Theologian Thunberg and the pseudo-religion

by B. Muehlenberg, Mar 26, 2023 in Spectator


Imagine that: it seems that Greta Thunberg is now a top theologian…? Yes, I realise that honorary degrees are usually not worth the paper they are printed on, but in what has to be the joke of the decade, climate change activist (and some may say, alarmist) Greta Thunberg has been awarded an honorary doctorate in theology from the Theology Faculty at the University of Helsinki.

The 20-year-old Swede has already been honoured with a doctorate by the Belgian University of Mons, and was named Time’s ‘Person of the Year’ in 2019. She is held up by many as our ‘only hope’ to stop the apocalypse. About the only accolade left is to proclaim her to be the long-awaited Messiah.

Yet as far as I can tell, Thunberg does not have a theological bone in her body – certainly not any Christian ones. If that is the case, why do we have another Woke university declaring her a theologian worthy of praise? Wow, not bad for a day’s work…

Emissions and CO2 Concentration: An Evidence Based Approach

by J. Dangler & J. Reid, Mar 25, 2023 in WUWT


A new way of looking at the the atmospheric carbon budget.

Climate science is usually concerned about the question “How much CO2 remains in the atmosphere?”, given the anthropogenic emissions and the limited capability of oceans and biosphere to absorb the surplus CO2 concentration. This has led to conclusions of the kind that a certain increasing part of anthropogenic emissions will remain in the atmosphere forever. The frequently used notion of “airborne fraction”, which is the part of anthropogenic emissions remaining in the atmosphere, seems to suggest this.

Assuming the unlikely worst case that CO2 concentration is fully responsible for all global temperature changes, the maximum expected rise of global temperature caused by the expected CO2 concentration rise is 0.4 _C from now or 1.4°C from the beginning of industrialisation.

The 1.5 C Temperature Fiction, Already Exceeded

by J. Marohasy, Mar 21, 2023 in WUWT


From Jennifer Marohasy’s blog

March 21, 2023 By jennifer

It is all over the news, another climate change report from the IPCC – the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Of course, it tells us that the end is nigh unless we do something to prevent temperatures exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius. Meanwhile, not one of the contributors has any proven capacity to accurately forecast the weather more than a few days in advance, nor much of an idea of the quality of the temperature data inputted into the simulation models claiming the Earth is burning up. Yet they claim to be able to forecast temperatures years in advance and repeat over and over the value of 1.5 C as representing a tipping point.

The reality is that annual maximum temperatures across Australia were mostly falling, and by much more than 1.5 C, from at least 1910 to 1960 and then increasing, and by more than 1.5 C, since 1960.

There are few locations across Australia where temperatures have been recorded at the one place and using standard equipment (including in a Stevenson screen with a mercury thermometer) much before 1908. Darwin in the Northern Territory and Richmond in Queensland are special because they have long and relatively reliable temperature records. Making a single adjustment to the Darwin temperature record to correct for the move from the post office to the airport (after the post office was bombed in WW II), it is evident from the chart that both temperature series show cooling and then warming over the last century and by much more than 1.5 C over periods of less than a decade.

Media Regurgitates IPCC’s ‘Final Warning’ on Climate Change – Without Realizing We’ve Already Passed 1.5°C

by A. Watts, Mar 25, 2023 in WUWT


Originally posted at ClimateREALISM

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the final part of its sixth assessment report (AR6) on Monday, March 20. Predictably, the media rushed to repeat the claims made in the report with their own scary, woefully overwrought, headlines. Here is a sample: The Washington Post – World is on brink of catastrophic warming, U.N. climate change report says; NBC News – Now or never: One of the biggest climate reports ever shows time is running outThe Guardian – Scientists deliver ‘final warning’ on climate crisis: act now or it’s too late; and finally Inside Climate News, with inarguably the worst headline New IPCC Report Shows the ‘Climate Time Bomb Is Ticking,’ Says UN Secretary General António Guterres.

