All the major nations are failing to meet their Paris targets says Nature paper

by JoNova, October 18, 2017


The Magnificent Paris deal was rubbery-theatre, make-of-it-what-you-will, and with rare diligence here is Naturepublishing a paper where a team bothered to check progress. (If only Nature held scientific research as accountable as political deals. MBH98 anyone — where Mann’s hockeystick was accepted by Nature, but not the corrections?)

Après le pétrole, le gaz américain comme nouveau “game changer” ?

by Patrice Geoffron, 23 octobre 2017 in Le CerclesdesEconmistes, Boursorama


 (…) le gaz américain pourrait bouleverser les équilibres mondiaux, avec des conséquences non moins drastiques que pour le pétrole. Les ressources américaines de gaz sont abondantes et, en juillet 2017, le prix interne a atteint son point le plus bas depuis 12 ans, augurant de sa compétitivité à l’export.

Numerical simulations to quantify the diurnal contrast in local climate trend induced by desert urbanization

by S. Kamal et al., September 30, 2017 in Environment SystemsDecisions


Within this scope, the results reveal a pattern of the climatic effect of desert urbanization with nighttime warming and weaker, but significant daytime cooling. This effect is confined to the urban area and is not sensitive to the size of the city or the detailed land cover types in the surrounding areas. The pattern is identified in both winter and summer.

60 scientists call for EPA endangerment finding to be reversed

by  Anthony Watts, October17, 2017 in WUWT, Press release


Electricity Consumers Fully Support Scientists’ Letter to EPA Calling for Immediate Reopening of its GHG Endangerment Finding

 Key Points: This Letter from over 60 highly credentialed scientists states that: “We the undersigned are individuals who have technical skills and knowledge relevant to climate science and the GHG Endangerment Finding. We each are convinced that the 2009 GHG Endangerment Finding is fundamentally flawed and that an honest, unbiased reconsideration is in order.”

What crisis? Global CO2 emissions stalled for the third year in a row

by Anthony Watts, October 20, 2017 in WUWT


The annual assessment of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by the JRC and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) confirms that CO2 emissions have stalled for the third year in a row.

The report provides updated results on the continuous monitoring of the three main greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O).

See also here

65 Papers Find Extremely Low CO2 Climate Sensitivity

by P. Gosselin, October 2017 in NoTricksZone


 (…) It appears that the much larger changes predicted by other models arise from additional water vapor evaporated into the atmosphere and not from the CO2 itself (…)

(…) Assuming a doubling of CO2 by the late 21st  century (assuming no  positive water vapor feedback), we should likely expect to see no more than about 0.3-0.5°C global surface warming and certainly not the 2-5°C warming that has been projected by the GCMs [global circulation models (…)

Radiation Transfer Calculations and Assessment of Global Warming by CO2

by Hermann Harde, March 30, 2017 in Inter.J.Atm.Sciences


Including solar and cloud effects as well as all relevant feedback processes our simulations give an equilibrium climate sensitivity of = 0.7°C (temperature increase at doubled CO2) and a solar sensitivity of = 0.17°C (at 0.1% increase of the total solar irradiance). Then CO2 contributes 40% and the Sun 60% to global warming over the last century.

Does a Global Temperature Exist?

by Essex C, McKitrick R., Andresen B., June 2006 in J. Non-Eq.Thermodynamics


Physical, mathematical and observational grounds are employed to show that there is no physically meaningful global temperature for the Earth in the context of the issue of global warming. While it is always possible to construct statistics for any given set of local temperature data, an infinite range of such statistics is mathematically permissible if physical principles provide no explicit basis for choosing among them. Distinct and equally valid statistical rules can and do show opposite trends when applied to the results of computations from physical models and real data in the atmosphere. A given temperature field can be interpreted as both “warming” and “cooling” simultaneously, making the concept of warming in the context of the issue of global warming physically ill-posed.

