Search Results for “warmer earth better for humans”

STUDY: ‘Climate change is leading to loss of sleep worldwide’ – Sleep ‘may be degraded by warmer temperatures’

May 20, 2022

https://thehill.com/policy/equilibrium-sustainability/3495750-climate-change-is-leading-to-loss-of-sleep-worldwide-study/ BY SHARON UDASIN Rising temperatures driven by climate change are negatively impacting human sleep patterns around the globe, a new study has found. If temperatures continue to surge, the effects could slash between 50 and 58 hours of sleep per person each year by the end of the century, according to the study, published on Friday in One Earth. The impacts will be substantially larger for residents of lower-income countries, as well as older adults and women, the authors determined. “Our results indicate that sleep — an essential restorative process integral for human health and productivity — may be degraded by warmer temperatures,” first author Kelton Minor, of the University of Copenhagen, said in a statement. “In order to make informed climate policy decisions moving forward, we need to better account for the full spectrum of plausible future climate impacts extending from today’s societal greenhouse gas emissions choices,” Minor added. To conduct their study, the researchers used anonymized global data collected from sleep-tracking wristbands. The data included 7 million nightly sleep records from more than 47,000 adults across 68 countries — on all continents aside from Antarctica, according to the study. Measures from these types of wristbands, the authors explained, had previously been shown to align with other independent measures of wakefulness and sleep. On very warm nights — those with temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius, or 86 degrees Fahrenheit — sleep amounts dropped an average of more than 14 minutes, the researchers observed. They also found that the likelihood of getting less than seven hours of sleep rises alongside temperature increases. “Our bodies are highly adapted to maintain a stable core body temperature, something that our lives depend on,” Minor said. “Yet every night they do something remarkable without most of us consciously knowing,” he added, explaining that human bodies shed heat into the environment by dilating blood vessels and increasing blood flow to the hands and feet. But in order for sleeping humans to accomplish this heat transfer, the surrounding environment needs to be cooler than their bodies are, according to Minor. While previous studies in sleep labs have determined that both humans and animals sleep worse when the room temperature is too hot or cold, such research was limited by the fact that people tend to modify the temperature of their sleeping environment to make themselves more comfortable, the authors noted. IRS to pay 5 percent interest to individuals with delayed tax refundsTwo Secret Service employees sent home from South Korea after alleged incident with taxi driver In this study, the investigators found that under normal living routines, people tend to be better at adapting to cooler outside conditions than warmer ones. The authors also observed that residents of developing countries seem to struggle more with rising temperatures. While a lack of sufficient air conditioning may play a role, the researchers said that they could not formulate a definitive conclusion on this factor, as they did not have access to relevant data on air conditioning. Future research on the impact of rising temperatures on sleep, they noted, should focus on how sleep loss is unequal globally — with a particular look at the world’s most vulnerable populations who reside in the hottest environments.

Earth Day 2022: Stop Media Climate Disinformation – We need to ‘build herd immunity against the nonsense’

April 23, 2022

https://rclutz.com/2022/04/20/earth-day-2022-stop-media-climate-disinformation/ By Ron Clutz Climate hysteria is like a seasonal sickness. Each year a contagion of anxiety and fear is created by disinformation going viral in both legacy and social media in the run up to the autumnal COP, most recently Glasgow last November. Now that climatists have put themselves at the controls of the formidable US federal government, the public has been hugely hosed with alarms. Springtime brings Earth Day, when the distress signals typically go full tilt. So individuals need to inoculate themselves against the false claims, in order to build some herd immunity against the nonsense the media continues to promulgate. This post is offered as a means to that end. Media Climate Hype is a Cover Up Back in 2015 in the run up to Paris COP, French mathematicians published a thorough critique of the raison d’etre of the whole crusade. They said: Fighting Global Warming is Absurd, Costly and Pointless. Absurd because of no reliable evidence that anything unusual is happening in our climate. Costly because trillions of dollars are wasted on immature, inefficient technologies that serve only to make cheap, reliable energy expensive and intermittent. Pointless because we do not control the weather anyway. The prestigious Société de Calcul Mathématique (Society for Mathematical Calculation) issued a detailed 195-page White Paper presenting a blistering point-by-point critique of the key dogmas of global warming. The synopsis with links to the entire document is at COP Briefing for Realists Even without attending to their documentation, you can tell they are right because all the media climate hype is concentrated against those three points. Finding: Nothing unusual is happening with our weather and climate. Hype: Every metric or weather event is “unprecedented,” or “worse than we thought.” Finding: Proposed solutions will cost many trillions of dollars for little effect or benefit. Hype: Zero carbon will lead the world to do the right thing. Anyway, the planet must be saved at any cost. Finding: Nature operates without caring what humans do or think. Hype: Any destructive natural event is blamed on humans burning fossil fuels. How the Media Throws Up Flak to Defend False Suppositions The Absurd Media: Climate is Dangerous Today, Yesterday It was Ideal. Billions of dollars have been spent researching any and all negative effects from a warming world: Everything from Acne to Zika virus. A recent Climate Report repeats the usual litany of calamities to be feared and avoided by submitting to IPCC demands. The evidence does not support these claims. An example: It is scientifically established that human activities produce GHG emissions, which accumulate in the atmosphere and the oceans, resulting in warming of Earth’s surface and the oceans, acidification of the oceans, increased variability of climate, with a higher incidence of extreme weather events, and other changes in the climate. Moreover, leading experts believe that there is already more than enough excess heat in the climate system to do severe damage and that 2C of warming would have very significant adverse effects, including resulting in multi-meter sea level rise. Experts have observed an increased incidence of climate-related extreme weather events, including increased frequency and intensity of extreme heat and heavy precipitation events and more severe droughts and associated heatwaves. Experts have also observed an increased incidence of large forest fires; and reduced snowpack affecting water resources in the western U.S. The most recent National Climate Assessment projects these climate impacts will continue to worsen in the future as global temperatures increase. Alarming Weather and Wildfires But: Weather is not more extreme. And Wildfires were worse in the past. But: Sea Level Rise is not accelerating. Litany of Changes Seven of the ten hottest years on record have occurred within the last decade; wildfires are at an all-time high, while Arctic Sea ice is rapidly diminishing. We are seeing one-in-a-thousand-year floods with astonishing frequency. When it rains really hard, it’s harder than ever. We’re seeing glaciers melting, sea level rising. The length and the intensity of heatwaves has gone up dramatically. Plants and trees are flowering earlier in the year. Birds are moving polewards. We’re seeing more intense storms. But: Arctic Ice has not declined since 2007. But: All of these are within the range of past variability.In fact our climate is remarkably stable, compared to the range of daily temperatures during a year where I live. And many aspects follow quasi-60 year cycles. The Impractical Media: Money is No Object in Saving the Planet. Here it is blithely assumed that the court can rule the seas to stop rising, heat waves to cease, and Arctic ice to grow (though why we would want that is debatable). All this will be achieved by leaving fossil fuels in the ground and powering civilization with windmills and solar panels. While admitting that our way of life depends on fossil fuels, they ignore the inadequacy of renewable energy sources at their present immaturity. An Example: The choice between incurring manageable costs now and the incalculable, perhaps even irreparable, burden Youth Plaintiffs and Affected Children will face if Defendants fail to rapidly transition to a non-fossil fuel economy is clear. While the full costs of the climate damages that would result from maintaining a fossil fuel-based economy may be incalculable, there is already ample evidence concerning the lower bound of such costs, and with these minimum estimates, it is already clear that the cost of transitioning to a low/no carbon economy are far less than the benefits of such a transition. No rational calculus could come to an alternative conclusion. Defendants must act with all deliberate speed and immediately cease the subsidization of fossil fuels and any new fossil fuel projects, and implement policies to rapidly transition the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels. But CO2 relation to Temperature is Inconsistent. But: The planet is greener because of rising CO2. But: Modern nations (G20) depend on fossil fuels for nearly 90% of their energy. But: Renewables are not ready for prime time. People need to know that adding renewables to an electrical grid presents both technical and economic challenges. Experience shows that adding intermittent power more than 10% of the baseload makes precarious the reliability of the supply. South Australia is demonstrating this with a series of blackouts when the grid cannot be balanced. Germany got to a higher % by dumping its excess renewable generation onto neighboring countries until the EU finally woke up and stopped them. Texas got up to 29% by dumping onto neighboring states, and some like Georgia are having problems. But more dangerous is the way renewables destroy the economics of electrical power. Seasoned energy analyst Gail Tverberg writes: In fact, I have come to the rather astounding conclusion that even if wind turbines and solar PV could be built at zero cost, it would not make sense to continue to add them to the electric grid in the absence of very much better and cheaper electricity storage than we have today. There are too many costs outside building the devices themselves. It is these secondary costs that are problematic. Also, the presence of intermittent electricity disrupts competitive prices, leading to electricity prices that are far too low for other electricity providers, including those providing electricity using nuclear or natural gas. The tiny contribution of wind and solar to grid electricity cannot make up for the loss of more traditional electricity sources due to low prices. These issues are discussed in more detail in the post Climateers Tilting at Windmills The Irrational Media: Whatever Happens in Nature is Our Fault. An Example: Other potential examples include agricultural losses. Whether or not insurance reimburses farmers for their crops, there can be food shortages that lead to higher food prices (that will be borne by consumers, that is, Youth Plaintiffs and Affected Children). There is a further risk that as our climate and land use pattern changes, disease vectors may also move (e.g., diseases formerly only in tropical climates move northward).36 This could lead to material increases in public health costs But: Actual climate zones are local and regional in scope, and they show little boundary change. But: Ice cores show that it was warmer in the past, not due to humans. The hype is produced by computer programs designed to frighten and distract children and the uninformed. For example, there was mention above of “multi-meter” sea level rise. It is all done with computer models. For example, below is San Francisco. More at USCS Warnings of Coastal Floodings In addition, there is no mention that GCMs projections are running about twice as hot as observations. Omitted is the fact GCMs correctly replicate tropospheric temperature observations only when CO2 warming is turned off. Figure 5. Simplification of IPCC AR5 shown above in Fig. 4. The colored lines represent the range of results for the models and observations. The trends here represent trends at different levels of the tropical atmosphere from the surface up to 50,000 ft. The gray lines are the bounds for the range of observations, the blue for the range of IPCC model results without extra GHGs and the red for IPCC model results with extra GHGs.The key point displayed is the lack of overlap between the GHG model results (red) and the observations (gray). The nonGHG model runs (blue) overlap the observations almost completely. In the effort to proclaim scientific certainty, neither the media nor IPCC discuss the lack of warming since the 1998 El Nino, despite two additional El Ninos in 2010 and 2016. Further they exclude comparisons between fossil fuel consumption and temperature changes. The legal methodology for discerning causation regarding work environments or medicine side effects insists that the correlation be strong and consistent over time, and there be no confounding additional factors. As long as there is another equally or more likely explanation for a set of facts, the claimed causation is unproven. Such is the null hypothesis in legal terms: Things happen for many reasons unless you can prove one reason is dominant. Finally, advocates and IPCC are picking on the wrong molecule. The climate is controlled not by CO2 but by H20. Oceans make climate through the massive movement of energy involved in water’s phase changes from solid to liquid to gas and back again. From those heat transfers come all that we call weather and climate: Clouds, Snow, Rain, Winds, and Storms. Esteemed climate scientist Richard Lindzen ended a very fine recent presentation with this description of the climate system: I haven’t spent much time on the details of the science, but there is one thing that should spark skepticism in any intelligent reader. The system we are looking at consists in two turbulent fluids interacting with each other. They are on a rotating planet that is differentially heated by the sun. A vital constituent of the atmospheric component is water in the liquid, solid and vapor phases, and the changes in phase have vast energetic ramifications. The energy budget of this system involves the absorption and reemission of about 200 watts per square meter. Doubling CO2 involves a 2% perturbation to this budget. So do minor changes in clouds and other features, and such changes are common. In this complex multifactor system, what is the likelihood of the climate (which, itself, consists in many variables and not just globally averaged temperature anomaly) is controlled by this 2% perturbation in a single variable? Believing this is pretty close to believing in magic. Instead, you are told that it is believing in ‘science.’ Such a claim should be a tip-off that something is amiss. After all, science is a mode of inquiry rather than a belief structure.

NASA: Global Wildfires Drop By 25% Since 2003 – Plus Study finds Earth’s tree cover increased by 7% since 1982

August 29, 2019

https://mailchi.mp/40731058388a/nasa-global-wildfires-drop-by-25-since-2003?e=f4e33fdd1e GWPF Newsletter 29/08/19 NASA: Global Wildfires Drop By 25% Since 2003 Science Goes Up In Rain Forest Smoke Since NASA satellites program MODIS began collecting measurements there has been a decrease in the total number of square kilometers burned each year. Between 2003 and 2019, that number has dropped by roughly 25 percent. —NASA Earth Observatory, August 2019 News reports about the Amazon fires strike a fear that one of the last great forests is disappearing. That’s completely untrue. Forests are making a comeback! More precisely, the tree cover of the planet is increasing. Since 1982, a recent peer-reviewed paper in Nature suggests, the planet’s tree cover increased by 2.24 million km2 (an increase of roughly 7%). –Vincent Geloso, American Institute for Economic Research, 26 August 2019 1) NASA: Global Wildfires Drop By 25% Since 2003 NASA Earth Observatory, August 2019 2) Science Goes Up In Rain Forest Smoke Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF Science Editor, 28 August 2019 3) Reality Check: Forests Make a Comeback American Institute for Economic Research, 26 August 2019 4) Matt Ridley: The Most Dangerous Thing About The Amazon Fires Is The Apocalyptic Rhetoric The Spectator, 31 August 2019 5) U.S. Democrats Are Getting More Concerned About Global Warming, Republicans Remain Cool Pew Research Center, 28 August 2019 6) Sanjeev Sabhlok: Climate Hysteria Is A Great Opportunity To Teach Children To Ask Questions Times of India, 25 August 2019 7) And Finally: The Doomsday Cult Of Pre-Modern Climate Hysteria The Sun, 28 August 2019 1) NASA: Global Wildfires Drop By 25% Since 2003 NASA Earth Observatory, August 2019 Since NASA satellites programme MODIS began collecting measurements there has been a decrease in the total number of square kilometers burned each year. Between 2003 and 2019, that number has dropped by roughly 25 percent. The control of fire is a goal that may well be as old as humanity, but the systematic monitoring of fire on a global scale is a much newer capability. In the 1910s, the U.S. Forest Service began building fire lookout towers on mountain peaks in order to detect distant fires. A few decades later, fire-spotting airplanes flew onto the scene. Then in the early 1980s, satellites began to map fires over large areas from the vantage point of space. Over time, researchers have built a rich and textured record of Earth’s fire activity and are now able to analyze decadal trends. “The pace of discovery has increased dramatically during the satellite era,” said James Randerson, a scientist at the University of California, Irvine. “Having high-quality, daily observations of fires available on a global scale has been critical.” The animation above shows the locations of actively burning fires on a monthly basis for nearly two decades. The maps are based on observations from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. The colors are based on a count of the number (not size) of fires observed within a 1,000-square-kilometer area. White pixels show the high end of the count—as many as 30 fires in a 1,000-square-kilometer area per day. Orange pixels show as many as 10 fires, while red areas show as few as 1 fire per day. December 1, 2014 – August 31, 2015 The sequence highlights the rhythms—both natural and human-caused—in global fire activity. Bands of fire sweep across Eurasia, North America, and Southeast Asia as farmers clear and maintain fields in April and May. Summer brings new activity in boreal and temperate forests in North America and Eurasia due to lighting-triggered fires burning in remote areas. In the tropical forests of South America and equatorial Asia, fires flare up in August, September, and October as people make use of the dry season to clear rainforest and savanna, as well as stop trees and shrubs from encroaching on already cleared land. Few months pass in Australia without large numbers of fires burning somewhere on the continent’s vast grasslands, savannas, and tropical forests. But it is Africa that is truly the fire continent. On an average day in August, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites detect 10,000 actively burning fires around the world—and 70 percent them happen in Africa. Huge numbers of blazes spring up in the northern part of continent in December and January. A half year later, the burning has shifted south. Indeed, global fire emissions typically peak in August and September, coinciding with the main fire seasons of the Southern Hemisphere, particularly Africa. (High activity in temperate and boreal forests in the Northern Hemisphere in the summer also contribute.) August 29, 2018 JPEG The second animation underscores how much fire activity shifts seasonally by highlighting burning activity during December 2014, April 2015, and August 2015. The satellite image above shows smoke rising from the savanna of northern Zambia on August 29, 2018, around the time global emissions reach their maximum. Though Africa dominates in the sheer number of fires, fires seasons there are pretty consistent from year-to-year. The most variable fire seasons happen elsewhere, such as the tropical forests of South America and equatorial Asia. In these areas, the severity of fire season is often linked to cycles of El Niño and La Niña. The buildup of warm water in the eastern Pacific during an El Niño changes atmospheric patterns and reduces rainfallover many rainforests, allowing them to burn more easily and widely. Despite the vast quantities of carbon released by fires in savannas, grasslands, and boreal forests, research shows that fires in these biomes do not generally add carbon to the atmosphere in the long term. The regrowth of vegetation or the creation of charcoal typically recaptures all of the carbon within months or years. However, when fires permanently remove trees or burn through peat (a carbon-rich fuel that can take centuries to form), little carbon is recaptured and the atmosphere sees a net increase in CO2. That is why outbreaks of fire in countries with large amounts of peat, such as Indonesia, have an outsized effect on global climate. Fires in equatorial Asia account for just 0.6 percent of global burned area, yet the region accounts for 8 percent of carbon emissions and 23 percent of methane emissions. On October, 25, 2015, the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera aboard the DSCOVR satellite acquired an image (below) of heavy smoke over Indonesia; El Niño was particularly active at the time. One of the most interesting things researchers have discovered since MODIS began collecting measurements, noted Randerson, is a decrease in the total number of square kilometers burned each year. Between 2003 and 2019, that number has dropped by roughly 25 percent. Full story 2) Science Goes Up In Rain Forest Smoke Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF Science Editor, 28 August 2019 If journalists as well as politicians, celebrities, presidents and the Pope can so easily slip into scientific myth and get the facts so wrong what credibility do they have on other issues of climate science? The idea that the Amazon rain forest are the lungs of the world is so embedded in our minds that few questioned its widespread use when news about fires in the Amazon was reported this summer. The idea is everywhere – so it’s obviously true. Trees absorb carbon dioxide (bad), don’t they, and give off oxygen (good), and there are billions of trees in the Amazon, so surely it makes sense. Responding to the fires in the Amazon the Pope has said that the, “Lungs of the forest are vital for the planet.” Emmanuel Macron tweeted, “The Amazon rain forest – the lungs which produces 20% of the planet’s oxygen – is on fire.” Leonardo DiCaprio has almost 3 million likes for his Instagram posting saying, “The lungs of the Earth are in flames.” Christiano Ronaldo tweeted that The Amazon Rainforest produces more than 20% of the world’s oxygen,” adding #prayforamazonia Green Party MP Caroline Lucas says “It’s the lungs of the Earth…which provides 20% of our oxygen.” Barry Gardiner Shadow Minister for International Climate Change tweeted he couldn’t agree with Macron more. Lib Dem MEP’s say the lungs of our planet are literally burning. Even Donald Tusk, the President of the European Commission tweeted of “…the destruction of the green lungs of Planet Earth.” The Rainforest Alliance say, “The lungs of the world are in flames.” Friends of the Earth want a deal to stop the fires adding, “They need to say ‘we won’t do a deal with you if you are effectively condoning burning the lungs of the world’.” WWF says the Amazon is popularly known as the lungs of the world. DiCaprio’s Earth Alliance has formed an emergency Amazon Forest Fund with an initial commitment of $5 million to focus critical resources on the key protections needed to maintain the ‘lungs of the planet.’ However, as the saying goes, it’s not that simple – things never are in science. Check where the figure comes from (and it’s actually not that straightforward to do) and you will find that it’s not that simple. It’s actually wrong. Geology’s Gift The Amazon rain forest is not the lungs of the world and they do not produce 20% of the world’s oxygen as is so often said. The Amazon rainforest is a vast, vital wonder, full of biodiversity and photosynthesizing plants producing 9% of the world’s photosynthetic output but, here is the key figure, 0% of its net output. You could destroy all of the world’s forests and it would hardly affect our oxygen supply. In fact you could destroy every living thing on Earth and still not dent it because our atmosphere of 20.9% oxygen is the gift of geologic time, slow to build up and we have enough to last millions of years. Yet this idea of the world’s lungs and of atmospheric oxygen needing to be refreshed and replenished, ideas unsupported by science, is everywhere. Surely journalists would act differently from advocacy groups, celebrities and politicians and check this fact before writing and broadcasting about it. After all journalists, especially science and environment journalists who are experts in their field, always check figures and statistics? Oh no, they don’t. Just Google the phrase to see how many time it is repeated, by the BBC, the New York Times, CNN, The Australian, to name a few. ITN in particular has risen above much of the other coverage with its over-the-top reporting. They say the Amazon is burning on a scale never seen before (nonsense). That the Amazon can never be replaced (nonsense), and that Nature is being killed (Oh come off it)! Who spoke up? If journalists as well as politicians, celebrities, presidents and the Pope can so easily slip into such scientific myth and get the facts so wrong what credibility do they have on other issues of climate science? Where are their science advisors? Surely they should make this mistake only once before being given proper advice. Or is it that if any of them goes against the trend they fear the condemnation? This is not the way to tackle the important environmental issues we face. Look how much we had to go through for science to wrench our minds free of what is “obviously true” and seek proof. Is climate science, or at least the public side of it, immune from normal scientific standards? And where are the high profile, “public” scientists setting the record straight, highlighting that the Amazon rain forests are not the lungs of the world? Feedback: [email protected] 3) Reality Check: Forests Make a Comeback American Institute for Economic Research, 26 August 2019 Vincent Geloso In the last week, there have been many reports about the fires in the Amazonian forests. Many of these reports led news shows or were on the front pages of leading newspapers. The Amazon forest, which produces about 20% of earth’s oxygen and is the world’s largest rainforest, is often referred to as “the planet’s lungs.” The nickname strikes the imagination and it is frequently used in campaigns regarding the perils of deforestation. As such, the news reports about the fire strike a fear that one of the last great forests is disappearing. That’s completely untrue. Forests are making a comeback! More precisely, the tree cover of the planet is increasing. To be sure, it is nowhere near what it was at the beginning of the 19th century when the world’s population was below 1 billion individuals (most of whom were abjectly poor). Indeed, many forests on the planet were destroyed and cleared as population grew in number and wealth. However, globally speaking, the tree cover has begun to recover. Since 1982, a recent peer-reviewed paper in Nature suggests, the planet’s tree cover increased by 2.24 million km2 (an increase of roughly 7%). The transition also differs by region as some countries saw a recovery of forest much earlier. Many European countries saw the beginning of this recovery in the early decades of the twentieth century (and some began the transition much earlier). For the United States, there are some studies placing the beginning of the recovery in the 1930s but many states (especially in New England and the Middle Atlantic states) saw their forest recoveries begin as early as 1907. To be sure, some regions on Earth are experiencing falls in forest cover. This is the case for Brazil and many other Latin American countries (not all as Chile and Uruguay have already seen their forest recoveries begin). Nevertheless, the global picture is one of optimism. And there is cause for being optimistic that the trend will continue. Geographer Pierre Desrochers and economist Hiroko Shimizu noted that nine-tenths of all the deforestation caused by humans took place before 1950. The main reason for this was that forest-clearing was one of the easiest channels by which to increase the food supply while also providing energy. However, as we are now vastly more productive in our agriculture, we require less land to feed the same population. The effects of productivity growth in agriculture are so strong that some agricultural scientists are speaking of “peak farmland” – the idea that we will need less and less land to feed a growing population. Moreover, as transports and communication technologies have also improved, we have been able to concentrate production in the most productive areas of the planet in ways that explain a sizable share of total gains in productivity. As we grow more productive in farming, mankind can now leave some acres to return to nature to be reforested. With the prospect of new advances in bio-engineering, meat printing, sky-farms and other innovations, this is a force for reforestation that will only strengthen. Full post 4) Matt Ridley: The Most Dangerous Thing About The Amazon Fires Is The Apocalyptic Rhetoric The Spectator, 31 August 2019 Cristiano Ronaldo is a Portuguese expert on forests who also plays football, so when he shared a picture online of a recent forest fire in the Amazon, it went viral. Perhaps he was in a rush that day to get out of the laboratory to football training, because it later transpired that the photograph was actually taken in 2013, not this year, and in southern Brazil, nowhere near the Amazon. But at least his picture was only six years old. Emmanuel Macron, another forest ecologist who moonlights as president of France, claimed that ‘the Amazon rainforest — the lungs which produce 20 per cent of our planet’s oxygen — is on fire!’ alongside a picture that was 20 years old. A third bioscientist, who goes under the name of Madonna and sings, capped both their achievements by sharing a 30-year-old picture. […] Around the world, wild fires are generally declining, according to Nasa. Deforestation, too, is happening less and less. The United Nations’ ‘state of the world’s forests’report concluded last year that ‘the net loss of forest area continues to slow, from 0.18 per cent [a year] in the 1990s to 0.08 per cent over the last five-year period’. A study in Nature last year by scientists from the University of Maryland concluded that even this is too pessimistic: ‘We show that — contrary to the prevailing view that forest area has declined globally — tree cover has increased by 2.24 million km2 (+7.1 per cent relative to the 1982 level).’ This net increase is driven by rapid reforestation in cool, rich countries outweighing slower net deforestation in warm, poor countries. But more and more nations are now reaching the sort of income levels at which they stop deforesting and start reforesting. Bangladesh, for example, has been increasing its forest cover for several years. Costa Rica has doubled its tree cover in 40 years. Brazil is poised to join the reforesters soon. Possibly the biggest driver of this encouraging trend is the rising productivity of agriculture. The more yields increase, the less land we need to steal from nature to feed ourselves. Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University has calculated that the world needs only 35 per cent as much land to produce a given quantity of food as 50 years ago. That has spared wild land on a massive scale. Likewise, getting people on to fossil fuels and away from burning wood for fuel spares trees. It is in the poorest countries, mainly in Africa, that men and women still gather firewood for cooking and bushmeat for food, instead of using electricity or gas and farmed meat. The trouble with the apocalyptic rhetoric is that it can seem to justify drastic but dangerous solutions. The obsession with climate change has slowed the decline of deforestation. An estimated 700,000 hectares of forest has been felled in South-East Asia to grow palm oil to add to supposedly green ‘bio-diesel’ fuel in Europe, while the world is feeding 5 per cent of its grain crop to motor cars rather than people, which means 5 per cent of cultivated land that could be released for forest. Britain imports timber from wild forests in the Americas to burn for electricity at Drax in North Yorkshire, depriving beetles and woodpeckers of their lunch. Full post & comments 5) U.S. Democrats Are Getting More Concerned About Global Warming, Republicans Remain Cool Pew Research Center, 28 August 2019 Brian Kennedy and Med Hefferon The share of Americans calling global climate change a major threat to the well-being of the United States has grown from 40% in 2013 to 57% this year, Pew Research Center surveys have shown. But the rise in concern has largely come from Democrats. Opinions among Republicans on this issue remain largely unchanged. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents overall, 84% say climate change is a major threat to the country’s well-being as of July 2019, up from 58% in a March 2013 survey. Views among Republicans and Republican leaners have stayed about the same (27% in 2019 vs. 22% in 2013). Nearly all liberal Democrats (94%, including independents who lean to the party) consider climate change a major threat to the nation now, up 30 percentage points from 2013. Three-quarters of moderate/conservative Democrats say the same, up from 54% in 2013. By contrast, there has been no significant change among either moderate or conservative Republicans on this issue. (While the share of moderate/liberal Republicans who see climate change as a major threat is up 9 percentage points since 2013, this change is not statistically significant at the 95% confidence level.) The partisan trend is similar on a related question. More Americans said in January 2019 that dealing with global climate change should be a top priority for Congress and the president (44%) than did so in early 2015 (34%). But the increased interest in prioritizing climate policy stems from Democrats, not Republicans. Two-thirds of Democrats (67%), including 83% of liberal Democrats, said this year that dealing with global climate change should be a top priority for the president and Congress. This was up from 46% of Democrats in 2015. In contrast, about two-in-ten Republicans (21%) said this year that climate change should be a top priority – a virtually identical share as in 2015 (19%). Full story 6) Sanjeev Sabhlok: Climate Hysteria Is A Great Opportunity To Teach Children To Ask Questions Times of India, 25 August 2019 Only when our children have developed the strongest possible level of scepticism, first introduced to the world by Charvaka and later emulated by Socrates, can they be said to have been educated. Most adults have little or no time to investigate the claims about climate change. They either accept them, assuming that “authority figures” have done their homework, or sit on the fence. Some consider that only scientists are supposed to understand science. But everyone has an equal place at the table of science and if our questions are not answered or the evidence doesn’t stack up, we are free to reject that “science”. Climate alarm has long given up the pretence of any link to science. Millions have been successfully “converted” – and they get duly worked up if their belief is questioned: “have you been outside recently?”, “erratic climate events are everywhere!”, “rainfall is getting less every year!”, “flash floods, including in Rajasthan are clear proof!”. Some of them have gone to the next stage and become missionaries. They go about distributing their religious pamphlets in schools, indoctrinating innocent lower-IQ children. Hopelessly confused children like Greta Thunberg are being churned out as a result. At an age when children like her should be learning to ask questions, they have become the brainwashed front for the climate religion. … Sanjeev Sabhlok, Senior leader of India’s Liberal Party (SBP) In my view, if anyone tells a child that climate change is man-made just because someone says so (such as a missionary “scientist” but now increasingly, “royals” and “celebrities”), that person has committed a sin against the enlightenment, against human progress. I would personally have been supportive of Greta Thunberg if she had been a prodigally intelligent child who dazzled her teachers with amazing questions, then found the answers and was now promoting a view that she thoroughly understood. It would not matter to me that she had come to the wrong conclusion. After all, no one can be right on everything all the time. But she suffers, sadly, from mental issues and speaks as a missionary – she cannot answer a single question about the science. We are very prone as a species to superstitions, panics, delusions, manias and hysterias. We have gone through thousands of them (many still underway), such as religion, alchemy, witchcraft, astrology, phrenology, eugenics, the Y2K bug, the SARS panic, much of Ayurveda and Chinese traditional medicine and all of homeopathy. The climate hysteria will ultimately pass, but to avoid such hysterias in the future we need to get our children to start thinking and stop believing. Climate change is a superb topic for teachers and students to explore. I stumbled upon the ideas of Socrates and Voltaire when I was a child and since the age of twelve, I have been a deep sceptic. “God” would have to pass through a thousand hurdles if “He” came by and tried to make me believe. For example, I recall being the only one staring into the eyes of Sathya Sai Baba in Bangalore in 1981 when all others had prostrated themselves before him. He obviously failed to pull a fast one over me. Today, Michael Strong, author of The Habit of Thought, is one of the few educationists who actively uses the Socratic method. Our educationists must learn from him. I believe that children from age 10 onwards should attend one class each week only on questions. They should list various topics and then ask as many questions as they can on that topic. As they grow older their ability to ask questions will get deeper and more sophisticated. The topic of climate change can lead to many questions. What is climate? What factors impact the climate? (Answer: at least a few hundred). How is the Earth’s temperature measured? (Long-term quality thermometer measurements have only been available in a few European and American sites, with most of them now contaminated by urbanisation. Let children also ask about satellite measurements and about the only reliable surface measurements – from the US Climate Reference Network.) How is the sea level measured? (Let them ask whether the land itself can sink – indeed it does: it is very common.) What is the proof of the greenhouse gas effect? (Let them ask and find out that there is no robust way to prove it in a laboratory.) How is CO2 measured? What information is needed to confirm (or reject) the CO2 hypothesis? What is the correlation between CO2 and temperature over the recent past? (Answer: very little.) What is the correlation as we stretch out to hundreds and then millions of years? (Answer: zero.) What climate “model” predictions could prove the hypothesis? What would nullify it? What are the strengths and weaknesses of temperature and CO2 estimates of the past? (Eg tree rings, ice core, marine sediments, pollen. Tree ring data is a better measure of rainfall than of temperature, ice cores show that CO2 increased when the Earth’s wobbles first made it warmer – CO2 was thereafter ejected from the oceans.) Are extreme events increasing? Let the children read IPCC’s reports that say: “there is only low confidence regarding changes in global tropical cyclone numbers over the last four decades”, there is “low confidence that anthropogenic climate change has affected the frequency and the magnitude of floods” and that there is a “decreasing trend in the global number of tropical cyclones and globally accumulated cyclonic energy”. Full post 7) And Finally: The Doomsday Cult Of Pre-Modern Climate Hysteria The Sun, 28 August 2019 Archaeologists believe the kids, born into the Chimú empire, were sacrificed in a ritual to stop disasters linked to the El Niño phenomenon. The mass grave contains the skeletons of 227 children Credit: AFP or licensors EXPERTS believe they have found the burial site of the largest child sacrifice ritual ever recorded. The skeletons of 227 kids, who were slaughtered at the same time, have been uncovered in a mass grave on the north coast of Peru. Archaeologists believe they have found the burial site of the largest child sacrifice ever recorded Credit: AFP or licensors Archaeologists believe the kids, born into the Chimú empire, were sacrificed in a ritual to stop disasters linked to the El Niño phenomenon. The youngsters, between the ages of four and 14, are understood to have been brutally killed up to 1,400 years ago. Some still have skin, hair and were found to have been wearing silver earmuffs. The religious leaders who carried out the killings were part of the Chimú empire, a powerful society that predated the Incas. Archaeologists found the mass slaughter site in the Pampa La Cruz sector in Huanchaco, a coastal municipality of Trujillo, north of Lima. The youngsters, between the ages of four and 14, are understood to have died up to 1,400 years ago Credit: AFP or licensors Archaeologists found the mass slaughter site in the Pampa La Cruz sector in Huanchaco Credit: AFP or licensors “We are the largest place where remains of sacrificed children have been found. There is no other” in the world, archaeologist Feren Castillo told AFP. It is thought the youngsters were sacrificed to appease gods and stop bad weather. “They were sacrificed to appease the El Niño phenomenon, we have found more evidence of rainfall in the findings,” Mr Castillo added. This weather phenomenon, which occurs when the Pacific Ocean becomes very warm, can have disastrous impacts in Peru and other countries. In 2017, El Niño triggered flooding and landslides that killed 162 and destroyed thousands of homes. The Huanchaco child grave is not the first mass discovery of kids slaughtered in Pampa La Cruz. In June 2018, remains of 56 children were discovered. Full story

Historical Grape Harvest Dates Show Modern Temperatures No Warmer Now Than Most Of The Last 1,000 Years

March 6, 2017

Historical Grape Harvest Dates Show Modern Temperatures No Warmer Now Than Most Of The Last 1,000 Years http://notrickszone.com/2017/03/06/historical-grape-harvest-dates-show-modern-temperatures-no-warmer-now-than-most-of-the-last-1000-years/ Grape Harvest Date Evidence: No Significant Modern Warmth Source In a late February (2017) interview on a U.S. news program, mechanical engineer Bill Nye claimed that the settled science says humans have been warming the planet at a rate that is unnaturally and “catastrophically” fast since the year 1750 . “It’s a settled question. The speed that climate change is happening is caused by humans. Instead of climate change happening on timescales of millions of years or 15,000 years, it’s happening on the timescale of decades, and now years. … Humans are causing it [climate change] to happen catastrophically fast. [Without human activity], the climate would be like it was in 1750.” When pressed to identify the signature change affirming this rapid human-caused acceleration, Nye immediately cited viticulture evidence, or grape-growing practices in England and France. “Britain would not be very well suited to growing grapes as it is today [if not for human activity]. French winemakers would not be buying land to the north, as they are now [if not for human activity].” Apparently Bill Nye believes it is quite unusual to grow grapes in England. Or maybe he believes that this has never happened before given his perceptions of the unprecedentedly fast pace of climate change since 1750. Perhaps he doesn’t realize that grape vineyards have been growing in England for thousands of years, or that grape harvesting occurred 100s of kilometers further north than it does today as recently as during the latter stages of the Medieval Warm Period (~1100 to 1300 A.D). Considering how very sensitive grapes are to climate conditions, and that grapes can only be harvested successfully after ripening in climates that average a specified number of warm days per year, the use of grape harvest dating as a proxy for temperature has long been thought to be both promising and reliable. Unfortunately for Bill Nye and those who believe modern warmth is exceptional, or that the climate has changed at a catastrophically fast pace since 1750, scientists who use grape harvest dates to reconstruct historical temperatures have not found that modern warmth is either unusual or unprecedented. In fact, grape harvest date evidence suggests the opposite conclusion reached by Bill Nye is more accurate: there is nothing unusual about the modern climate and its “well-suitedness” to grape harvesting. In fact, there were several periods of greater warmth than today (and thus better suitability for grape harvesting) during the multi-centennial (~1400-1900 A.D.) Little Ice Age — which had the coldest temperatures of the last 10,000 years. In other words, there is nothing unusual, unprecedented, or remarkable — let alone “catastrophically fast” — about either the pace or degree of warmth in the modern climate. Grape Harvesting 500 Kilometers North Of Present From 1100 – 1300 A.D. Easterbrook, 2011 “The Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was a time of warm climate from about 900 A.D. to 1300 A.D. when global temperatures were apparently somewhat warmer than at present. Its effects were evident in Europe where grain crops flourished, alpine tree lines rose, many new cities arose, and the population more than doubled. The Vikings took advantage of the climatic amelioration to colonize Greenland, and wine grapes were grown as far north as England where growing grapes is now not feasible and about 500 km north of present vineyards in France and Germany. Grapes are presently grown in Germany up to elevations of about 560 m, but from about 1100 A.D. to 1300 A.D., vineyards extended up to 780 m, implying temperatures warmer by about 1.0-1.4° C (Oliver, 1973). Wheat and oats were grown around Trondheim, Norway, suggesting climates about 1°C warmer than present (Fagan, 2000).” Grape Harvest Dating From 1300s -1500s A.D. Suggest Temperatures Were 1-2°C Warmer Than 20th Century Pfister, 1988 “In 1420 wine harvest in Western and Central Europe began at the end of August, even on altitudes of 500 to 700 m (Bern, Toggenburg). This is the earliest date ever recorded. … In 1420 the warm phase started in February. In March summer began already. The vine bloom was two weeks earlier than in 1893- the most advanced year within the instrumental period.” “The comparison of the phenophases in 1420 and 1540 with the corresponding extremes documented with thermometrical evidence suggests that in 1420 all months from February to August (in 1540 from April to August) may have been 2 to 3 degrees above the 1901-60 average. … [I]n 1270 and 1304 the early burgundy grapes were ripe at about the same time as in 1540, whereas in 1331 the ripening of the first cherries in Western France and the beginning of the wine harvest in Paris coincided roughly with the corresponding phenophases in 1420.” “In 1420 the first ‘new wine’ from these grapes was drunk at the beginning of August, in 1540 on August 15, about twenty days before the wine harvest was opened. If this delay was the same in ordinary years, the mean grape harvest date would be around September 1st in the High Middle Ages, which is a few days earlier than in the warmest summers documented with thermometric measurement. From a regression approach comparing the decennial means of wine harvest dates and temperatures from 1370 to 1850 it has been estimated that an opening of the harvest on September 1st corresponds to a mean temperature from April to September that is 1.7 (+ -0.2) degrees above the average for 1901-60.” “In the four years 1774, 1777, 1779, 1781, the only ones documented by thermometrical measurement, temperatures in August and September were 2.0 degrees above the 1901-60 average. From 1269 to 1339 positive anomalies [like these] occurred more than once every decade on average; this suggests that they were part of the “normal” climatic pattern; after 1340 their frequency drops to a level of 5%, after 1400 they became very rare. Not a single occurrence is measured for the seventeenth century. Since 1781 they have not been recorded any more. Undoubtedly the early fourteenth century marks a climatic watershed. The frequent occurrence of high maximum densities before 1330 can be interpreted in the context of a warm climate to which an advance in the beginning of the grape harvest is connected. It may be hypothesized that summers which were outstanding according to the standards of later periods, such as those of 1420, 1473 or 1540 were within the normal range of fluctuations during the High Middle Ages.” Grape Harvest Dating Only Mildly Different Now Than During The 1600s – 1800s Chuine et al., 2004 “Figure 1 [below] shows two early warm decadal fluctuations: one in the 1380s (0.72 °C) and one in the 1420s (0.57 °C), both above the 95th percentile. The warm period of the 1420s was followed by a cold period that lasted from the mid-1430s to the end of the 1450s (0.45 °C, under the 10th percentile). Our series also reveals particularly warm events, above the 90th percentile, in the 1520s and between the 1630s and the 1680s. These decades were as warm as the end of the twentieth century. The high-temperature event of 1680 was followed by a cooling, which culminated in the 1750s (under the 5th percentile) — the start of a long cool period that lasted until the 1970s.” Menzel, 2005 20th/21st Century Grape Harvest Dates Have Not Undergone Significant Change Moreno et al., 2016 “This paper reports a climatic reconstruction approach for the Minho region (NW of Portugal) using grape harvest dates (GHD) as proxy of surface air temperature. … The major external forcing of the climate system derives from the Sun. A solar signature has been found in global mean surface temperatures, with evidence directly related to two noticeably different features of the Sun’s dynamics: its short-term irradiance fluctuations and secular patterns of 22-year and 11-year cycles (Scafetta and West, 2008). … [I]t is recognized that solar forcing manifestations denote a strong spatial and seasonal variability (Usoskin et al., 2006), and this would be the reason why it might be illusive to seek a single global relationship between climate and solar activity (de Jager, 2005). Thus, Le Mouël et al. (2009) stated that a regional approach may allow one to identify specific forms of solar forcing, where and when the solar input is most important. … [S]olar footprints on terrestrial temperatures [are] due to the strong non-linear hydrodynamic interactions across the Earth’s surface, and the accepted longer-term solar activity influence creating temperature oscillations for tens or even hundreds of years (Scafetta and West, 2003, 2007, 2008). … These spectral analysis results appear to support a solar forcing with regards to Minho GHD [grape harvest dates].” Etien et al., 2008 — gReader Pro

Climate Change 101: The Evidence Humans Aren’t Destroying the Climate

January 9, 2017

Written by H. Sterling Burnett Climate change is real and has happened throughout history on local, regional, continent-wide, and global scales, driven by a variety of atmospheric, cosmic, geologic, and meteorological factors. Beginning in the latter half of the 20th century, some scientists—and later environmental lobbyists and politicians—began to worry Earth was changing in ways detrimental to humans and the environment. As Earth cooled modestly from the 1940s through the late 1970s, scientists began to warn of—and headlines began to trumpet—the coming of the next ice age. By the 1980s, however, the purported problem shifted, and scientists and environmentalists began to warn human-created greenhouse-gas emissions, primarily carbon dioxide resulting from burning fossil fuels, are warming the planet and that global warming would cause all manner of catastrophic climate changes—unless humans take extreme actions to stop it. What We Know Below, briefly, are the facts about greenhouse gasses and the purported human-caused global warming/climate change: Greenhouse gasses trap heat, making Earth habitable. Water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas, making up 97–98 percent of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide and other trace greenhouse gases make up just 2–3 percent of all greenhouse gasses, and the share of carbon dioxide produced by humans is just a fraction of that. Earth came out of what some scientists refer to as the “Little Ice Age” in the early- to mid-1800s, decades before there was a rise in carbon-dioxide emissions, a pattern that historical analyses show is normal. Humanity’s share of carbon-dioxide emissions grew dramatically, beginning in the middle of the 20th century, with increasing industrialization. Although there are concerns about the soundness and consistency of the global system for measuring temperatures and disputes over possible data manipulation by various governments (due to the differences between measured and reported temperatures), the global average temperature has risen modestly since the 1880s, by about 1.4 degrees F, with approximately 40–50 percent of that warming occurring before the growth in greenhouse gases from human sources began. Beyond these few statements, almost every other aspect of the climate change controversy is open to debate. Differences between the claims made by those who believe in the theory human greenhouse-gas emissions significantly affect the climate and the actual measured changes strongly indicate humans are not causing a climate Armageddon and that climate alarmists’ theory is incorrect. In fact, based on the evidence, at the worst, humans are having a modest effect on Earth’s climate, with the increase in carbon dioxide possibly having a net beneficial effect (due to the enhanced plant productivity resulting from higher carbon-dioxide levels.) Climate Models There is no question humans have changed the climate on a regional scale—and not always for the better. In some places, deforestation and slash-and-burn farming have resulted in shifting rainfall patterns, flooding, and desertification. And where megacities have developed, ecosystems that previously existed no longer do, changing the course of rivers, draining underground aquifers, causing land subsidence, and contributing to flooding. However, the evidence suggests human greenhouse-gas emission are having a limited impact on global climate, with virtually all the alarmists’ model predictions routinely failing to match reality. Anthropogenic warming theorists’ climate models assume temperatures should climb alongside rising carbon-dioxide levels, yet temperatures fell from the 1940s through the 1970s, even while emissions were rising dramatically. For the past two decades, carbon-dioxide levels have continued to increase, but global satellites have recorded no significant temperature increase for 18 years. According to the average of all climate models, Earth’s temperature should be one degree F warmer now than what is currently being measured. The gap between measured temperatures and predictions is most likely due to the fact Earth is less sensitive to additional molecules of greenhouse gases than calculated by most climate models. Climate models have assumptions built into their design concerning the secondary effects of carbon dioxide on Earth’s atmosphere, which they assume will enhance or amplify Earth’s warming. Simpler models that don’t build in these secondary effects track actual temperatures much more closely than the complex models do, and it’s the complex models upon which climate disaster projections are built. Failed Predictions Almost all the harmful impacts predicted by climate models are failing to materialize. For instance, climate models predicted more intense hurricanes, but for nearly a decade, the United States has experienced far fewer hurricanes making landfall than the historic average, and those hurricanes that have made landfall have been no more powerful than previously experienced. Additionally, while scientists have claimed anthropogenic warming should cause sea levels to rise at increasing rates—because of melting ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica and the thermal expansion of water molecules under warmer conditions—sea-level rise has slowed. Sea levels have always risen between ice ages or during interglacial periods. Indeed, sea levels have risen more than 400 feet since the end of the last interglacial period. However, the rate of sea-level rise since 1961 (approximately one-eighth of an inch per year) is far lower than the historic average (since the end of the previous ice age), and sea-level rise has not increased appreciably over the past century compared to previous centuries. Also, measured seal-level rise is well below the rise predicted by those climate models claiming sea levels would increase because of anthropogenic warming. While some locations have experienced dramatic sea-level rise and unexpected flooding, the reason is not anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions; it’s often because of other human causes. For instance, in many of these locations, land subsidence—due to increased withdrawals from shore adjacent to aquifers—is the problem. Further, many people are now building in locations prone to flooding—such as in areas near wetlands and in marshy areas, which historically mitigated or buffered mainland locations from flooding. There are a variety of reasons this is happening, but one of the most important is many government insurance programs (and other government programs, too) subsidize building in areas prone to flooding or hurricane damage. Based on climate models’ projections of land and ecosystem shifts and changes, biologists have predicted anthropogenic warming would cause numerous plant and wildlife extinctions, yet they have been unable to point to a single instance of a species going extinct due to human-caused climate change thus far.

Death Of Global Temperature ‘Pause’ Greatly Exaggerated – 2016 Not Statistically Warmer Than 1998

January 5, 2017

Death Of Global Temperature ‘Pause’ Greatly Exaggerated 2016 Not Statistically Warmer Than 1998, Satellites Data Shows Any estimate of temperature trends that have their endpoint on the uptick of the El Nino curve will give a misleadingly high trend. It is obvious that a better trend will be obtained after the natural El Nino has ended. Likewise care must be taken if the start point is near the La Nina years of 1999-2000. The temperature trends of the oceans estimated by the new paper fall into this trap. – Dr David Whitehouse, The GWPF Observatory, 5 January 2016 1) Death Of Global Temperature ‘Pause’ Greatly Exaggerated The GWPF Observatory, 5 January 2016 2) 2016 Not Statistically Warmer Than 1998, Satellites Data Shows Dr Roy Spencer, 3 January 2017 3) North Atlantic Ocean Cooling Rapidly NoTricksZone, 5 January 2017 4) “Hottest Year Evah”: A Reality Check Not A Lot Of People Know That, 1 January 2017 5) Judith Curry Retires, Citing ‘Craziness’ Of Climate Debate E&E News, 4 January 2017 6) Friends Of The Earth Promise: We Will Never Again Spread Misleading Anti-Fracking Scares The Times, 4 January 2017 7) Stephen Moore: 2016’s Biggest Loser – The Green Blob The Washington Times, 1 January 2017 Global weather-related disaster losses as a proportion of GDP, 1990-2016; graph Roger Pielke Jr. 4 January 2017 Strong December cooling leads to 2016 being statistically indistinguishable from 1998. —Dr Roy Spencer, 3 January 2017 While it has understandably not received much, if any, media attention, the North Atlantic Ocean has been rapidly cooling since the mid-2000s, or for more than 10 years now. The longer the cooling trend continues — and scientists are projecting more cooling for the coming decades — the more difficult it will be to ignore. The North Atlantic Ocean is, after all, a key trend-setter for hemispheric- and perhaps even global-scale climate changes. –Kenneth Richard, NoTricksZone, 5 January 2017 Supposedly 2016 was the banner year for global warming. So what has it brought? Arctic sea ice extent finishes the year at the level of the last few years. Northern Hemisphere snow extent was at the second highest on record this autumn. Greenland’s ice sheet has been growing at a phenomenal rate. Hurricane activity for the last 12 months has been normal. The US tornado season has been one of the quietest on record. US wildfires have been below the 10-year average. The decline in Central England temperatures since the peak a decade ago continues. Rainfall in Australia continues to defy the drought doomsters… Sounds pretty much like any other year to me! –Paul Homewood, Not A Lot Of People Know That, 1 January 2017 If you’re a climate change alarmist who hates fossil fuels, you’re in for a bad four and maybe eight years. Americans went to the polls and rejected environmental extremism among other things. The biggest loser on election night was the Big Green movement in America dedicated to the anti-prosperity proposition that to save the planet from extinction we have to deindustrialize the U.S. and throw millions and millions of our fellow citizens out of their jobs. Voters turned thumbs down on the climate change lobby and rightly so. –Stephen Moore, The Washington Times, 1 January 2017 1) Death Of Global Temperature ‘Pause’ Greatly Exaggerated The GWPF Observatory, 5 January 2016 Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF Science Editor Any estimate of temperature trends that have their endpoint on the uptick of the El Nino curve will give a misleadingly high trend. A new paper falls into this trap, claiming the global temperature hiatus never existed. The headlines say there is fresh doubt over the so-called global warming “hiatus” or “pause” – a period since around the turn of the century when many scientists believe that global surface temperatures have increased at a lesser rate than before. This is because a new study suggests that the temperature of the oceans were being underestimated in the past 20 years or so because the ocean buoys used to measure sea temperatures were recording slightly cooler temperatures that the older ship’s intake systems, not a particularly new or surprising finding. It is an interesting study in that it produces individual ocean temperature data for buoys, satellites as well as for different ways of combining ship-intake methods and buoys. Clearly different instruments measuring ocean temperatures will have different properties and such effects need to be studied so that data sets from each instrument can be combined to provide ocean temperature measurements over longer periods than any one method has achieved. So far, so good. But then the paper makes a gross error for the calibration of instrumental effects is one thing, what those instruments show is another. So the temperature measured by the buoys is cooler than ships, but what measurements are they producing, how is the ocean temperature changing, especially during the hiatus period? The fundamental error made in the paper is in calculating the temperature trends in recent years – the period of the so-called global temperature hiatus. One has to be very careful about estimating temperature trends as they depend strongly on start and end years and changes of a year or two in them can produce very different results. One also has to be aware of the structure in the temperature data of the past 20-years or so as it is dominated not by long-term warming but by natural inter-annual events that are much stronger. There is the very strong 1998 El Nino that elevates temperatures, the much cooler La Nina years of 1999 and 2000, the El Ninos of 2010 and 2015 as well as smaller El Ninos and La Nina effects. The 2015-16 El Nino has been one of the strongest on record temporarily elevating global temperatures by a significant margin. 2016 was the warmest year of the instrumental period (post 1850) but in the later part of the year global surface temperatures started to decline markedly. This means that any estimate of temperature trends that have their endpoint on the uptick of the El Nino curve will give a misleadingly high trend. It is obvious that a better trend will be obtained after the natural El Nino has ended. Likewise care must be taken if the start point is near the La Nina years of 1999-2000. The temperature trends of the oceans estimated by the paper fall into this trap. Technically the trends calculated are accurate for the start and end points used, but they are unwise start and end points which are, to use a frequently misunderstood term, cherry-picked. Consider the graph of ocean temperature data produced by the paper’s lead author. The El Nino at the end of the data is obvious. Like every other El Nino it will come down again, probably altering the conclusions of the paper that the pause never existed. Click on image to enlarge. Feedback: [email protected] see also: REPORT: Satellites Show The Global Warming ‘Pause’ Is Back 2) 2016 Not Statistically Warmer Than 1998, Satellites Data Shows Dr Roy Spencer, 3 January 2017 Strong December Cooling Leads to 2016 Being Statistically Indistinguishable from 1998 The Version 6.0 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for December 2016 was +0.24 deg. C, down substantially from the November value of +0.45 deg. C (click for full size version): The resulting 2016 annual average global temperature anomaly is +0.50 deg. C, which is (a statistically insignificant) 0.02 deg. C warmer than 1998 at +0.48 deg. C. We estimate that 2016 would have had to be 0.10 C warmer than 1998 to be significantly different at the 95% confidence level. Both 2016 and 1998 were strong El Nino years. Full post 3) North Atlantic Ocean Cooling Rapidly NoTricksZone, 5 January 2017 Kenneth Richard While it has understandably not received much, if any, media attention, the North Atlantic Ocean has been rapidly cooling since the mid-2000s, or for more than 10 years now. The longer the cooling trend continues — and scientists are projecting more cooling for the coming decades — the more difficult it will be to ignore. The North Atlantic Ocean is, after all, a key trend-setter for hemispheric- and perhaps even global-scale climate changes. In their new paper, for example, Reynolds and colleagues (2017) point out that natural fluctuations in heat transport initiated by the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) are “directly linked” to precipitation and warming/cooling temperature trends in Africa, Brazil, North America, and Europe. Not only that, but the authors explain that a centennial-scale reduction in surface heat transport (AMOC) can explain the dramatic reduction in surface temperatures from the warmth of the Medieval Warm Period to the frigid Little Ice Age, which, of course, could imply that centennial-scale increases in surface heat transport could explain warming periods. Reynolds et al., 2017 Evidence derived from instrumental observations suggest that Atlantic variability, associated with changes in SSTs and fluctuations in the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), is directly linked with broader scale climate variability, including Brazilian and Sahel precipitation (Folland et al., 1986 and Folland et al., 2001), Atlantic hurricanes and storm tracks (Goldenberg et al., 2001 and Emanuel, 2005), and North American and European temperatures (Sutton and Hodson, 2005, Knight et al., 2006 and Mann et al., 2009). Furthermore, evidence derived from palaeoceanographic records suggests that a reduction in the meridional heat transport through the surface components of the AMOC was in part responsible for the reductions in temperatures associated with the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA; 1000–1450) to Little Ice Age (LIA; 1450–1850) transition (Lund et al., 2006, Trouet et al., 2009, Trouet et al., 2012, Wanamaker et al., 2012 and Moffa-Sánchez et al., 2014). Examining the Reynolds et al. (2017) graph of North Atlantic sea surface temperatures since the early 1800s, we notice that temperatures (shown to have declined by about -0.45 °C since 2005) are colder now than they were in the 1940s and 1950s, and that even the early 1800s had warmer temperatures than now. Serykh (2016) points out that the warming enjoyed across Europe and Asia between the 1970s and late 1990s may have been associated with natural decadal-scale oscillations in heat transport. Similar to Reynolds et al. (2017), Serykh’s graph of ocean heat content reveals no net warming in the last 60 years. Serykh, 2016 A dipole structure of inter-decadal variations in the heat content of the ocean and heat fluxes from the ocean to the atmosphere has been detected in the North Atlantic. The following fact deserves special attention: the cyclonic and anti-cyclonic atmospheric circulation anomalies, as well as the decrease and increase in the ocean heat content, take place concurrently and quasi-synchronously in the Iceland minimum and Azores maximum regions. Owing to this, the western heat transport anomalies along the 50th parallel increase or decrease the transport of heat from the Atlantic Ocean to the Euro-Asian continent, and the climate in Europe and Siberia becomes more marine or more continental. The very fast climate warming of the Euro-Asian continent that began in the 1970s may be associated with the enhanced heat transport from the North Atlantic in this period. This is evident from the fields and time series obtained in the present paper. The hiatus of this warming after 1999 may be due to the decreased heat transfer from the North Atlantic Ocean to the Eurasian territory. Full post 4) “Hottest Year Evah”: A Reality Check Not A Lot Of People Know That, 1 January 2017 Paul Homewood Supposedly 2016 was the banner year for global warming. So what has it brought? Arctic sea ice extent finishes the year at the level of the last few years: NH snow extent was at the second highest on record this autumn: Greenland’s ice sheet has been growing at a phenomenal rate: Hurricane activity for the last 12 months has been normal: The US tornado season has been one of the quietest on record: US wildfires have been below the 10-year average: Full post see also: Global weather-related disaster losses as a proportion of GDP, 1990-2016;graph Roger Pielke Jr. 4 January 2017 5) Judith Curry Retires, Citing ‘Craziness’ Of Climate Debate E&E News, 4 January 2017 Scott Waldman Judith Curry, one of climate science’s most vocal critics, is leaving academe because of what she calls the poisonous nature of the scientific discussion around human-caused global warming. Dr. Judith Curry before the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology Hearing on the President’s UN Climate Pledge, April 15th, 2015 Curry, 63, is retiring from her tenured position as a professor at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She’s instead going to focus on growing her private business, Climate Forecast Applications Network, which provides insights into climate and weather risks for agriculture and energy companies. The climatologist, who distinguished herself in the field decades ago with research into the Arctic and the causes of the climate feedback that have shaped the region, writes a blog called Climate Etc. It is by turns academic and inflammatory. There she occasionally mocks what she calls “climate alarmists” who say time is almost out unless humanity weans itself off fossil fuels. In her blog and on Twitter, she has also criticized some of the scientists, including Pennsylvania State University climatologist Michael Mann and Harvard University climate historian Naomi Oreskes, who have become leading voices for climate action. She has testified in front of Congress, boosted by politicians who use her work to argue that environmental regulations and a scaling down of fossil fuel use will be ineffective. Her work is frequently invoked by climate skeptics and denialists. Congressional Democrats, displeased with her conclusions, have investigated the source of her funding. Curry actually believes, along with the vast majority of climate scientists, that humans are warming the planet, and was even an outspoken advocate of the issue during the George W. Bush years. She was among the first to connect global warming to hurricanes, for example, publishing an influential study in Science in 2006. But where she breaks with the majority opinion is over just how much humans are actually causing global temperatures to rise. Where many scientists say that humans are the primary cause of warming, Curry believes natural forces play a larger role. She also believes that uncertainty around climate models means we don’t have to act so quickly and that current plans would do little to mitigate warming. She also questions the assertion made by a majority of climate scientists who believe humans have significantly contributed to climate change. In the Obama years, she has become a contrarian of sorts, often criticizing those who rely on climate models to prove that humans are warming the planet at an unprecedented rate. In announcing her retirement, Curry wrote about what she called her “growing disenchantment with universities, the academic field of climate science and scientists.” She said a deciding factor for leaving the ivory tower was that “I no longer know what to say to students and postdocs regarding how to navigate the CRAZINESS in the field of climate science,” adding that research and funding for it are highly politicized. In an interview with E&E News, Curry said she would like to see a greater focus on the uncertainties of climate science and a better exploration of them through scientific debate free of politics. “Once you understand the scientific uncertainties, the present policy path that we’re on doesn’t make a lot of sense,” she said. “We need to open up policy dialogue to a bigger solution space. So I’m just looking to open up the dialogue and to provoke people into thinking.” Curry, in general, believes that the policies undertaken by the Obama administration won’t do much to reduce global warming levels. That has made her the target of scientists who accuse her of aiding the climate denialists who oppose the environmental regulations of the last eight years and are eager to dismantle them under President-elect Donald Trump. Curry is not convinced that Trump will damage the climate science field, which she said has gone in the wrong direction under Obama. “Once we get over this little bump of activism, if the Trump administration will put us on a slightly reassuring and saner footing, that will allow all this to die down,” she said. “We can always hope.” Curry’s departure from academe will weaken the field of climate science, which needs people to ask hard questions that differ from the mainstream, said Roger Pielke Jr., a professor at the University of Colorado who previously worked with Curry and recently switched fields from climate science to sports governance after facing intense pressure of his own. Curry has consistently been willing to stick out her neck to ask questions that other scientists avoid for reasons of political expediency, he said. Purposely choosing a “different song sheet to sing off of” has earned her an unfair level of criticism, Pielke said. “If you only look at her academic career, absent the glossy overlay of the climate debate, you would say this is a pretty distinguished academic who had a pretty successful career,” he said. “The facts that she was excoriated by her peers, smeared and so on just illustrates having a tenured position isn’t a guarantee of academic freedom.” Full post 6) Friends Of The Earth Promise: We Will Never Again Spread Misleading Anti-Fracking Scares The Times, 4 January 2017 Ben Webster A green campaign group has agreed not to repeat misleading claims about the health and environmental impacts of fracking after complaints to the advertising watchdog. Friends of the Earth flyer: The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said Friends of the Earth “agreed not to repeat the claims, or claims that had the same meaning” Friends of the Earth spent more than a year trying to defend its claims, which were made in a fundraising leaflet, but has been forced to withdraw them. The group’s capitulation is a victory for a retired vicar and a retired physics teacher who have been working for years to expose what they believe is scaremongering about a safe technique for extracting shale gas. The Rev Michael Roberts and Ken Wilkinson complained about Friends of the Earth’s claims to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which also received a complaint from the fracking company Cuadrilla. The authority found that Friends of the Earth (FoE) failed to substantiate claims that fracking could cause cancer, contaminate water supplies, increase asthma rates and send house prices plummeting. The ASA produced its draft ruling in July but was forced to delay sending it to its council for approval because FoE repeatedly requested more time to challenge the findings. The group finally agreed not to repeat the claims in a deal with the ASA under which it has avoided having a formal ruling against it. The ASA said: “We have told Friends of the Earth Trust Ltd and Friends of the Earth Ltd not to make claims about the likely effects of fracking on the health of local populations, drinking water or property prices in the absence of adequate evidence.” Mr Wilkinson, who said that he had no connection with the fracking industry and was acting purely to ensure the public received accurate information, welcomed the ruling. “It is outrageous that FoE used false information to raise money,” he said. “We need a frank debate about fracking and its potential impacts but it should be based on facts, not scaremongering.” Full post 7) Stephen Moore: 2016’s Biggest Loser – The Green Blob The Washington Times, 1 January 2017 Voters turned thumbs down on the climate change lobby and rightly so The day after the presidential elections the executive director of the Sierra Club glumly called the Donald Trump victory “deeply disturbing for the nation and the planet.” Well, yes, if you’re a climate change alarmist who hates fossil fuels, you’re in for a bad four and maybe eight years. Greenpeace executive director Annie Leonard was even more apocalyptic saying: “I never thought I’d have to write this. The election of Donald Trump as president has been devastating There’s no question, Donald Trump’s climate denial is staggering. He wants to shut down the EPA, cancel the Paris Climate Agreement, stop funding clean energy research and drill baby drill.” Ah, but if this is so crazy, why did he win? The short answer is that Americans went to the polls and rejected environmental extremism among other things. The biggest loser on election night was the Big Green movement in America dedicated to the anti-prosperity proposition that to save the planet from extinction we have deindustrialize the U.S. and throw millions and millions of our fellow citizens out of their jobs. Voters turned thumbs down on the climate change lobby and rightly so. It may seem an exaggeration to say that the radical leftist green groups want to throw working class Americans out of their jobs — but it isn’t. They openly admit it. The Sierra Club actually declared “victory” last year when it helped push several of America’s leading coal production companies into bankruptcy. Sierra Club spokeswoman, Lena Moffit, took credit for destroying coal production in America, but she neglected to mention the tens of thousands of miners, truckers, construction workers, and other blue collar workers who lost their jobs due to the Sierra Club campaign. What humanitarians these people are. Ms. Moffit promised that the Sierra Club will “bring the same expertise that we brought to taking down the coal industry and coal-fired power in this country to taking on gas in the same way to ensure that we’re moving to a 100% clean energy future.” Wait a minute. There are an estimated 10 million Americans who are directly or indirectly employed by the oil and gas and coal industries. The left wants to put every one of these people out of a job? Will they use Stalinistic worker relocation programs to pull this off? And by the way, someone might want to inform these self-proclaimed scientific geniuses that natural gas is clean energy. Fortunately, we learned on election day that voters aren’t as alarmed as the alarmists are. Almost none of the voters that I met in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Indiana, or Michigan had anything but contempt for the climate change fanatics. They view this as another attempt by Washington to run their lives and completely ignore their economic plight in favor of grandiose dreams of the government somehow changing the weather. In so many ways climate change was one of the primary issues that allowed Donald Trump to crash through the blue wall of the industrial Midwest. The Democrats’ preposterous opposition to building the Keystone XL pipeline which could create as many as 10,000 high-paying construction, welding, pipefitting, electrician jobs is emblematic of how the party that is supposed to represent union workers turned their backs on their own members and their families. The Paris climate change treaty puts America last and forces us to stop using cheap, reliable and abundant domestic fossil fuels while the rest of the world — particularly China and India — are all in on coal. Nobody in Washington seemed to notice that as The Wall Street Journal reported last month: “China’s government will raise coal production by as much as 20% by 2020, ensuring a continuing strong role for the commodity in the country’s energy future.” That’s more than the entire energy usage of Canada in a year. Um, does this sound like a country that has any interest in cutting its carbon emissions? Amazing that the truck drivers in Indiana, and the coal workers in West Virginia, and the steel producers in Ohio get that the rest of the world is laughing at us, and the president of the United States doesn’t. The surprise of this election is that Democrats were surprised by the mass voter rejection of the radical climate change agenda. Every poll for the last five years at least has shown that climate change barely registers as a leading concern of American voters. Jobs and the economy were always issues number one and two, and global warming was usually close to last on the list. A 2015 Fox News poll found that only 3 percent of Americans believed that climate change was “the most important issue facing America today.” That means 97 percent disagreed with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernard Sanders and Tom Steyer that global warming was the greatest threat to America. This didn’t stop Hillary Clinton from telling West Virginians that she would put every coal miner out of a job. Then she wonders why she got crushed in this unionized historically reliable Democratic state. The issue that now confronts Democrats is whether they can reconnect with blue collar union voters by disassociating themselves from the fanatical greens that are trying to destroy union blue collar jobs. It won’t be easy. Environmental groups are said to be raising record hauls of cash from their millionaire and billionaire donors since the election. Ultra-green environmentalists like Tom Steyer may call the party’s tunes, but then don’t be surprised when millions of blue collar middle-class workers flee to the Republicans. Something has to give in the Democratic Party. My prediction is that Democrats will only make a comeback in American politics when they throw crazies like Tom Steyer, the Sierra Club, and Greenpeace off the bus and start listening to the everyday concerns of working-class Americans again.

Meteorologists refute media claims that Arctic storm caused by humans: ‘That’s utter bullsh*t’ – ‘Who is feeding the media this crap?’

December 30, 2015

The Washington Post is hyping an Arctic storm ‘Frank’ for causing a spike in North Pole temperatures. See: “Freak storm pushes North Pole 50 degrees above normal to melting point” But meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue is countering the media hype that the storm currently hitting the Arctic is caused by mankind. ‘That’s utter bullshit,” Maue declared on December 29, in a response to the Washington Post’s claim that the Arctic event “reeks of a human-forced warming of the Earth’s climate.” Maue added: “Who is feeding the media this crap?” Meteorologist Joe Bastardi also weighed in, calling media reports of a melting Arctic, the “lunatic fringe.” Bastardi noted that before this storm, “Arctic temperatures are way below freezing.” Bastardi also noted that the “data buoy” measuring temperatures in the Arctic was “more than two degrees south of the North Pole and is not representative of true temperatures. He noted that the Danish Meteorological site’s data was “much better and it showed that the Arctic “has been much warmer” in the past. “Long standing DMI records(back to 1958) indicate the Arctic has been warmer in 1984, 1985, 2000 and 2002 . The Washington Post owes it to readers to show BEST data source,” Bastardi added. The blog RealClimateScience.com noted today that Arctic sea ice extent was at a 10-year high, despite the media hyped storm. “Earlier today, sea ice extent was at a 10 year high. But experts say it all melted during one hour at -1C this afternoon,” wrote Tony Heller at RealClimateScience.com, with more than a hint of sarcasm. Ocean and Ice Services | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut Heller also noted that “Arctic ice is screaming back towards 1990’s levels.” Update Dec. 31, 2015: RealClimateScience.com noted: “Experts say that a terrifying storm melted the North Pole yesterday” “This unprecedented melting event has caused Arctic ice to reach its highest December extent in over a decade.” Ocean and Ice Services | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut Note: DMI issued this this notice on above graph. “The plot above replaces an earlier sea ice extent plot, that was based on data with the coastal zones masked out. This coastal mask implied that the previous sea ice extent estimates were underestimated. The new plot displays absolute sea ice extent estimates. The old plot can still be viewed here for a while.” “One buoy 300 km from the pole reported temperatures just above freezing for an hour yesterday. Another buoy a mile away did not report any above freezing temperatures.” The current warm spike is not unprecedented. Arctic temperature data shows three cases of North Pole temperatures exceeding freezing since 1948. RealClimateScience.com also noted: “A 1964 Arctic Temperature Spike Was Larger Than 2015 – And occurred during era of concern over ‘Global Cooling’ 2015’s temperature spike in the Arctic was “at -20C was smaller than the 1964 ‘global cooling’ spike.” Ocean and Ice Services | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut Update: Journalistic Fraud: North Pole Region Saw Similar Warm Spikes Before…OVER 70 TIMES In Last 58 Years! ‘Only a small region near the North Pole saw a burst of warm southern air – lasting a few hours.’ ‘The temperature in the Arctic above 80°N was estimated to have risen only some 13°K during the event, and not 30°K as the WAPO tried having its readers think.’ ‘Since 1958 we see that a temperature spike of some 12°K or more in a matter of a few days during the November – March deep winter period occurred more than 70 times!’ Also taking a look at the wild fluctuations seen in 1964, 1984, or 1990 – back when CO2 was at levels near the “safe” 350 ppm – we see they were far more extreme’ Despite the data, the media is continuing to hype the alleged “unprecedented” weather. The Washington Post featured Weather Underground’s Jeff Masters explaining: “It’s really hard to scientifically say that’s what’s going on.” Masters added: “This isn’t the climate I grew up with,” he said. “We didn’t see this kind of weather in the 20th century.” But the data clearly reveals that “extreme weather” has not increased, counter to Masters’ claim. See: PROF. ROGER PIELKE JR: TESTIMONY ON THE CURRENT STATE OF WEATHER EXTREMES: ‘It is misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally’ Steve Milloy of JunkScience.com, mocked Masters claim: “It wasn’t the weather Jeff Masters grew up with? Well, isn’t weather always different by definition? And then, since he’s so into ‘climate change,’ why would he expect weather to be the same in a climate that is constantly changing? Besides… the Arctic has been this warm before… and sea ice is at a 10-year high.” Unusual warmth at during the holidays is not unusual. Even in 1940, Santa had to deal with Christmas warmth. See: Flashback 1940: NY Times: ‘Santa Claus ran into some of the strangest weather of his career’ as he flies through ‘all-time record high’ temps – From NYTimes, Dec. 25, 1940: Santa finds ‘strangest weather of his career’ Meanwhile, the Washington Post also attempted to link the UK floods to some sort of unprecedented weather. The Washing Post noted: “The U.K. Met office said that December has been a record-breaking month for rainfall in parts of the United Kingdom. A Christmas weekend storm brought up to 8 inches of addition rainfall on saturated soil.” But the media has failed to note that the current floods in the UK are nothing unusual in the historical record. See: Historic Weather Records Rubbish UK PM Cameron’s Attempts To Blame Floods On ‘Global Warming’ The peer-reviewed literature reveals that linking floods to human caused “global warming” is not possible. See: ‘Yet another study finds little basis for attribution of extreme weather (drought-flood-storm) to human-caused climate change.’ Related Links: PROF. ROGER PIELKE JR: TESTIMONY ON THE CURRENT STATE OF WEATHER EXTREMES: ‘It is misleading, and just plain incorrect, to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally’ – Link to full testimony of Roger Pielke Jr. to Congress: ‘It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases’ Globally, weather-related losses ($) have not increased since 1990 as a proportion of GDP (they have actually decreased by about 25%) and insured catastrophe losses have not increased as a proportion of GDP since 1960. • Hurricanes have not increased in the US in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at least 1900. The same holds for tropical cyclones globally since at least 1970 (when data allows for a global perspective). • Floods have not increased in the US in frequency or intensity since at least 1950. Flood losses as a percentage of US GDP have dropped by about 75% since 1940. • Tornadoes have not increased in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since 1950, and there is some evidence to suggest that they have actually declined. • Drought has “for the most part, become shorter, less frequent, and cover a smaller portion of the U. S. over the last century.” Globally, “there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.” • The absolute costs of disasters will increase significantly in coming years due to greater wealth and populations in locations exposed to extremes. Consequent, disasters will continue to be an important focus of policy, irrespective of the exact future course of climate change.’ Prof. Roger Pielke Jr. slams NOAA For Claims of Increasing Extreme Weather: ‘In the US on climate time scales there is no evidence for more hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, drought. Happy to debate this topic with data’ – Pielke Jr. : ‘How can a NOAA spokesdude get away with telling USA Today that droughts are increasing when USGCRP, IPCC and peer reviewed research sez no?’

Greenpeace Co-Founder Tells U.S. Senate: Earth’s Geologic History ‘fundamentally contradicts’ CO2 Climate Fears: ‘We had both higher temps and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today’

February 25, 2014

[Gore Effect Strikes Another Global Warming Hearing: Senate climate hearing met by DC snowstorm – ‘snow coats D.C. area’ – Area under ‘Winter Weather Advisory’ on day of climate global warming hearing.] Watch archived hearing here. Click Here to Watch Live Senate Hearing at 2pm Est. & Read Full Testimonies of other witnesses Obama Science Czar John Holdren’s testimony here. Selected Highlights of Dr. Patrick Moore’s Feb. 25, 2014 testimony before the U.S. Senate Environment & Public Works Committee: “Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species. There is ample reason to believe that a sharp cooling of the climate would bring disastrous results for human civilization. Humans are a tropical species. We evolved at the equator in a climate where freezing weather did not exist. The only reasons we can survive these cold climates are fire, clothing, and housing…It is “extremely likely” that a warmer temperature than today’s would be far better than a cooler one. Earth’s Geologic History Fails CO2 Fears: ‘When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today, yet life flourished at this time. Then an Ice Age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2 was 10 times higher than today. There is some correlation, but little evidence, to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia. The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming.’ On UN IPCC’s 95% confidence in man-made global warming: ‘Extremely likely’ is not a scientific term but rather a judgment, as in a court of law. The IPCC defines “extremely likely” as a “95-100% probability”. But upon further examination it is clear that these numbers are not the result of any mathematical calculation or statistical analysis. They have been “invented” as a construct within the IPCC report to express “expert judgment”, as determined by the IPCC contributors. Why does the IPCC believe that a virtually identical increase in temperature after 1950 is caused mainly by “human influence”, when it has no explanation for the nearly identical increase from 1910-1940? What we do know with “extreme certainty” is that the climate is always changing, between pauses, and that we are not capable, with our limited knowledge, of predicting which way it will go next.” # Full Statement of Patrick Moore, Ph.D. Before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight – “Natural Resource Adaptation: Protecting ecosystems and economies” February 25, 2014 Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Inhofe, and members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify at today’s hearing. In 1971, as a PhD student in ecology I joined an activist group in a church basement in Vancouver Canada and sailed on a small boat across the Pacific to protest US Hydrogen bomb testing in Alaska. We became Greenpeace. After 15 years in the top committee I had to leave as Greenpeace took a sharp turn to the political left, and began to adopt policies that I could not accept from my scientific perspective. Climate change was not an issue when I abandoned Greenpeace, but it certainly is now. There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years. If there were such a proof it would be written down for all to see. No actual proof, as it is understood in science, exists. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states: “It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.” (My emphasis) “Extremely likely” is not a scientific term but rather a judgment, as in a court of law. The IPCC defines “extremely likely” as a “95-100% probability”. But upon further examination it is clear that these numbers are not the result of any mathematical calculation or statistical analysis. They have been “invented” as a construct within the IPCC report to express “expert judgment”, as determined by the IPCC contributors. These judgments are based, almost entirely, on the results of sophisticated computer models designed to predict the future of global climate. As noted by many observers, including Dr. Freeman Dyson of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, a computer model is not a crystal ball. We may think it sophisticated, but we cannot predict the future with a computer model any more than we can make predictions with crystal balls, throwing bones, or by appealing to the Gods. Perhaps the simplest way to expose the fallacy of “extreme certainty” is to look at the historical record. With the historical record, we do have some degree of certainty compared to predictions of the future. When modern life evolved over 500 million years ago, CO2 was more than 10 times higher than today, yet life flourished at this time. Then an Ice Age occurred 450 million years ago when CO2 was 10 times higher than today. There is some correlation, but little evidence, to support a direct causal relationship between CO2 and global temperature through the millennia. The fact that we had both higher temperatures and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today fundamentally contradicts the certainty that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main cause of global warming. Today we remain locked in what is essentially still the Pleistocene Ice Age, with an average global temperature of 14.5oC. This compares with a low of about 12oC during the periods of maximum glaciation in this Ice Age to an average of 22oC during the Greenhouse Ages, which occurred over longer time periods prior to the most recent Ice Age. During the Greenhouse Ages, there was no ice on either pole and all the land was tropical and sub-tropical, from pole to pole. As recently as 5 million years ago the Canadian Arctic islands were completely forested. Today, we live in an unusually cold period in the history of life on earth and there is no reason to believe that a warmer climate would be anything but beneficial for humans and the majority of other species. There is ample reason to believe that a sharp cooling of the climate would bring disastrous results for human civilization. Moving closer to the present day, it is instructive to study the record of average global temperature during the past 130 years. The IPCC states that humans are the dominant cause of warming “since the mid-20th century”, which is 1950. From 1910 to 1940 there was an increase in global average temperature of 0.5oC over that 30-year period. Then there was a 30-year “pause” until 1970. This was followed by an increase of 0.57oC during the 30-year period from 1970 to 2000. Since then there has been no increase, perhaps a slight decrease, in average global temperature. This in itself tends to negate the validity of the computer models, as CO2 emissions have continued to accelerate during this time. The increase in temperature between 1910-1940 was virtually identical to the increase between 1970-2000. Yet the IPCC does not attribute the increase from 1910-1940 to “human influence.” They are clear in their belief that human emissions impact only the increase “since the mid-20th century”. Why does the IPCC believe that a virtually identical increase in temperature after 1950 is caused mainly by “human influence”, when it has no explanation for the nearly identical increase from 1910-1940? It is important to recognize, in the face of dire predictions about a 2oC rise in global average temperature, that humans are a tropical species. We evolved at the equator in a climate where freezing weather did not exist. The only reasons we can survive these cold climates are fire, clothing, and housing. It could be said that frost and ice are the enemies of life, except for those relatively few species that have evolved to adapt to freezing temperatures during this Pleistocene Ice Age. It is “extremely likely” that a warmer temperature than today’s would be far better than a cooler one. I realize that my comments are contrary to much of the speculation about our climate that is bandied about today. However, I am confident that history will bear me out, both in terms of the futility of relying on computer models to predict the future, and the fact that warmer temperatures are better than colder temperatures for most species. If we wish to preserve natural biodiversity, wildlife, and human well being, we should simultaneously plan for both warming and cooling, recognizing that cooling would be the most damaging of the two trends. We do not know whether the present pause in temperature will remain for some time, or whether it will go up or down at some time in the near future. What we do know with “extreme certainty” is that the climate is always changing, between pauses, and that we are not capable, with our limited knowledge, of predicting which way it will go next. Thank you for the opportunity to present my views on this important subject. Attached please find the chapter on climate change from my book, “Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist”. I would request it be made part of the record. Click here for Moore’s full chapter excerpt. # Related Links: Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore: ‘Thank goodness we came along & reversed 150 million-year trend of reduced CO2 levels in global atmosphere. Long live the humans’ — Moore: ‘CO2 is lower today than it has been through most of the history of life on earth…At 150 ppm CO2 all plants would die, resulting in virtual end of life on earth’ Former Greenpeace co-founder turned climate skeptic Dr. Patrick Moore calls NAS ‘tipping point’ study ‘pure junk’: ‘Low point for US National Academy of Science. Warns of ‘tipping points’ in climate like ‘drunk drivers’ Former Greenpeace Founding Member Dr. Patrick Moore refutes warmist’s attack point by point: Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore: Oil is the ‘most important source of energy to support our civilization’ — ‘If it is the aim of ‘environmentalists’ to stop fossil fuel production and use, end fracking, end coal mining, end use of oil, then they are promoting a policy that would have disastrous consequences for human civilization & the environment. If we stopped using fossil fuel today, or by 2020 as Gore proposes, at least half the human population would perish & there wouldn’t be a tree left on planet within a year, as people struggled to find enough energy to stay alive’ Greenpeace Co-Founder Dr. Patrick Moore Rips Windfarms: ‘They are ridiculously expensive and don’t work half the time…The industry is a destroyer of wealth and negative to the economy’ –Moore: ‘And no matter how many are built, they won’t replace coal, gas or hydro or nuclear plants, because they are continuous and wind is not always reliable’ Greenpeace Co-Founder Dr. Patrick Moore Questions Man-Made Global Warming, Calls it ‘Obviously a Natural Phenomenon’ — ‘We do not have any scientific proof that we are the cause of the global warming that has occurred in the last 200 years…The alarmism is driving us through scare tactics to adopt energy policies that are going to create a huge amount of energy poverty among the poor people’

Forget global warming!? Earth undergoing global COOLING since 2002! Climate Scientist Dr. Judith Curry: ‘Attention in the public debate seems to be moving away from the 15-17 year ‘pause’ to the cooling since 2002’

June 15, 2013

Climate Depot Exclusive Round Up of Global Cooling predictions Professor Judith Curry of, the chair, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, on June 14, 2013: “Attention in the public debate seems to be moving away from the 15-17 year ‘pause’ to the cooling since 2002 (note: I am receiving inquiries about this from journalists). This period since 2002 is scientifically interesting, since it coincides with the ‘climate shift’ circa 2001/2002 posited by Tsonis and others. This shift and the subsequent slight cooling trend provides a rationale for inferring a slight cooling trend over the next decade or so, rather than a flat trend from the 15 yr ‘pause’.” Climate Depot Note: Many scientists in recent years have noted the recent global cooling and predicted many years to decades to centuries of more global cooling. Below is a sampling of scientists and studies on global cooling. UW-Milwaukee Professor’s Peer-Reviewed Study Predicts 50 Years of Global Cooling – January 2010: ‘A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor is making headlines for his work suggesting the world is entering a period of global cooling. “Now we’re getting a break,” Anastasios Tsonis, Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at UWM, said in an interview with the MacIver Institute. Tsonis published a paper last March that found the world goes through periods of warming and cooling that tend to last thirty years. He says we are now in a period of cooling that could last up to fifty years. Atmospheric Scientist Tsonis on record cold: ‘It just isn’t true to say this is a blip. We can expect colder winters for quite a while’ — Tsonis was flooded with ‘hate emails’ after 2009 peer-reviewed study predicting ’20 or 30 years of cooler temperatures’ — ‘People were accusing me of wanting to destroy the climate, yet all I’m interested in is the truth’ Russia’s Pulkovo Observatory: ‘We could be in for a cooling period that lasts 200-250 years’ New Study: Russian Astrophysicist from Russian Academy of Science Predicts Global Cooling: ‘From 2014 we can expect start of deep cooling with a Little Ice Age in 2055′ — Habibullo I. Abdussamatov, Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian Academy of Science, St. Petersburg, 196140, Russia — Applied Physics Research, Vol. 4, No. 1 February 2012: Abstract: ‘We can expect the onset of a deep bicentennial minimum of total solar irradiance (TSI) in approximately 2042±11 and the 19th deep minimum of global temperature in the past 7500 years – in 2055±11.’ Flashback Sept. 2009: ‘Sun Sleeps’: Danish Solar Scientist Svensmark declares ‘global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning…enjoy global warming while it lasts’ Global Cooling Coming? Aussie Scientist David Archibald uses solar and surface data to predict 4.9°C fall — ‘Normal solar cycles are 11 years long, but the current one (cycle 24) is shaping up to be 17 years (unusually long), and using historical data from the US, David predicts a 2.1°C decline over Solar Cycle 24 followed by a further 2.8°C over Solar Cycle 25. That adds up to a whopping 4.9°C fall in temperate latitudes over the next 20 years. We can only hope he’s wrong’ Prominent geologist warns ‘global COOLING is almost a slam dunk’ for up to 30 years or more — ‘There is no single piece of real evidence that points to CO2′ as driving temps — Dr. Don Easterbrook: ‘We’ve had 27 climate changes in the last 400 years: warm, cold, warm, cold. There have been four in this past century that have nothing to do with CO2, because CO2 wasn’t a factor hundreds of thousands of years ago. We know that those are not at all related to CO2. So why would we expect climate change today to be related to CO2?’ AUSTRALIAN SCIENTIST PREDICTS GLOBAL COOLING: “SUN IS THE MAJOR CONTROL OF CLIMATE; LOOK FOR COOLING’ — ‘Prof. Cliff Ollier of the School of Earth & Env. Studies, U, of Western Australia, recently presented a paper in Poznan, Poland, in which he described the sun as the major control of climate, but not through greenhouse gases.”There is a very good correlation of sunspots and climate. Solar cycles provide a basis for prediction. Solar Cycle 24 has started and we can expect serious cooling. Many think that political decisions about climate are based on scientific predictions but what politicians get are projections based on computer models. The UN’s main adviser, the IPCC, uses adjusted data for the input, their models and codes remain secret, and they do not accept responsibility for their projections.” Download paper here New paper finds that a solar proton event could cause global cooling of more than 3C — Paper published today in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics — Study finds that ‘a solar proton event, if it took place in the near future with an intensity similar to that ascribed to the Carrington Event of 1859, must be expected to have a major impact on atmospheric composition throughout the middle atmosphere, resulting in significant and persistent decrease in total ozone,’ resulting in a ‘significant [global] cooling of more than 3C’ Famed hurricane forecaster Dr. William Gray predicts global cooling over next 20 years Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook at Heartland Skeptic Conf.: ‘The main question is not will we have global cooling, it’s how intense will it be’ Dr. Easterbrook: ‘What we see now in the climate is nothing new 90% of 10000 years was warmer than the present’ Watch Now: Meteorologist Joe Bastardi on how global warming hype is hurting the economy & warns of global cooling Sampling of scientists and scientific studies predicting global COOLING – Up until October 2008 [Note: Many of the scientists and studies cited below first appeared in the December 2007 U.S. Senate Report of over 400 (For Full Senate Report see: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport ) See also U.S. Senate Report released in July 2008: ‘Consensus’ On Man-Made Global Warming Collapses in 2008 ] Global COOLING Continues: 2008 So Far Coolest For at Least 5 Years Says World Meteorological Organization – ‘First half of 2008 the coolest since 2000’ — Excerpt: – The first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Wednesday. The whole year will almost certainly be cooler than recent years, although temperatures remain above the historical average. […] The global mean temperature to end-July was 0.28 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, the UK-based MetOffice Hadley Centre for climate change research said on Wednesday. That would make the first half of 2008 the coolest since 2000. […] Chillier weather this year is partly because of a global weather pattern called La Nina that follows a periodic warming effect called El Nino. “We can expect with high probability this year will be cooler than the previous five years,” said Omar Baddour, responsible for climate data and monitoring at the WMO. “Definitely the La Nina should have had an effect, how much we cannot say.” “Up to July 2008, this year has been cooler than the previous five years at least. It still looks like it’s warmer than average,” added Baddour. ‘This is going to be catastrophic’ – Brrr! Farmers’ Almanac says cold winter ahead – Associated Press – August 20, 2008 — Excerpt: Households worried about the high cost of keeping warm this winter will draw little comfort from the Farmers’ Almanac, which predicts below-average temperatures for most of the U.S. “Numb’s the word,” says the 192-year-old publication, which claims an accuracy rate of 80 to 85 percent for its forecasts that are prepared two years in advance. The almanac’s 2009 edition, which goes on sale Tuesday, says at least two-thirds of the country can expect colder than average temperatures, with only the Far West and Southeast in line for near-normal readings. “This is going to be catastrophic for millions of people,” said almanac editor Peter Geiger, noting that the frigid forecast combined with high prices for heating fuel is sure to compound problems households will face in keeping warm. The almanac predicts above-normal snowfall for the Great Lakes and Midwest, especially during January and February, and above-normal precipitation for the Southwest in December and for the Southeast in January and February. The Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions should be getting an unusually wet or snowy February, the almanac said. The forecasts, which are spelled out in three- and four-day periods for each region, are prepared by the almanac’s reclusive prognosticator Caleb Weatherbee, who uses a secret formula based on sunspots, the position of the planets and the tidal action of the moon. ‘Global warming of the past 30 years is over’ – July 20, 2008 – By Geologist Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, Emeritus Professor at Western Washington University, who has authored eight books and 150 journal publications. — Excerpt: Addressing the Washington Policymakers in Seattle, WA, Dr. Don Easterbrook said that shifting of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) from its warm mode to its cool mode virtually assures global cooling for the next 25-30 years and means that the global warming of the past 30 years is over. The announcement by NASA that the (PDO) had shifted from its warm mode to its cool mode (Fig. 1) is right on schedule as predicted by past climate and PDO changes (Easterbrook, 2001, 2006, 2007) and is not an oddity superimposed upon and masking the predicted severe warming by the IPCC. This has significant implications for the future and indicates that the IPCC climate models were wrong in their prediction of global temperatures soaring 1°F per decade for the rest of the century. Mexican scientist warns Earth will enter ‘Little Ice Age’ for up to 80 Years Due to decrease in solar activity! – August 16, 2008 — Excerpt: An expert from the National Autonomous University of Mexico predicted that in about ten years the Earth will enter a “little ice age” which will last from 60 to 80 years and may be caused by the decrease in solar activity. Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the UNAM, as argued earlier during a conference that teaches at the Centre for Applied Sciences and Technological Development. […] Velasco Herrera described as erroneous predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), pursuant to which the planet is experiencing a gradual increase in temperature, the so-called global warming. The models and forecasts of the IPCC “is incorrect because only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity,” said the specialist also in image processing and signs and prevention of natural disasters. The phenomenon of climate change, he added, should include other kinds of factors, both internal, such as volcanoes and the very human activity, and external, such as solar activity. […] “In this century glaciers are growing”, as seen in the Andes, Perito Moreno, Logan, the highest mountain in Canada, and with Franz-Josef Glacier, New Zealand, said Velasco Herrera. […] The prognosis on the emergence of a new Ice Age has little uncertainty as to their dates. The latest, according to Victor Manuel Velasco, could arrive in approximately two years. In another lecture he gave at the beginning of last December, the same expert had said that the cooling would arrive within 30 or 40 years. And in early July, Velasco Herrera said that satellite data indicate that this period of global cooling could even have already begun, since 2005. Original Spanish language website: http://www.milenio.com/mexico/milenio/nota.asp?id=651680 — Google Translated link from Spanish: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.milenio.com%2Fmexico%2Fmilenio%2Fnota.asp%3Fid%3D651680&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=es&tl=en Meteorologist David Dilley of Global Weather Oscillations and author of “Global Warming—Global Cooling, Natural Cause Found.” – August 25, 2008 — More Global COOLING Predictions: Meteorologist predicts ‘global climate will become similar to the colder temperatures experienced during the 1800s’ — Excerpt: Global temperatures have cooled during the past 12 months. During 2008 and 2009 the first stage of global cooling will cool the world’s temperatures to those observed during the years from the 1940s through the 1970s. By the year 2023 global climate will become similar to the colder temperatures experienced during the 1800s. Australian Astronomical Society warns of global COOLING as Sun’s activity ‘significantly diminishes’ – June 29, 2008 – (LINK)) Excerpt: A new paper published by the Astronomical Society of Australia has a warning to global warming believers not immediately obvious from the summary: Based on our claim that changes in the Sun’s equatorial rotation rate are synchronized with changes in the Sun’s orbital motion about the barycentre, we propose that the mean period for the Sun’s meridional flow is set by a Synodic resonance between the flow period (~22.3 yr), the overall 178.7-yr repetition period for the solar orbital motion, and the 19.86-yr synodic period of Jupiter and Saturn. Or as one of the authors, Ian Wilson, kindly explained to me: It supports the contention that the level of activity on the Sun will significantly diminish sometime in the next decade and remain low for about 20 – 30 years. On each occasion that the Sun has done this in the past the World’s mean temperature has dropped by ~ 1 – 2 C. http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/cooling_coming#35743 & (LINK) Renowned Norwegian solar expert warns temps may ‘actually fall in the course of a 50-year period’ – [ By Solar physicist Dr. Pal Brekke, senior advisor to the Norwegian Space Centre in Oslo. Brekke has published more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles on the sun and solar interaction with the Earth and served as a referee for scientific journals. Brekke was the deputy project scientist for the entire international Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). SOHO is collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA researching every aspect of the Sun. Full bio here: http://www.solarmax.no/pbrekke_en.html and information on Brekke’s new book on the sun titled “SolarMax.” Here: http://www.solarmax.no/Hjem.html ] Excerpt: “We could be in for a surprise,” Brekke cautions. “It’s possible that the sun plays an even more central role in global warming than we have suspected. Anyone who claims that the debate is over and the conclusions are firm has a fundamentally unscientific approach to one of the most momentous issues of our time.” […] “There is much evidence that the sun’s high-activity cycle is levelling off or abating. If it is true that the sun’s activity is of great significance in determining the earth’s climate, this reduced solar activity could work in the opposite direction to climate change caused by humans. In that case,” contends Dr Brekke, “we could find the temperature levelling off or actually falling in the course of a 50-year period” – an assertion that provokes many climate researchers. […] The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) has determined that the earth’s temperature has risen by about 0.7° C since 1901. According to Dr Brekke, this time period coincides not only with an increase in human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, but also with a higher level of solar activity, which makes it complicated to separate the effects of these two phenomena. […] Dr Brekke has published more than 40 scientific articles on the sun and on the interaction between the sun and the earth. (LINK) NY Times Cites Possible Coming Little Ice Age! – Dot Earth Blog – October 3, 2008 — Expert: Some wonder if this could be the start of an extended period of solar indolence that would more than offset the warming effect of human-made carbon dioxide emissions. From the middle of the 17th century to the early 18th, a period known as the Maunder Minimum, sunspots were extremely rare, and the reduced activity coincided with lower temperatures in what is known as the Little Ice Age. NEW JASON SATELLITE INDICATES 23-YEAR GLOBAL COOLING – Canada Free Press, 1 May 2008 – By Dennis Avery, Environmental Economist and Global Warming Co-author — Excerpt: Now it’s not just the sunspots that predict a 23-year global cooling. The new Jason oceanographic satellite shows that 2007 was a “cool” La Nina year-but Jason also says something more important is at work: The much larger and more persistent Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) has turned into its cool phase, telling us to expect moderately lower global temperatures until 2030 or so. […]All of this defies the “consensus” that human-emitted carbon dioxide has been responsible for our global warming. But the evidence for man-made warming has never been as strong as its Green advocates maintained. The earth’s warming from 1915 to 1940 was just about as strong as the “scary” 1975 to 1998 warming in both scope and duration-and occurred too early to be blamed on human-emitted CO2. The cooling from 1940 to 1975 defied the Greenhouse Theory, occurring during the first big surge of man-made greenhouse emissions. Most recently, the climate has stubbornly refused to warm since 1998, even though human CO2 emissions have continued to rise strongly. […] How many years of declining world temperature would it take now – in the wake of the ten-year nonwarming since 1998 – to break up Al Gore’s “climate change consensus”? National Post: Global Cooling! ‘Spotless Sun’ prompts scientists to fear ‘dramatic turn for the worse’ – May 31, 2008 — Excerpt: ith the debate focused on a warming Earth, the icy consequences of a cooler future have not been considered You probably haven’t heard much of Solar Cycle 24, the current cycle that our sun has entered, and I hope you don’t. If Solar Cycle 24 becomes a household term, your lifestyle could be taking a dramatic turn for the worse. That of your children and their children could fare worse still, say some scientists, because Solar Cycle 24 could mark a time of profound long-term change in the climate. As put by geophysicist Philip Chapman, a former NASA astronaut-scientist and former president of the National Space Society, “It is time to put aside the global warming dogma, at least to begin contingency planning about what to do if we are moving into another little ice age.” The sun, of late, is remarkably free of eruptions: It has lost its spots. By this point in the solar cycle, sunspots would ordinarily have been present in goodly numbers. Today’s spotlessness — what alarms Dr. Chapman and others — may be an anomaly of some kind, and the sun may soon revert to form. But if it doesn’t – and with each passing day, the speculation in the scientific community grows that it will not – we could be entering a new epoch that few would welcome. […] Several renowned scientists have been predicting for some time that the world could enter a period of cooling right around now, with consequences that could be dire. “The next little ice age would be much worse than the previous one and much more harmful than anything warming may do,” believes Dr. Chapman. “There are many more people now and we have become dependent on a few temperate agricultural areas, especially in the U.S. and Canada. Global warming would increase agricultural output, but global cooling will decrease it.” NASA reveals ‘sun’s solar wind is at a 50-year low’ — could result in solar system changes (NASA press release) – September 22, 2008 — Excerpt: NASA will hold a media teleconference Tuesday, Sept. 23, at 12:30 p.m. EDT, to discuss data from the joint NASA and European Space Agency Ulysses mission that reveals the sun’s solar wind is at a 50-year low. The sun’s current state could result in changing conditions in the solar system. Ulysses was the first mission to survey the space environment above and below the poles of the sun. The reams of data Ulysses returned have changed forever the way scientists view our star and its effects. The venerable spacecraft has lasted more than 17 years – almost four times its expected mission lifetime. We should prepare now for dangerous global cooling (By Paleoclimatologist Tim Patterson, professor in the department of Earth Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa) — Excerpt: Solar scientists predict that, by 2020, the sun will be starting into its weakest Schwabe solar cycle of the past two centuries, likely leading to unusually cool conditions on Earth. Beginning to plan for adaptation to such a cool period, one which may continue well beyond one 11-year cycle, as did the Little Ice Age, should be a priority for governments. It is global cooling, not warming, that is the major climate threat to the world, especially Canada. As a country at the northern limit to agriculture in the world, it would take very little cooling to destroy much of our food crops, while a warming would only require that we adopt farming techniques practiced to the south of us. Geologist Dr. Don J. Easterbrook, Emeritus Professor at Western Washington University, who has authored eight books and 150 journal publications, predicts that temperatures should cool between 2065 until 2100, and that global temperatures at the end of the century should be less than 1 degree cooler than at present. This is in contrast to other theories that there will be a warming by as much as 10 degrees by 2100. – Excerpts of sampling of scientists predicting a coming global cooling Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University who has authored eight books and 150 journal publications, announced earlier this week that he was putting his “reputation on the line” by predicting global cooling. “The average of the four main temperature measuring methods is slightly cooler since 2002 (except for a brief el Niño interruption) and record breaking cooling this winter. The argument that this is too short a time period to be meaningful would be valid were it not for the fact that this cooling exactly fits the pattern of timing of warm/cool cycles over the past 400 years,” Easterbrook wrote on March 1, 2008. (LINK) Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States – March 2, 2008 (By Geologist David Archibald of Summa Development Limited in Australia is a Perth-based scientist working in the field of climate research. Archibald .wrote a scientific paper titled “Solar Cycles 24 and 25 and Predicted Climate Response” in Energy and Environment in 2006) Excerpt: I will demonstrate that the Sun drives climate, and use that demonstrated relationship to predict the Earth’s climate to 2030. It is a prediction that differs from most in the public domain. It is a prediction of imminent cooling. […] We have 29 years of satellite temperature data. It shows that the temperature of the Southern Hemisphere has been flat, with a slight increase in the Northern Hemisphere. Note the El Nino peak in 1998. Globally, we have had 10 years of temperature decline since that peak in 1998, with a rate of decline of 0.06 degrees per annum. I am expecting the rate of decline to accelerate to 0.2 degrees per annum from the end of this decade. That satellite record is corroborated by the record of Antarctic and Arctic sea ice extent over the same period. There is no long term trend evident. Most recently, there has been a 1 million square kilometre increase over the long term mean. This is a five per cent increase. […] The peak US temperature was in 1936, at much the same time that Total Solar Irradiance peaked. If you have wondered why US temperatures are still lower than what they were 70 years ago, the fact that Total Solar Irradiance is lower than what it was 70 years ago might provide an explanation. Geologist David Archibald reveals CO2 is ‘tuckered out as a greenhouse gas’ – May 12, 2008 — Excerpt: The more carbon dioxide you put into the atmosphere, the more you are helping all plants on the planet to grow, and of course that makes you a better person. Virtue is in direct proportion to your carbon dioxide output. What of the temperature, you ask? Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but the effect is strongly logarithmic. The first 20 ppm achieves 1.5 degrees of heating, but it takes more than another 400 ppm to equal that. By the time we get to the current level of 384 ppm, carbon dioxide is tuckered out as a greenhouse gas. From here, every 100 ppm extra may be worth 0.1 of a degree. […] Surely a few more years of cooling will leave only the true believers in their misanthropic ideology, and the truly idiotic. […] Not only will it continue, substantial cooling next decade is in the bag based on current solar behavior. There is a good correlation between solar cycle length and the temperature over the following solar cycle. Long solar cycles cause lower temperatures. Canadian Climatologist Dr. Timothy Ball: “If we are facing [a crisis] at all, I think it is that we are preparing for warming when it is looking like we are cooling. We are preparing for the wrong thing.” (March 2008) UK Astrophysicist Piers Corbyn: “There is no evidence that CO2 has ever driven or will ever drive world temperatures and climate change. The consequence of that is that worrying about CO2 is irrelevant. Our prediction is world temperatures will continue to decline until 2014 and probably continue to decline after that.” (March 2008) Four prominent scientists warn ‘global warming out, global cooling in’- ‘Potential for a significant decline in the average mean temperature’ – July 12, 2008 (LINK) & (LINK) — Excerpt: Four scientists, four scenarios, four more or less similar conclusions without actually saying it outright — the global warming trend is done, and a cooling trend is about to kick in. The implication: Future energy price response is likely to be significant. Late last month, some leading climatologists and meteorologists met in New York at the Energy Business Watch Climate and Hurricane Forum. The theme of the forum strongly suggested that a period of global cooling is about emerge, though possible concerns for a political backlash kept it from being spelled out. However, the message was loud and clear, a cyclical global warming trend may be coming to an end for a variety of reasons, and a new cooling cycle could impact the energy markets in a big way. Words like “highly possible,” “likely” or “reasonably convincing” about what may soon occur were used frequently. Then there were other words like “mass pattern shift” and “wholesale change in anomalies” and “changes in global circulation.” Noted presenters, such as William Gray, Harry van Loon, Rol Madden and Dave Melita, signaled in the strongest terms that huge climate changes are afoot. Each weather guru, from a different angle, suggested that global warming is part of a cycle that is nearing an end. All agreed the earth is in a warm cycle right now, and has been for a while, but that is about to change significantly. […] We are on our way out of the latest (warming) cycle, and are headed for a new cycle of low (solar) activity,” van Loon said. “There is a change coming. We may see 180-degree changes in anomalies during high and low sunspot periods. There were three global climate changes in the last century, there is a change coming now.” […] Perhaps the best known speaker was Colorado State University’s Gray, founder of the school’s famed hurricane research team. Gray spoke about multi-decade periods of warming and cooling and how global climate flux has been the norm for as long as there have been records. Gray has taken quite a bit of political heat for insistence that global warming is not a man-made condition. Man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) is negligible, he said, compared to the amount of CO2 Mother Nature makes and disposes of each day or century. “We’ve reached the top of the heat cycle,” he said. “The next 10 years will be hardly any warmer than the last 10 years.” ‘Global Warming Will Stop,’ New Peer-Reviewed Study Says — Excerpt: The UK Telegraph reports on April 30: “Global warming will stop until at least 2015 because of natural variations in the climate, scientists have said. Researchers studying long-term changes in sea temperatures said they now expect a “lull” for up to a decade while natural variations in climate cancel out the increases caused by man-made greenhouse gas emissions. The average temperature of the sea around Europe and North America is expected to cool slightly over the decade while the tropical Pacific remains unchanged. This would mean that the 0.3°C global average temperature rise which has been predicted for the next decade by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change may not happen, according to the paper published in the scientific journal Nature.” End article excerpt. This significant new study adds to a growing body of peer-reviewed literature and other scientific analyses challenging former Vice President Al Gore and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). MIT Climate Scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen’s March 2008 presentation of data from the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office found the Earth has had “no statistically significant warming since 1995.” (LINK) Is there a cold future just lying in wait for us? – August 13, 2008 – Belfast Telegraph — Excerpt: Based on the past Armagh measurements, this suggests that over the next two decades, global temperatures may fall by about 2 degrees C — that is, to a level lower than any we have seen in the last 100 years. Of course, nothing in science is certain. Perhaps (though I doubt it) Armagh’s old measurements are wrong or perhaps there are now other factors, such as CO2 emissions, which may change things somewhat. However, temperatures have already fallen by about 0.5 degrees C over the past 12 months and, if this is only the start of it, it would be a serious concern. Solar Declines Freeze Global Warming, Drops Seas: – Excerpt: By John Zyrkowski, President, Lean Techniques, LLC, © 2008 – New Book: It’s the Sun Not Your SUV, St. Augustine’s Press © 2008 – Foreword by 2001 IPCC Reviewer – The temperature record tracks the sun’s decline in energy output over the past 10 years. In my new book, “IT’S THE SUN, NOT YOUR SUV,” using the Global Warming community’s own data, a conclusive proof is made that the zigzag historic temperature record is forced to change by the major changes in the sun’s energy. Using solar forces only from 1880 to 1960, the increase to 0.61° C in 1998 then the recent decline to 0.32° C over 1960 is accurately forecast to within several hundredths of a degree. This miniscule change forecast is as accurate as the most current data when compared to the sun’s forcing the earth’s surface 280°+ C over deep space temperatures (Chart 1). Other fits to the historic record can include minor influences of green house gases (GHG). Confirming the decline in temperature is a 28% drop in the level of the oceans since October, 2006 when the oceans increased by 2.3 inches over 1992. Since then they have declined to 1.8 inches according to Topex/Jason-1 measurements from Jet Propulsion Laboratories (Chart 1a). These are miniscule changes compared to the gargantuan projections by the Global Warming community. http://www.itsthesunnotyoursuv.com Solar physicists Galina Mashnich and Vladimir Bashkirtsev, of the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics of the Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences, believe the climate is driven by the sun and predict global cooling will soon occur. The two scientists are so convinced that global temperatures will cool within the next decade they have placed a $10,000 wager with a UK scientist to prove their certainty. The criteria for the $10,000 bet will be to “compare global temperatures between 1998 and 2003 with those between 2012 and 2017. The loser will pay up in 2018,” according to an April 16, 2007 article in Live Science. (LINK) Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of Space Research for the Pulkovo Observatory in Russia, predicted the decline in solar irradiance is going to lead to global cooling by 2015 and “will inevitably lead to a deep freeze around 2055-60,” according to Abdussamatov. Abdussamatov was also featured in a February 28, 2007 article in National Geographic titled “Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says,” where he reiterated his scientific findings that “man-made greenhouse warming has made a small contribution to the warming seen on Earth in recent years, but it cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance.” (LINK) Australian engineer Dr. Peter Harris authored an August 20, 2007 paper entitled “Probability of Sudden Global Cooling.” The study Harris authored found that “the data…clearly shows the nominal 100KY cycle for glaciation and the interglacial phases and it shows that we have reached the end of the typical interglacial cycle and are due for a sudden cooling climate change. Based on this analysis we can say that there is a probability of 94% of imminent global cooling and the beginning of the coming ice age.” He added, “By observation of a number of natural internal processes we can find further support for the coming change and I have referred before to the confirmed slowdown of the Gulf Stream, the effect of major endothermic polar ice melt and forecast reduction in solar activity after 70 years of extreme activity not seen for 8000 years before. The Stratosphere is cooling and ice is building on the South Pole. Climate is becoming unstable. Most of these major natural processes that we are witnessing now are interdependent and occur at the end of each interglacial period, ultimately causing sudden long term cooling.” (LINK) & (LINK) A cold spell soon to replace global warming (Dr. Oleg Sorokhtin, Merited Scientist of Russia and fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, is staff researcher of the Oceanology Institute.) — Excerpt: Stock up on fur coats and felt boots! This is my paradoxical advice to the warm world. Earth is now at the peak of one of its passing warm spells. It started in the 17th century when there was no industrial influence on the climate to speak of and no such thing as the hothouse effect. The current warming is evidently a natural process and utterly independent of hothouse gases. […] Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change. Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind. Man’s influence on nature is a drop in the ocean. Global Cooling is Imminent! (By Meteorologist Jim Clark of Florida’s WZVN-TV ABC 7) — Excerpt: It was about this time (1990’s) that Dr. Bill Gray, the famed hurricane climatologist, began speaking out against the global warming crisis at the National Hurricane Conferences. He didn’t just stop at criticizing the scary climate models, but went so far as to predict GLOBAL COOLING in the first have of the 21st Century. Now, nearly 15 years later, it looks like Dr. Gray may be right! The planet has not warmed over the last decade and climate factors seem to be lining up for a global cool down, despite the ever increasing concentration of atmospheric CO2. The approaching ‘cold snap’ is not a global crisis, but when it is all said and done, we will likely have a better appreciation for the relative warmth we have enjoyed recently. Hurricane Forecaster William Gray Predicts Global Cooling in 10 Years — Excerpt: “We should begin to see cooling coming on,” Gray said. “I’m willing to make a big financial bet on it. In 10 years, I expect the globe to be somewhat cooler than it is now, because this ocean effect will dominate over the human-induced CO2 effect and I believe the solar effect and the land-use effect. I think this is likely bigger.” Gray, 79, wasn’t sure if he’d be around to see his prediction come true. “I may not be around by that time,” Gray said. “But, I’ve asked some of my students to put dandelions on my grave if that happens.” Gray criticized NASA scientist and global warming alarmist James Hansen, calling him “the most egregious abuser” of data. According to Gray, Hansen’s alarmism is exaggerated because the models he uses to predict the increase in global warming count on too much water vapor in the atmosphere. “[S]o he puts that much vapor in his model and of course he gets this,” Gray said. “He must get upper troposphere where the temperature is seven degrees warmer for a doubl[ing of] CO2. Well, the reason he got that was – why this upper-level warming was there – was he put too much water vapor in the model.” Geophysicist Dr. Phil Chapman, an astronautical engineer and the first Australian to become a NASA astronaut, served as staff physicist at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), dissented from global warming fears, and warned of a coming ice age. “The first sunspot appeared in January this year and lasted only two days. A tiny spot appeared last Monday but vanished within 24 hours. Another little spot appeared this Monday. Pray that there will be many more, and soon,” Chapman wrote in a April 23, 2008, article tilted “Sorry to ruin the fun, but an ice age cometh.” “There is no doubt that the next little ice age would be much worse than the previous one and much more harmful than anything warming may do. There are many more people now and we have become dependent on a few temperate agricultural areas, especially in the U.S. and Canada. Global warming would increase agricultural output, but global cooling will decrease it. Millions will starve if we do nothing to prepare for it (such as planning changes in agriculture to compensate), and millions more will die from cold-related diseases,” Chapman explained. “The bleak truth is that, under normal conditions, most of North America and Europe are buried under about 1.5km of ice. This bitterly frigid climate is interrupted occasionally by brief warm interglacials, typically lasting less than 10,000 years. The interglacial we have enjoyed throughout recorded human history, called the Holocene, began 11,000 years ago, so the ice is overdue,” Chapman wrote. “All those urging action to curb global warming need to take off the blinkers and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead. It will be difficult for people to face the truth when their reputations, careers, government grants or hopes for social change depend on global warming, but the fate of civilization may be at stake,” he added. (LINK) Statistician Dr. Richard Mackey authored a 2007 peer-reviewed study which found that the solar system regulates the earth’s climate. The paper was published August 17, 2007 in the Journal of Coastal Research. Mackey predicted a coming global cooling in 2008. Mackey wrote: “The solar inertial motion hypothesis predicts that the period from about 2010 to 2040 will be one of relatively severe cold throughout the world. The hypothesis predicts that the emergent Sunspot Cycle No 24 will be quieter than Sunspot Cycle No 23 and just like Sunspot Cycle No 14, the weakest cycle in the last 100 years, which began in February, 1902 and ended in August, 1913. “Other things being equal, a strong geomagnetic field contributes to a warmer climate; a weaker field to a cooler climate. But the effect may not be uniform across the planet. Currently, the geomagnetic field seems to be weakening, contributing to global cooling.,” Mackey wrote on February 8, 2008. “The science of climate dynamics: continues to publish findings about solar/climate relationships and internal variability of the climate system that invalidate the account of the Earth’s climate dynamics presented by the IPCC; predicts the likelihood of an extended period of global cooling, if the emergent solar cycle 24 has a low amplitude, as seems increasingly likely on the basis of current science,” Mackey explained. “Low amplitude solar activity cycles generally result in a cooler global climate. Two or more such cycles in succession usually result in severe cooling. In the past such sequences have induced cold epochs referred to as little ice ages. There is increasing evidence that the emergent solar cycle 24 will be low amplitude and followed by one or two more low amplitude cycles,” he added. “If there is a period of severe global cooling over the next several decades as indicated by the science of solar/climate relationships and predictions of the next three solar cycles, there would be a 30 year period of far greater hardship than our ancestors experienced during the last several cycles of the quieter Sun,” he added. (LINK) & http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/why_sceptical_scientists_do_it_tougher/ & http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf UN Scientist & Professor Dr. Will J.R. Alexander, Emeritus of the Department of Civil and Biosystems Engineering at the University of Pretoria in South Africa and a former member of the United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee on Natural Disasters. “This whole climate change issue is rapidly disintegrating. From now onwards climate alarmists will be on the retreat. […] All indications are that we are now on the threshold of global cooling associated with the second and less active solar cycle.” – May 2, 2008 – (LINK) http://www.climatescience.org.nz/images/PDFs/alexwjr.2-3.5.08.pdf Atmospheric Scientist Tennekes: ‘Sun may cause some cooling’ – ‘No evidence at all for catastrophic global warming’ – July 14, 2008 (By Atmospheric scientist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The Netherlands’ Royal National Meteorological Institute.) (LINK) U.S Army Chief Scientist Says Sun, Not Man, Is Causing Climate Change – June 3, 2008 (Dr. Bruce West, Chief Scientist, Mathematical & Information Science Directorate, Army Research Office) [Note: Dr. West co-authored a March 2008 scientific analysis Nicola Scafetta showing the Sun “could account for as much as 69% of the increase in Earth’s average temperature” (LINK) & (LINK) ] Excerpt: The Army is weighing in on the global warming debate, claiming that climate change is not man-made. Instead, Dr. Bruce West, with the Army Research Office, argues that “changes in the earth’s average surface temperature are directly linked to … the short-term statistical fluctuations in the Sun’s irradiance and the longer-term solar cycles.” In an advisory to bloggers entitled “Global Warming: Fact of Fiction [sic],” an Army public affairs official promoted a conference call with West about “the causes of global warming, and how it may not be caused by the common indicates [sic] some scientists and the media are indicating.” In the March, 2008 issue of Physics Today, West, the chief scientist of the Army Research Office’s mathematical and information science directorate, wrote that “the Sun’s turbulent dynamics” are linked with the Earth’s complex ecosystem. These connections are what is heating up the planet. “The Sun could account for as much as 69 percent of the increase in Earth’s average temperature,” West noted. […] He argues that these groups have done a poor job modeling the Sun’s impact, however, and that’s why they have “significantly over-estimated” the “anthropogenic contribution to global warming.” […] Global Warming: Fact of Fiction – 11 AM Thursday, June 5 – Is global warming really caused by humans, or is it simply the result of different aspects of the sun’s dynamics? Dr. Bruce West, Chief Scientist, Mathematical & Information Science Directorate, Army Research Office, will discuss the causes of global warming, and how it may not be caused by the common indicates some scientists and the media are indicating. Research conducted by Dr. West contends that the changes in the earth’s average surface temperature are directly linked to two distinctly different aspects of the sun’s dynamics: the short-term statistical fluctuations in the Sun’s irradiance and the longer-term solar cycles. Please reply to this message if you are interested in participating. Lindy Kyzer – Public Affairs Specialist – Media Relations Division – Office of the Chief of Public Affairs – Department of the Army http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/06/army-vs-global.html New Peer-Reviewed Study Shows Arctic COOLING Over last 1500 years! – Feb 5, 2008 – Published in Climate Dynamics on 30 January 2008 (LINK) Ivy League Geologist Explains that Earth is currently in one of coldest periods in History. Excerpt: Ivy League geologist Dr. Robert Giegengack is a professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Pennsylvania. Giegengack noted that the history the last one billion years on the planet reveals “only about 5% of that time has been characterized by conditions on Earth that were so cold that the poles could support masses of permanent ice.” Giegengack also noted “for most of Earth’s history, the globe has been warmer than it has been for the last 200 years. It has rarely been cooler.” http://www.phillymag.com/articles/science_al_gore_is_a_greenhouse_gasbag & http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate/al_gore_is_a_greenhouse_gasbag/ #

Relax! Celebrate 400 PPM Of CO2! Bloomberg News features Climate Depot’s Morano: ‘The Earth has had many-times-higher levels of CO2 in the past. Americans should welcome the 400 ppm threshold. This means that plants are going to be happy, and this means that global-warming fearmongers are going to be proven wrong’

May 10, 2013

More Links: NASA Moonwalker Harrison H. Schmitt & Prof. William Happer in WSJ: ‘Thanks to the single-minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control of energy production, the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide is that it is a dangerous pollutant. That’s simply not the case’ The effectiveness of CO2 as a greenhouse gas becomes ever more marginal with greater concentration — ‘The effectiveness of CO2 as a greenhouse gas diminishes logarithmically with increasing concentration and from the current level of ~390 ppmv, (parts per million by volume). Accordingly only ~5% of the effectiveness of CO2 as a greenhouse gas remains beyond the current level’ # Warmists Claim: ‘Carbon dioxide and global warming: More is NOT better’ – ‘Then there’s the problem of rate. Sure, CO2 levels were higher in the past. But it’s not just the amount the counts, it’s how quickly it rose to that amount. Solid research done over the past few years has shown that the current rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is entirely unprecedented over at least the past 11,000 years (and almost certainly much farther back than that). There were times in the past when the amount was higher, but it took millennia to reach those levels. We’re about to blow through the record like a rocket, and we’ve done it in a mere century.’ Rebuttal: Princeton physicist Dr. William Happer responds to alleged ‘rapid change’ argument: Happer: ‘The argument that plants and animals cannot adapt to rapid change is largely baloney. There are enormous changes in temperature from summer to winter, in humidity from wet seasons to dry season, from very alkaline, warm ocean surface water in the tropics to cold, much less alkaline deep waters, to nearly pH neutral waters off landmasses bordering the arctic. As I have measured many times, simply walking out of a Princeton lecture hall to the open air, can change the CO2 concentration from 1200 ppm in the hall to 450 ppm outside. The same transit commonly goes with a temperature change of 10 C or more. Greenhouse operators change CO2 concentrations from ambient, say 400 ppm, to 2000 ppm in 15 minutes — with absolutely no ill effects to the plants. The CO2 concentrations in a corn field can change from under 300 ppm or less at noon to 600 ppm or more at midnight, depending on wind conditions. Alas, rational arguments with committed warmists help no more than economic arguments used to work with committed Soviet Marxists. They used to cite hundreds of peer reviewed papers to prove how well socialism worked and how it would soon bury outmoded capitalism. One can easily find similar examples of self-deception by right-wing apparatchiks. So this seems to be a bug in whatever program controls the human mind. Madison, Hamilton and Jay clearly understood the problem, self interest, which they assumed would always trump reason, honor, decency, etc. In writing the US Constitution, they tried to work around this lamentable flaw of the human mind, which is easy to ignore, or to rationalize as a virtue. [End Dr. Happer response] # More Links: UN freakout at 400 ppm CO2: World in ‘new danger zone.’ What a difference 1 ppm makes! ’Level of carbon dioxide in air passes feared milestone’: ‘It feels like the inevitable march toward disaster’ Reaction to Climate Depot’s 400ppm of CO2: ‘The Happy Green Planet, Why Has Global Warming Stopped?’ ‘At the end of its distorted and deliberately alarmist article, Bloomberg cites Marc Morano, former spokesman for GOP Senator James Inhofe and the executive editor of Climate Depot, saying the earth has had much higher CO2 levels in the past, and ‘Americans should welcome the 400 parts-per-million threshold. This means that plants are going to be happy’. Happy Green Planet, as the biosphere grows faster than previous – but not happy for the Global Warming doomsters and fearmongers who started wrong, and are being proven wrong by the science they claim to respect. Warmist Media Matters Upset at media for quoting Climate Depot: Climate Change, ‘Happy Plants,’ And False Balance – ‘Bloomberg News Gives Equal Weight To Climate Misinformer And Scientists’ – ‘Marc Morano is not a scientist and has no scientific education…[he] has compared climate science to the Mayan calendar, Nostradamus, and medieval witchcraft. Moreover, his argument is laughable: by focusing on how carbon dioxide stimulates plant growth in a controlled environment, he ignores that our huge emissions of it and other greenhouse gases are warming up the planet, thereby increasing the risk of extreme rainfall and drought to the detriment of agriculture…So why is Bloomberg News not only featuring Morano, but giving his discredited argument equal weight to the extensive evidence presented by scientists?’ Hmm: As CO2 hits its highest level since 1958, Nenana Ice Classic threatens one of its latest breakup dates since 1907 CO2 increases of 80ppm to 100ppm are normal: ‘While CO2 has increased by 85 ppm from when measurements began in 1958 and are estimated to have risen by 120 ppm since 1750, we should also realize that increases of 80 ppm to 100 pm occurred during the last 3 glaciations without humans burning fossil fuels. ‘Air trapped in bubbles in polar ice cores constitutes an archive for the reconstruction of the global carbon cycle and the relation between greenhouse gases and climate in the past. High-resolution records from Antarctic ice cores show that carbon dioxide concentrations increased by 80 to 100 parts per million by volume 600 ± 400 years after the warming of the last three deglaciations. Despite strongly decreasing temperatures, high carbon dioxide concentrations can be sustained for thousands of years during glaciations; the size of this phase lag is probably connected to the duration of the preceding warm period, which controls the change in land ice coverage and the buildup of the terrestrial biosphere.’ JunkScience.com: NOAA Debunks 400 ppm CO2 Panic: Last time CO2 at 400 ppm Earth was ‘much warmer than today’ and sea-level was 10-20 meters higher: ‘So it doesn’t sound like CO2 is too has much to do with temperature or sea-level. Amid 400 ppm CO2 panic, AZStar Net reports: And to see what the future is, scientists look to the past. The last time the worldwide carbon level probably hit 400 ppm was about 2 million years ago’ Observer editorial: ‘Increasingly erratic violent storms look destined to blight our planet…civilization rests on the happy fact that since the last ice age, the planet’s climate has been cool and stable’ Observer editorial: Climate change: ‘Swift political action can avert a carbon dioxide crisis’ Pride of Stupidity: NYTimes puts ridiculous 400 ppm CO2 headline on front page, above fold JunkScience.com: Stupidest 400 ppm CO2 headline — ‘World Hits Dreaded CO2 Saturation Level’ — No, the 24-hour average at Mauna Loa was measured at 400 ppm for the first time. If that the atmosphere was “saturated” with CO2 at 400 ppm, then global warming alarmism would be over. UPI gets 400 ppm CO2 headline right: ‘Carbon dioxide levels in atmosphere top symbolic level’ — If this non-event had to be reported, the UPI got it right NY Times warmist Justis Gillis compares trace amounts of CO2 to ‘a tiny bit of arsenic or cobra venom’ JunkScience.com: Mauna Loa Manipulation? Is the 400 ppm CO2 reading confounded by volcanic emissions? We have the graphs you decide’

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