Each of mainstream media outlets predict that “climate doom” is just around the corner, and they’re all wrong.

The reason? The newest IPCC report laments the fact that Earth will soon pass the 1.5°C level of temperature rise, seen in the projection in Figure 1. The current extrapolation is to reach 1.5°C by April 2035.

 

 

Based on that projection, the IPCC and the media predict very bad things will happen if we don’t “act now before it’s too late.” The most recent report in the AR6 series contains no new information, rather it reiterates the warnings made the physical science portion of the report issued in the summer of 2021, which also mentioned approaching 1.5°C.

Interestingly, the “before it’s too late” language has been used since 2005, when worry about just 1°C was the big doomsday news:

NASA scientist Jim Hansen introduced the “too late” language about climate change in 2005, arguing that “We have to stabilize emissions of carbon dioxide within a decade, or temperatures will warm by more than one degree [C]… we don’t have much time left”.

We heard the same type of language in 2007, when the IPCC released their Fourth Assessment Report. The headlines in The Guardian said “time is running out” and warming “could be irreversible.

The IPCC’s Dangerous Dance With Climate Misinformation And Political Demands

by R. Pielke Jr., Mar 23, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch


The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an important institution. I have often said that if it did not exist, it would have to be invented. The IPCC is often referred to as a model for how to do a scientific assessment.

Consequently, we should have the highest standards for evaluating its work, not least because climate change is important, and effective mitigation and adaptation policies are essential. [emphasis, links added]

Below I share a brief few critiques of the culminating report of the current IPCC cycle, called the Synthesis Report. The new report covers six IPCC reports published over the past nine years.

Before proceeding, it is crucial to understand that the IPCC is not a single entity or group of people. It is many different groups doing many different things, with many strengths — for instance, WG1 on extremes was particularly good.

The IPCC also has some notable weaknesses — its reliance on out-of-date scenarios most obviously. The Synthesis Report was written by a small group of people.

For better or worse, the work of this small group of people reflects upon the entire IPCC and the years of effort leading to this week’s report.

If I were an IPCC participant not involved with the Synthesis Report, I’d be pretty upset. My view is that the IPCC has strayed far from its role to assess the scientific literature in support of policymaking.

It has increasingly taken on a stance of explicit political advocacy and as it does so it has ignored and even misrepresented relevant science.

The IPCC needs a complete overhaul.

Below are some more detailed thoughts on the Synthesis Report.

Scientific Assessment Minus the Science

New Study: Atmospheric CO2 Residence Time Is Only 5 Years – Too Short To ‘Affect The Climate’

by P. Stallinga, Mar 23, 2023 in NoTricksZone

Since the early 1990s the conventional assumption, aligned with modeling, has been that a molecule of human CO2 emission stays in the atmosphere –  its residence time – for centuries. This fits the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) narrative. But empirical evidence contradicts these model-based assumptions. Residence time is closer to 5-10 years.

In Table 1 of a new study, Stallinga (2023) compiled a list of 36 published estimates of CO2 residence time spanning the decades 1957-1992. All of these scientists determined CO2’s atmospheric residence time is about 5 to 10 years or less.

Of course, these were the pre-IPCC decades in climate research, when “the science” was pursued independent of government interference. For example, it was still acceptable in the 1950s to early 1990s for scientists to publish actual ice core measurements showing the atmospheric CO2 content ranged up to 700 ppm, even 2,450 ppm, in the ice sheets and glaciers examined throughout the last 10,000 years (Jaworowski et al., 1992).

An actual residence time that is 20 to 40 times shorter in duration than what an AGW modeled thought experiments allow undermines the dangerous greenhouse gas accumulation talking points, as “if the residence time is below 30 years, injections of CO2 in the atmosphere would, just as water, not affect the climate” (Stallinga, 2023).

In addition to compiling an exhaustive list of past estimates supporting a 5-10 year residence time, Dr. Stallinga cites the evidence from atomic bomb tests, the lack of any atmospheric CO2 effect from the pandemic lockdowns and associated sharp drop in  emissions, and the lead-lag relationship CO2 emission has with temperature as evidence supporting the once commonly-accepted conclusion that CO2 residence is closer to 5 years, not centuries.

The Global Warming Doomsday Religion Is A Suicide Pact To Wreck Our Economy

by W. Crockett, Mar 14, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch


There is no scientific evidence that the minuscule 0.01% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) since 1780 has had any effect on the Earth’s average temperature.

Nonetheless, in the 1980s, a religious/political movement against man-made or anthropogenic CO2 arose.

It was driven by catastrophic predictions from a gaggle of impenetrable and undecipherable computer climate models operated by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and quickly metastasized into a worldwide mass movement with all the fervor of a new evangelical religion.

Composition of the Atmosphere: The tropospheric atmosphere is composed of 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 1% argon, 0.4 to 4% water vapor, and several trace gases.

The largest trace gas is carbon dioxide at 0.041%, followed by methane at 0.0018%, and nitrous oxide at 0.0003%. The volume of atmospheric molecules is also expressed in terms of parts per million (ppm): nitrogen 780,000 ppm, oxygen 210,000 ppm, and argon 10,000 ppm.

Scientists have also speculated that water vapor constitutes something between 4,000 and 40,000 ppm, depending on time and location. By contrast, the trace gas CO2 has only 410 molecules per million (.041%); methane (CH4) has only a minuscule 1.8 molecules per million; and nitrous oxide (N2O) is only a barely detectable 1/3 molecule per million.

All atmospheric molecules create a blanket of heat that slows the loss of infrared radiation to space. The sun’s short-wave radiation passes through the troposphere generally unimpeded by nitrogen, oxygen, and argon molecules to the surface, which increases the kinetic motion (heat) of all impacted surface and atmospheric molecules.1

The increased molecular motion, in turn, increases full spectrum (blackbody) infrared radiation (IR) in all directions. All atmospheric molecules, including water vapor and CO2, take up the additional heat by conduction (contact), from both the surface and surrounding atmospheric molecules.

A Primer On The IPCC’s Implausible Climate Scenarios

by R. Pielke, Mar 17, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch


Next Monday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will release its so-called “Synthesis Report” which will integrate the findings of six different reports that it has released since 2014.

I have not participated in the IPCC nor have I seen the new report.

However, I have little doubt that one of the main issues that we will be discussing next week when the report is released will be the implausible climate scenarios that underpin much of the work of the IPCC over the past 9 years.[emphasis, links added]

Research I’ve been involved in — along with colleagues Matthew Burgess and Justin Ritchie — shows that theemissions scenarios that have guided the work of the IPCC and the broader climate research community are widely off the mark.

In short, they are far too extreme, both in what they project for today and especially into the future.

Our work is part of a growing consensus in the literature about the implausibility of extreme climate scenarios — a consensus so strong that it was acknowledged in the most recent IPCC assessmentreports, even though it complicated their messages.

The ubiquity of out-of-date scenarios throughout recent IPCC reports and the underlying literature that is has assessed means that the IPCC Synthesis Report, summarizing its work since 2014, runs the risk of promoting out-of-date science.

Rainfall, Cyclone Data Show No Clear Upward Trend, Contradict IPCC Claims

by P. Gosselin, Mar 19, 2023, in NoTricksZone


Feel helpless when trying to assess the veracity of “climate doom is looming” claims? Don’t give up trying to understand the relevant basics because you don’t need to be a scientist to do so.

There is a rather simple way to get an idea about what this is all about. Even without a scientific background, most people have at least a good common sense. And that’s all it takes to get a grasp of how energy flows back and forth between earth’s surface and the skies.

Today in Part 5, we look at the linkage between the allegedly CO2-driven rise of air and sea surface temperatures on the one side and the disconnect between these increases and their strangely weak to insignificant impact on rainfall and hurricane intensity”.

Preceding chapters see Part 1 1), Part 2 2), Part 3 3), Part 4 4).

Variability of cloud effects vs “greenhouse gas” effects

In the last chapter, we have seen that there are some discrepancies between the global warming trend as claimed by the official climate science and the local evolution of rainfall, which should be a direct consequence of higher temperatures since this causes more evaporation. This seems not to be the case e.g. for Germany, see Fig. 1:

Barry Brill: The Climate Emperor Is Now Naked

by B. Brill, Mar 18, 2023 in ClimateRealism


 

The survey of 950 U.S. Likely Voters was conducted on March 6-8, 2023. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

The result (reported here) was breathtaking!An outright majority of those polled agreed that climate change has become a religion which has nothing to do with the climate. Almost half (47%) said they “Strongly Agree” while a further 13% said they “Agree”.

It’s hard to digest the fact that no less than 60% of US voters have now formed the clear view that the endless propaganda we hear daily from our politicians and corporate media actually has nothing to do with science or genuine alarm – it isn’t even about the climate. Instead, it’s all about political power and control.

Nearly half of those polled have strong feelings about this. That seems to suggest that they are a million miles from swallowing the orthodox narrative and are no longer persuadable. Although they weren’t asked, one can assume that they are fed up with the propaganda and want to be treated as adults.

Surprisingly, nearly half of the Democrats polled agreed that climate change has become a religion. But there was still a significant difference between the parties, the breakdown being:

Democrats:             45%

Independents:         60%

Republicans:          79%

There is no reason to believe that adult New Zealanders would feel any different from their American counterparts. And the breakdown between political parties would probably be much the same here as well.

 

See also: The Global Warming Doomsday Religion Is A Suicide Pact To Wreck Our Economy

Intense, Long-Lasting Heatwaves Unfolding At The Bottom Of The Ocean

by G. Dickie, Mar 16, 2023 in ClimateChangDispatch


Heatwaves unfolding on the bottom of the ocean can be more intense and last longer than those on the sea surface, new research suggests, but such extremes in the deep ocean are often overlooked.

A team of scientists with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has conducted the first assessment of marine heatwaves along North America’s continental shelves.

They found that these bottom heatwaves ranged from 0.5 degrees Celsius to 3C warmer than normal temperatures and could last more than six months — much longer than heatwaves at the surface.

“We simply don’t have a ton of instruments on the ocean bottom along continental shelves,” said study co-author Dillon Amaya, an NOAA climate scientist. “The ocean is a powerful thing. It destroys instruments that we have in the water for too long.

Surface heatwaves can be picked up by satellites and can result in huge algal blooms.

Claim: A Majority of Voters believe Climate Change is a False Religion

by E. Worrall, Mar 15, 2023 in WUWT


But just maybe the tide is turning.

A lot of things have been going wrong for wind and solar fanatics lately. Biden, arguably the President with the greatest record of subsidizing unreliable wind and solar in America’s history, had his chance to bring down energy prices with his solar panels and wind turbines. Instead, he delivered the spectacle of the US Secretary of State crawling to the Saudis, begging for access to their oil, oil which could have been delivered by the Keystone Pipeline and other petroleum projects the Biden administration sabotaged.

In Britain and Germany – energy prices. Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany has implausibly promised an energy miracle, but Britain and Europe have already waited a long time for the promised reward for all the hardship they have endured and the trillion Pounds and Euros spent over the last few decades.

The measures Britain and Germany have taken to avert catastrophe in the face of Russian gas supply disruption, and the utter failure of  the climate alarmist’s energy programmes to deliver, are beyond embarrassing. Germany is bulldozing villagesold growth forests, even a wind farm to dig up coal to avoid further deindustrialization caused by their maniacal reliance on intermittent wind and solar. Britain deferred decommissioning her decrepit coal plants. Just as well, Britain needed those coal plants again just last week.

In Australia, Prime Minister Albanese, who won on the promise of a substantial drop in energy prices, well that promise is now looking pretty shaky. Household energy prices are set to rise 20%, 30% next year?Who knows. What we do know, is it will be a lot – and the dirt cheap coal power which bring down prices is scheduled to be shut down.

With the promises of the climate religion wearing thin, and climate concern faltering in the face of mortgage stress and soaring energy bills, perhaps this Rasmussen poll is what it appears to be – an early indication of a sea change in public opinion concerning climate change and climate action.

Active volcano on Venus shows it’s a living planet

by P. Voosen, Mar 15, 2023 in Science


Eruption spotted in 30-year-old data from Magellan mission

Choked by a smog of sulfuric acid and scorched by temperatures hot enough to melt lead, the surface of Venus is sure to be lifeless. For decades, researchers also thought the planet itself was dead, capped by a thick, stagnant lid of crust and unaltered by active rifts or volcanoes. But hints of volcanism have mounted recently, and now comes the best one yet: direct evidence for an eruption. Geologically, at least, Venus is alive.

The discovery comes from NASA’s Magellan spacecraft, which orbited Venus some 30 years ago and used radar to peer through the thick clouds. Images made 8 months apart show a volcano’s circular mouth, or caldera, growing dramatically in a sudden collapse. On Earth, such collapses occur when magma that had supported the caldera vents or drains away, as happened during a 2018 eruption at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano. “I’m totally tickled, as a geomorphologist, to see this,” says Martha Gilmore, a planetary scientist at Wesleyan University who was not involved in the study.

Witnessing this unrest during the short observation period suggests either Magellan was spectacularly lucky, or, like Earth, Venus has many volcanoes spouting off regularly, says Robert Herrick, a planetary scientist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Herrick, who led the study, says, “We can rule out that it’s a dying planet.”

See also : A volcano on Venus was spotted erupting in decades-old images

The Global Warming Doomsday Religion Is A Suicide Pact To Wreck Our Economy

by D.W. Crockett, Mar 14, 2023 in ClimateChangeDispatch


There is no scientific evidence that the minuscule 0.01% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) since 1780 has had any effect on the Earth’s average temperature.

Nonetheless, in the 1980s, a religious/political movement against man-made or anthropogenic CO2 arose.

It was driven by catastrophic predictions from a gaggle of impenetrable and undecipherable computer climate models operated by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and quickly metastasized into a worldwide mass movement with all the fervor of a new evangelical religion.

As Eric Hoffer observes in his book, The True Believer, “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in God, but never without belief in a devil.”

In this new “doomsday” mass movement, millions of people truly believe that man-made CO2 is a modern-day devil that will cause glaciers to melt, seas to rise, and coastlines to submerge. They also believe that mankind can, and must, save the planet from this catastrophe by reducing emissions of the devil CO2 to net zero.

Those who don’t believe are labeled “climate deniers,” a derogatory reference to those who deny that the Nazis perpetrated the Holocaust.

Unfortunately, most politicians in the U.S., Canada, and Europe, as well as the press and heads of many large corporations have blindly joined this Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) religion to stamp out the CO2 devil.

..

….

World Energy: There Is No Energy Transition, Just Unreliable Energy Addition

by L. Weijers, Mar 12, 2023 WillemPost


As Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright explained in his viral video a few weeks ago, dishonest terminology surrounds the climate debate.  One of these terms is “Energy Transition”.

The term’s use gives the impression that there exists a quick, easy and scalable alternative to eliminate fossil fuel use without serious impact on people.

Current primary energy distribution, by source, and forecasts by organizations, such as the EIA in their International Energy Outlook 2021, show that this “energy transition” is non-existent.

SEE URL FOR A BETTER RESOLUTION GRAPH

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/03/12/there-is-no-energy-transitio…

Also see Liberty’s ESG report on Bettering Human Lives,

No present quantity of primary energy generated by oil or gas or coal is currently replaced by renewables. 

A couple of headlines from the Liberty report that you don’t hear a lot:

  • Global primary energy use is about to grow by almost 50% between 2020 – 2050, due to impoverished people rising from poverty;
  • Oil consumption rises in all EIA scenarios. In their “Reference Scenario”, oil consumption rises at about 1 million barrels of oil per year for the next 30 years, almost the same steady yearly increase of the last 5 decades;
  • Natural gas consumption will continue to growth through 2050.

The reason for this growth is simple: fossil fuels are abundant, cheap and efficient to provide reliable and dense energy at scale.

They have helped to generate a quality-of-life revolution for a portion of humanity, THE GOLDEN BILLION.

 people in poverty who have missed out on this blessing rightfully want what you and I already have.

Sadly, few entities report on this blessing we take for granted.

Good news about renewables is breaking records, however, much of it is bogus.

There are marketing strategies/ruses renewable advocates have used that make it appear as if renewables have a larger market share than in reality:

CMIP6 GCM Validation Based on ECS and TCR Ranking for 21st Century Temperature Projections and Risk Assessment

by N. Scafetta, Feb 9, 2023 in MDPI_Atmosphere


Abstract

Global climate models (GCMs) from the sixth Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phases (CMIP6) have been employed to simulate the twenty-first-century temperatures for the risk assessment of future climate change. However, their transient climate response (TCR) ranges from 1.2 to 2.8 °C, whereas their equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) ranges from 1.8 to 5.7 °C, leading to large variations in the climatic impact of an anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2 levels. Moreover, there is growing evidence that many GCMs are running “too hot” and are hence unreliable for directing policies for future climate changes. Here, I rank 41 CMIP6 GCMs according to how successfully they hindcast the global surface warming between 1980 and 2021 using both their published ECS and TCR estimates. The sub-ensemble of GCMs with the best performance appears to be composed of the models with ECS ranging between 1.8 and 3.0 °C (which confirms previous studies) and TCR ranging between 1.2 and 1.8 °C. This GCM sub-ensemble is made up of a total of 17 models. Depending on the emission scenarios, these GCMs predict a 2045–2055 warming of 1.5–2.5 °C compared to the pre-industrial era (1850–1900). As a result, the global aggregated impact and risk estimates seem to be moderate, which implies that any negative effects of future climate change may be adequately addressed by adaptation programs. However, there are also doubts regarding the actual magnitude of global warming, which might be exaggerated because of urban heat contamination and other local non-climatic biases. A final section is dedicated to highlighting the divergences observed between the global surface temperature records and a number of alternative temperature reconstructions from lower troposphere satellite measurements, tree-ring-width chronologies, and surface temperature records based on rural stations alone. If the global warming reported by the climate records is overestimated, the real ECS and TCR may be significantly lower than what is produced by the CMIP6 GCMs, as some independent studies have already suggested, which would invalidate all of the CMIP6 GCMs.

Met Office accused of implausible worst-case climate prediction

by P. Homewood, Mar 9, 2023 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat


The Met Office claims are derived from computer modelling based on the so-called RCP8.5 emissions scenario, the most extreme pathway for global greenhouse gas emissions, which the Met Office misleadingly describes as “plausible”.


In reality, most credible scientists regard RCP8.5 as implausible given that global emissions data and technological advances essentially rule it out. As a result, the Biden Administration has abandoned using this discredited worst-case scenario.
Moreover, the Met Office offers no empirical data in evidence that an increased trend in extreme rainfall events has actually been observed in line with their modelling. In fact some studies suggest the opposite may have occurred in recent decades.


Dr Benny Peiser, the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, called on the Met Office to withdraw its fatally flawed study:
“The Met Office should withdraw this grossly misleading and baseless study which is undermining its scientific credibility and integrity and makes it look incompetent.”

 

 
Additional information about RCP8.5  


* Roger Pilke Jr.: The Biden Administration Abandons RCP8.5
* Anders Bolling: This is how the UN’s worst scenario was normalized and distorted our view of global warming
* Tim Worstall: A Saviour Spurned: How fracking saved us from global warming (pdf)

New Study: Roman And Medieval Warm Periods Were 2.8°C Warmer Than 1970-2000 In Central China

by K. Richard, Mar 13, 2023 in NoTricksZone


A series of paleoclimate lake reconstructions across China in recent years have failed to support the global-scale warming narrative.

Per a new lake temperature reconstruction (Li et al., 2023) from Central China, there were distinct “warm intervals during the RWP [Roman Warm Period] (403–413 CE), with a temperature 2.89°C higher than that of the mean for 1970–2000 CE, and during the MWP [Medieval Warm Period] (864–882 and 965–994 CE), when the temperature was 2.81°C higher.”

There are 8 other lake sediment reconstructions from the region (Qinghai, Gahai, Sugan, Kusai, Tiancai, Heiahi, Lugu, Cuoqia) documented in the study. None of the 8 are shown to have a modern temperature uptick that would support the claims of an unusually warm modern climate relative to past millennia.

Recent Shoreline Changes To Pacific Islands ‘Dwarfed’ By Change Magnitudes Of The Past

by K. Richard, Mar 6, 2023 in NoTricksZone

Most of the 1100 Pacific and Indian Ocean islands have been growing, not shrinking in size, in the last half century.

Activists convinced humans are able to exert fundamental control over ocean dynamics claim the rates of sea level rise and modern climate change are so rapid and unprecedented that modern changes are dramatically affecting shoreline movement on low-lying islands.

But a new study (Kench et al., 2023) assesses the opposite may be true. Recent shoreline changes (±40 m/50 years) are “dwarfed” by the shoreline changes (±200 m/100 years) that occurred throughout previous centuries. Globally, here is nothing “unprecedented” about what has been occurring with reef island shoreline dynamics in recent decades.

Of the global database of 1,100 Pacific and Indian Ocean reef islands, the “dominant mode of response has been the expansion of islands on reef surfaces (>53%)” over the last half-century. Only 0.3% (3 of 1,100) of islands have experienced “total loss.” Similarly, Duvat (2019) found 89% of 709 global-scale islands have been either stable or growing in size since the 1980s.

Of the islands sampled for the study, none are older than 1,400 years. Before then, they were submerged beneath the sea due to the much higher sea levels of the past.

China leans on coal amid energy security push

by A. Hayley, Mar 6, 2023 in Reuters


  • State planner says to increase coal production
  • Sees coal ‘supporting’ expansion of renewables
  • Calls for controls on replacing coal with gas
  • Indicates higher gas prices coming for urban users

BEIJING, March 5 (Reuters) – China’s state planner underlined a greater role for coal in its power supply on Sunday, saying the fossil fuel would be used to improve the reliability and security of its energy system.

Soaring global energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and domestic supply disruption have prompted Beijing to step up its focus on energy security in recent years.

The world’s second-biggest economy relied on coal to generate 56.2% of its electricity last year, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, but has significantly boosted its use of natural gas and renewable energy in recent years to lower carbon emissions.

New WUWT Global Temperature Feature: Anomaly vs. Real-World Temperature

by A. Watts, Mar 13, 2023 in WUWT


One of the most frightening aspects of global warming, aka “climate change” is the graphs produced from temperature data for public consumption and trumpeted by an unquestioning and compliant media. When it comes to measuring climate, in order to actually see any temperature differences over the last century, they must be highly magnified using the temperature anomaly method.

 

Elegantly modeling Earth’s abrupt glacial transitions

by American Institute of Physics, Mar 7, 2023 in ScienceDaily


Proxy data — indirect records of the Earth’s climate found in unlikely places like coral, pollen, trees, and sediments — show interesting oscillations approximately every 100,000 years starting about 1 million years ago. Strong changes in global ice volume, sea level, carbon dioxide concentration, and surface temperature indicate cycles of a long, slow transition to a glacial period and an abrupt switch to a warm and short interglacial period.

Milutin Milankovitch hypothesized that the timing of these cycles was controlled by the orbital parameters of the Earth, including the shape of its path around the sun and the tilt of the planet. A slightly closer orbit or more tilted planet could create a small increase in solar radiation and a feedback loop that leads to massive changes in climate. This idea suggests that there may be some predictability in the climate, a notoriously complex system.

In Chaos, by AIP Publishing, Stefano Pierini of Parthenope University of Naples proposed a new paradigm to simplify the verification of the Milankovitch hypothesis.

“The main motivation behind this study was the wish to characterize and illustrate the Milankovitch hypothesis in a simple, elegant, and intuitive way,” Pierini said.

Many models suggest that Milankovitch is correct; however, such methods are often detailed and study specific. They incorporate climate feedback loops — for example, increased ice cover reflects more radiation back into space, leading to further cooling and more ice cover — as threshold crossing rules. This means that an abrupt jump in climate only occurs once a parameter reaches a given tipping point.

Pierini’s “deterministic excitation paradigm” combines the physics concepts of relaxation oscillation and excitability to link Earth’s orbital parameters and the glacial cycles in a more generic way. The relaxation oscillation component describes how the climate slowly returns to its original glacier state after it is disturbed. At that point, the excitability piece of the model captures the external orbital changes and triggers the next glacial cycle.

By using his own threshold crossing rules and adopting a classical energy-balance model, Pierini obtained correct and robust timing of the most recent glacial cycles.`

Science Yields Surprises! Island Nations Growing… “Atoll, Island Stability Is Global Trend”!

by P. Gosselin, Mar 8, 2023 in WUWT


IPCC high-end sea level predictions for 2100 are “highly erroneous”. 

Global warming alarmists like to claim that Pacific island nations are on the verge of disappearing – due to rising sea levels caused by polar ice melting due to global warming, which in turn supposedly is caused by rising concentrations of “heat-trapping” trace gas CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels.

These coral reef island nations risk going under real soon, unless we wean ourselves from fossil fuels soon, they say.

Coral reef island nations are emerging, not disappearing

But yesterday Kenneth here presented a new paper appearing in Nature, (Kench et al., 2023), which looks at whether the coral reef islands are in fact seeing unprecedented and undergoing accelerating physical changes that risk outrunning human adaptation measures. The authors analyzed the dynamics of a Maldivian reef island at millennial to decadal timescales.

Recent changes not unprecedented

The researchers found that “island change over the past half-century (±40 m movement) is not unprecedented compared with paleo-dynamic evidence”.

Nothing unusual is happening. The global data suggest that almost all islands are in fact growing, and not  disappearing under water like climate alarmists mistakenly believe.

“Recent shoreline changes (±40 m/50 years) are ‘dwarfed’ by the shoreline changes (±200 m/100 years) that occurred throughout previous centuries,” the study’s authors write.

 89% of all the globe’s islands are stable, or growing!

Moreover, just 4 years ago, another peer-reviewed publication appearing in a renowned journal found similar results: 89% of the globe’s islands and 100% of large islands have stable or growing coasts! According to Duvat, 2019:

“88.6% of islands were either stable or increased in area, while only 11.4% contracted. It is noteworthy that no island larger than 10 ha decreased in size. These results show that atoll and island areal stability is a global trend, whatever the rate of sea-level rise.”

Moreover, Khan et al (2018) found: “Prediction of 4–6.6 ft sea level rise in the next 91 years between 2009 and 2100 is highly erroneous.”

La géologie, une science plus que passionnante … et diverse