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NASA: Wintertime Arctic sea ice growth slows long-term decline

November 25, 2019

https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2831/wintertime-arctic-sea-ice-growth-slows-long-term-decline-nasa/ By Maria-José Viñas, NASA’s Earth Science News Team New NASA research has found that increases in the rate at which Arctic sea ice grows in the winter may have partially slowed down the decline of the Arctic sea ice cover. As temperatures in the Arctic have warmed at double the pace of the rest of the planet, the expanse of frozen seawater that blankets the Arctic Ocean and neighboring seas has shrunk and thinned over the past three decades. The end-of-summer Arctic sea ice extent has almost halved since the early 1980s. A recent NASA study found that since 1958, the Arctic sea ice cover has lost on average around two-thirds of its thickness and now 70 percent of the sea ice cap is made of seasonal ice, or ice that forms and melts within a single year. But at the same time that sea ice is vanishing quicker than it has ever been observed in the satellite record, it is also thickening at a faster rate during winter. This increase in growth rate might last for decades, a new study accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters found. This does not mean that the ice cover is recovering, though. Just delaying its demise. The sun setting over the Arctic sea ice pack, as observed during the Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project in October 2014. Credit: NASA/Alek Petty “This increase in the amount of sea ice growing in winter doesn’t overcome the large increase in melting we’ve observed in recent decades,” said Alek Petty, a sea ice scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and lead author of the study. “Overall, thickness is decreasing. Arctic sea ice is still very much in decline across all seasons and is projected to continue its decline over the coming decades. “ Petty and his team used climate models and observations of sea ice thickness from the European Space Agency’s CryoSat-2 satellite to explore sea ice growth variability across the Arctic. The climate model results compared well both with CryoSat-2’s measurements and the results of another commonly used Arctic sea ice model, giving the authors confidence in the climate model’s ability to capture Arctic sea ice variability. “The global climate model seems to do a good job of capturing the Arctic sea ice state and shows that most of the thickness change in the central Arctic is from thermodynamics, that is, ice formation and ice melt, although around the Arctic sea ice edge dynamics, which is ice transport, can play a bigger role,” Petty said. These model simulations showed that in the 1980s, when Arctic sea ice was on average 6.6 feet thick in October, about 3.3 extra feet of ice would form over the winter. That rate of growth has increased and may continue to do so for several more decades in some regions of the Arctic; in the coming decades, we could have an ice pack that would on average be only around 3.3 feet thick in October, but could experience up to 5 feet of ice growth over the winter. It seems counterintuitive: how does a weakening ice cover manage to grow at a faster rate during the winter than it did when the Arctic was colder and the ice was thicker and stronger? “Our findings highlight some resilience of the Arctic sea ice cover,” Petty said. “If we didn’t have this negative feedback, the ice would be declining even faster than it currently is. Unfortunately, the positive feedback loop of summer ice melt and increased solar absorption associated with summer ice melting still appears to be dominant and continue to drive overall sea ice declines.” Nonetheless, the increased rate of sea ice thickening in winter has other implications. As ice forms at the ocean surface, it releases a lot of the salty and dense water from which it originated, which sinks and increases the mixing of waters in the upper ocean. The more ice formation that takes place, the more mixing we expect to see in the upper ocean. Increases in this ice formation and mixing during winter may help mitigate the strong freshening of the Arctic Ocean’s surface waters that has been observed in recent decades due to increased summer melt. “This is altering the seasonal balance and the salinity distribution of the upper ocean in the Arctic; it’s changing when we have fresh water, when we have salty water and how deep and seasonal that upper oceanic mixed layer is,” Petty said. “And that’s all going to mean that local micro-organisms and ecosystems have to adapt to these rapidly evolving conditions.” Petty’s projections found that, by the middle of the century, the strong increases in atmospheric and oceanic temperatures will outweigh the mechanism that allows ice to regrow faster, and the Arctic sea ice cover will decline further. The study predicted that the switch will happen once the sea ice is less than 1.6 feet thick at the beginning of winter, or its concentration –the percentage of an area that is covered in sea ice– is less than 50 percent. “This negative feedback mechanism increasing ice growth is unlikely to be sufficient in preventing an ice-free Arctic this century,” Petty and his colleagues concluded.

Former NASA scientist/activist James Hansen: ‘It’s time for Bernie Sanders to retire’ for opposing nuclear energy

September 23, 2019

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/23/climate-leader-james-hansen-slams-bernie-sanders-anti-nuclear-stance/ Guest essay by Eric Worrall h/t Dr. Willie Soon; Ex NASA GISS Director James Hansen, who kicked off the global warming scare with testimony before Congress in 1988, has attacked Democrat Presidential Wannabe Bernie Sanders for promoting a climate policy which will kill people. Top Climate Scientist to Bernie: You’re Killing People in India At Thursday night’s MSNBC climate forum, Sanders will lead the way in denouncing nuclear power. But the man who put the issue on the map thinks that’s irresponsible. Eleanor Clift Updated 09.20.19 5:00AM ET / Published 09.19.19 4:50AM ET … “It’s time for Bernie Sanders to retire,” Hansen responded in an email. “He truly doesn’t get it. India and China have no prayer of phasing out coal without the help of nuclear power. We burned much of their share of the global carbon budget, and yet we refused to help them with modern nuclear power. Thousands of people PER DAY are dying in India from the pollution…. Not only is he killing people in India, he is screwing my grandchildren,” Hansen wrote. Josh Orton, from the Sanders campaign, responded: “While Bernie’s plan would not renew licenses for existing nuclear plants in the U.S., it’s crucial to note that the plan doesn’t shut down domestic nuclear immediately, nor does it regulate or prohibit nuclear power abroad. In the United States, we know from scientists and other experts that fuels like nuclear are not only unnecessary for the U.S. to achieve our own climate goals, but carry significant waste problems and scale issues.” … Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/top-climate-scientist-to-bernie-sanders-youre-killing-people-in-india In a previous decade an attack from a leading climate scientist might have had a significant impact on Bernie’s shot at the Democrat Presidential nomination. But times have changed. In my opinion it is a long time since the likes of Bernie Sanders and his followers paid serious attention to what scientists have to say. For example, consider Bernie’s support for the Green New Deal. One of the architects of AOC’s Green New Deal recently admitted that the GND is not based on climate science and was never originally about climate change, the climate tie in was added later.

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

You have been Amazon.CONNED – NASA: Amazon Rainforest Burning At ‘Below Average’ Rates, Worst Since 2010 – Fires mostly farms, not forests – Bolivia’s ‘socialist’ Wildfires Ignored

August 26, 2019

Amazon Rainforest Round-Up Amazon Fires – A Big, Fat Nothingburger of a #FakeNews Scare Story – The fires are mainly in agricultural areas as farmers prepare their land for planting. The land was cleared in the past. An informative article and very informative map by NYT on Amazon fires. Map shows that fires in previously cleared land. Nothing new. Furore is yet another fraud by enviro activists. https://twitter.com/phl43/status/1165341025151389702 … Deforestation has decreased markedly compared to the 1990-2005. The Amazon rainforest is not the “lungs of the Earth” – It does NOT produce 20 per cent of the world’s oxygen the Amazon rain forest is a closed system that uses all its own oxygen and carbon dioxide. Day After Stating No Link, NY Times Blames Amazon Fires on ‘Global Warming’ Lies, Damn Lies, And Amazon Rainforest Fear-Mongering FALSE ALARM: AMAZON BURNING IS MOSTLY FARMS, NOT FORESTS – So why are there so many fires? “Natural fires in the Amazon are rare, and the majority of these fires were set by farmers preparing Amazon-adjacent farmland for next year’s crops and pasture,” soberly explains The New York Times. “Much of the land that is burning was not old-growth rain forest, but land that had already been cleared of trees and set for agricultural use.” It is routine for farmers and ranchers in tropical areas burn their fields to control pests and weeds and to encourage new growth in pastures. What about deforestation trends?  Since the right-wing nationalist Jair Bolsonaro became Brazil’s president, rainforest deforestation rates have increased a bit, but they are still way below their earlier highs: Brazil’s Bolsonaro gets blamed for same Amazon fires also plaguing socialist Bolivia – But Media Ignores! – “The left is doing its level best to blame Brazil’s bush fires on Brazil’s conservative, Trump-like president, Jair Bolsonaro, and get him thrown out of office…Socialist President Evo Morales has openly encouraged what’s known, at least in Venezuela, as “conuco” agriculture, telling subsistance farmers it’s fine to set of fires to gather charcoal to sell for fuel or clear the land of brush for planting, and now he’s refusing international firefighting help.” “Now Bolivia is robbing them of their rimshot argument. No more Sting and the rainforest man for their “narrative” now. What appears to be a far more desperate and mismanaged situation is going on Bolivia, and we don’t see any eurochicken clucking about the “lungs of the world” or sanctioning the socialist hellhole. The European Union and much of the G-7 are focused exclusively on Brazil and putting the screws to Bolsonaro blaming him for a broader temporary weather phenomenon. It’s starting to look political and it would be a welcome thing if President Trump sticks up for the man among the clucker. Bolivia makes their hypocrisy show.” Bolivia’s Wildfires Ignored By The BBC – The Reason? ‘Evo Morales is a socialist, unlike Brazil’s Bolsonaro’ – Of course, Evo Morales is a socialist, unlike Brazil’s Bolsonaro. But I am sure that had nothing to do with the BBC’s lack of interest in this story! Climate Depot note: “The Brazilian president has been labeled a “climate denier” by the media, thus he must be stopped. The Amazon fires are being used to crush Bolsonaro politically and vilify him. The fires in Bolivia are being ignored by the media because Bolivia’s government is socialist and does not fit the narrative of evil “right-wing.” Bolivia is protected from media criticism because they are the politically correct political leaders.” See: 2015: Bolivian President: ‘Capitalism is Mother Earth’s Cancer’  & Bolivian president: ‘The origin of global warming lies in capitalism’Bolivian President slams capitalist debt to global warming: ‘Either capitalism dies, or it will be Mother Earth’ Bolivia Climate Proposal: We want to abolish Capitalism – so Give Us All Your Stuff Former NYT reporter Andrew Revkin: “Needs to be emphasized. Amazonia is many wonderful things. It is not ‘lungs of the world.’” Needs to be emphasized. Amazonia is many wonderful things. It is not "lungs of the world"… https://t.co/y7MBkZlHnJ — Andrew Revkin 🌎 ✍🏼 🪕 ☮️ (@Revkin) August 24, 2019 NYT tamps down hysteria: ‘Much of the land that is burning was not old-growth rain forest, but land that had already been cleared of trees and set for agricultural use’ – But for current Amazon fires,  we want to know: not just the number of fires  (for which the NY Times has quite a different number  than Global Fire Data, which is shown above). . . .but instead: What is burning? However, that is not true, according to a brave journalist —  Alexandria Symonds   — at the NY Times. She reports: “Natural fires in the Amazon are rare, and the majority of these fires were set by farmers preparing Amazon-adjacent farmland for next year’s crops and pasture. Much of the land that is burning was not old-growth rain forest, but land that had already been cleared of trees and set for agricultural use.” Our brave journalists skates close to the dangerous edge of violating  Editorial Mandates by telling readers: “Did climate change cause these fires, and how will they affect climate change? These fires were not caused by climate change. They were, by and large, set by humans. However, climate change can make fires worse. Fires can burn hotter and spread more quickly under warmer and drier conditions.” [Note:  there is no mention of actual conditions of temperature or rainfall concurrent with these fires in the article, as usual for when climate is being blamed  — just the implication that “climate change will makes things worse” without any data. — kh] Dear hysterical media & celebrities: We regret to inform you that NASA declared Amazon fires to be ‘close to the average in comparison to the past 15 years’ Watch: Morano on Fox with Varney: You have been Amazon.CONNED about rainforest fires & the Democratic Party is ducking climate debates & Inslee fails Amazon rainforest fires at record high levels? ‘This is a blatant lie’ – Fires ‘nowhere close to a record so far in 2019’ NASA: Amazon Is Burning At ‘Below Average’ Rates Update: NASA: Uptick in Amazon Fire Activity in 2019 – August 19, 2019: “With the fire season in the Amazon approaching its midpoint, scientists using NASA satellites to track fire activity have confirmed an increase in the number and intensity of fires in the Brazilian Amazon in 2019, making it the most active fire year in that region since 2010.” Amazon rainforest fires at record high levels? ‘This is a blatant lie’ – Fires ‘nowhere close to a record so far in 2019’ – “The NY Times claims 2019 fires are way up, over 2018. That is correct. What they don’t say, is that about 1/2 the years BEFORE 2019 are higher, and about 1/2 are lower. Cherry picking of the first order.” NASA: Amazon Is Burning At ‘Below Average’ Rates – August 16, 2019 NASA’s caption: “As of August 16, 2019, satellite observations indicated that total fire activity in the Amazon basin was slightly below average in comparison to the past 15 years. Though activity has been above average in Amazonas and to a lesser extent in Rondônia, it has been below average in Mato Grosso and Pará, according to the Global Fire Emissions Database” More water or more growth? Trees change their mind as CO2 grows New Paper: CO2 Rise + Warming Are 91% Responsible For The Earth’s Accelerated Greening Trend Since 1990 Climate Depot Flashback Report: Rainforest Factsheet: Clear-Cutting the Myths About the Amazon and Tropical Rainforests – ‘Reverting back to nature’: ‘For every acre of rainforest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing’

Dear hysterical media & celebrities: We regret to inform you that NASA declared Amazon fires to be ‘close to the average in comparison to the past 15 years’

August 24, 2019

https://twitchy.com/gregp-3534/2019/08/24/dear-climate-alarmists-we-regret-to-inform-you-that-nasa-declared-the-fires-in-the-amazon-to-be-close-to-the-average-in-comparison-to-the-past-15-years/ Dear climate alarmists: We regret to inform you that NASA declared the fires in the Amazon to be ‘close to the average in comparison to the past 15 years’ Posted at 7:39 am on August 24, 2019 by Greg P. Share on Facebook(70)Share on Twitter If you’ve been reading the MSM over the past few days, you’ve been treated to a barrage of coverage over the fires in the Amazon and how what’s going on is a “massive increase over last year”: ABC News ✔@ABC Replying to @ABC The Amazon is often referred to as “the lungs of the planet.” It’s home to 10% of the world’s species and creates 20% of our oxygen. There have been more than 74,000 fires in the Amazon since January, a massive increase over last year. http://abcn.ws/31Us1gP  2,305 2:01 PM – Aug 22, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 1,598 people are talking about this And as we told you, politicians and celebs are really, really concerned. But not so concerned with the truth. . . As we told you last night, the photo is from 2003: Emmanuel Macron ✔@EmmanuelMacron Our house is burning. Literally. The Amazon rain forest – the lungs which produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen – is on fire. It is an international crisis. Members of the G7 Summit, let’s discuss this emergency first order in two days! #ActForTheAmazon 150K 3:15 PM – Aug 22, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 84.1K people are talking about this trending AOC bashes Fox News over the electoral college NASA report says fires in the Amazon ‘close to the average’ There’s just one problem with this narrative. NASA, which kind of started all of this when they posted this photo of the fires from space, said this year’s fires are at or below average “if we look back 15 years”: Joe Hanson ✔@DrJoeHanson Replying to @DrJoeHanson But according to NASA, if we look back 15 years this year’s fire rates are at or below average. This really means in past years rates were very bad, not that this year’s rates are good, but it’s important context… we were on right track until recentlyhttps://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-brazil … Fires in Brazil Satellites begin to detect heightened fire activity in July and August in the Amazon. earthobservatory.nasa.gov 744 2:31 PM – Aug 21, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 136 people are talking about this Weird! It’s a totally normal year for fires but everyone is freaking out? What could it be? Joe Weisenthal@TheStalwart This NASA thing says that the fire activity in Brazil this year is normal. Is there some particular reason this particular bout of fires is getting so much attention? https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-brazil … 95 12:01 PM – Aug 23, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 78 people are talking about this Brazil is even using the NASA report to dunk on the alarmists: Embassy of Brazil in the USA  ✔@BrazilinUSA Brazil commits a lot of resources to combat forest fires. A recently updated NASA report says that “satellite data indicated that total fire activity across the Amazon basin this year has been close to the average in comparison to the past 15 years”. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145464/fires-in-brazil … 56 4:00 PM – Aug 22, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 39 people are talking about this *** Related: Twitchy Team ✔@TwitchyTeam Emmanuel Macron, celebs BUSTED sharing fake viral photos of the Amazon fires https://buff.ly/2ztOW6F  Emmanuel Macron, celebs BUSTED sharing fake viral photos of the Amazon fires Fake, but accurate? twitchy.com 89 6:12 PM – Aug 23, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 48 people are talking about this Share on Facebook(70)Share on Twitter

NASA: Amazon Is Burning At ‘Below Average’ Rates

August 23, 2019

https://www.science20.com/robert_walker/nasa_say_the_amazon_is_burning_at_below_average_rates_yet_many_news_stories_say_record_rates-240959 NASA Say The Amazon Is Burning At Below Average Rates – Yet Many News Stories Say Record Rates – Which Is It? By Robert Walker We have had wild fires for many years now in the Amazon, even in the tropical rainforest – mainly started by humans for forest clearing and ranching. It is not enough to impact significantly on the Paris agreement pledges yet, though it is important in the long term if this continues for decades. This image is being shared even in usually reputable media with captions such as National Geographic’s “The Amazon is burning at record rates – and deforestation is to blame”. Similarly, the BBC is reporting it as a “record”. ‘Record number of fires’ in Brazilian rainforest But is it? You would not guess from these headlines that NASA’s description for the original photo says that it is burning at less than average rates. Bit of a big difference there. They mention this in the details of the stories but a fair bit down the page. The image shows smoke from fires in the Amazon region on 13th August 2019. These are not necessarily all forest fires. Some of these will be fires in pasture to stimulate new growth for the cattle. NASA’s caption: “As of August 16, 2019, satellite observations indicated that total fire activity in the Amazon basin was slightly below average in comparison to the past 15 years. Though activity has been above average in Amazonas and to a lesser extent in Rondônia, it has been below average in Mato Grosso and Pará, according to the Global Fire Emissions Database” Fires in Brazil So, go to the Global Fire Emissions Database. and this is what you see in the “Totals” section : The green line for 2019 there is a bit hard to make out, so here is a zoom in, as you can see it is way below the top line which is for 2005, with only a few data points, and is also below the 2003 line. As the NASA page says, the Amazonas region has seen more fires than the average and indeed, it was briefly a record: Global Fire Emissions Database. And as the NASA page says, although above average also for Rondônia, it has been below average in Mato Grosso and Pará. The 42 areas of Amazonas officially protected are okay, no deforestation. For details see Brazil: State of Amazonas declares state of emergency over rising number of forest fires The state government is also raising farmers’ awareness and increasing their presence in at-risk areas in an attempt to curb illegal agricultural fires and discourage deforestation. The ranchers use fire for forest clearing, “slash and burn agriculture” as it is called. That is because it is much easier to convert forest into grassland by burning it than to do it by felling the trees. Once it is cut, the way they manage the pastures is to reburn them every few years to clear out the brush and to get the grass to resprout. So not all the fires you see are virgin forest. Many are controlled grassland fires, to get the grass to resprout. We do something similar in the UK where they do controlled burning of heather (muir burn) for grouse, sheep and deer. Then, some were started as grassland fires, but get out of contro and burn the nearby forest at the forest edges l (the same sometimes happens for our heather fires in the UK). You can read about how they manage the pastures in Brazil through burning here: Cattle Ranching in the Amazon Region Also we do not risk losing the Amazon as a whole. That is something they used to think a few years back, but the research has moved on. A large part of the Amazon rainforest will remain through to 2100 even with high emissions – they survived the previous glacial minimum when it was warmer. We do not need them for oxygen. This is just an urban myth. We have plenty of oxygen in the atmosphere for thousands of years even if somehow magically all photosynthesis stopped producing oxygen Debunked: If we cut down all the forests we will run out of oxygen to breathe – they are not the “lungs of the planet” in any literal sense The burnt areas do not become desert, but rather, regrow quickly as lower mass drier forests which given enough time over many decades and perhaps centuries would restore to tropical rainforest again – but in a warmer world some of them will turn to savannah with scattered trees, a habitat known as the Cerrada. This is another article I’m writing to support people we help in the Facebook Doomsday Debunked group, that find us because they get scared, sometimes to the point of feeling suicidal about it, by such stories. Do share this with your friends if you find it useful, as they may be panicking too. SO WHAT HAPPENED – DO WE BELIEVE NASA OR INPE Here INPE is the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research. They run a program called DETER that does rapid assesements of wildfires by satellite. It needs to be validated using PRODES which is yearly and far more accurate. The DETER website says the data should not be relied on. Ousted Head of Science Agency Criticizes Brazil’s Denial of Deforestation Data Unicef reports that the data from satellite images show that Brazil lost 2,254 square kilometers (870 square miles) of forest in July, between three and five times the amount lost in the same month for each of the previous four years. Bolsorano questions those figures During a recent public appearance, Bolsonaro joked that if the “absurd” deforestation numbers were true, “then I am Captain Chainsaw!” Latest deforestation data in Brazil show significant surge – UNICEF. So what happened? Outside of Brazil everyone is siding with the INPE. But – it turns out on this particular matter, it may be Bolsorano who is right! DETER can’t see through cloud. The media reports should never have been leaked to the public without explaining that the science is not validated. It can count the same area multiple times. When it detects deforestation it has no way of knowing when it happeend and may record it for one month when it actually happened years before but the area was covered by cloud and couldn’t be spotted earlier. More details here (in spanish). 40% OF AMAZON IS OUTSIDE BRAZIL Many people probably don’t realize that 40% of the Amazonian rainforest is outside of Brazil.. Other parts of the forest are much better protected. An exmple of a country that has Amazonian rainforest with high protection standards is Suriname, smallest country in South America, and one of the few CARBON NEGATIVE countries absorbing 8.8 million tons of CO2 every year. That’s 16 tons of CO2 per year per person. Photograph from the summit of Mt. Volzburg in Suriname by David Evers The world average is to emit 5 tons per person per year. So it offsets the CO2 for 1.7 million additional people every year. Heard Of This Small But Hugely Carbon Negative Country? Suriname In Amazonian Rain Forest – From Today’s Talanoa Story Dialogs WILDFIRES PART OF NATURE WORLDWIDE Nearly all forests have wildfires, naturally, but they are much rarer in tropical rainforests because they are wet year round. The natural fires mainly happen where the forests meet drier pastureland / savannah and in the Amazon region they are driest in July onwards to mid September. This shows fires from space – if you could take such a video ten million years ago it would still show many fires, though the fires would be started naturally rather than manmade. (click to watch on Youtube) This is a short summary from NASA about why we get forest fires in various parts of the world. (click to watch on Youtube) For Brazil, most of the fires we get at present are manmade and are started deliberately as the easiest way to remove tropical rainforest in order to convert it to grassland for cattle ranching. You can see some of the ranching from space in this video at the end. (click to watch on Youtube) Sometimes they spread further than intended. This has gone on for many years now and we always have the stories at this time of year about the fires in the Amazon seen from space. Some of them also spread from the already cleared grassland into nearby forest – unintentionally. The forest is becoming more vulnerable because of warmer conditions and drought. However – this is not going to mean the end of the Amazon rainforest. Parts of it will remain through everything, through to 2100. Alarming though it may seem the forest does regrow, though to a lower biomass forest to start with and full recovery takes many decades. The Amazon as a whole is vast. Even through to 2100 even at high levels of warming the Western Amazon will be largely intact. In a warming world at higher levels of warming, many of the drier areas eventually would turn to savannah mixed with trees. But not all of it, and likely to be patchy. RANCHING COULD BE MUCH MORE PRODUCTIVE WITH JUST THE EXISTING LAND The sad thing is that no forest would need to be burnt for deforestation, if Brazil’s cattle ranching was just a bit more efficient. I’ll summarize Results from on-the-ground efforts to promote sustainable cattle ranching in the Brazilian Amazon In the next decade, beef is forecast to grow by 24%, soy by 39% and bioethanol by 27%. Brazilian beef productivity is currently only a third of its sustainable potential. So much of the land is taken up for ranching that in theory Brazil could meet its entire demand for Beef, crops and timber through to 2040 by increasing its beef productivity from a third to a half of its sustainable potential. The right side of this photo shows the effect of replanting the grassland to increase productivity. In this pilot study then farms were able to increase productivity by 30–490% This required an initial investment of US$410–2180/hectare with a payback time of 2.5 to 8.5 years. EFFECTS OF BOLSORANO’S POLICIES Bolsorano is only in office for four years initially, maximum of two terms at a time, or 8 years (after which he can run again but only after a gap for someone else in office). Brazilians elected him for his anti-corruption campaign not for his views on the rainforest. Most of the Brazilians actually care about the environment but though most can read and write, few have attained the level of literacy you reach when you leave high school. Under international pressure he has stayed within the Paris Agreement, and his is a minority government, so he can’t actually reverse the legislation to protect forests, but he is reducing support for enforcing it. The increased emissions only add a few percent to the CO2 emissions for the year. If all countries had the same emissions as Brazil as it is now, we would not be able to stay within 2°C but so long as others step up their pledges, then it’s mainly important for Brazil to step up its pledges at a later stage and as far as climate change is concerned it’s not an immediate disaster. It does matter for the forest dwellers whose forests are being destroyed right now. But the Amazon forest as a whole is vast and most will not be affected by 8 years of increased deforestation. HOW THE FOREST CHANGES WITH GLOBAL WARMING Parts of the Amazon rainforest will be lost at 3°C. But these are not lost to a desert. Rather, they transform into a savanna; grassland with scattered bushes. Like the Cerrado: Composite of these images from Wikimedia commons: Cerrado. :Índios isolados no Acre 5, Ara maca , Emperor Tamarin, Physalaemus nattereri in deimatic behavior Large areas of Brazil are already Cerrado which has its own rich wildlife. Ecoregion NT0704 Also the Amazonian rainforest will not convert to savanna all at once. It is biodiverse and varied and different patches have different species in them. In a warming world at 3°C, some will be more resilient than others and will remain, with a change in the balance of species, while others turn to drier savanna like the Cerrado. If it was a monoculture the climate would just need to go over some threshold in temperature, or humidity, and the whole thing would go. Because of the mix of species then it is more of a gradual thing. And then because of the patchiness, it would change to grassland only in patches which protects it further. SURVIVAL OF LARGE AREAS OF WESTERN AMAZON EVEN AT HIGH LEVELS OF WARMING THROUGH TO 2100 Parts of the Amazon rainforest seem to be much more resilient, especially the western regions, and this is how it survived previous warm periods. It’s now thought most of it would survive this time too. The upper map here shows the extent of the tropical rainforest and of the lower tree cover areas at the end of the last glacial minimum. This is how the tropical rainforest survives through the warmer periods in the past. The lower figure shows the extent we can expect by 2100. See this paper in Nature for some of the recent research from 2018: Self-amplified Amazon forest loss due to vegetation-atmosphere feedbacks I am not sure what temperature change the lower one corresponds to. If anyone here is expert and able to say please do. It might be “business as usual?”. So in short, the composition of parts of it would change. Some might change to a more open drier grassland. However most of it would remain and there would be a lot of tropical rainforest still at 3 °C or even at the higher temperatures of “business as usual”. Earlier studies didn’t take account of the effect of the mix of species some of which are more resistant to heat changes than others. See this paper in Nature from 2016 Resilience of Amazon forests emerges from plant trait diversity As the climate warms we do expect more wildfires in the Amazon. But there are fires there every year. They are started deliberately sometimes, for deforestation to open new areas for farming. They also start accidentally due to the trees being drier as a result of draining, they encroach on the forest from nearby open areas. This is an example from 2010: The line of white trees here are the result of a surface fire encroaching on the Amazon rainforest from an open area during the September 2010 drought. NASA finds Amazon drought leaves long legacy of damage – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet EFFECTS OF WILDFIRES IN THE AMAZON The wildfires in the amazon are mainly started deliberately by humans, as the easiest way to remove tropical rainforest to turn it to grassland for cattle ranching. Sometimes they get out of control and encroach into larger areas of the rainforest. Now however, many fires are also starting in pastureland and then spreading to the forest. Climate change will lead to the Amazon region getting drier, and wildfires can accelerate that process. First, the forests do recover from wildfire, but full recovery takes a long time. The initial growth is fast but 31 years later they still recover to only about three quarters of the original biomass. They continue to recover however and long term full recovery is possible. Some trees are centuries to millennia old in mature forests so it’s a long time to replace those. There are other effects too. For instance burnt forests have a more open canopy, let in more sunlight, and so dry out more. Combine that with more drought conditions and that limits the regrowth. The fires also destroy some of the seedbank needed to reconstitute the rainforest. Details here: Drought-induced Amazonian wildfires instigate adecadal-1scaledisruption of forest carbon dynamics The other way around, then if unintended wildfires can be stopped, this can help to build in more resilience to climate change. Increases of fires, e.g. from El Nino’s climate change, logging or road construction can trigger these positive feedbacks leading to a fire dominated lower mass forest. Some things one could do is to use intensification of cattle ranching in Brazil, and improved soil management in the croplands, so they get the same increases of yields without needing to use fires and clear new forests. For more on this: Changes in Climate and Land Use Over the Amazon Region: Current and Future Variability and Trends CRITICAL POINT FOR FOREST FRAGMENTATION This was shared in 2018 with headlines such as Tropical rainforests may be near a tipping point beyond our control However it is not accurate to call this a “tipping point” as if the forest would suddenly all disappear and be gone. What they did is to discover an intriguing fractal distribution of forest fragments. A few large areas, then more medium sized fragments, more smaller ones and so on. This pattern is the same in all forests worldwide despite the many different reasons for felling them and methods of doing it. At exactly 59% forest cover you get patches of forest of all sizes. Above it you get a few large patches, many small patches and not much in between. Below it you get lots of small patches and the largest patches are gone. This is not a die back. It is just the normal patterns of random deforestation breaking it up so that there are no more continuous huge forests. This happened in Europe thousands of years ago. Very few really large forests and nothing remotely the size of the Amazon here. But we still have many forests of intermediate size. They looked into the causes of it and found that if deforestation exceeds reaforestation it becomes more fragmented. If the other way around it becomes less fragmented. So, you can make a forest less fragmented by slowing down the process of deaforestation or increasing reafforestation or both. They analysed it using percolation theory and found that forest fragmentation is close to the percolation critical point of 59% of forest cover. At a forest cover of 59% then the large scale behaviour has a simple mathematical description. Above or below that it is more complex. Here you see how it works with their model of the process. To start with there are a few large fragments, many small ones, and none of intermediate size. At the critical point there are fragments of all sizes following a simple mathematical relationship where the smaller fragments are more common. Below that the largest fragments are gone completely, all broken up into smaller fragments. To take an example, not from their paper, the UK is clearly in phase 3, much less than 59% is forest. We lost our largest forests thousands of years ago, back when the ancient Britains first introduced agriculture, and are left with much smaller ones. They are still large, just not as vast as the origial forests that use to cover our land almost entirely after the last ice age. Europe, North American and parts of Asia have had more reafforestation than deforestation in the last few centuries, but forest loss exceeds forest gain in most tropical countries. This is how they see it unfolding along a timeline. Tropical America could reach a maximum of two billion fragments when about three quarters of the forest cover is gone. This process is under our control. At any time we can change policies to favour reafforestation and then the forests will start to heal and form larger areas again. We can also use such methods as forest corridors to connect together the fragments if it gets to the point where there are no really large areas any more. They conclude: Our models predict that additional forest loss will result in a large increase in the total number of forest fragments—at maximum by a factor of 33 over 50 years—as well as a decrease in their size, and that these consequences could be partly mitigated by reforestation and forest protection. Note – this is a very large scale overview of the situation at a continent level. For instance, if Brazil was to reach this point where the forest starts to break up into smaller fragments with none of the largest areas left – this would have no effect on Suriname. FERTILIZATION EFFECTS OF WILDFIRES Actually forest fires have a fertilizing effect on the oceans and on other forests. The forest fires in Africa help the Amazon rainforest to flourish. They used to think it was the Sahara dust but it now seems to be the forest fires in Africa. African smoke is fertilizing Amazon rainforest and oceans, new study finds WORST CASE FUTURES GENERALLY For other things that will happen as we warm up and the worst case future if we are not able to reduce the temperature below 3 C by 2100 see The IPCC’s own worst case climate change example – a 3°C rise by 2100 NOT LIKELY TO REACH 3°C At least as things are going now, it is not likely to go as far as that. We have already knocked a degree off the projection for 2100 from 2015. Though there are the notable exceptions of Brazil, the US, and Canada (and perhaps Australia), more countries than not are keeping to their pledges and expected to increase on them. It is very promising that we increase on our pledges in 2020, several countries like the UK already have, California is committed to carbon zero by 2045, and China has said it will increase its pledges and map out a way to carbon zero later in this century. Not only that, also it will support the green climate fund, which makes a big difference. It is hugely underfunded, only a fraction of the $100 billion a year that is needed and many of the less developed countries like India will be able to do much more ambitious pledges with funding to support them. Many forget that the Paris agreement pledges were never expected to lead to a commitment to 1.5 or 2 C in one go. The idea is to increase the pledges. Also CO2 emissions, even yearly emissions are expected to be level or increase through to the early 2020s on all scenarios. The aim is to reach 1.5 C by increasing pledges in 2020 based on the experiences of what worked in the last 5 years (along with improvements in technology and new industries). Then based on experiences from 2020 to 2025, to increase pledges again in 2025 and so on. See my Are countries keeping our 2015 Paris pledges? For some recent positive news: Ethiopians collaborate to plant 353 million trees in twelve hours – world record – aim is to plant 40 trees each this summer for a total of 4 billion trees – can we follow their example in the UK and elsewhere? China to Increase 2015 Climate Pledges in 2020, Support Green Climate fund- Maintain Biodiversity & May Peak Emissions Early 2020s Ursula von der Leyen’s proposed green new deal will make Western Europe the first 1.5°C compatible continent if passed And all the Democrats running as candidates for 2020 have a strong green agenda. Even if Trump is re-elected, he may well be influenced eventually by public pressure especially if the green vote clearly has impacted on the Republican poll results in crucial states (example, if they lost Florida due to a green vote). The US needs to come on board by the next pledge in 2025 or at least, by 2030 for best chance of success, but the US emissions are level or falling as the long term trend anyway (with an up tick last year because of more winter heating) so they are not a priority right now in the world as a whole. WHY DID BRAZIL ELECT BOLSORANO? Bolsorano’s government is only in power for four years and it depends a lot on what happens after that. He is a minority government and he can’t remove the legislation to protect the forests, just remove funding and support for those who do protect it. He is also under a lot of international pressure. More Brazilians care about the environment than not, and he wasn’t elected particularly for his environmental views. This author from Brazil says that the public can put pressure on him and also says there is an issue of environmental illiteracy in Brazil Do Brazilians Really Care about the Environment? He was elected to fight corruption and also as a result of viral campaigns on social media, not because of his views on the rainforest. Variou sspeculations here about why he was elected, I can’t really comment on them. [CORRECTION – HAD A SECTION HERE ABOUT HIM BEING ELECTED DUE TO LOW LEVELS OF LITERACY BUT THAT IS NOT TRUE, THOSE IN HIGHER EDUCATION VOTED MOST FOR HIM AND THOSE WITH LOWEST LEVELS, LEAST – SEE LINKED PAGE FOR DETAILS] New president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro wants to remove protections from the tropical rainforest – how much can he do? Why did Brazil elect Jair Bolsonaro? New president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro wants to remove protections from the tropical rainforest – how much can he do? According to climate tracker if all countries followed Brazil’s approach, warming would reach over 2°C and up to 3°C. But of course most countries are not following his approach. Brazil | Climate Action Tracker “If deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon were to return to the 2004 peak, a likely scenario under Bolsonaro’s rule, it could boost annual emissions to almost 3 billion metric tons over his term, at the top end of that range. That’s nearly half the United States’ total annual greenhouse-gas emissions” Brazil’s presidential election could mean billions of tons of additional greenhouse gases That would make it so Brazil contributes up to 7% of total CO2 emissions by the table here List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions – Wikipedia Another study looked at the absolute worse case where he left the Paris agreement, as he originally planned to do. “A study by scientists at Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research found that additional emissions could be even higher. They estimated that Amazon deforestation rates could triple, reaching 25,600 square kilometers a year, if Brazil exited the Paris climate deal, authorized mining on indigenous lands, and enacted other policies Bolsonaro has floated.” Brazil’s presidential election could mean billions of tons of additional greenhouse gases would take it to 21% of total world CO2 emissions approx. – but that’s not happening, he hasn’t exited the Paris agreement and as a minority government it’s not going to be easy for him to enact controversial policies. Can turn a blind eye, can’t change the regulation. It’s major especially when there’s a priority to cut back rapidly to stay within 1.5 C. However Brazil is very dependent on exports and other countries can put pressure on it to adopt more green policies. That is probably one of the main factors that has kept them within the Paris agreement. And if we get increasing awareness of green issues in the Brazilian population – it is possible they can influence him if they find a voice and if there is more awareness of such issues there. Brazil’s presidential election could mean billions of tons of additional greenhouse gases See also my New president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro wants to remove protections from the tropical rainforest – how much can he do?  

Settled science? NASA claims Earth’s rotation is slowing due to moon — But Harvard study claimed Earth will spin faster due to ‘global warming’

July 24, 2019

A new 2019 study is claiming this: NASA bombshell: Earth’s rotation is slowing – and it could cause major earthquakes – EARTH’S rotation is slowing down as the Moon moves farther away from the planet – and scientists believe it could cause major earthquakes. Excerpt: Earth’s rotation is slowing as our planet uses energy to keep the tidal bulge ahead of the Moon’s orbit. The Moon’s gravity keeps Earth’s rotation in check, and to do this the lunar satellite’s orbit must be slightly ahead of Earth’s. As the Moon attempts to regulate Earth’s rotation and slow it down, the Moon moves slowly away. According to Matthew Funke, solar system ambassador for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who wrote on Q+A website Quora: “The Moon’s gravity creates a tidal bulge on the Earth. This bulge attempts to rotate at the same speed as the rest of the planet. But scientists and studies can’t seem to decide whether the Earth’s rotation is speeding up or slowing down and they are blaming “global warming” for both. See: Flashback 2007: ‘Global warming’ will ‘reduce the length of a day’ – ‘Make Earth spin faster’ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11555-global-warming-will-make-earth-spin-faster/ Global warming will make Earth spin faster. Of all the possible ways in which climate change could affect our planet, this is the most bizarre: as the oceans warm up, Earth will start rotating a wee bit faster, reducing the length of a day. The time it takes for Earth to complete one rotation is affected by anything that changes the distribution of the planet’s mass relative to its axis of rotation. “Think of an ice skater who is spinning,” says Felix Landerer of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany. “When you stretch your arms out you slow down, and when you bring your arms closer to your body you spin faster.” Earth, it seems, will hug itself a little bit tighter because of global warming. Landerer and his colleagues modelled the changes that would occur if the most realistic estimates made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a doubling of carbon dioxide levels by 2100 compared with 2000 – were to become reality. The team found that as the temperature of the oceans rises, the resulting changes in density and circulation would cause a net transfer of mass to the higher latitudes, closer to Earth’s axis of rotation. Consequently, Earth’s rotation would speed up, and by 2200 the length of a day would be reduced by 0.12 milliseconds (Geophysical Research Letters, vol 34, p L06307). While “it is not something you will see on your watch,” says Landerer, it’s comparable to the influence of the tidal friction of the Earth-moon system, which slows our planet down by 2.3 milliseconds every 100 years. # But wait, which is out?! Is there any way to falsify ‘global warming’?  2015 Harvard U. Study: ‘Climate change’ means days are getting longer – Slowing Earth’s rotation – Due to ‘water from shrinking glaciers slowing Earth’s rotation’ http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/dec/11/climate-change-longer-days-glaciers-north-south-pole Harvard University researchers have provided an answer to a long-held conundrum over how shrinking glaciers are affecting the rotation and axis of the Earth, calculating that the duration of a day has lengthened by a millisecond over the past 100 years. UN on wrong track with plans to limit global warming to 2C, says top scientist. The brakes will be more sharply applied to the Earth’s rotation as glaciers melt at an ever-faster rate, meaning that at least five milliseconds will be added to each day over the course of the 21st century. The axis of the Earth will shift too, with the north pole set to move position by about 1cm (o.4in) during this century. The research, published in Science Advances, apparently solved a scientific puzzle known as “Munk’s enigma”, which came from a 2002 researcher paper by oceanographer Walter Munk, examining how the melting of glaciers had altered the Earth’s rotation and axis.    

More Data Shenanigans At NASA. ‘Unadjusted’ Data Get Whole New Definition: No Longer ‘Raw’, But Now ‘Quality Controlled’

July 23, 2019

https://notrickszone.com/2019/07/23/more-data-shenanigans-at-nasa-unadjusted-data-get-whole-new-definition-no-longer-raw-but-now-quality-controlled/ More Data Shenanigans At NASA. “Unadjusted” Data Get Whole New Definition: No Longer “Raw”, But Now “Quality Controlled” NoTricksZone: Not here to worship what i… / by P Gosselin / 4h By Kirye and P. Gosselin What’s with NASA GISS? The data shenanigans there seem to have no end. Most of us have noticed that with every new version of temperature data that gets generated by NASA GISS, the more warming that comes with it. The first half of the 20th century often gets cooled while the present gets warmed. This has been shown repeatedly. One example is Cuiaba, Brazil. Though in this example the past appears not to have been cooled, the more recent v4 “unadjusted” data have been warmed by some 1.0°C throughout since 1960. Now the early 20th century in Cuiaba, Brazil is not warmer than the early 21st century. Presto, warming! Data: NASA GISS. Now “unadjusted” data get a new definition But another peculiar thing has been found. It seems NASA GISS cannot make up its mind on whether the “unadjusted” data are “raw” or if they are “quality controlled”. When we look at the Key beneath the Cuiaba temperature chart posted by NASA GISS here, we see that “unadjusted” gets called “quality controlled” (marked yellow): Yet, when we go back to the archives and look at the data plot for Cuiaba, the Key beneath the chart has a different definition for “unadjusted data”. Here they were defined as “raw data as reported by the weather station”! Well, which is it? Is this another adjustment phase they snuck in? It’s bad enough that NASA GISS is taking it’s Version 3 “unadjusted” data and adjusting them to Version 4 “unadjusted” (warming them up), but now NASA GISS number crunchers seem unable to make up their minds whether the unadjusted data are “raw” or if they are “quality controlled”. With all the confusion surrounding all the different versions and changing definitions, we have to wonder what on earth is going on at NASA GISS. Data used to be raw, but now “quality controlled” NASA used to claim that GHCN unadjusted are the raw data as reported by the weather station. But now they say that GHCN unadjusted are “quality controlled monthly means constructed by NCEI and other groups from raw data”. A lot of fishy data business going on at NASA GISS. SHAREVISIT WEBSITE

Former NASA Climatologist rips ‘weather/climate charlatans’ for constantly claiming ‘hottest on record’

July 22, 2019

  http://realclimatologists.org/Articles/2019/07/20/The_Fifteenth_Hottest_Third_Tuesday_In_July_Since_Records_Began_Last_August/ By Dr. Duane Thresher July 20, 2019 It’s that time of year again — summer — when the weather/climate charlatans try to scare us into believing that because we are having the annual heat wave, global warming is real and the world will surely end by next summer (by which time you’ll have forgotten last summer). During this time you get headlines no less ludicrous than the title of this article from self-promoting fake meteorologists and climate scientists — charlatans for short (look up its definition) — like Jeff Masters and Bob Henson of Weather Underground (named in honor of a terrorist group) and James Hansen and Gavin Schmidt of NASA GISS (named because they were supposed to do space studies, not climate), where I (Dr. Duane Thresher) used to be a very qualified climate scientist doing climate modeling on supercomputers. While I made up my article headline — IQ test: could you tell it’s made-up? — it was inspired by the no-less-ludicrous Weather Underground headline February 2018: Earth’s 11th Warmest February on Record. This “record” high was intended as proof of global warming, which is absurd. It would be entirely possible to have had Earth’s 11th warmest February during the last ice age, which ended about 12,000 years ago. In fact, it would be entirely possible to have Earth’s 1st warmest February during the last ice age, particularly since there were over 100,000 years in the last ice age to randomly try. These ludicrous headlines by these charlatans often say “hottest on record” or “hottest since records began” without ever saying when that was, even though any records complete and accurate enough to even pretend they are meaningful, by any stretch of the imagination (and these charlatans have quite the imaginations) go back only a few decades, a timescale which climate has been naturally varying over since there was climate, long before man. Or these ludicrous headlines by these charlatans say “hottest in X years”, where X near 100 is favored. But if it was that hot back then you can’t seriously say the temperature has been dramatically increasing (since the 1800’s when man supposedly started global warming during the Industrial Revolution). At worst the temperature must have been about the same for the last 100 years. It could even be headed toward that of another ice age, which Earth is actually due for, as shown by more solid scientific evidence — orbital variations — than there is for global warming. Warm periods only last about 10,000 years, ice ages about 100,000. Or these ludicrous headlines by these charlatans say, for example and combined with one of the records phrases above, the “3 hottest years were in the last 10 years”. But to think this proves global warming is just an even less convincing version of the gambler’s fallacy. If you flip a coin 100 times and the last 10 times are heads, this proves nothing about what it will be in the future. The delusional gambler thinks it’s “due” to be tails and the delusional global warmist thinks it will remain heads. And yes, climate, like weather, is a random, i.e. unpredictable, process, as proven by chaos theory (strange attractors are just statistical limits, like coin tosses will be 50% heads and 50% tails on average over many coin tosses). These charlatans also never mention the accuracy of the records, which are often laughable if you know anything about them like I actually do. For example, there is the unknowable heat island effect in these records, whereby cities, which have grown over the years and where most measurements are made, make it warmer locally (for example, because streets and roofs absorb heat better than grass and trees) even without global warming. Besides the fact that I know these headlines are complete nonsense scientifically, they also don’t scare me like they are meant to — remember the story of Chicken Little and “the sky is falling” — because from experience I am not a weather weenie like most, as the charlatans count on. I spent three summers in Tucson, in the southern Arizona desert — walking and biking, not huddling by the air conditioner — where the daytime temperature is 100 F or more for long periods. Most of the heat injury stories there were about kids getting second degree burns from falling on the street asphalt, not about heat deaths. And heat deaths are conveniently (for scaring people) very loosely defined; it’s actually hard to be directly killed by the heat. Often anyone who dies of a heart attack during a heat wave is falsely classified as a heat death, even if they might just as likely have died during the winter. I also climbed Ayers Rock (no, I won’t call it Uluru, I’m not an Aborigine), in the center of the Australian desert, during summer — February in the Southern Hemisphere — in a long line of climbers, who all survived and were jumping around happily at the top. Further, I spent three winters in Fairbanks, Alaska where it was near -40 F for long periods and the people went around praying for global warming. It’s a lot easier to be killed by the cold than the heat and yet there weren’t any cold deaths reported. Such the-sky-is-falling headlines are how the extraordinary popular delusion of global warming got started in the first place by charlatan James Hansen, former Director of NASA GISS and my former boss there. James Hansen became the father of global warming by being a snake oil salesman, a charlatan trying to scare people into buying what he had to sell. In June 1988 unscrupulous members of Congress desperate to make some headlines for themselves decided on global warming and after searching, contacted James Hansen to testify. James Hansen was then a 47-year-old scientist, whose degrees were from a second-rate university and not even in the field of climate or meteorology. His career was going nowhere; he was the director of an obscure institute, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, that was in danger of being shut down, particularly since its former director was fired for embezzlement. The unscrupulous Congressmen intentionally scheduled Hansen to testify about global warming on what was historically the hottest day of the year in Washington D.C. Not only was it again the hottest day of the year but they intentionally turned off the air conditioning in the room. The television image of Hansen sweating while testifying about the dangers of global warming was overwhelming — global warming must be real. Hansen hasn’t looked back since. He made a career out of such headlines. The current Director of NASA GISS — Brit, juggler, my former colleague, and charlatan Gavin Schmidt — was hand-picked by his crony James Hansen, and his career is following Hansen’s almost exactly. I look forward to his being fired for misuse of federal funding. To be more accurate the title of this article should have been The Fifteenth Hottest Third Tuesday In July At 8 AM Since Records Using A Broken Thermometer Began (Last August) but I have no need to set a record, longest article title. OK, I’m actually holding out for the largest collection of toilet paper, using the articles such headlines I discussed are on. # Related Link:  Former NASA Climate Scientist Turns on Colleagues: NASA’s climate division ‘is a monument to bad science’ – Urges defunding # Scientists rebuke record heatwave claims: https://twitter.com/BigJoeBastardi/status/1152033747308384256 https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/1152032813199183872 https://twitter.com/BigJoeBastardi/status/1152548636460498946 https://twitter.com/BigJoeBastardi/status/1152549069241405440

Japanese Climate Expert Rips NASA Temperature Trends As Having ‘No Scientific Value’ – ‘Not Real Data’

July 16, 2019

https://notrickszone.com/2019/07/16/nasa-giss-surface-station-temperature-trends-based-on-sheer-guess-work-made-up-data-says-japanese-climate-expert/ NASA GISS Surface Station Temperature Trends Based On Sheer Guess Work, Made-Up Data, Says Japanese Climate Expert By Kirye and Pierre Gosselin Whenever NASA GISS announces how recent global temperatures are much hotter than, for example, 100 years ago, just how statistically reliable are such statements? Most will agree, based mainly on sundry observations, that today is indeed warmer than it was when surface temperatures began to be recorded back in 1880. But we will never really know by how much. Surface station datasets full of gigantic voids When we look at NASA GISS’s site here, we can see how many surface stations have data going back to earlier years. Today we see that 2089 stations are at work in Version 3 unadjusted data. Yet, when we go back 100 years (to 1919), we see only 997 of these surface stations have Version 3 unadjusted data that is complete: Source: NASA GISS Note how the Version 3 unadjusted datasets going back to 1919 are poorly distributed and sorrowfully lacking over Africa, Canada, the Arctic and all across the Southern Hemisphere. Never mind the oceans. Only a measly 174 surface stations go back to 1880! And when we look at the number of stations in Version 3 unadjusted data going back to 1880, ONLY 174 stations actually provide us with a complete thermometer dataset: giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/station_data_v3/ … As is shown, Version 3 unadjusted data going back to 1880 covers only some parts of the US and Europe. All of Canada and Russia are void of data, and so it is impossible to know what the temperatures there really was. The same is true for the entire southern hemisphere, let alone the entire globe. The bottom line: There is no way of knowing what the global temperature really was back in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Japanese expert: data of “no scientific value” This tells us that global temperature trends since the start of the Industrial Revolutions presented by NASA are fraught with huge uncertainty. “This is nothing new,” says Japanese climate expert Dr. Mototaka Nakamura in an email to NTZ. “We simply did not have many observing stations in the 1800s and early 1900s. They can produce ‘new data sets’ and claim that they have ‘better data sets’ all day long, but they just can’t make any meaningful difference for periods up to 1980.” “Not real data” “These datasets are products of simulation models and data assimilation software, not real data,” Dr. Nakamura added. “This problem has been present in data products produced by all institutions from the beginning – NASA, NOAA, NCEP, ECMWF, UMet, etc.” “Spatial bias before 1980 cannot be dealt with” But the data shortcomings get even worse. Dr. Nakamura wrote: “A far more serious issue with calculating ‘the global mean surface temperature trend’ is the acute spatial bias in the observation stations. There is nothing they can do about this either.  No matter what they do with the simulation models and data assimilation programs, this spatial bias before 1980 cannot be dealt with in any meaningful way. Just look at the locations of the observation stations used in GISS products for various years on their page.” Dr. Nakamura commented earlier here at NTZ: “The global surface mean temperature change data no longer have any scientific value and are nothing except a propaganda tool to the public.” So how can we be sure about the globe’s temperatures, and thus it’s trends before 1980? You can’t. The real data just aren’t there.

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