Global tree canopy cover increased by 2.24 million square kilometers (865,000 square miles) between 1982 and 2016, reports a new study in Nature.
Researchers using satellite data tracked the changes in various land covers to find that gains in forest area in the temperate, subtropical, and boreal climatic zones are offsetting declines in the tropics. In addition, forest area is expanding even as areas of bare ground and short vegetation are shrinking. Furthermore, forests in montane regions are expanding as climate warming enables trees to grow higher up on mountain.
The question is how does the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) determine that an increase in atmospheric CO2 causes an increase in global temperature? The answer is they assumed it was the case and confirmed it by increasing CO2 levels in their computer climate models and the temperature went up. Science must overlook the fact that they wrote the computer code that told the computer to increase temperature with a CO2 increase. Science must ask if that sequence is confirmed by empirical evidence? Some scientists did that and found the empirical evidence showed it was not true. Why isn’t this central to all debate about anthropogenic global warming?
Even though CO2 concentrations hovered well below 300 ppm throughout most of the Holocene, newly published paleoclimate reconstructions affirm that today’s surface temperatures are only slightly warmer (if at all) than the coldest periods of the last 10,000 years. This contradicts the perspective that temperatures rise in concert with CO2 concentrations.
Lets all bow to the IPCC — a modern God that shalt not be questioned. The Holy Sacred Climate Cow!
The IPCC is an unaudited and unaccountable foreign committee. Not only are no scientists paid to check its findings, now the publicly mandated BBC is making sure none of their journalists will check its findings either.
In April, the UK regulator, Ofcom, found the BBC was guilty of not sufficiently challenging Lord Lawson, a skeptic. So in response the BBC now promises they will never sufficiently challenge the IPCC. That’s “false balance” for you.
by Ben Webster, September !, 2018 in TheSundayTimes
The BBC has told staff they no longer need to invite climate-change deniers on to its programmes, suggesting that allowing them to speak was like letting someone deny last week’s football scores.
It has also asked all editorial staff to take a course on how to report on climate change and said that its coverage of the topic “is wrong too often”.
Guest CNN-bashing by David Middleton (a geologist)
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ran across this April 2018 article while looking for something else. I totally missed this episode of Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Secretary Zinke’s stance on climate change is one of several reasons the Climatariat News Network decided that he was being dishonest in describing himself as a geologist…
by P. Homewood, September 7, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
Carbon Brief has obtained the internal four-page “crib sheet” sent yesterday to BBC journalists via an email from Fran Unsworth, the BBC’s director of news and current affairs. The crib sheet includes the BBC’s “editorial policy” and “position” on climate change.
All of the BBC’s editorial staff have also been invited to sign up for a one-hour “training course on reporting climate change”. Carbon Brief understands this is the first time that the BBC has issued formal reporting guidance to its staff on this topic.
From the University of Bristol and the “models before measurements” department comes this highly speculative claim that is entirely based entirely on climate models. There’s no actual measured data from any sort of paleo research. It’s science, but not as we know it.
A new study by scientists at the University of Bristol has shown that ancient global warming was associated with intense rainfall events that had a profound impact on the land and coastal seas.
The Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which occurred about 56 Million years ago, is of great interest to climate scientists because it represents a relatively rapid global warming event, with some similarities to the human-induced warming of today.
Although there have been many investigations of how much the Earth warmed at the PETM, there have been relatively few studies of how that changed the hydrological cycle.
by P. Homewood, September 5, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
This article in something called Inside Climate News seems to be typical of many I have seen this year: Because we have had much attention in the media on heat waves this year, there must be an upward trend in heat waves and that is a warning signal that man-made global warming is destroying the planet. Typical of these articles are a couple of features
Declaration of a trend without any actual trend data, but just a single data point of events this year
Unstated implication that there must be a trend because the author can’t remember another year when heat wave stories were so prevalent in the media
Unproven link to man-made global warming, because I guess both involve warmth.
by P. Homewood, September 6, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
A lot of people have said they remember the summer of 1976 being hotter than this year. And they would be right.
According to CET data, at their peak temperatures went much higher and for longer than they did this summer. The only factor that kept the two summer remotely close was that in 1976 temperatures fell away during the middle of July to below average for a while.
These ‘Conferences of the Parties’, or COPs as they are usually termed, involve all of the members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and take place towards the end of the year. This year will see the 24th COP take place in Katowice, Poland.
Over the years the COPs have developed a style all of their own. Indeed, some observers have even gone as far as to suggest that each year sees less and less by way of meaningful activity, and more and more liturgy and ritual.
In Part A of the Great Debate series (see here) we discussed Dr. David Karoly’s and Dr. William Happer’s arguments regarding how unusual recent global warming is and how we know the recent observed increase in CO2 is due to human activities. In Part B we examined their thoughts on the amount of warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions and the accuracy of the calculation. In Part C we discussed the dangers of global warming, the calculation of the vital value of ECS (the equilibrium climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2), and discuss the need to do something about climate change. In this final part of the series I will summarize the debate and provide my thoughts.