Estimating the extent of Antarctic summer sea ice during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration

by T. Edimburgh and J. Day, November 21, 2017, in TheCryopshere


In stark contrast to the sharp decline in Arctic sea ice, there has been a steady increase in ice extent around Antarctica during the last three decades, especially in the Weddell and Ross seas. In general, climate models do not to capture this trend and a lack of information about sea ice coverage in the pre-satellite period limits our ability to quantify the sensitivity of sea ice to climate change and robustly validate climate models

Climathon : la preuve médiatique du réchauffement !

by Benoît Rittaud, 18 octobre 2017,  in Contepoints


Le jury pensait, bien sûr, désigner plus tôt le vainqueur de septembre 2017 de la propagande climatique. Il demande pardon aux lecteurs pour avoir à ce point aiguisé leur impatience, mais dispose toutefois d’une circonstance fortement atténuante : à quel irrépressible élan a-t-il fallu faire face !

Quelle fougue des compétiteurs, nouveaux comme anciens, a déferlé ce mois-ci, rendant le choix final tout simplement impossible !

Surprise: Defying Models, Antarctic Sea Ice Extent 100 Years Ago Similar To Today

by P. Gosselin, October 17, 2017 in NoTricksZone

from Dr. L. Lüning and Prof. F. Vahrenbolt


Satellite measurements of Antarctic sea ice do not go back even 40 years. That’s not very much, especially when we consider that many natural climate cycles have periods of 60 years and more.

Luckily we have the field of climate reconstruction. Using historical documents and sediment cores, the development of ice cover can be estimated. In November, 2016, Tom Edinburg and Jonathan Day examined shipping log books from the time of Antarctic explorers and published on ice extent in The Cryosphere (…)

Durable Original Measurement Uncertainty

by Kip Hansen, October 14, 2017 in WUWT


Temperature and Water Level (MSL) are two hot topic measurements being widely bandied about and vast sums of money are being invested in research to determine whether, on a global scale, these physical quantities — Global Average Temperature and Global Mean Sea Level — are changing, and if changing, at what magnitude and at what rate. The Global Averages of these ever-changing, continuous variables are being said to be calculated to extremely precise levels — hundredths of a degree for temperature and millimeters for Global Sea Level — and minute changes on those scales are claimed to be significant and important.

The End Of The Ocean Acidification Scare For Corals

by McCulloch et al., 2017, October 2017,  in co2science


Paper Reviewed: McCulloch, M.T., D’Olivo, J.P., Falter, J., Holcomb, M. and Trotter, J.A. 2017. Coral calcification in a changing world and the interactive dynamics of pH and DIC upregulation. Nature Communications 8: 15686, DOI:10.1038/ncomms15686

(…) The implications of the above findings are enormous, for they reveal that “pHcf upregulation occurs largely independent of changes in seawater carbonate chemistry, and hence ocean acidification,” demonstrating “the ability of the coral to ‘control’ what is arguably one of its most fundamental physiological processes, the growth of its skeleton within which it lives.

See also here

Antarctique: des milliers de bébés manchots meurent de faim en terre Adélie

by l’express, 13 october 2017


La découverte a été effectuée par des scientifiques français du CNRS, dans ce groupe qui vivait sur l’île de Petrels, en terre Adélie. Hormis les deux bébés manchots survivants, ils n’ont retrouvé que des corps d’animaux affamés et des oeufs non-éclos. Ces chercheurs, soutenus par le Fonds mondial pour la nature (WWF), observaient depuis 2010 cette colonie. Selon eux, l’étendue inhabituelle de la banquise a contraint les parents à aller plus loin chercher leur nourriture. Leur progéniture ont succombé à la faim.

Ce n’est pas le pétrole qui disparaît, c’est la demande de pétrole

by Philippe Simonnot, 12 october 2017 in Le Causeur


Le prix du baril de pétrole, qui était de 1 dollar en 1972, est monté à près de 150  dollars en 2013, avec des projections qui le voyaient aller jusqu’à 300  dollars. Et le voilà retombé aujourd’hui aux alentours de 50  dollars. Pour expliquer une évolution aussi spectaculaire, il faut comprendre que le pétrole a été à un moment  un prix politique, mais que la loi du marché a pris sa revanche

La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse