it is a basic truism that the greater the number of separate corrections needing to be applied, the greater the risk of miscalculation.

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climate-debate, to keep an eye on...

For Most Of The Last 10,000 Years, Greenland Ice Sheet and Glacier Volume Was Smaller Than Today

by K. Richard, August 5, 2019 in NoTricksZone

A new paper (Axford et al., 2019) reveals NW Greenland’s “outlet glaciers were smaller than today from ~9.4 to 0.2 ka BP” (9,400 to 200 years before 1950), and that “most of the land-based margin reached its maximum Holocene extent in the last millennium and likely the last few hundred years.”

The authors conclude:

“We infer based upon lake sediment organic and biogenic content that in response to declining temperatures, North Ice Cap reached its present-day size ~1850 AD, having been smaller than present through most of the preceding Holocene.”

Furthermore, the authors assert Greenland was 2.5°C to 3°C warmer than modern on average during the Holocene Thermal Maximum, and peak temperatures were 4°C to 7°C warmer.

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Image Source: Mikkelson et al., 2018

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climate-debate, to keep an eye on...

Why You Shouldn’t Draw Trend Lines on Graphs

by Kip Hansen,  August 6, 2019 in WUWT

What we call a graph is more properly referred to as “a graphical representation of data.”  One very common form of graphical representation is “a diagram showing the relation between variable quantities, typically of two variables, each measured along one of a pair of axes at right angles.”

Here at WUWT we see a lot of graphs —  all sorts of graphs of a lot of different data sets.  Here is a commonly shown graph offered by NOAA taken from a piece at Climate.gov called “Did global warming stop in 1998?” by Rebecca Lindsey published on September 4, 2018.

 

I am not interested in the details of this graphic representation — the whole thing qualifies as “silliness”.  The vertical scale is in degrees Fahrenheit and the entire range change over 140 years shown is on the scale 2.5 °F or about a degree and a half C.   The interesting thing about the graph is the effort of drawing of “trend lines” on top of the data to convey to the reader something about the data that the author of the graphic representation wants to communicate.  This “something” is an opinion — it is always an opinion — it is not part of the data.

The data is the data.  Turning the data into a graphical representation (all right, I’ll just use “graph” from here on….), making the data into a graph has already  injected opinion and personal judgement into the data through choice of start and end dates, vertical and horizontal scales and, in this case, the shading of a 15-year period at one end.  Sometimes the decisions as to vertical and horizontal scale are made by software — not rational humans —  causing even further confusion and sometimes gross misrepresentation.

Anyone who cannot see the data clearly in the top graph without the aid of the red trend lineshould find another field of study (or see their optometrist).  The bottom graph has been turned into a propaganda statement by the addition of five opinions in the form of mini-trend lines.

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climate-debate

La localisation temporelle et géographique des stations de mesure de la température pose des problèmes

by Carl-Stéphane Huot, 30 juillet 2019 in ScienceClimatEnergie

La notion de réchauffement climatique préoccupe bon nombre de gens depuis des années. Cependant, ce réchauffement apparent pourrait être influencé par le déplacement de stations météorologiques vers les zones plus chaudes de la planète, soit plus  près de l’équateur, soit à des altitudes plus basses.  La modélisation du climat est aussi influencée par l’existence de régions sans, ou avec très peu, de stations météorologiques.

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Graphique 1 : Température moyenne selon la classe de longitude.

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Conclusion

La variation extrêmement élevée du nombre de stations météorologiques servant au calcul de la température mondiale a contribué depuis le début des années 1950 à une partie au moins de l’élévation de  température. La dérive de celles-ci d’une place à l’autre fausse la précision des données que l’on peut en tirer, et contribue à augmenter l’inquiétude de la population. L’emplacement et le nombre de stations à installer posent un certain nombre de problèmes autant scientifiques que techniques et  politiques, et rend, avec d’autres éléments, (par exemple l’effet d’urbanisation, non abordé ici) extrêmement difficile de parler de réchauffement climatique.

climate-debate

Temps far, far below normal across almost the entire territory of European Russia

by Robert, August 4, 2019 in IceAgeNow

We’re talking about record-breaking cold across an area almost half as big as the entire contiguous United States.

2 Aug 2019 – In a number of points in the north-east of the territory, the temperature dropped to record lows. In the capital of the Komi Republic, in Syktyvkar, it dropped to 2.7 degrees, which is 0.3 degrees lower than the previous record held since 1944.

Not only in the northern areas, the temperature also dropped to critical levels. In Voronezh the thermometers showed +7 degrees, leaving behind the previous record of +7.1 degrees in 1971.

Further south, in Saratov, the minimum temperature on the first day of August was 9.6, beating the previous record of 10.4 degrees set in 1948.

The cold also hit Azov. In Tsimlyansk, Rostov Region, on August 1 the temperature fell to 13.3 degrees. The previous record, 13.6, was noted in 1975.

On the first day of August, the average temperature across almost the entire territory of European Russia was 4-6 degrees below normal, and in the Volga region it did not reach the average long-term values ​​of 8 degrees.

Cold weather throughout the territory from the White to the Black Sea will continue for at least another week.

European Russia covers nearly 4,000,000 km2 (1,500,000 sq mi).
Together, the 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C. occupy a combined area of 8,080,464.3 km2 (3,119,884.69 sq miles).

http://www.hmn.ru/index.php?index=2&nn=62368

climate-debate

July 2019 Was Not the Warmest on Record

by Roy Spencer, August 2, 2019 in GlobalWarming

July 2019 was probably the 4th warmest of the last 41 years. Global “reanalysis” datasets need to start being used for monitoring of global surface temperatures. [NOTE: It turns out that the WMO, which announced July 2019 as a near-record, relies upon the ERA5 reanalysis which apparently departs substantially from the CFSv2 reanalysis, making my proposed reliance on only reanalysis data for surface temperature monitoring also subject to considerable uncertainty].

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See also here

climate-debate

Greenland Ice sheet Meltdown Scare–Except It’s Not True

by P.  Homewood,  August 1, 2019 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

The same heat dome that roasted Europe and broke national temperature records in five countries last week has shifted to Greenland, where it is causing one of the biggest melt events ever observed on the fragile ice sheet.

By some measures, the ice melt is more extreme than during a benchmark record event in July 2012, according to scientists analyzing the latest data. During that event, about 98 percent of the ice sheet experienced some surface melting, speeding up the process of shedding ice into the ocean.

The fate of Greenland’s ice sheet is of critical importance to every coastal resident in the world, since Greenland is already the biggest contributor to modern-day sea level rise. The pace and extent of Greenland ice melt will help determine how high sea levels climb and how quickly….

The Danish Meteorological Institute tweeted that more than half the ice sheet experienced some degree of melting on Tuesday, according to a computer model simulation, which made it the “highest this year by some distance.”

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And there is no mention of the fact that the ice sheet grew substantially last year, and also the year before:

The simple fact is that the Greenland ice sheet melts every summer, particularly when the sun shines. That’s what it does. And it grows back again in winter as the snow falls. Indeed, if it did not melt, it would carry on growing year after year.

Inevitably there are some days when the weather is warmer and sunnier than normal, and others when it is colder. To pick an odd day or two is ridiculous and dishonest scaremongering.

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See also here and here