In Part A of the Great Debate series (see here) we discussed Dr. David Karoly’s and Dr. William Happer’s arguments regarding how unusual recent global warming is and how we know the recent observed increase in CO2 is due to human activities. In Part B we examined their thoughts on questions three and four. Number 3 is “How do we know that the increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have caused most of the recent global warming?” Number 4 is “Climate models have been used to compute the amount of warming caused by human activities, how accurate are they?”
For an introduction to the debate and links to the original documents see Part A. In Part C we will examine the predictions that global warming and more CO2 are dangerous and that we (as a global society) need to do something about it.
In Part A of the Great Debate series (see here) we discussed Dr. David Karoly’s and Dr. William Happer’s arguments regarding how unusual the recent global warming is and how we know the recent observed increase in CO2 is due to human activities. In Part B we will examine their thoughts on questions three and four.
3. How do we know that the increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have caused most of the recent global warming?
4. Climate models have been used to compute the amount of warming caused by human activities, how accurate are they?
For an introduction to the debate and links to the original documents see Part A.
New evidence now updates and confirms a column I wrote in June 2014 that some or all of the highly publicized melting of western coastal Antarctic glaciers may be caused by seabed volcanoes rather than having much or anything to do with climate change.
An article published in June 22 edition of the journal Nature Communications reports that an international team of scientists tracing a chemical signature of helium in the seawater discovered that contemporary volcanic heat is causing observed melting beneath the massive west Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS.)
The results of their analysis revealed that warming in this high Arctic site had proceeded at four times the global mean rate calculated in other data sets. However, Ding et al. note that over the last decade (2005-2014), “the warming rate in Ny-Ålesund slowed to 0.03 ± 1.85°C per decade,” which is essentially indicative of no-trend in the data. Lead-lag analysis further revealed that “Ny-Ålesund and global temperature variations were remarkably consistent, with a lag time of 8-9 years.” Consequently, the researchers say that “the ‘warming hiatus’ many scientists [have] studied also appears in Ny-Ålesund, it just started later than [that observed in] other areas.”
A remarkable essay by esteemed oceanographer Carl Wunsch.
While doing a literature survey for my paper on Climate Uncertainty and Risk, I came across a remarkable paper published in 2010 by MIT oceanographer Carl Wunsch, entitled Towards Understanding the Paleocean.
The paper is remarkable for several reasons — not only that it was published but that the paper was apparently invited by journal editor.
The paper is well worth reading in its entirety, for a fascinating perspective on paleo-oceanography and paleoclimatology. Here I provide excerpts of relevance to the sociology of climate science:
Science is of course a human enterprise full of the imperfections of humanity. It’s more competitive than it’s ever been and there are more scientists than ever. So many want to communicate their science and this is wonderful. But the media, especially social media, can bring out a nasty streak in some especially when they take the moral high ground: ‘Some people should not be debated.’ ‘We are too right to be challenged.’ ‘Excommunicate!’
by P. Homewood, September 2, 2108 in NotaLofPeopleKnowThat
Something so extraordinary has lately been going on at the other end of the world that, if it did not run so flatly contrary to the prevailing groupthink of our time, it would surely have made big headlines over here.
But the real significance of this has only now come to light with the unveiling by Australia’s new energy minister, Angus Taylor, of the country’s wholly new energy policy, which completely reverses that of the Turnbull government.
by Claire Stam, 31 août 2018 in Euratciv/LaTribuneGenève
Alors qu’elle avoue la part de responsabilité de l’Allemagne dans le changement climatique, et carrément au passage, l’échec de la transition énergétique dans son pays, Angela Merkel s’est pourtant exprimée à la télé pour s’opposer aux objectifs climatiques plus ambitieux proposés par l’Union européenne qui cherche à trouver une solution face à un changement climatique de plus en plus rapide. Un article de notre partenaire Euractiv.
by P. Homewood, September 2, 2018 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat
Global temperatures fell back to 0.19C in August. This means the YTD average is 0.23C, putting them back to roughly where they were in 2002.
Arctic sea ice is tracking close to 2014, which finished with one of the highest minimums in the last decade. Current extent is well above the last three years.
February 15, 2016 was the beginning of an in-depth debate on man-made climate change between two well-known experts in the field, Dr. William Happer and Dr. David Karoly, hosted by TheBestSchools.org. Both have been heavily involved in atmospheric research since the 1980s, but they have landed on opposite sides of the debate.
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Is recent global warming unusual?
How do we know the excess CO2, and other greenhouse gases, are from human activities?
How do we know that the increase in CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have caused most of the recent global warming?
Climate models have been used to compute the amount of warming caused by human activities, how accurate are they?
How do we know global warming and more CO2 will have substantial adverse impacts on humans and the planet?
Should anything be done to combat global warming?
La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse
