Natural climate variability, part 2: Interpretation of the post 2000 temperature standstill

by N. Scaffetta et al., September1, 2017 in Int.J.Heat.Technology


The period from 2000 to 2016 shows a modest warming trend that the advocates of the anthropogenic global warming theory have labeled as the “pause” or “hiatus.” These labels were chosen to indicate that the observed temperature standstill period results from an unforced internal fluctuation of the climate (e.g. by heat uptake of the deep ocean) that the computer climate models are claimed to occasionally reproduce without contradicting the anthropogenic global warming theory (AGWT) paradigm. In part 1 of this work, it was shown that the statistical analysis rejects such labels with a 95% confidence because the standstill period has lasted more than the 15 year period limit provided by the AGWT advocates themselves.

See also here

Thanks to Shale, U.S. CO2 Emissions Continued to Decline in 2016

by Nicole Jacobs, October 3, 2017 in ClimateChangeDispatch


The report, which bases its CO2 emissions estimates off International Energy Agency (IEA) and BP data through 2016, found the global CO2 levels essentially remained flat in 2015 and 2016. As BP noted earlier this year, the global trend is “well below the 10-year average growth of 1.6% and a third consecutive year of below-average growth” and that “during 2014-16, average emissions growth has been the lowest over any three-year period since 1981-83.”

Tropical explosive volcanic eruptions can trigger El Niño by cooling tropical Africa

by M. Khodri et al., October 3,  2017 in Nature


Stratospheric aerosols from large tropical explosive volcanic eruptions backscatter shortwave radiation and reduce the global mean surface temperature. Observations suggest that they also favour an El Niño within 2 years following the eruption. Modelling studies have, however, so far reached no consensus on either the sign or physical mechanism of El Niño response to volcanism

Global Temperature Report: September 2017

by Anthony Watts, October 2, 2017 in WUWT


Warmest September in satellite temperature record

Boosted by warmer than normal water in the equatorial eastern Pacific Ocean that peaked in June and July, global average temperatures in the atmosphere rose to record levels in September, according to Dr. John Christy, director of the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. Not only was it the warmest September on record, it was also the warmest month (compared to seasonal norms) in the 38-year satellite temperature record that wasn’t associated with an “officially recognized” El Niño Pacific Ocean warming event.

Global nickel anomaly links Siberian Traps eruptions and the latest Permian mass extinction

by Michael R. Rampino et al., October 2017, in Nature


Anomalous peaks of nickel abundance have been reported in Permian-Triassic boundary sections in China, Israel, Eastern Europe, Spitzbergen, and the Austrian Carnic Alps. New solution ICP-MS results of enhanced nickel from P-T boundary sections in Hungary, Japan, and Spiti, India suggest that the nickel anomalies at the end of the Permian were a worldwide phenomenon.

See also here and here

Did life on Earth start due to meteorites splashing into warm little ponds?

by McMaster University, October 2, 2017 in ScinceDaily


Life on Earth began somewhere between 3.7 and 4.5 billion years ago, after meteorites splashed down and leached essential elements into warm little ponds, say scientists. Their calculations suggest that wet and dry cycles bonded basic molecular building blocks in the ponds’ nutrient-rich broth into self-replicating RNA molecules that constituted the first genetic code for life on the planet.

Tropical Cyclone Trends

by Australian Gov. Bureau of Meteorology, September 2017


Tropical cyclones in the Australian region are influenced by a number of factors, and in particular variations in the El Niño – Southern Oscillation. In general, more tropical cyclones cross the coast during La Niña years, and fewer during El Niño years.

Analysis of historical tropical cyclone data has limitations due to a number of changes in observing practices and technology that have occurred over time. With new and improved meteorological satellites our ability to detect tropical cyclones has improved, as has our ability to differentiate tropical cyclones from other tropical weather systems such as monsoon depressions, which in the past may have been incorrectly named as tropical cyclones. A particularly important change occurred in the late 1970s when regular satellite images became first available from geostationary satellites above the Earth’s equator.

See also here

Incredible moment more than 230 polar bears descend on a Russian beach to feast on a giant whale carcass

by Will Stewart,  September 29, 2017 in ‘The Sun’ 


The extraordinary sight was witnessed by tourists on an Arctic cruise aboard the Finnish-built MV Akademik Shokalskiy.

A source at Wrangel Island Nature Reserve said: “There were at least 230 polar bears, including single males, single females, mothers with cubs and even two mothers with four cubs each.”

Experts called the sight of so many polar bears together “unique”. The huge number could in fact amount to as much one per cent of the entire world’s population of the creatures.

Update: The 2017 Explosion Of Non-Hockey Stick Graphs Continues

by K.  Richard, September 28, 2017 in NoTricksZone


It was four months ago that an article entitled  80 Graphs From 58 New (2017) Papers Invalidate Claims Of Unprecedented Global-Scale Modern Warmingappeared on this website.  The article received international attention and was “shared” tens of thousands of times.

In the last 4 months,  40 more graphs taken from 30 more new peer-reviewed scientific papers have made their way into the ever-growing volume of evidence that today’s climate is not only not unprecedented or unusual in the context of the last millennium, but modern temperature values are still among the coldest of the last 10,000 years.

Catastrophic’ sea level rise in the past may have drowned corals in Hawaii

by University of Sydney, September 28, 2017 in WUWT


Recent findings suggest that episodes of very rapid sea-level rise of about 20m in less than 500 years occurred in the last deglaciation, caused by periods of catastrophic ice-sheet collapse as the Earth warmed after the last ice age about 20,000 years ago.

Lead author, PhD candidate at the University of Sydney, Kelsey Sanborn, has shown this sea-level rise event was associated with “drowning” or death of coral reefs in Hawaii.

See also here

Lost continent of Zealandia: Scientists return from expedition to sunken land

by National Science Foundation, September 26, 2017  in ScienceDaily


Expedition co-chief scientist Rupert Sutherland of Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand said researchers had believed that Zealandia was submerged when it separated from Australia and Antarctica about 80 million years ago.

Big geographic changes across northern Zealandia, which is about the same size as India, have implications for understanding questions such as how plants and animals dispersed and evolved in the South Pacific.

It’s worse than They thought: warming is slower than predicted

by  C.  Monckton of Brenchley, September 26, 2017 in WUWT


In the climate debate, though, it pays to read the small print. Official climatology does not usually admit its many errors: instead, we are ordered to obey the “consensus”, as the Party Line is these days rebranded. On reading the headlines, I suspected at once that the true purpose of the latest admission, by Millar et al. in the current issue of Nature Geo“science”, is to minimize and thus to conceal the true magnitude of past over-predictions.

Submarine Volcanoes etc.

The most productive volcanic systems on Earth are hidden under an average of 8,500 feet (2,600 m) of water. Beneath the oceans a global system of mid-ocean ridges produces an estimated 75% of the annual output of magma. An estimated 0.7 cubic miles (3 cubic kilometers) of lava is erupted. The magma and lava create the edges of new oceanic plates and supply heat and chemicals to some of the Earth’s most unusual and rare ecosystems.

Les chiffres clés de l’énergie dans le monde

by Connaissance des Energies, 26 septembre 2017


Les énergies fossiles toujours omniprésentes dans le mix mondial

La consommation mondiale d’énergie primaire a encore reposé à 81,4% sur les énergies fossiles en 2015 selon les dernières données de l’AIE. En 1973, cette part atteignait 86,7% (dont 46,2% pour le seul pétrole) et les énergies décarbonées ont ainsi légèrement progressé dans le mix énergétique mondial.

Notons que les productions mondiales de gaz naturel et de charbon ont respectivement triplé et plus que doublé depuis 1973. Les émissions mondiales de CO2 relatives à la combustion d’énergie ont pour leur part doublé durant cette période.

See also here (.pdf 151 pages)

Are cold winters in Europe associated with low solar activity?

by M. Lockwood et al., April 2010, in EnvironmResLetters


Solar activity during the current sunspot minimum has fallen to levels unknown since the start of the 20th century. The Maunder minimum (about 1650–1700) was a prolonged episode of low solar activity which coincided with more severe winters in the United Kingdom and continental Europe. Motivated by recent relatively cold winters in the UK, we investigate the possible connection with solar activity. We identify regionally anomalous cold winters by detrending the Central England temperature (CET) record using reconstructions of the northern hemisphere mean temperature.

Le hiatus ? Pas de quoi en faire un fromage, ni une publi

in Benoît Rittaud, 26 septembre 2017 in M,M&M


L’incroyable nouvelle a été annoncée par Mathieu Vidard dans l’émission La Tête au carrésur France Inter, le 20 septembre 2017 (ici, très brièvement, à partir de 10’, il faut bien viser) :

Maintenir le réchauffement climatique en dessous de 1,5°C, c’est encore possible, c’est l’objectif qui avait été fixé par les Accords de Paris à l’issue de la COP 21. La bonne nouvelle vient d’une équipe de recherche internationale. D’après leurs analyses, l’ampleur du réchauffement climatique qui a déjà eu lieu a été surestimée et la quantité de carbone que l’humanité peut émettre à partir de 2015 en restant en-dessous de ce seuil de 1,5°C serait trois fois supérieure à ce qui avait été annoncé.

‘Game-Changing’ new research on prolific Permian Basin estimates 60 billion to 70 billion barrels remain, IHS Markit says

by PennEnergy Editorial Staff, September 25, 2017


Energy researchers at IHS Markit have completed the first, three-year phase of a massive Permian Basin research project that models and interprets the giant basin’s key geologic characteristics to better estimate its remaining hydrocarbon potential, and initial results indicate the giant basin still holds an estimated 60 billion to 70 billion barrels of technically recoverable resources.
To conduct this new analysis, researchers used the IHS Markit historical well and production database that includes more than 440,000 Permian Basin wells, and a new proprietary software tool that, for the first time, enables them to leverage interpreted formation ‘tops’ data to identify accurate formations for completion intervals on hundreds of thousands of wells

La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse