better to know...?, climate-debate

How IPCC’s 1990 Predictions Expensively Failed

by C. Monckton of Brenchley, Nov 8, 2022 in WUWT

It is now almost a third of a century since 1990, when IPCC made its first predictions about the weather. Since IPCC (2021) continues to predict the same 3 C° midrange long-term warming (equilibrium doubled-CO2 sensitivity, or ECS, broadly equivalent to 20th-century anthropogenic warming from all sources) as in 1990, it is high time someone examined IPCC’s medium-term predictions to shed light on the plausibility of its long-term predictions.

IPCC’s key medium-term prediction in 1990 was as follows –

“Based on current model results, we predict:

  • “under the IPCC Business-as-Usual (Scenario A) emissions of greenhouse gases, a rate of increase of global mean temperature during the next century of about 0.3 C° per decade (with an uncertainty range of 0.2 C° to 0.5 C° per decade). This is greater than that seen over the past 10,000 years. This will result in a likely increase in global mean temperature of about 1 C° above the present value by 2025 and 3 C° before the end of the next century. The rise will not be steady because of the influence of other factors.”

IPCC also predicted as follows –

This second business-as-usual prediction was that there would be 1.8 C° warming from preindustrial times to 2030. Deducting the 0.45 C° warming up to 1990, the prediction amounted to 1.35 C° or about 0.34 C°/decade. Thus, IPCC predicted 0.3-0.34 C°/decade medium-term warming. However, only 0.14 C°/decade has occurred since 1990

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better to know...?, climate-debate

New Research: Eastern U.S. Warming Over Last 50 Years Overstated By 50%

by C. Morrison, Nov 24, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch

The widespread use of regularly adjusted global and local surface temperature datasets showing increasingly implausible rates of warming has been dealt a further blow with new groundbreaking research that shows 50% less warming over 50 years across the eastern United States.

The research attempts to remove distortions caused by increasing urban heat and uses human-made structure density data over 50 years supplied by the Landsat satellites. [bold, links added]

The 50% reduction in the warming trend is in comparison with the official National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) homogenized surface temperature dataset.

The research was compiled by two atmospheric scientists at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Dr. Roy Spencer and Professor John Christy.

They used a dataset of urbanization changes called ‘Built-Up’ to determine the average effect that urbanization has had on surface temperatures.

Urbanization differences were compared to temperature differences from closely spaced weather stations. The temperature plotted was in the morning during the summertime.

A full methodology of the project is shown here in a posting on Dr. Spencer’s blog.

Dr. Spencer believes that the ‘Built-Up’ dataset, which extends back to the 1970s, will be useful in ‘de-urbanizing’ land-based surface temperature measurements in the U.S. as well as other countries.

All the major global datasets use temperature measurements from the Integrated Surface Database (ISD), and all have undertaken retrospective upward adjustments in the recent past.

In the U.K., the Met Office removed a ‘pause’ in global temperatures from 1998 to around 2010 by two significant adjustments to its HadCRUT database over the last 10 years.

The adjustments added about 30% warming to the recent record. Removing the recent adjustments would bring the surface datasets more in line with the accurate measurements made by satellites and meteorological balloons.

Of course, if the objective is to promote a command-and-control Net Zero project using widespread fear of rising temperatures to mandate huge societal and economic changes, a little extra warming would appear useful.

But warming on a global scale started to run out of steam over 20 years ago, and the stunt can only be pulled for so long before the disconnect with reality becomes too obvious.

There is a danger that the integrity of the surface measurements will be put on the line. Earlier this year, two top atmospheric scientists, Emeritus Professors William Happer and Richard Lindzen told a U.S. Government inquiry that “climate science is awash with manipulated data, which provides no reliable scientific evidence.”

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unclassified

Europe’s climate warming at twice rate of global average, claims WMO

by P. Homewood, Nov 4, 2022 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

Temperatures in Europe have increased at more than twice the global average in the last 30 years, according to a report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

The effects of this warming are already being seen, with droughts, wildfires and ice melts taking place across the continent. The European State of the Climate report, produced with the EU’s Copernicus service, warns that as the warming trend continues, exceptional heat, wildfires, floods and other climate breakdown outcomes will affect society, economies and ecosystems.

From 1991 to 2021, temperatures in Europe have warmed at an average rate of about 0.5C a decade. This has had physical results: Alpine glaciers lost 30 metres in ice thickness between 1997 and 2021, while the Greenland ice sheet has also been melting, contributing to sea level rise. In summer 2021, Greenland had its first ever recorded rainfall at its highest point, Summit station.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/02/europes-climate-warming-at-twice-rate-of-global-average-says-report

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The WMO is of course another UN organisation, so obviously cannot be trusted. Neither can any of its sources of data, such as NOAA, GISS and Berkeley Earth, which are based around homogenised data.

But what do we know about recent climate trends in Europe?

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climate-debate, LIA

Scotland In the Little Ice Age

by P. Homewood, Nov 3, 2022 in WUWT

Dundee University geographer Dr Martin Kirkbride said a glacier may have survived in the Cairngorms as recently as the 18th Century.

Britain’s last masses of slow-moving ice and snow were understood to have melted 11,500 years ago.

Dr Kirkbride studied the formation of corries in the Cairngorms.

A corrie is a basin-shaped feature created by glaciations in the mountains.

Using a technique called cosmogenic 10Be dating, Dr Kirkbride showed that a small glacier in a Cairngorms corrie piled up granite boulders to form moraine ridges within the past few centuries, during the period of cool climate known as the Little Ice Age.

Dr Kirkbride said: “Our laboratory dating indicates that the moraines were formed within the last couple of thousand years, which shows that a Scottish glacier existed more recently than we had previously thought.

“The climate of the last few millennia was at its most severe between 1650 and 1790.

“There are some anecdotal reports from that time of snow covering some of the mountain tops year-round. What we have now is the scientific evidence that there was indeed a glacier.”

Dundee University said scientists had speculated that glaciers may have re-formed in the Highlands around the time of this Little Ice Age but hard evidence has proved to be elusive.

Dr Kirkbride teamed up with Dr Jez Everest at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, and the Cosmogenic Isotope Analysis Facility at the Scottish Universities Environmental Reactor Centre in East Kilbride, to carry out the research.

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climate-debate

China, India set to snub Cop27 leaders’ climate summit

by Chloé Farad Nov 2, 2022 in ClimateHomeNews

A weak turnout is expected from major emitters in Sharm el-Sheikh, shifting the geopolitical showdown to a G20 leaders’ summit in Bali

Narendra Modi

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi at Cop26 in Glasgow in 2021 (Photo: IISD/ENB/ Kiara Worth )

 

The world’s biggest emitters won’t attend a leaders’ summit kicking off the Cop27 climate talks in Egypt next week. 

More than 100 heads of states and governments are expected to attend the two-day summit, on the theme of “implementation”, in the Red Sea beach resort of Sharm el-Sheikh 7-8 November.

Amid soaring inflation and deepening geopolitical tensions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the high-level event is a moment for leaders to recommit to international climate cooperation.

But a provisional list of speakers, dated 31 October, shows that neither China’s Xi Jinping nor India’s Narendra Modi are expected to attend.

US president Joe Biden won’t make the leader segment because of an agenda clash with the US mid-term elections on 8 November. A handful of tight races will determine whether the Democrats keep hold of the Senate.

Instead, Biden will travel to Sharm el-Sheikh on the 11 November, the White House has confirmed.

Cop27 movers and shakers: Nine people shaping the climate agenda

“The absence of China and India doesn’t help inject much-needed political momentum into the talks,” Tom Evans, of think tank E3G, told Climate Home News.

In fact, showing from the G20 group of major economies is expected to be poor.

Australia’s Anthony Albanese is skipping the meeting. Defending his decision, he told reporters he “can’t be in all places at once”. “This Cop is one of implementation. It’s not one of a new policy and program,” he said.

Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau, who has the worst emissions record in the G7, isn’t on the list. A government spokesperson confirmed he isn’t going to Sharm el-Sheikh.

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climate-debate

Allow children to learn about the Arctic without terrifying them with fantasies of climate catastrophe

by Polar Bear Science, Oct 31, 2022

This is a reminder that I have written three Arctic animal picture books, a polar bear ecology reference book, an Arctic ecology teaching guide (free) & a polar bear attack thriller suitable for teens, all of which let kids be kids.

In contrast to a book reviewer at the New York Times (30 October 2020), see image above:

Two new picture books and a novel for young readers place children at the center of climate calamity. Fittingly, they are stories of homes under threat; home, after all, is the thing climate change stalks, be it a house, a community or a livable planet. Each book offers its own lessons on how to cope with life under the monster we’ve created. The novel even shows how kids can help slay it.

No child needs this. Children need to be allowed to learn without being used as pawns in an adult political battle. Activist authors suggesting that climate change is a predator waiting to ‘stalk’ children’s homes and communities through floods and wildfires is reprehensible, not only because it isn’t true. Kids don’t need a ‘mini-primer on climate change’. Adults should fight their own battles and leave the kids alone. List of my books and links below and in the sidebar.

Polar Bear Facts & Myths, for middle-school kids: Available in six languages: English, French, German, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese. English version also available in ebook version.

Walrus Facts & Myths is available in English in paperback and ebook formats, also aimed at middle-school kids.

Free Arctic sea ice ecology teaching guide for middle-school age home schooled kids. The printable pdf booklet is free to download here.

Polar Bears Have Big Feet, for preschoolers in paperback only (because little kids need one too!).

Polar Bears: Outstanding Survivors of Climate Change, fully referenced information on polar bear ecology, suitable for teens and adults, in paperback and ebook formats.

EATEN: A novel, a polar bear attack thriller suitable for teens and adults, in paperback and ebook formats. Many readers have told me: “I couldn’t put it down.”

unclassified

Greta’s Back: COP27 A ‘Scam’, A Platform For ‘Greenwashing, Lying, Cheating’

by S. Smith, Oct 31, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Greta Thunberg has described climate summits such as the COP27 conference taking place in Egypt next week as a “scam” that is “failing” humanity and the planet by not leading to “major changes.”

The Swedish activist said people in positions of power were using the high-profile gatherings for attention and were “greenwashing, lying, and cheating”. [bold, links added]

“As it is now, COPs not are not really going to lead to any major changes, unless of course, we use them as an opportunity to mobilize,” she said on stage at the Southbank Centre’s London Literature Festival on Sunday where she was promoting her new work The Climate Book, an anthology of essays on the climate crisis from over one hundred experts.

Activists must try to “make people realize what a scam this is and realize that these systems are failing us”, she added.

This week the UN warned that there is “no clear pathway” in place to limit global heating to 1.5C – a target from the 2016 Paris Agreement – as only a handful of countries had strengthened their pledges to take action.

In a wide-ranging keynote address and on-stage interview with the journalist Samira Ahmed, Ms. Thunberg spoke on everything from politics and activism to how to deal with eco-anxiety.

Asked for her thoughts on the controversial tactics of groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, who have recently made headlines, including by throwing soup over Van Gough’s Sunflowers, the teenager said there was a broad range of actions so [she] couldn’t generalize, but that she thought it was “reasonable” to expect climate activists to try different kinds of actions.

“We’re right now in a very desperate position and many people are becoming desperate and are trying to find new methods because we realize that what we’ve been doing up until now has not done the trick,” she told Ahmed.

As for upsetting people, she said “harming people is one thing and making someone annoyed is a different thing.”

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See also : Greta Thunberg Spurns COP27, Lays Out Plans for World Domination

better to know...?, climate-debate

THE UNSTOPPABLE GROWTH OF GLOBAL GHG EMISSIONS

by R. Lyman, Oct 2022 in FriendsOfScience

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Contributed by Robert Lyman © 2022. Robert Lyman’s bio can be read here.

Advocates of the thesis that human greenhouse gas emissions are causing catastrophic climate change claim that United Nations-led international conferences will succeed in causing the countries of the world collectively to radically reduce fossil fuel use by 2050.

The “climate change” issue is a global one. It concerns the global effects of global emissions and the possibility that collective action by all the countries of the world (or, at least, the vast majority of major emitters) can so reduce emissions and concentrations as to eventually change global impacts. Since 1992, there has been a series of international conferences, mostly under the auspices of the United Nations, seeking agreement on how, by how much, and when to reduce emissions. In spite of these conferences and the series of agreements and lofty political statements they have produced, emissions actually rose by 60 per cent from 1990 to 2020. By 2021, China alone accounted for 30 per cent of world emissions, and was the fastest-growing source of emissions, followed by India.

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better to know...?, energy and fields

The problem with hydrogen

by Global Witness, Sept 1, 2022

Hydrogen could be an important part of the renewable energy transition, but not if the fossil fuel industry has its way.

At first glance, hydrogen seems to be the perfect solution to our energy needs. It doesn’t produce any carbon dioxide when used. It can store energy for long periods of time. It doesn’t leave behind hazardous waste materials, like nuclear does. And it doesn’t require large swathes of land to be flooded, like hydroelectricity.

All in all, hydrogen seems too good to be true. No wonder the energy industry is currently pushing hydrogen as the fuel of the future. So…what’s the catch?

Not all hydrogen is created equal

While it’s true that hydrogen is carbon-free at the point of use, this only tells part of the story. Before we get to the stage where hydrogen is used, it first needs to be produced. And it’s this process where the complications begin.

There are several different ways of producing hydrogen, with varying levels of carbon intensity. One is to pass an electric current through water, splitting the water molecules apart into their constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms. With this method, the key is what kind of electricity you’re using to create the electric current. If the electricity is from renewable sources, then the overall process will be effectively carbon free. If you’re using electricity generated by burning fossil fuels, then the hydrogen will be very carbon intensive.

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renewable energy

The Cost of Net Zero Electrification of the U.S.A.

by K.G. Gregory, Aug 23, 2022 in FriendsOfScience

Executive Summary
Many governments have made promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by replacing fossil fuels with solar and wind generated electricity and to electrify the economy. A report by Thomas Tanton estimates a capital cost of US$36.4 trillion for the U.S.A. economy to meet net zero emissions using wind and solar power. This study identifies several errors in the Tanton report and provides new capital cost estimates using 2019 and 2020 hourly electricity generation data rather than using annual average conditions as was done in the Tanton report. This study finds that the battery costs for replacing all current fossil fuel fired electricity with wind and solar generated electricity, using 2020 electricity data, is 111 times that estimated by the Tanton report. The total capital cost of electrification is herein estimated, using 2020 data, at US$290 trillion, or 13.5 times the U.S.A. 2019 gross domestic product. Overbuilding the solar plus wind capacity by 18% reduces overall costs by 17% by reducing battery storage costs. Allowing fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage to provide 60% of the electricity demand dramatically reduces the total costs from US$290 trillion to US$20.5 trillion, which is a reduction of 92.9%. Battery storage costs are highly dependent on the year’s weather and the seasonal shape of electricity demand.

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climate-debate

UN COP27 Blueprint: More Government, More Debt, More Taxes

by E. Worrall,  Oct 29, 2022 in WUWT

The unusual alignment of Western political and electoral cycles has created an unprecedented opportunity for a massive green power grab.

The following table from the UN Emissions Gap Report 2022 appears to summarise what the United Nations wants to achieve at COP27.

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The plan also calls for massive wealth transfers – joint projects, green investment clubs, and green banks for poor countries.

I wonder which wealthy nation is supposed to provide the bulk of the funding these green boondoggles would demand? I wonder is any of the taxpayer’s money transferred offshore to fund UN climate projects would somehow slip back into the pockets of some of the Western politicians who facilitated the transfer?

Only a strong voter turnout in the US midterm elections can prevent this massive transfer of wealth to other countries from happening.

All major English speaking nations are currently run by left wing net zero obsessed politicians – and I include the British Conservatives in this assessment.

The USA is the only major English speaking country which has a near term opportunity to stop this power grab, at the midterm elections on the 8th November this year.

Britain, Australia and Canada have much longer to wait until voters can deliver their verdict on UN climate communism. The next British national election does not have to occur until January 2025. Same for Australia. And Trudeau, who won an election in 2021, can also wait out his full four year term until 2025.

All eyes are on the United States. There could be a lot more riding on the midterm elections than who gets to control the US Congress and Senate.

climate-debate

Climate Fear Mongering Bad Analyses Cause Bad Remedies

by J. Steele, Oct 28, 2022 in WUWT

A review of how the media has been fear mongering a fabricated climate crisis which is only misdirecting and obscuring the best remedies needed to address environmental issues, and instead promoting solutions that are ultimately dangerous.

Jim Steele is Director emeritus of San Francisco State University’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus, authored Landscapes and Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism, and proud member of the CO2 Coalition.

Thanks for having me here. First, I am not a climate scientist. I am an ecologist, and I humbly note ecology requires a higher degree of thinking to untangle the many contributing causes of complex problems.

While director of San Francisco State University’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus, I was monitored 6 meadow systems in the Sierra Nevada for the Forest Service. One meadow began to dry, vegetation withered, and wildlife began disappearing. When I showed students and colleagues this meadow’s deterioration, I was struck by their knee jerk response. Despite just a half-hour visit, most declared this was just what global warming theory predicted. Rising CO2 was making the land warmer, drier and causing animals to go extinct.

In contrast, as an ecologist I had to consider landscape changes, geological history, changes to hydrology, biological interactions, as well as weather and natural climate changes. And I had been observing those effects for 15 years.

Historical temperatures revealed maximum temperatures were warmer in the 1930s. I eventually determined it was the disruption of stream flows and the water table that caused all the problems.

We restored the streams, raised the water table and the meadow became more resilient during droughts and wildlife became more abundant. Lowering CO2 emissions would have had no impact.

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climate-debate

River longer than the Thames beneath Antarctic ice sheet could affect ice loss

by Imperial College London, Oct7, 2022 in ScienceDaily

An unexpected river under the Antarctic ice sheet affects the flow and melting of ice, potentially accelerating ice loss as the climate warms.

The 460km-long river is revealed in a new study, which details how it collects water at the base of the Antarctic ice sheet from an area the size of Germany and France combined. Its discovery shows the base of the ice sheet has more active water flow than previously thought, which could make it more susceptible to changes in climate.

The discovery was made by researchers at Imperial College London, the University of Waterloo, Canada, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, and Newcastle University, with the details published today in Nature Geoscience.

Co-author Professor Martin Siegert, from the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, said: “When we first discovered lakes beneath the Antarctic ice a couple of decades ago, we thought they were isolated from each other. Now we are starting to understand there are whole systems down there, interconnected by vast river networks, just as they might be if there weren’t thousands of metres of ice on top of them.

“The region where this study is based holds enough ice to raise the sea level globally by 4.3m. How much of this ice melts, and how quickly, is linked to how slippery the base of the ice is. The newly discovered river system could strongly influence this process.”

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unclassified

Let’s Talk About Real Climate Cataclysms

by P. Driessen, Oct 26, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch

The climate crisis! Save our planet! Stop using fossil fuels! The ranting never ends.

Present data show that hurricane frequency and intensity are not increasing, and tornado activity has declined significantly since 1975.

Offer clear evidence of past, recurring major climate changes, including a widespread Little Ice Age from 1300 to 1850, a 2,400-year-old forest emerging from beneath a melting Alaskan glacier, a 5,200-year-old mummified traveler frozen on a once-nearly-ice-free Italian Alps trail – and they respond, Shut up! The climate crisis! The science is settled! Stop using fossil fuels! [bold, links added]

Fine. But take a few minutes to ponder REAL climate disasters: the Pleistocene Ice Ages.

And then ask Michael Mann, Al Gore, John Kerry, and the rest of the climate cataclysm cabal to explain exactly how carbon dioxide and a few other greenhouse gases caused those massive ice sheets to grow and melt, multiple times. Just CO2 and GHG, all by themselves. They can’t do it. The CO2-driven crisis is a fable.

Widespread glaciation began some 1,800,000 years ago in North America and Europe, and about 800,000 years earlier on other continents. There were at least four, possibly five, major glacial periods, interspersed with warm intervals (like the one we’re in now) during which the glaciers mostly melted.

That last glacial epoch is named the Wisconsinan because some of the most exemplary features are in my home state. It marks the furthest extent of glaciers southward into the United States and east and west across Canada.

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https://www.steynonline.com/12856/a-sennight-of-steyn-september-25-october-1
<www.generalistjournal.com>
Book: ‘The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science’
Book: ‘Human Caused Global Warming, the Biggest Deception in History’
https://www.technocracy.news/dr-tim-ball-on-climate-lies-wrapped-in-deception-smothered-with-delusion/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPzpPXuASY
https://www.technocracy.news/tim-ball-the-evidence-proves-that-co2-is-not-a-greenhouse-gas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOEFQDcT_lM

better to know...?, climate-debate

Shellenberger: Climactivists Turn To Temper Tantrums As Primary Tactic

by M. Schellenberger, Oct 25, 2022 in ClimateChangeDispatch

Dumping milk onto floors. Hurling food onto walls. Refusing to eat. Gluing body parts. Throwing paint. Refusing to leave. Threatening to pee and poop in your pants. Screaming accusations.

Are those the behaviors of a toddler’s temper tantrum? Yes. But they’re also the dominant tactics of today’s climate activists. [bold, links added]

Consider the case of Gianluca Grimalda. On October 19, Grimalda, along with 15 other members of a climate activist group called Scientist Rebellion, glued himself to the floor of the visitors center next to a Volkswagon factory in Germany.

The VW security guards brought pizza to Grimalda and the other activist scientists, but Grimalda felt disrespected and so he declared a hunger strike in retaliation.

Grimalda immediately expressed outrage at his treatment. “VW told us that they supported our right to protest,” he complained on Twitter, “but they refused our request to provide us with a bowl to urinate and defecate in a decent manner while we are glued, and have turned off the heating.”

Many were quick to point out the childish nature of the protest. “I’m a serious scientist protesting against fossil fuels,” wrote one user. “Now turn the gas heating on and bring me my potty.”

The activists say that such childish tactics were necessary. Grimalda tweeted that he and his colleagues are protesting “until our demands to decarbonize the German transport sector are met.”

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unclassified

Greenland Mass Balance

by Andy May, Oct 25, 2022 in WUWT

The following is from Cap Allon’s excellent post here. We are all used to the mainstream media distorting climate science data and analysis, but he has uncovered a case that is beyond the pale. Consider this post a follow up to Dave Middleton’s post earlier the month.

Read on in Cap Allon’s words:

MSM OBFUSCATION

[Greenland’s ‘healthy’ melt season, was obscured across the mainstream media.]

CNN wrote the following in July 20 article: “The amount of ice that melted in Greenland between July 15 and 17 was enough to fill 7.2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools or cover the entire state of West Virginia with a foot of water.”

They even have a quote from cLiMaTe ScIeNtIsT Ted Scambos: “The northern melt this past week is not normal, looking at 30 to 40 years of climate averages. But melting has been on the increase, and this event was a spike in melt.”

CNN is screaming about this period of melting (circled below):

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climate and geology

Another Study Says Europe Was At Times Warmer During The Last Glacial When CO2 Levels Were 40% Lower

by K. Richard, Oct 24, 2022 in NoTricksZone

The Earth was still in ice age conditions 14,700 to 12,900 years ago, or during the “Bolling interstadial.” CO2 hovered near 230 ppm at that time, and yet “continental Europe was a few degrees warmer than present” (Toth et al., 2022).

In recent years there have been multiple studies detailing a European climate that was as warm or warmer than today during the late Pleistocene ice age.

The latest study, Toth et al., 2022, uses chironomid proxy evidence to reconstruct summer temperatures at a lake site in the Eastern Carpathians.

These authors report that “continental Europe was a few degrees warmer than present during the Bolling interstadial,” and there were slightly (0.5°C) warmer-than-today periods (e.g., ~16,300 years ago) at the study site. The warming events were both pronounced (5°C) and abrupt.

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climate-debate, energy and fields

Global Climate Summit Is Heading for a Geopolitical Hurricane

by M. Champion and S. El Wardany, Oct 23, 2022 in Bloomberg

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As Egypt prepares to stage COP27, the geopolitical context that shapes all international diplomacy has gone from tense to precarious. The war in Ukraine has divided nations over what some saw as a fight between Russian and Western interests, and supercharged an energy crisis that risks shredding COP26’s most concrete achievement: a global consensus to cut down on coal.

As COP26 approached, falling prices for renewable energy seemed to have forced a reckoning for the dirtiest of fossil fuels. The final text of the summit included calls for a “phasedown” of coal power from any plant that doesn’t capture its carbon and an end to “inefficient” subsidies for fossil fuel. A year later, rampant energy price inflation has combined with a protracted energy crunch to revive demand for coal and put subsidies for fuel of any kind back on political agendas.

“COP27 is to be convened while the international community is facing a financial and debt crisis, an energy-prices crisis, a food crisis, and on top of them the climate crises,” says Egyptian Foreign Affairs Minister Sameh Shoukry, who’s also the conference’s president. “In light of the current geopolitical situation, it seems that transition will take longer than anticipated.”

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climate-debate

‘Scam’: Former climate change alarmist says agenda has ‘no foundation’

by J. Summers, Oct 20, 2022 in LifeSite

(LifeSiteNews) — A former climate alarmist appeared on Laura Ingraham’s FOX Newsprogram las week, calling climate alarmism, the belief that the world will suffer catastrophically as a result of  man-made climate change or global warming, a “scam.” 

Tom Harris, Executive Director of the International Climate Science Coalition, an organization that seeks to promote a better understanding of climate science, toldIngraham that contrary to the mainstream position, there is not an impending climate crisis.  

“I was originally an aerospace engineer,” Harris began, “and I would give speeches, and I wrote articles. I wrote one in the Ottawa Citizen about comparative climatology, how studying the planets helps us understand the earth better. And I used the example of the runaway greenhouse effect on Venus. I said ‘This could happen on the earth, if we don’t reduce carbon dioxide!’”  

“A local professor at Carleton University, a professor of geology, he liked my article so much he used it in his course on climate change,” Harris continued. “But he said to the students, ‘But that part about Venus is wrong. What happened on Venus cannot physically happen on earth,’ and he explained why.” 

Harris claimed that the professor took him to his lab and showed him his findings, as well as those of other scientists, recounting “At times, [carbon dioxide] was 1300% of today, and we were stuck in very cold conditions. So it was all over the board. So I started wondering, ‘Well, maybe he’s right.’”

Harris also stated that the professor introduced him to people that showed him that thousands of scientists who disagree with the so-called “climate consensus,” shattering the proposition that most scientists believe in global warming.

Harris then brought out a book that dismantles the claims of thousands of articles about the climate crisis, showing that “there is no foundation” to the proposition. 

“Here’s a book actually that illustrates that, it’s called Climate Change Reconsidered, and this is on climatechangereconsidered.org,” Harris said. “There are thousands of references here which talk about the fact that there is no foundation to the climate scam. It’s all based on models that don’t work.” 

When asked by Ingraham if the science around climate and climate change was “settled science,” Harris answered in the negative.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

“It was an Ambush”: The Long Fight against Climate Deniers

by E. Worrall, Oct 22, 2022 in WUWT

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Read more: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/10/20/the-long-fight-against-climate-change-deniers

I’m not sure why Stott seems to think the Paris Agreement is such a success. The world is currently burning record amounts of coal, so I think we can safely add the Paris Agreement to the scrapheap of failed climate initiatives, regardless of political rhetoric.

As for Russia, Russians have likely been skeptical of Western climate science ever since Western scientists ignored Russian advice there was no evidence of unusual warming in the 20th century.

In 1998 scientist Rashit Hantemirov, of the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, Russian Academy of Sciences, tried to explain to Keith Briffa, who helped Michael Mann construct his iconic hockey stick, that the position of the polar timber line, the northern most point at which trees can grow, was the tree metric Russia uses for measuring historic changes in Arctic temperature. Hantemirov’s advice to Briffa was “… there are no evidences of moving polar timberline to the North during last century…“. That same polar timberline metric showed evidence of substantial movement during the medieval warm period, and other well documented historic warming and cooling events (Climategate email 0907975032.txt).

Western scientists seem to prefer tree rings – but even Mann’s colleagues admitted amongst themselves that tree rings are a questionable gauge of historic temperature. Climate scientist Tom Wigley wrote an email to Professor Michael Mann in 2003, in which he explained how his own son performed a high school science experiment which demonstrated Mann’s tree ring metric was likely measuring changes in precipitation rather than changes in temperature (Climategate 2 email 0682.txt).

We can only guess what Russian scientists thought of all this absurdity – but the evidence suggests they decided it was too funny watching Western climate scientists act like fools, to make a serious effort to interrupt the joke.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Phantom Forests: Why Ambitious Tree Planting Projects Are Failing

by Fred Pearce, Oct 6, 2022 in YaleEnvironment360

High-profile initiatives to plant millions of trees are being touted by governments around the world as major contributions to fighting climate change. But scientists say many of these projects are ill-conceived and poorly managed and often fail to grow any forests at all.

It was perhaps the most spectacular failed tree planting project ever. Certainly the fastest. On March 8, 2012, teams of village volunteers in Camarines Sur province on the Filipino island of Luzon sunk over a million mangrove seedlings into coastal mud in just an hour of frenzied activity. The governor declared it a resounding success for his continuing efforts to green the province. At a hasty ceremony on dry land, an official adjudicator from Guinness World Records declared that nobody had ever planted so many trees in such a short time and handed the governor a certificate proclaiming the world record. Plenty of headlines followed.

But look today at the coastline where most of the trees were planted. There is no sign of the mangroves that, after a decade of growth, should be close to maturity. An on-the-ground study published in 2020 by British mangrove restoration researcher Dominic Wodehouse, then of Bangor University in Wales, found that fewer than 2 percent of them had survived. The other 98 percent had died or were washed away.

“I walked, boated, and swam through this entire site. The survivors only managed to cling on because they were sheltered behind a sandbank at the mouth of a river. Everything else disappeared,” one mangrove rehabilitation expert wrote in a letter to the Guinness inspectors this year, which he shared with Yale Environment 360on the condition of anonymity. The outcome was “entirely predictable,” he wrote. The muddy planting sites were washed by storms and waves and were otherwise “ecologically unsuited to mangrove establishment, because they are too waterlogged and there is no oxygen for them to breathe.”

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climate-debate

There Were 23 Global Warming Jolts Many Times Faster And Greater Than Modern During The Last Glacial

by K. Richard, July 29, 2022 in NoTricksZone

Dozens of rapid warming and cooling periods episodically occurred throughout the last glacial. However, they have often been dismissed as local-only events. A 2020 study published in Science robustly affirms steeper-than-today warming periods spanned both hemispheres and 23 of 25 were “globally synchronous.” 

Geologists have long recognized that Greenland abruptly warmed up by 5 to 16°C “within a few decades to centuries” about 25 times in the last ~100,000 years (Capron et al., 2021).

These past abrupt climate changes do not even require a clear external trigger to explain their provenance. They can simply be “unforced or noise-induced oscillations” internal to the climate system (Capron et al., 2021, Li and Born, 2019).

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better to know...?, climate-debate

LA Times reveals 2020 CA Wildfire CO2 Wiped Out 18 Years of the State’s Emissions Reductions

by L. Hamlin, Oct 22, 2022 in WUWT

The article notes that “researchers estimated that about 127 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent were released by the fires, compared with about 65 million metric tons of reductions achieved in the previous 18 years.”

The Times article provided the usual climate alarmist hype that “climate change” is responsible for the California’s increased wildfire damage noting:

“Forests have long played a role in that system, with large trees sequestering carbon and helping to alleviate some emissions. But California’s new breed of climate-change-fueled fires are burning hotter and faster than those of the past, sometimes slowing the regrowth process and even converting some areas from coniferous trees into grasslands, shrubs and chaparral, the researchers said.”

However a 2021 prior WUWT article addressed the fact that year 2020 wildfire emissions likely wiped out the state AB 32 emissions reductions and also addressed in detail the huge state government forest management failures that have contributed to the states wildfire growth and increasing risks over the past decade with these critical failures hidden from view in the Times article.  This prior WUWT article notes:

“California’s climate alarmists claim “climate change” is responsible for this wildfire outcome but an extensive 2018 California Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) report presents clear and compelling evidence demonstrating that decades of forest mismanagement by the state have in fact created the growing wildfire crisis.

The LAO report notes that increased fire risks are present throughout California driven by forest conditions that have been allowed by the state to develop for decades.”

Provided below are some of the highlights (or lowlights) of the state governments forest management failures that have led directly to increased wildfire growth and risks that have nothing to do with “climate change” as addressed in the states LAO analysis and presented in the prior WUWT article.

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climate-debate

Scientists Warn of a Rare Third Year La Nina

by INSTITUTE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES,  Oct 21, 2022 in WUWT

El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is an irregular periodic variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean that affects the climate of much of the tropics and subtropics. This natural phenomenon is important to study because of the socioeconomic impacts it can have on matters such as food security, agricultural production, human health and water resources, to name but a few.

With its strong preference to peak during boreal winter and rapidly decay in spring (known as “phase-locking”), and quasi-periodic oscillations of 2–7 years, historically, ENSO rarely maintains for long in either its cold phase (La Niña) or warm phase (El Niño). However, since the turn of the current century, three instances of so-called “double dip” La Niña events have occurred, in 2007–09, 2010–12 and 2020–22.

This succession of double-dip La Niña events is intriguing enough in itself; but now, based on updated data from several organizations issued in April 2022, it seems that the current event is likely to continue through the boreal summer and fall of 2022, suggesting a strong possibility of a third-year La Niña lasting from 202023.

“This would be the first third-year La Niña since the 1998–2001 event, which was the only such event observed since 1980,” explains Dr Xianghui Fang from Fudan University, China.

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See also : Alarmist Scientist Tim Flannery’s Drought Prediction Contradicted… “Heavy Rainfalls” 3 Years In a Row

La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse