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‘Hide The Decline’ Unveiled: 50 Non-Hockey Stick Graphs Quash Modern ‘Global’ Warming Claims

By Kenneth Richard on 27. September 2016

We are told the globe is rapidly and dangerously warming, and that this rapid and dangerous warming has been predominantly caused by the steep rise in anthropogenic CO2 emissions that began about the mid-1940s.

We even have a widely-recognized “hockey stick” graph of the Northern Hemisphere — created by Michael Mann in the late 1990s and popularized by the IPCC (2001) — to “prove” that modern warming has been synchronously global in scale, as well as rapid, dangerous, and perhaps even unprecedented (“the warmest on record”).

There is a problem with this paradigm, however. An enormous problem.

That is, when scientists reconstruct sea surface temperatures (SST) and land surface temperatures and deep ocean heat content from the paleoclimate record (hundreds to thousands of years ago) using existing physical proxy evidence, and when they use this same physical evidence to reconstruct the modern temperatures, the rapid and dangerous warming trend that mysteriously forms a hockey stick shape for recent decades seems to just simply . . . disappear. In its place is a modern record of temperatures from locations all over the world that looks like anything but a rapidly warming, dangerous, and unprecedented hockey stick. Instead, the paleoclimate record reveals the opposite: large regions of the Earth were significantly warmer than they are now for most of the last several thousand years.

Below is a compilation of 50 temperature graphs from peer-reviewed scientific papers. Some graphs indicate that (a) post-1940s temperatures actually declined slightly many regions of the world rather than rose rapidly — the opposite of what climate models had predicted. All the graphs show that (b) modern (post-1940s) temperatures aren’t any warmer than the decades and centuries and millennia prior to the steep increase in anthropogenic CO2 emissions, and in some locations even the Little Ice Age temperatures (1400s to 1800s AD) were warmer than modern. Finally, these 50 graphs clearly show that (c) the conceptualization of global-scale warming, or a globally synchronous rise in temperatures for the vast majority of the Earth’s land and oceanic locations in modern times . . . is not scientifically supportable.

In many parts of the world, today’s temperatures are still among the coldest they’ve been in the last several thousand years according to these graphs. Sea levels, in turn, are at some of the lowest levels of the last 8,000 years; relative sea levels were 1 to 4 meters higher than they are now just a few thousand years ago. Where warming has occurred, it’s been modest and slight, not rapid and dangerous. Perhaps this is why the “hide the decline” phenomenon became so necessary for hockey stick-favoring reconstructionists.

But perhaps advocates of rapid and dangerous global warming caused by humans need not worry about this lack of scientific support for modern hemispheric- and global-scale hockey sticks. Because although scientists have revealed that many locations around the world have not been warming, there are other parts of the ocean and surface that indeed have been warming. And that warming, yes that warming, in those locations, could be said to have been caused by humans.

————————————————————————————————————

Saenger et al, 2009 (Bahamas) (Northern Hemisphere)

Wunsch and Heimbach, 2014 (Pacific, Atlantic, Indian Oceans)

Discussion: “A very weak long-term [1993-2011] cooling is seen over the bulk of the rest of the ocean below that depth [2000 m], including the entirety of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, along with the eastern Atlantic basin.”

de Jong et al., 2013 (Chile)

Pitman and Smith, 2012 (Canada)

Esper et al., 2012 (Northern Europe, Scandinavia)

Divine et al, 2011 (Norway)

Sunkara and Tiwari, 2016 (India)

Drinkwater, 2006 (Greenland)

Hanna et al., 2004 (Iceland)

Goodkin et al., 2008 (North Atlantic)

Yan et al., 2015 (South China Sea)

Munz et al., 2015 (Arabian Sea)

Matskovsky and Helama, 2015 (Finland, Sweden)

Cook et al., 2009 (Canada)

Gennaretti et al., 2014 (North America)

Incarbona et al., 2016 (Sicily, Aegean Sea)

Rosenthal et al., 2013 (Pacific Ocean Heat Content)

“We show that water masses linked to North Pacific and Antarctic intermediate waters were warmer by 2.1°C and 1.5°C, respectively, during the middle Holocene Thermal Maximum than over the past century. Both water masses were ~0.9°C warmer during the Medieval Warm period than during the Little Ice Age and ~0.65° warmer than in recent decades.”

Zhu et al., 2016 (China)

Ault et al., 2013 (Equatorial Pacific)

Hanhijärvi et al., 2013 (Arctic, North Atlantic)

Schneider et al., 2006 (Antarctica)

Delong et al., 2012 (Tropical Pacific)

Zinke et al., 2014 (South Africa)

Lyu et al., 2016 (China)

Esper et al., 2014 (Northern Europe)

Fudge et al., 2016 (Antarctica)

Grudd et al., 2002 (Sweden)

Jalili et al., 2016 (Mediterranean Sea)

Gjerde et al., 2016 (Norway Glaciers)

Antinao and McDonald, 2013 (Tropical Pacific, California)

Rella and Uchida, 2014 (Antarctica)

Shevenell et al., 2011 (NW Equatorial Pacific, W Antarctica, SE Pacific)

Yamamoto, 2012 (Japan)

Gajewski, 2015 (Canadian Arctic, Greenland)

Fortin and Gajewski, 2016 (Canadian Arctic)

Kim et al., 2007 (North Africa)

Kolansky et al., 2015 (Pacific Ocean)

Lamy et al., 2012 (Chile)

Bostock et al., 2013 (Southern Ocean)

Eldevik et al., 2014 (Norway, Norweigan Sea)

“Through the LH [Late Holocene], ocean temperatures [North Atlantic, Nordic Seas] are comparable to the present, but up to 1 °C warmer”

Prieto et al., 2016 (Argentina, Uruguay) Relative Sea Level

Dura et al., 2016 (Vancouver ) Relative Sea Level

Bracco et al., 2014 (Uruguay)

Kench et al., 2014 (central Pacific Ocean) Relative Sea Level

Posted in Cooling/Temperature, Hockey Team | 4 Responses

Harvard Physicist, Experts Blast Manmade Climate Change Claims As “Activist”, “Error-Prone”, “Rodomontade”!

By P Gosselin on 26. September 2016

An open letter about climate politics from seven distinguished climate researchers and friends of science follows:
=============================================

Some 375 political activists attached to the National Academy of Sciences, supporting the totalitarian view on the climate question, have issued an open letter saying we “caused most of the historical increase in atmospheric levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases”.

Harvard astrophysicist Willie Soon slams political open letter issued by 375 NAS activists, calling manmade global warming science a “totalitarian view”. Soon has been viciously attacked by activist groups, organizations and the mainstream media. He refuses to back down. Image: Heartland Institute.

Global warmists making outlandish and absurd claims…

We influence climate by returning to the air carbon dioxide that was there before. But so do termites, by emitting more methane than all the world’s farm animals combined. So do plants, by breathing carbon dioxide and returning oxygen to the air. So does the Sun, by supplying the Earth’s radiant energy. So do volcanoes, by ejecta that shade the Earth from the Sun. So do the oceans, by helping to keep the Earth’s temperature extraordinarily stable for more than 800,000 years.

The activists say we are warming the oceans. But even the worst assessment says this is just 1 degree Celsius every 430 years.

The activists say we are warming the lower atmosphere. Yet all data shows the atmosphere is warming at less than half the rate originally predicted by the error-prone Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The activists say the oceans are “acidifying”. The truth is that we have no idea whether or at what rate the oceans are “acidifying”. What is known, however, is that the oceans are pronouncedly alkaline and are so powerfully buffered that alkaline they must remain.

The activists say our influence on climate is evident in “altered rainfall patterns”: but there is little or no evidence of a link between our industries and enterprises on the one hand and global rainfall patterns on the other.

The activists say we are to blame for retreating Arctic sea ice. But Arctic sea ice variations, if objectively quantified with proper error estimates, are fully within the large natural range of changes that have no need of any unique explanation by rising atmospheric carbon dioxide. In addition Antarctic sea ice, which they forget, has largely offset the loss of Arctic ice.

Failed predictions mean bad science

The activists declare their faith in the doctrine “that the problem of human-caused climate change is real, serious and immediate, and that this problem poses significant risks” to everything from national security via health and agriculture to biodiversity. But this statement is based wholly on faith and is unsupported by reality. We know this because of the serially failed predictions made by the activists. Good science makes accurate predictions.

The activists say, “We know that the climate system has tipping points”. Yet, revealingly, “Tipping point” is not a scientific but a political term. The activists say that “rapid warming of the planet increases the risk of crossing climatic points of no return”, but there is no evidence for rapid warming of the planet today.

The activists say warmer weather will “possibly” set in motion “large-scale ocean circulation changes”. The scientific truth is that, while the wind blows, the Earth rotates and its land-masses are approximately where they are, the ocean circulation must remain much as it is now. To suggest otherwise is mere rodomontade.

Totalitarians undercurrents

Scientists, like other citizens, are entitled and even encouraged to take part in the political process. This applies to non-citizens, which many of the 375 are. What scientists must not do, however, is pretend, as the activists did, that their totalitarian point of view is unchallengeable. In all material respects, unfolding events have proven their extremist viewpoint prodigiously exaggerated at best, plain wrong at worst.

Though the activists have attempted – falsely and improperly – to convey the impression that it is somehow illegal, immoral or damaging to the planet to vote for the Republican party’s candidate in the forthcoming Presidential Election because he disagrees with the totalitarian position on the climate question that they espouse with such religious fervor and such disregard for science, in truth it is not the business of scientists to abuse the authority of their white lab-coats by collectively suggesting that “Science” demands the voters should or should not cast their vote in any particular direction.

“Antiscientific letter”

Therefore, the signatories hereto repudiate the letter issued by the 375 activists as reflecting not scientific truth but quasi-religious dogma and totalitarian error; we urge the voters to disregard that regrettable and anti-scientific letter; and we invite every citizen to make up his or her own mind whom to elect to the nation’s highest office without fear of the multifarious bugaboos conjured into terrifying but scientifically unjustifiable existence by the totalitarian activists who have for decades so disrespected, disgraced and disfigured climate science.

(A more detailed version of this reply is available at the Breitbart News)

Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, William M. Briggs, David R. Legates, Anthony Lupo, Istvan Marko, Dennis Mitchell, and Willie Soon

Posted in Activism, Scepticism | 9 Responses

Germany’s All-Time Record High Set In 2015 Looks Dubious …Likely Due To UHI / Instrumentation Error

By P Gosselin on 25. September 2016

At the Germany-based European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), Helmut Kuntz writes that Germany’s all-time record high temperature recorded last year, 2015, is likely an artifact of the urban heat island effect (UHI) and instrumentation error margins.

In 2015 the Kitzingen weather station located in southern Germany set a new all-time high when it reached 40.3°C — twice: on July 5 and August 7 — breaking the earlier record of 40.2°C set on 27 July 1983 in Gärmersdorf. The whopping margin: a whole 0.1°C! Photo right: Kitzingen station.

So why is Kitzingen suddenly so hot?

EIKE guest writer Josef Kowatsch has often claimed that the UHI has played a major role in producing the warming effect over the past decades. Recently that claim got a boost of support from University of Wurzburg climate researcher Prof. Heiko Paeth, who in an interview with MAIN POST daily here on September 7, 2016, stated that it likely has more to do with station siting then it does with a climate trend.

According to Prof. Paeth, the high reading can be traced back to Kitzingen having certain special features.

First the town of Kitzingen is located at a relatively low elevation some 20 km east of Wurzburg — situated in the Main Valley at the bottom of a sort of a bowl where heat can collect.

Secondly, he tells the MAIN POST that fresh, westerly winds that normally act to cool Germany in the summertime have been obstructed by a commercial district built not long ago where once a US base had been located. The Main Post writes:

What remains is an obstacle for the air flow from the west. The town has blocked off its fresh air feed-in duct, says Paeth. ‘That could be an explanation for the heat.'”

Instrumentation error margin of +-0.4°C

Moreover Kuntz reports that the Kitzingen station was first put into operation in 2005 and the German DWD weather service equipped it with the electronic PT 100 instrument, which in comparison tests has been shown to produce considerably higher readings. Also such a weather station has a temperature measurement error of +-0.4°C at temperatures of 40°C:

Accuracy of the WXT 520 sensor for weather stations. As the ambient temperature rises over 0°C, so does the margin of error.

Kuntz adds that if the urban heat island effect is the reason for the 0.1°C temperature increase over the last 32 years in Germany, then the supposed climate change warming of the planet looks like as follows:

– Globally it has not gotten warmer over the past 103 years.
– The global temperature upper limit temperature has not changed at all in 74 years.
– It has not gotten warmer in Germany over the past 32 years.
– If the “discarded” older measurements were used, it would be much warmer earlier than currently stated.

Posted in Cooling/Temperature | 14 Responses

At 20% Below Expectations, Bavarian Wind Park Disappoints Its Small Investors

By P Gosselin on 24. September 2016

At BR Bavarian public broadcasting here, Judith Zacher writes how the Zöschingen wind park has lost the air under its wings and has disappointed investors. At the time it opened in 2013, it was Bavaria’s largest citizens-operated wind park. But the BR writes that “there’s not enough wind and the financial expectations can hardly be fulfilled.”

Back at the beginning of the decade when the park was under planning, there was considerable opposition to its construction. But the town’s mayor and the wind lobby prevailed and pushed the project through in 2011, in the wake of the German Fukushima hysteria. Moreover, studies and wind measurements showed there was enough wind to produce enough clean energy to make the project worthwhile. So construction was approved and the park with its 8 large turbines went into operation in the spring of 2013.

Only 1% return on investment

The Zöschingen project is called a citizens’ wind park because a number of citizens invested in the project with the hopes of seeing a strong return. However, Zacher writes at BR that those expectations have failed to materialize. Instead of the expected 9% return, the BR reports that investors received only 4.5% in the first year, and only a measly 1 percent over the following two years.

This seems to have become a typical story for many German wind park projects: big promises turning out to be huge disappointments. And every time the winners are few and always the same: the project planners and the land owner who makes easy money with leasing fees.

Wind has been much weaker than expected

So why isn’t the Zöschingen wind project delivering?

BR reports that although there have been productive months, overall wind energy output is still “20 percent below the expectations“. Before the project began, wind measurements had been taken over months, and three expert technical assessments showed the project would yield good returns. However since the wind park was built, the winds have not blown like they were expected to do. These things happen.

The BR report writes that the problem may have something to do with the turbines being located in a forest – too near to tree tops. Plant builder Georg Honold says the turbines should have been taller.

What’s left is a poor investment that has turned the landscape into an eyesore that everyone in the area will have to wake up and look at every day — for probably another 20 years.

Posted in Alternative Energy | 20 Responses

Alarm… Major German Grid Operator Announces Whopping 80% Higher Grid Fees! “Power To Be More Expensive”

By P Gosselin on 23. September 2016

Yesterday the online German news weekly FOCUS here wrote an article that is certainly more bad news for Germany’s electricity consumers, who are already paying among the highest rates in the world.

One of Germany’s major power grid operators, Tennet, announced it is “massively increasing power grid fees” and that “power is going to be more expensive“.

Exploding costs, unstable supply

This is another setback for German power consumers, who have seen their power bills explode since Germany enacted the renewable energy feed in tariffs into law as part of the Energiewende (transition to renewable energies).

Average electric power rates for German households in €-cents. The largest cost driver by far is the feed-in tariff for green energies. Source BDEW.

German power used to be affordable, and highly reliable. But all that has changed since climate hysteria and the green movement took over 15 years ago. Today German power is among the most expensive worldwide.

FOCUS writes:

Power companies will have to deal with a higher electric bill next year. Power grid operator Tennet is increasing its price massively, and bases this on the resulting costs of the Energiewende.”

FOCUS quotes Tennet Director Urban Keussen:

Our power grid fees will increase 80 percent on January 1st.”

For a three-person household, this will mean another 30 euros burden annually, says Keussen.

“Grid stabilization emergency measures”

Moreover the highly volatile wind and solar energies have made the German grid highly unstable and have recently seen it on the verge of collapse. The major problem is that the power grid has been far from adequately expanded to accommodate the briskly expanding solar and wind energy capacity, thus leading to gigantic transmission bottlenecks and massive grid instability.

In fact the added costs in grid fees will have very little to do with grid expansion itself. Rather they are mostly due to “grid stabilization emergency measures” to prevent a total collapse. FOCUS writes:

The lion’s share of the increase in grid fees from Tennet are due to grid stabilization emergency measures,’ said Keussen. ‘Only 5% are because of grid expansion.'”

FOCUS adds that in 2015 alone “bottleneck management” led to costs totaling about 1 billion euros.

Posted in Alternative Energy | 34 Responses

4 New Papers Link Solar Activity, Natural Ocean Cycles To Climate – And Find Warmer Temps During 1700s, 1800s

By Kenneth Richard on 22. September 2016

As of mid-September, there have already been 77 peer-reviewed scientific papers authored by several hundred scientists linking solar activity to climate change. There were 43 as of the end of June, as seen here. In other words, there have been 34 more papers linking solar forcing to climate change made available online just since July.

This publication rate for 2016 is slightly ahead of the pace of published papers linking solar forcing to climate change for 2015 (95 Solar-Climate papers ) and 2014 (93 Solar-Climate papers). At this rate, it is likely that a list of 300+ scientific papers linking solar forcing to climate change will have been made available between 2014 and 2016.

In addition, there have already been 41 papers published in science journals this year linking natural oceanic oscillations (i.e., ENSO, NAO, AMO, PDO) to climate changes. There were 27 such papers as of the end of June.

The solar-ocean oscillation climate connection has gained widespread acceptance in the scientific community. For example, see “35 New Scientific Publications Confirm Ocean Cycles, Sun Are the Main Climate Drivers”

The latest papers linking solar activity as well as ocean oscillations to climate changes are listed below. Not only do these papers describe solar activity and ocean oscillations as the dominant mechanisms of climate change, they provide evidence that the modern, post-1950 period does not contain the highest temperatures of the last few hundred years. In fact, these papers each document that temperatures during some periods of the 1700s and/or 1800s were just as warm or warmer than present temperatures.

That periods with much lower CO2 concentrations (of about 280 parts per million, or 0.028% of atmospheric gases) could have warmer-than-now temperatures (with present CO2 concentrations reaching 400 parts per million) defies claims that variations in CO2 primarily (or even exclusively) determine the temperature of the planet’s water and air, and that natural variations in solar activity, ocean heat distribution/cycling, clouds, volcanic activity…play little to no role in long-term climate change.

Perhaps this CO2-drives-climate paradigm needs to be updated to reflect the growing body of scientific evidence that the Sun and natural ocean cycling are primarily what drive temperature variations — not CO2.

1. Incarbona et al., 2016 (Sicily, Aegean Sea)

Comparison between the records and multi-decadal atmospheric circulation patterns and climatic external forcings indicates that Mediterranean circulation destabilisation occurs during positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and negative Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) phases, reduced solar activity and strong tropical volcanic eruptions. They may have recurrently produced favourable deep-water formation conditions, both increasing salinity and reducing temperature on multi-decadal time scales.

[B]oth NAO and AMO are of importance for the Mediterranean climate variability. In particular, at multidedacal scales, positive NAO phases lead to decreased precipitation (i.e. higher salinity) while negative AMO leads to reduced SSTs. Both processes may have favoured deep-water formation events on relatively long time scales.

Thermohaline circulation destabilisations in the Mediterranean circulation also seem to be linked to reduced solar activity (ref. 40; Fig. 4D) and to frequent volcanic eruptions (ref. 41; Fig. 4E). Solar activity modulates patterns in surface temperature and pressure that resemble NAO phases, through dynamical coupling processes between the stratosphere and the troposphere that transmit the solar signal to the Earth’s surface. The increase in sulphur aerosols from tropical volcanic emissions produces stratospheric and surface conditions that resemble the positive NAO phase and cause decrease in oceanic heat content, with long-lived temperature anomalies extending to the mid-depth and deep ocean, an increase in sea ice volume and enhancement in the overturning circulation of the North Atlantic Ocean following these eruptions. These phenomena may have shaped the North Atlantic atmospheric pattern, which in turn may have led to Aegean SSTs cooling and thus surface buoyancy loss and enhanced Eastern Mediterranean deep-water formation during EMT-like events.

2. Lyu et al., 2016 (China)

The reconstructed April–July MMT series exhibited six cold and seven warm periods. The longest cold period lasted from AD 1645 to 1677 (33 years), with an average temperature of 0.5 ◦C below the mean value. The longest warm period, however, lasted from AD 1767 to 1785 (19 years), and the average temperature was 0.69 ◦C above the mean value (Table 4). Four cold (1605–1616, 1645–1677, 1911–1924, and 1951–1969) and warm (1795–1807, 1838– 1848, 1856–1873, and 1991–2008) periods were consistent with other results of tree-ring reconstructions in northeast China (Shao and Wu, 1997; Yin et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2012; Zhu et al., 2015). In addition, two cold periods (1645– 1677 and 1684–1691) were consistent with the Maunder Minimum (1645–1715), an interval of decreased solar irradiance (Bard et al., 2000). … The three temperature series exhibited significantly low temperature periods during the 1950s–1970s, which coincided with a slight decrease in solar activity from AD 1940 to 1970 (Beer et al., 2000; Fig. 7).

[P]revious studies suggest that climate change in northeast China was also linked to the solar activities and global land–sea atmospheric circulation during certain pre-instrumental periods (Chen et al., 2006; Wang et al., 2011; Liu et al., 2013). It is generally accepted that the climate warms during periods of strong solar activity (e.g., the Medieval Warm Period) and cools during periods of low solar activity (e.g., the Little Ice Age; Lean and Rind, 1999; Bond et al., 2001).

“Reconstruction of April-July minimum temperature on Laobai Mountain for the last 414 years [1600-2014]. The smoothed line indicates the 11-year moving average, and blue dots represent minimum freezing events.”

3. Sunkara and Tiwari, 2016 (India)

To study the imprints of the solar–ENSO–geomagnetic activity on the Indian subcontinent, we have applied singular spectral analysis (SSA) and wavelet analysis to the tree-ring temperature variability record from the Western Himalayas. Other data used in the present study are the solar sunspot number (SSN), geomagnetic indices (aa index), and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) for the common time period of 1876–2000. Both SSA and wavelet spectral analyses reveal the presence of 5–7-year short-term ENSO variations and the 11-year solar cycle, indicating the possible combined influences of solar–geomagnetic activities and ENSO on the Indian temperature. Another prominent signal corresponding to 33-year periodicity in the tree-ring record suggests the Sun-temperature variability link probably induced by changes in the basic state of the Earth’s atmosphere. In order to complement the above findings, we performed a wavelet analysis of SSA reconstructed time series, which agrees well with our earlier results and increases the signal-to-noise ratio, thereby showing the strong influence of solar–geomagnetic activity and ENSO throughout the entire period. The solar flares are considered responsible for causing the atmospheric circulation patterns. The net effect of solar–geomagnetic processes on the temperature record might suggest counteracting influences on shorter (about 5–6-year) and longer (about 11–12-year) timescales. The present analyses suggest that the influence of solar activities on the Indian temperature variability operates in part indirectly through coupling of ENSO on multilateral timescales. The analyses, hence, provide credible evidence of teleconnections of tropical Pacific climatic variability and Indian climate ranging from inter-annual to decadal timescales and also suggest the possible role of exogenic triggering in reorganizing the global Earth–ocean–atmospheric systems.

4. Zhu et al., 2016 (China)

A 368-year maximum temperature reconstruction

During the period 1875–1955, late summer temperature fluctuated less strongly than before or thereafter. In general, the average length of cold periods was shorter than that of warm periods. The cold period of 1869–1877 was the longest and coldest cool period had a mean of 17.63°C. The longest warm period extended from 1655 to 1668, and the warmest period in AD 1719–1730 had a mean of 20.37°C. However, we should point out that the rapid warming during the 20th century was not especially obvious in our reconstructed RLST.

[S]even cold periods and three warm periods were identified during the past 368 years (Fig. 4d). All the cold periods were during the Maunder (1708–1711) or Dalton (1818– 1821, 1824–1828, 1832–1836, and 1839–1842) solar minima periods, except for the cold periods of 1765–1769 and 1869–1877 (Eddy, 1976; Shindell et al., 1999), which indicated that RLST [mean maximum temperature] variations in the NWSP [northwestern Sichuan Plateau, China ] might be driven by solar activity (Fig. 7b). On the other hand, volcanic eruptions in the corresponding periods might also be a cooling factor (Fig. 7b). A longer cold period (e.g., 1820s–1840s) was interrupted by transient warming, thus forming a plurality of discontinuous short cold periods. Warm periods of 1719–1730 and 1858–1859 both had more sunspots (Eddy, 1976; Shindell et al., 1999) and lower volcanic forcing (Fig. 7b). The cold (1765–1769 or 1869–1877) and warm (1655–1668) periods were highly consistent with other studies (Fig. 7).

Possible Forcing Mechanism

Accompanied by significant peaks at 60.2 and 73 years, the continuously periodicities around 49–114 years in our regional temperature reconstruction might tentatively be related to PDO, Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO; En- field et al., 2001) as well as solar activity (Eddy, 1976; Shindell et al., 1999; Peristykh and Damon, 2003; Raspopov et al., 2004; Braun et al., 2005). The AMO was an important driver of multidecadal variations in summer climate not only in North America and western Europe (Kerr, 2000; Sutton and Hodson, 2005) but also in the East Asia (Feng and Hu, 2008; Liang et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2011, 2015; Zhu et al., 2011). The 60.2-year peak associated with AMO demonstrated that multidecadal variations in late summer temperature in the NWSP NWSP [northwestern Sichuan Plateau, China] might be controlled by AMO.

[S]ignificant multidecadal- and centennial-scale cycles of our temperature reconstruction might include the signs of solar activity, such as the Gleissberg cycles (Peristykh and Damon, 2003), Suess cycles (Braun et al., 2005), Bruckner cycles (Raspopov et al., 2004), and Schwabe cycles (Braun et al., 2005). The Maunder (ca. AD 1645–1715) and Dalton (ca. AD 1790–1840) solar minima periods were generally associated with temperature depressions (Eddy, 1976), and the Damon (ca. AD 1890– 1920) solar maximum period occurred in a relatively warm period, which further confirmed that late summer temperature variation in the NWSP [northwestern Sichuan Plateau, China] might be driven by solar activity (Fig. 7b).

Conclusion: Overall, the RLST [mean maximum temperature] variability in the NWSP [northwestern Sichuan Plateau, China ] might be associated with global land–sea atmospheric circulation (e.g., ENSO, PDO, or AMO) as well as solar and volcanic forcing.

Posted in Paleo-climatology, Solar | 14 Responses

German Geologist Thinks Policymakers Need To Take Geology 101 Before Entering Climate Discussion

By P Gosselin on 21. September 2016

Land area gains despite sea level rise: coastal areas have grown 13,500 sq km over past 30 years

By geologist Dr. Sebastian Luning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt.
(German text translated/edited by P Gosselin)

On August 25, 2016 there was in Nature Climate Change a small wonder was observed. A team of scientist led by Gennadii Donchyts of the Dutch Deltares Research Institute released a statistic on land area gain and loss in the coastal areas on earth. Given our rising sea levels, a loss of land area was expected. Thus the surprise was even more profound when the official figures were released: coastal regions didn’t shrink, rather they grew by 13,565 sq km over the past 30 years.

That’s a real sensation.

Unfortunately the German media chose to keep silent about it. Inconvenient data that they do not want the public to see. In the publication it is stated:

Earth’s surface gained 115,000 km² of water and 173,000 km² of land over the past 30 years, including 20,135 km² of water and 33,700 km² of land in coastal areas. Here, we analyse the gains and losses through the Deltares Aqua Monitor — an open tool that detects land and water changes around the globe.

For what is interesting are the figures for the coastal areas (the other figures concern inland bodies of water that are independent of sea level). The calculation is trivial:
33,700 sq km of land gain minus 20,135 sq km of land loss = a net land gain of 13,565 sq km.

The people at the Deltares-Institute did have some fear of the figures. In the original press release, they refrained from presenting this important result:

How the earth has changed over the past 30 years

The world has gained 115,000 km2 of water and 173,000 km2 of land over the past 30 years. The Dutch research institute Deltares developed an open tool that analyses satellite data and visualises land and water changes around the globe. The results were published today in Nature Climate Change.

First global-scale tool that shows water and land conversion

The Deltares Aqua Monitor was developed by Gennadii Donchyts, a remote sensing expert at Deltares. It is the first global-scale tool that shows, with a 30-metre resolution, where water has been transformed into land and vice-versa. The Aqua Monitor uses freely available satellite data and Google Earth Engine, a platform for the planetary-scale scientific analysis of geospatial datasets that is now open to the general public. Gennadii Donchyts: “The Aqua Monitor shows that, around the world between 1985 and 2015, about 173 000 km², an area about the size of Washington State, has been transformed into land. At the same time, an area of 115 000 km² has been transformed into water. Both documented and undocumented changes due to man-made interventions, natural variability, and climate change have now been revealed.”

Known versus unknown

While many countries report on dam construction, information about more remote or isolated areas has been lacking. In Myanmar, the Global Reservoir and Dams database shows an increase in the water surface between 1985 and 2010 of about 400 km². Using the Aqua Monitor, we found 1,180 km² of new surface water during the same period. The damming of the Rimjin River in North Korea close to the border with South Korea resulted in a storage surface of 12.4 km² that was actually due to the Hwanggang Dam, which was thought to be located 35 km to the east. These unknown reservoirs may have had a severe impact on the displacement of people and on the ecology. These issues still have to be investigated.

Created by nature or humans

The results of the Aqua Monitor show only the compound impact of natural and human change or variability. It is often hard to tell what has caused a change without determining the details of the local water and sediment budget. While changes in meanders in the Brahmaputra delta are clearly natural, the Mondrian-like shapes near Taiji Nai’er lakes in China are clearly man-made.

Big data at everyone’s fingertips

Universally-available analytics for big satellite data may have major implications for monitoring capacity and associated actions. At the very local scale, members of the general public can now make assessments without expert assistance if their houses are threatened by coastal erosion. At the regional scale, a downstream riparian state can conduct year-to-year monitoring to see whether upstream neighbours are establishing new impoundments. Finally, at the planetary scale, global agencies such as the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction can monitor the appearance of new reservoir storage capacity that may reduce flood hazards.

Jaap Kwadijk, the Deltares scientific director: “This has never been done before. So it is difficult to imagine all the new applications that will be made using this tool. But the tool can be used by everybody and so I am sure multiple applications will emerge in the next few years”.

The BBC took on an approach of transparency and reported explicitly on the land area gain at the coasts:

Coastal areas were also analysed, and to the scientists surprise, coastlines had gained more land – 33,700 sq km (13,000 sq miles) – than they had been lost to water (20,100 sq km or 7,800 sq miles). “We expected that the coast would start to retreat due to sea level rise, but the most surprising thing is that the coasts are growing all over the world,” said Dr Baart. “We’re were able to create more land than sea level rise was taking.”

Why is the result so? Every geologist learns in the first semesters that deltas expand out into the sea when the rate of sediment buildup is faster than then sea level rise. This appears to be the case here. Sea level rise is too small to lead to a flooding of coastal level areas. The system finds itself in a state of regression as many sand coasts are pushing out slowly into the sea.

Policymakers need to take Geology 101

After the end of the last ice age some 10,000 years ago, the case was very different. Back then sea level rise was multiple times greater than what it is today and coasts were covered by the sea. In geological terms this is called “transgression”. Perhaps political policy makers should be required to take Geology 101 so that they are better able to take part in the climate discussion.

Online Aqua-Monitor here. Also see a report (in German) at watson.ch.

Posted in Oceans, Sea Levels | 13 Responses

US Atmospheric Scientist Sees No Link Between Accumulated Cyclone Energy And Global Warming Over Past 30 Years

By P Gosselin on 20. September 2016

Atmospheric research scientist Dr. Philip Klotzbach at Twitter here tweeted a chart showing that accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) has not risen at all in 30 years, despite earlier massive hype and hollering by climate scientists and media, who insist “man-made” global warming is causing more frequent and intense cyclones.

In fact Klotzbach’s plot above shows that there has even been a modest decline.

So I tweeted a question to Dr. Klotzbach, and he was kind to answer as follows:

As the reader will note, Klotzbach does not see any link between cyclone activity and global warming over the past 30 years.

If we roughly plot CO2 levels vs ACE, no statistical analysis is needed to tell us that there is no correlation, except of course that rising atmospheric CO2 concentration might be causing a little bit less cyclone activity (which is the OPPOSITE of what is claimed by alarmists):

Plot of ACE since 1980 vs atmospheric CO2 concentration. ACE has dropped a bit. CO2 chart from NOAA.

Global temperatures have also risen since 1980 (many arguing it has more to do with ocean and solar cycles, and less so with CO2). Yet, here as well a temperature increase over the period has not led to a rising trend in cyclone activity.

The paper Dr. Klotzbach refers to can be seen here. He writes in the abstract:

Ten years ago, Webster et al. documented a large and significant increase in both the number as well as the percentage of category 4 and 5 hurricanes for all global basins from 1970 to 2004, and this manuscript examines whether those trends have continued when including 10 additional years of data. In contrast to that study, as shown here, the global frequency of category 4 and 5 hurricanes has shown a small, insignificant downward trend while the percentage of category 4 and 5 hurricanes has shown a small, insignificant upward trend between 1990 and 2014. Accumulated cyclone energy globally has experienced a large and significant downward trend during the same period. The primary reason for the increase in category 4 and 5 hurricanes noted in observational datasets from 1970 to 2004 by Webster et al. is concluded to be due to observational improvements at the various global tropical cyclone warning centers, primarily in the first two decades of that study.

Globally, the year 2015 saw brisk cyclone activity, and thus has caused the trend since 1985 to be less steeply downward.

Posted in Hurricanes/Tornados | 10 Responses

New Paper Documents Imperceptible CO2 Influence On The Greenhouse Effect Since 1992

By Kenneth Richard on 19. September 2016

Between the years 1992 and 2014, anthropogenic CO2 emissions rates grew by 65%, or from a yearly average of 6.1 gigatons of carbon (GtC) in 1992 to a rate of 10.1 GtC by 2014 (Global Carbon Budget, 2014).

However, according to a new Nature paper entitled “A Hiatus of the Greenhouse Effect” by Song, Wang, & Tang (2016), there has been an overall hiatus to slight decline in the influence of the greenhouse warming effect on temperature beginning in 1992, which has coincided with the well-established pause in global warming since the early 2000s.

Below is the encapsulating graph from the paper, illustrating that the global-scale atmospheric and surface greenhouse effect (G_aa and G_sa) has remained flat/slightly declined between 1992 and 2014, during the same period time that anthropogenic CO2 emissions were rapidly rising (from 6.1 GtC/yr to 10.1 GtC/yr). This strongly suggests that anthropogenic CO2 emissions retain a very modest role in affecting variations in the overall greenhouse effect.

**“Monthly variations of the areal averaged atmospheric and surface greenhouse effect parameter anomalies (G_aa and G_sa) from 1979 to 2014 for the (a) globe”**

Song, Wang & Tang, 2016

A Hiatus of the Greenhouse Effect

[T]he primary goal of this study is to investigate the spatiotemporal evolution of the greenhouse effect to better evaluate its potential impact.

Because of the shorter period of the CERES EBAF product, the areal averaged Gsa [surface greenhouse effect] is represented only between 2003 and 2014 in Fig. 2 but shows no notable trend over the globe, sea or land. Thus, the surface greenhouse effect has not been strengthened in the last decade.

In the 1980s, a significant increasing Gaa [atmospheric greenhouse effect] tendency exists with a linear estimate of 0.19 W m−2 yr−1. However, this uprising trend pauses starting in circa 1992, when Gaa [atmospheric greenhouse effect] begins to slightly decrease at a rate of −0.01 W m−2 yr−1. This statistically non-significant trend indicates that the enhancing global atmospheric greenhouse effect is slowed down. Moreover, the atmospheric greenhouse effect hiatus can be found over both sea and land.

The oceanic Gaa [atmospheric greenhouse effect] exhibits a notable increasing trend with a rate of 0.21 W m−2 yr−1 in 1979–1991, whereas its rate of change (−0.04 W m−2 yr−1) during 1992–2014 is not statistically significant. By contrast, although a sudden change in the Gaa tendency is observed overland, the breakpoint is approximately 5 years later than that of the oceanic Gaa. The terrestrial Gaa trends are 0.12 W m−2 yr−1 and 0.05 W m−2 yr−1 before and after 1997, respectively.

In the last subperiod [2003-2014], the global averaged SULR [surface upwelling longwave radiation/greenhouse effect] anomaly remains trendless (0.02 W m−2 yr−1) because Ts [global temperatures] stop rising. Meanwhile, the long-term change of the global averaged OLR anomaly (−0.01 W m−2 yr−1) is also not statistically significant. Thus, these two phenomena result in a trendless Gaa [atmospheric greenhouse effect].

[A]remarkably decreasing Gaa trend (−0.27 W m−2 yr−1) exists over the central tropical Pacific, indicating a weakened atmospheric greenhouse effect in this area, which largely offsets the warming effect in the aforementioned surrounding regions. As a result, a trendless global averaged Gaa [atmospheric greenhouse effect] is displayed between 1991 and 2002 (Fig. 2).

Again, no significant trend of the global averaged Gaa [atmospheric greenhouse effect] is found from 2003 to 2014 (Fig. 2) because the enhanced warming effect over the western tropical Pacific is largely counteracted by the weakened warming influence on the central tropical Pacific.

Explanation: Cloud Variations, Water Vapor Dominate Greenhouse Effect, With Insignificant CO2 Influence

As scientists Song, Tang, & Wang (2016) point out, during the 2003 to 2014 period, global temperatures “stop rising”. In fact, temperatures declined slightly during this period according to HadCRUT and RSS.

Song, Wang, & Tang ultimately provide an explanation for the hiatus in the global-scale greenhouse effect (from the early 1990s to present) and temperature rise (from the early 2000s to present). They insinuate that water vapor and clouds are the dominant contributors to greenhouse warming, and the CO2 contribution is quite modest by comparison. Small variations in water vapor and cloud can therefore supersede large variations in CO2 in determining trends in the overall greenhouse effect. Below are the key points from the rest of the paper detailing CO2’s small contribution to the overall greenhouse effect (relative to water vapor, clouds).

Song, Wang & Tang, 2016

[T]he influences of water vapor and clouds … contribute approximately 75% of the total [greenhouse] effect.

The results above indicate that the notably downward Gaa tendency over the central tropical Pacific indeed plays an important role in inducing the greenhouse effect hiatus since the 1990s. What causes this decreasing Gaa [atmospheric greenhouse effect]? The variation of the greenhouse effect is substantially influenced by its contributors, including water vapor, clouds, and GHGs. GHG concentrations have risen steadily during recent decades. The variations of metrics related to the other two contributors are given in Fig. 4a and are based on the CERES-EBAF products between 2003 and 2014. The total column precipitable water (TCPW) anomaly significantly increases at a rate of 0.44 cm yr−1. However, the cloud area fraction (CAF) anomaly is reduced by −0.60% yr−1, which is consistent with the decreasing cloud activity described in previous publications. Therefore, although the greenhouse effect can be enhanced by increasing GHGs and water vapor in the atmosphere, it can be weakened by decreasing clouds. If these two actions offset each other, a hiatus of the global greenhouse effect will result.

[T]his pause in the greenhouse effect is mostly caused by the high number of La Niña events between 1991 and 2014. A strong La Niña indicates suppressed convection in the tropical central Pacific that reduces atmospheric water vapor content and cloud volume.

[T]he atmospheric and surface greenhouse effect parameters both become trendless when clouds are considered. … Overall, the downward tendency of clouds is the dominant contributor to the greenhouse effect hiatus.

In conclusion, the pause of the greenhouse effect since the 1990s may be one of the reasons for the global warming hiatus starting in the early 2000s.

Scientific Literature Substantiates Insignificant CO2 Influence

The explanation that water vapor and clouds are the most dominant contributors to the overall greenhouse effect — and that the CO2 contribution is insignificant by comparison — has been well known and documented in the scientific literature for decades. For example:

Willett, 1974

“[R]ecent increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide have contributed much less than 5% of the recent changes of atmospheric temperature, and will contribute no more than that in the foreseeable future.”

Dunbar, 1976

“[T]he measured increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to the most recent computations, would not be enough to have any measurable climatic effect. Rasool and Schneider (1971) conclude that an increase in the carbon dioxide content of eight times the present level would produce an increase in surface temperature of less than 2°C, and that if the concentration were to increase from the present level of 320 parts per million to about 400 by the year 2000, the predicted increase in surface global temperature would be about 0.1°C.”

Ramanathan et al., 1989

“Water vapour and cloud are the dominant regulators of the radiative heating of the planet. ..The greenhouse effect of clouds may be larger than that resulting from a hundredfold increase in the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere. … The size of the observed net cloud forcing is about four times as large as the expected value of radiative forcing from a doubling of CO2. The shortwave and longwave components of cloud forcing are about ten times as large as those for a CO2 doubling.”

Wielicki et al., 2002

“It is widely assumed that variations in Earth’s radiative energy budget at large time and space scales are small. We present new evidence from a compilation of over two decades of accurate satellite data that the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) tropical radiative energy budget is much more dynamic and variable than previously thought. Results indicate that the radiation budget changes are caused by changes in tropical mean cloudiness. The results of several current climate model simulations fail to predict this large observed variation in tropical energy budget. The missing variability in the models highlights the critical need to improve cloud modeling in the tropics so that prediction of tropical climate on interannual and decadal time scales can be improved.”

Kauppinen et al., 2014

“We will show that changes of relative humidity or low cloud cover explain the major changes in the global mean temperature. We will present the evidence of this argument using the observed relative humidity between years 1970 and 2011 and the observed low cloud cover between years 1983 and 2008. One percent increase in relative humidity or in low cloud cover decreases the temperature by 0.15 °C and 0.11 °C, respectively. In the time periods mentioned before the contribution of the CO₂ increase was less than 10% to the total temperature change.”

Hamdan, 2016

“The analysis showed that the main atmospheric parameters that affect the amount of global radiation received on earth’s surface are cloud cover and relative humidity. Global radiation correlates negatively with both variables. Linear models are excellent approximations for the relationship between atmospheric parameters and global radiation. A linear model with the predictors total cloud cover, relative humidity, and extraterrestrial radiation is able to explain around 98% of the variability in global radiation.”

————————————————————————————————————————

Summarizing Question: Why is there so much preoccupation with atmospheric CO2 concentrations and reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions when it is well documented in the peer-reviewed scientific literature that the CO2 contribution to the overall greenhouse effect is so weak that it can be easily supplanted by small changes in clouds and water vapor, or natural climate-changing constituents?

Posted in CO2 and GHG, Cooling/Temperature | 17 Responses

More Headaches Than Power: Germany’s Wind Energy Fails To Deliver! “Energiewende Finished?”

By P Gosselin on 18. September 2016

The greatest obstacle to wind energy is its unreliable, weather-dependent supply. If the wind stops blowing, then it’s lights out!

Image cropped from: www.youtube.com/kGXoE3RFZ8

Yet, proponent’s often claim the solution is offshore, for example out in the tempestuous North Sea. There the wind is always blowing, they like to tell us.

Unfortunately this too is turning out to be more myth the truth, as a recent hard-copy Spiegel report writes:

The hope that the North Sea wind parks would reliably generate power have not been fulfilled up to now. Last month provided an example. On nine days almost windless conditions were seen. On August 17 at times no megawatt of power output was measured.”

Spiegel then reports that when the wind does get especially brisk, the power transmission facilities designed to deliver the power onshore are unable to handle it, writing that “the world’s largest transmission facility of its type, DolWin2, has repeatedly gotten shut down since it began trial operation back in February.”

According to the German news weekly, the facility has again been out of operation since August 26. The blame is a 900-metter long section of a 90-kilometer high voltage line onshore. The bad news, Spiegel reports, is that grid operating company Tennet thinks solving the problems could even take months!

Also giant offshore part Riffgatt was taken offline for a period of half a year, Spiegel writes.

“Spectacular failures”

Wind parks in Germany have not only been riddled with problems technically, but also economically, In early July the BSZ investor watchdog site presented an article titled: “Capital investments in wind energy: lousy returns, spectacular failures, mass corruption, Energiewende finished?”

The BSZ article describes how promises of up to double digit returns in “lucrative and safe” green power investments often never materialize, and investors end up seeing their money evaporate.

Spectacular examples include the insolvency filing by Prokon in May 2014, where 74,000 investors had ponied up approximately 1.4 billion euros. Other failed investment companies include EECH in Hamburg and Windreich in south Germany.

The legal environment for wind parks is also getting more hostile, BSH writes. Courts are now leaning more in favor of parties protesting the encroachment by turbines.

Even Germany’s Umweltbundesamt (ministry of environment) is warning the wind party may be nearing its end:

The Umweltbundesamt is alarmed. Germany-wide, according to the Ministry, which actually is supposed to protect the environment, 97 percent of Germany’s area may not be covered with the tall wind turbines. The Ministry has also ‘warned’ other states that the ‘Energiewende’ is thus finished.”

Posted in Alternative Energy | 12 Responses

Arctic Ice Stabilized Over Past 10 Years – Sea Surface Temps Plummet 3°C With Approaching La Niña

By P Gosselin on 17. September 2016

German climate and weather analyst Schneefan here Looks at the current ENSO conditions. What follows are excerpts of what he presents.

===================================

The global cooling weather phenomenon La Niña in the equatorial Pacific is steadily increasing in strength – and the NOAA has not recognized this: NOAA Cancels La Niña Watch While La Niña Conditions Exist.

The NOAA has even removed its “La Niña-Watch” last week from its ENSO weekly reports even though the sea surface temperature anomalies (SSTA) in the main Niño-area 3.4 around August 31 had -0.7 K.

The plot SSTA in the Niño area from 1990 to early September 2016. The end of August/early September 2016 was clearly in the La Niña range at a value of -0.7 and thus has plummeted by more than 3°C since March. Source: NOAA Cancels La Niña Watch While La Niña Conditions Exist

The Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) is considered as the two-month leading indicator for the development of the easterly trade winds at the equatorial Pacific, and thus for the development of the ENSO. The 30-day index shows the difference between the surface atmospheric pressure between Tahiti and Darwin (Australia).

Currently it’s at +10.6 and thus clearly in the La Niña range of over +7 and rising steeply:

30-day SOI of the Australian BOM weather office over the pastz 2 years. Mid September 2016 the value was 10.6, well into La Niña range. That’s the highest level in over two years: La Niña is here and will be around for awhile. Source: www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/

The warm surface water of the Pacific is driven westwards topwards Australia, and thus bringing cooler water from the depths to the sea surface: Cold upwelling is created and leads to the La Niña.

The SOI shows a clear La Niña path for at least the coming two months.

The cold upwelling phase can also be seen (at least by most of us) through the measured/calculated subsurface temperatures down to 300m depth at the equatorial Pacific:

Plot shows the temperature anomalies underwater at the equatorial Pacific from June to September 12, 2016. Cold dominates a large region: La Niña is there – and will remain. Source: 4-month sequence of Pacific Ocean equatorial temperature anomaly cross sections.

Despite these clear indications in both the atmosphere and in the water at the equatorial Pacific region, the ENSO models remain completely in dispute over the development up to November.

The model from METEO foresees strong La Niña conditions of -1.2 K, but the ECMWF sees almost neutral condtions. Source: www.bom.gov.au/Pacific-Ocean

Arctic Sea Ice Rebounds

Meanwhile Japanese climate blogger Kirye here keeps us up to date on Arctic sea ice, which missed setting a record low this year by a long shot. Kirye presents the following DMI interactive chart:

And if one looks at the area trend over the past 10 years, there has been no decline at all. Moreover a large region of Arctic sea ice is now quite thick – far from being disappeared. Compare today’s Arctic sea thickness to that of 2008, for example.

Currently the ice area is well over 4 Wadhams (1 million sq kilometers) thick. (One reader suggested using “Wadhams” as a unit for sea ice area in order to honor Peter Wadhams’s spectacularly failed prediction of an ice free Arctic by now.)

Posted in Arctic, Oceans | 34 Responses

Tragedy Of Consensus …”Climate Experts” Obsessed With CO2, Ignored Remaining Universe Of Factors

By P Gosselin on 16. September 2016

High profile German food chemist Udo Pollmer here at German public radio brings the following video to our attention.

In the video biologist and public speaker Allan Savory tells an audience how climate change and desertification has a lot more to do with the elimination of roaming herd animals over grasslands and vegetated areas over the 20th century.

Another tragedy of consensus science

Tragically, it used to be consensus science that the desertification of vast areas of land on all continents was caused by the over-grazing by herds of animals. As they chomped on the vegetation and moved on, they left the soil barren and exposed to evaporation and wind erosion. Animals that had lived there for thousands of years were suddenly deemed by consensus science to be the culprits.

Flawed wildlife management cause as much climate change as fossil fuels!

Savory recalls ordering the destruction of 40,000 elephants in the mid 20th century in order to protect vegetated land. Mass culling of wildlife was the answer to spreading desertification. Much to his horror, he later realized he had made a terrible mistake. The land on which the destroyed elephants inhabited later rapidly deteriorated and became barren – thus even wreaking havoc on the macro-climate.

It turned out that roaming herds, with the dung and urine they left behind, were essential elements in preserving green vegetation and preventing desertification. He concludes that in order for the planet to survive, it needs more land grazing animal herds and not less. At the 18:48 mark he says:

What we are doing globally is causing climate change as much as I believe fossil fuels, and maybe more than fossil fuels. But worse than that it is causing hunger, poverty, violence and social breakdown and war.”

Savory then notes that reversing the damage to the ecosystem can be done at a very low cost. And by taking the measures he recommends, it will lead to taking CO2 out of the atmosphere and putting it back into the ground:

If we do what I am showing you here, we can take enough carbon out of the atmosphere and safely store it in the grasslands soil for thousands of years, and if we do that on just half of the world’s grasslands that I’ve shown you, we can take us back to pre-industrial levels while feeding people.”

What’s interesting is that if the poor management of wildlife (particularly reducing grazing herds of animals) has led to half of the 20th century climate change, and the oceans and solar activity have played significant roles as well – as a large body of science shows – then there really isn’t much left to be chalked up to CO2. Increasingly it is becoming obvious that some climate scientists have obsessed with CO2 while ignoring the remaining universe of factors – see here, here, here and here.

Clearly our understanding of how climate and ecosystems function is far less than some “experts” would have us believe.

Posted in Drought and Deserts | 15 Responses

Alarmism Not Working: World Citizens Rank Climate Change Dead Last As Concern

By Kenneth Richard on 15. September 2016

Over the last few years, the United Nations has been conducting an online poll, asking the world’s citizens —well, those fortunate enough to have access to electrical power, a computer, and the internet — what is most important to them, what concerns them most, or what issue they view as the highest priority for action.

In all, there are 16 priorities to choose from, ranging from phone and internet access to building more roads, protecting rivers and forests, better health care, etc.

Over 9.7 million people across all nations and age groups and educational and income levels have voted so far. And, shockingly, of the 16 listed priorities for action, “Action taken on climate change” ranks a distant 16th, or last.

The world’s citizens are more concerned about access to paved roads and phones than they are about taking action to combat the greatest threat facing mankind.

Sadly, even citizens of wealthy countries couldn’t care any less than they do about climate change as an issue. In the U.S., for example, in a Gallup poll ranking the levels of concern about 15 pre-selected, randomly-ordered national problems, “Climate Change” again comes in a distant last place.

Just yesterday, a poll conducted by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and reported by the Associated Press revealed that 43% of American citizens would refuse to pay more than $1 a month to fight climate change — though we’re not exactly sure what fighting climate change means. And the refusal to pay rises as the relative cost of fighting the climate rises: 61% would refuse to pay even $10 a month, about 70% would refuse to pay $20 a month, and 80% of Americans would refuse to pay $50 a month.

Are More Alarming Studies Needed To Elicit Belief, Concern?

Perhaps there aren’t enough alarming studies linking climate change to personal catastrophes to generate more public concern about climate change as an issue.

Maybe there needs to be more analysis that says Antarctica will soon be the only place on the planet to live if we don’t start fighting climate change. That could garner enough attention to move up a notch or two in the polls.

Beer is quite popular nearly world-wide. What if there were more stories that affirm global warming will make beer taste worse? It might make a difference.

Just about everyone loves a savory steak dinner. If scientists can again demonstrate that global warming makes steak taste worse, that might stir the public to join in the climate change fight.

Music soothes the soul. If music sounds worse because of global warming, scientists could emphasize this over and over again. This could be persuasive — especially among the youths.

Dogs are humans’ best friends. Observers have found, though, that global warming leads to boredom and even depression in dogs. If the link between warmer temperatures and dog depression becomes more widely known, some dog-lovers might be willing to pay up.

When it comes to alarming the public about the consequences of climate change, the status quo hasn’t been working. More alarmism must be needed.

After all, we’re facing the greatest threat in the history of mankind — and people across the world care much more about roads and phones and internet access than they do about the end of life as we know it on this planet.

Posted in Climate Politics, Green Follies | 24 Responses

Breitbart London: “Full Extent Of Skullduggery” By “Cabal Of Lying Climate Alarmists” Has Been Uncovered”!

By P Gosselin on 14. September 2016

Kenneth Richard’s post from yesterday on how a small group of alarmist scientists tried to whitewash away the global cooling scare of the 1970s has been making some waves.

Not only was it made the top headline at Climate Depot, but also James Delingpole at Breitbart London here has written a scathing piece about the fraudulent, totalitarian tactics used by the climate alarmists to erase history and to rewrite it.

Read the entire Breitbart London commentary here.

Breitbart writes:

Everyone knows that before the global warming scare began in the 1980s, scientists were much more worried about global cooling and the coming ice age. At least everybody did till a cabal of lying climate alarmists – one then a senior administrator at NOAA, now a president at the World Meteorological Association – hijacked Wikipedia, published a lying paper, and rewrote history by painting the 1970s Global Cooling Scare as an urban myth.

Now the full extent of these activists’ skullduggery has been uncovered by researcher Kenneth Richard, writing at No Tricks Zone.“

Delingpole writes that the cover-up of the global warming consensus of the 1970s and 80s was so extensive that a Google search yields little on scientists being concerned over global cooling and that it “makes a mockery of Jimmy Wales’s oft-expressed desire to reduce Wikipedia’s outrageous left-wing bias.”

He also slams William Connelley for abusing “his Wikipedia administrator status by rewriting thousands of Wikipedia articles in order to give them the ‘correct’ alarmist spin.”

Climate science, in Delingpole’s view, has become so corrupt that he concludes his piece by stating that “the main requirement for thriving in the world of climate science is the personality of a psychopath.”

Read the entire commentary here.

Posted in Cooling/Temperature, Hockey Team | 14 Responses

Massive Cover-up Exposed: 285 Papers From 1960s-’80s Reveal Robust Global Cooling Scientific ‘Consensus’

By Kenneth Richard on 13. September 2016

Beginning in 2003, software engineer William Connolley quietly removed the highly inconvenient references to the global cooling scare of the 1970s from Wikipedia, the world’s most influential and accessed informational source.

It had to be done. Too many skeptics were (correctly) pointing out that the scientific “consensus” during the 1960s and 1970s was that the Earth had been cooling for decades, and that nascent theorizing regarding the potential for a CO2-induced global warming were still questionable and uncertain.

Not only did Connolley — a co-founder (along with Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt) of the realclimate.com blog — successfully remove (or rewrite) the history of the 1970s global cooling scare from the Wikipedia record, he also erased (or rewrote) references to the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age so as to help create the impression that the paleoclimate is shaped like Mann’s hockey stick graph, with unprecedented and dangerous 20th/21st century warmth.

A 2009 investigative report from UK’s Telegraph detailed the extent of dictatorial-like powers Connolley possessed at Wikipedia, allowing him to remove inconvenient scientific information that didn’t conform to his point of view.

“All told, Connolley created or rewrote 5,428 unique Wikipedia articles. His control over Wikipedia was greater still, however, through the role he obtained at Wikipedia as a website administrator, which allowed him to act with virtual impunity. When Connolley didn’t like the subject of a certain article, he removed it — more than 500 articles of various descriptions disappeared at his hand. When he disapproved of the arguments that others were making, he often had them barred — over 2,000 Wikipedia contributors who ran afoul of him found themselves blocked from making further contributions. Acolytes whose writing conformed to Connolley’s global warming views, in contrast, were rewarded with Wikipedia’s blessings. In these ways, Connolley turned Wikipedia into the missionary wing of the global warming movement.“

After eviscerating references to 1970s global cooling scare and the warmer-than-now Medieval Warm Period from Wikipedia, and after personally rewriting the Wikipedia commentaries on the greenhouse effect to impute a central, dominant role for CO2, Connolley went on to team up with two other authors to publish a “consensus” manifesto in 2008 that claimed to exp”ose the 1970s global cooling scare as a myth, as something that never really happened.

Peterson, Connolley, and Fleck (2008, hereafter PCF08) published “The Myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Scientific Consensus” in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, hoping to quash once and for all the perception that there were scientists in the 1960s and 1970s who agreed the Earth was cooling (and may continue to do so), or that CO2 did not play a dominant role in climate change.

The Concoction Of ‘Consensus’ Achieved Via Exclusion

The primary theme of PCF08 can be summarized in 4 succinctly quoted sentences from the paper:

“[T]he following pervasive myth arose [among skeptics]: there was a consensus among climate scientists of the 1970s that either global cooling or a full-fledged ice age was imminent. A review of the climate science literature from 1965 to 1979 shows this myth to be false. … During the period from 1965 through 1979, our literature survey found 7 cooling, 20 neutral, and 44 warming papers. … There was no scientific consensus in the 1970s that the Earth was headed into an imminent ice age. Indeed, the possibility of anthropogenic warming dominated the peer-reviewed literature even then.”

William Connolley and colleagues claimed that the determination of scientific “consensus” regarding global cooling and the influence of CO2 on climate during the 1970s could be divined by counting scientific publications that fell into arbitrarily-defined categories which allowed them to intentionally exclude hundreds of papers that would undermine the alleged myth-slaying purpose of the paper.

The PCF08 authors decided that when “quantifying the consensus” (by counting publications), a scientific paper could only be classified as a “cooling” paper if it projected that future temperatures would (continue to) decline, or that a “full-fledged ice age was imminent.” Papers published during the arbitrarily chosen 1965-’79 era that affirmed the climate had already been cooling for decades, that this cooling wasn’t a positive development, and/or that the effects of CO2 on climate were questionable or superseded by other more influential climate change mechanisms … were not considered worthy of classification as a “cooling” paper, or as a paper that disagreed with the claimed “consensus” that said the current (1960s-’70s) global cooling will someday be replaced by CO2-induced global warming.

Of course, the global cooling scare during the 1970s was not narrowly or exclusively focused upon what the temperatures might look like in the future, or whether or not an ice age was “imminent”. It was primarily about the ongoing cooling that had been taking place for decades, the negative impacts this cooling had already exerted (on extreme weather patterns, on food production, etc.), and uncertainties associated with the causes of climatic changes.

By tendentiously excluding 1960s and 1970s publications that documented global cooling had been ongoing and a concern, as well as purposely excluding papers that suggested the climate’s sensitivity to CO2 forcing is weak or questionable relative to other mechanisms, the authors could brazenly claim that there were only 7 papers published in the scientific literature between 1965 and 1979 that disagreed with the “consensus” opinion that global warming would occur at some point in the future (due to CO2 increases). According to PCF08, there were 44 papers that fell into the latter warming-is-imminent-due-to-CO2 category from 1965-’79, ostensibly entitling them to claim that dangerous anthropogenic global warming projections “dominated” the scientific literature even then.

An 83% Global Cooling/Weak CO2 Influence Scientific ‘Consensus’ During 1960s, ’70s

As will be shown here, the claim that there were only 7 publications from that era disagreeing with the presupposed CO2-warming “consensus” is preposterous. Because when including the papers from the 1960s and 1970s that indicated the globe had cooled (by -0.3° C between the 1940s and ’70s), that this cooling was concerning (leading to extreme weather, drought, depressed crop yields, etc.), and/or that CO2’s climate influence was questionable to negligible, a conservative estimate for the number of scientific publications that did not agree with the alleged CO2-warming “consensus” was 220 papers for the 1965-’79 period, not 7. If including papers published between 1960 and 1989, the “non-consensus” or “cooling” papers reaches 285.

Again, these estimates should be viewed as conservative. There are likely many dozen more scientific papers from the 1960s-’70s cooling scare era that would probably fall into the category of a “cooling” paper, but have not yet been made available to view in full online.

But let us say that the PCF08 claim is true, and that there were indeed only 44 papers published between 1965-’79 that endorsed the position that the Earth’s climate is predominately shaped by CO2 concentrations, and thus the Earth would someday start warming as the models had suggested. Interestingly, if we were to employ the hopelessly flawed methodology of divining the relative degree of scientific “consensus” by counting the number of papers that agree with one position or another (just as blogger John Cook and colleagues did with their 2013 paper “Quantifying the Consensus…” that yielded a predetermined result of 97% via categorical manipulation), the 220 “cooling” papers published between 1965-’79 could represent an 83.3% global cooling consensus for the era (220/264 papers), versus only a 16.7% consensus for anthropogenic global warming (44/264 papers).

The 1970s Global Cooling Scare Was Not Mythological

In reviewing the available scientific literature from the 1960s-’80s, it is plainly evident that there was a great deal of concern about the ongoing global cooling, which had amounted to -0.5°C in the Northern Hemisphere and -0.3°C globally between the 1940s and 1970s.

Of course, this inconvenient global-scale cooling of -0.3°C between the 1940s and 1970s has necessarily been almost completely removed from the instrumental record by NASA (GISS) and the MetOffice (HadCRUT). After all, the observations (of cooling) conflicted with climate modeling. Overseers of the surface temperature datasets (such as the MetOffice’s Phil Jones or NASA’s Gavin Schmidt) have recently adjusted the -0.3°C of cooling down to just hundredths of a degree of cooling. NASA GISS, for example, has reduced (via “adjustments”) the global cooling down to about -0.01°C between the 1940s and 1970s, as shown below. It is likely that, during the next few years of adjustments to past data, the mid-20th century global cooling period will disappear altogether and mutate into a warming period.

For those who actually experienced the non-mythological cooling scare during the 1960s and 1970s (that has since been made to disappear from graphs), the consequences of the -0.5° Northern Hemispheric cooling (especially) were frequently discussed in scientific publications. There were geoengineering strategies proposed by scientists to melt Arctic sea ice. Droughts and floods and extreme weather anomalies/variability were blamed on the ongoing global cooling. Glaciers were advancing, even surging at accelerated rates during this period. Sea ice growth and severe Arctic cooling meant that the oceans were much less navigable. Crop growth and food production slowed as the Earth cooled, which was of great concern to world governments. Severe winters in the 1960s and 1970s led many climatologists to assume that the Earth was returning to an 1800s-like Little Ice Age climate. Observations of mammals migrating to warmer climates during the 1960s and 1970s due to the colder temperatures were reported in scientific papers.

Synonyms for the 1960s-’70s climate cooling conditions commonly used in the literature were words such as deterioration, recession, detrimental, and severe. In contrast, warming periods such as during the warmer Medieval times or the warm-up during the first half of the 20th century were referred to positively, or as optimum (i.e., the Medieval Warm Period was referred to as the “Little Optimum”).

According to Stewart and Glantz (1985), in the early 1970s it was the “prevailing view” among scientists that the Earth was headed into another ice age. It wasn’t until the late ’70s that scientists changed their minds and the “prevailing view” began shifting to warming. This is in direct contradiction to the claims of PCF08, who allege warming was the prevailing view among scientists in the 1960s and early 1970s too. Furthermore, as recently as 1985, it was still acknowledged that “the causes of global climate change remain in dispute.”

Stewart and Glantz, 1985

“The conclusions of the NDU study might have been predicted from a knowledge of the prevailing ‘spirit of the times’ (i.e., the prevailing mood in the science community) when the first part was conducted. This was an interesting time in recent history of climate studies. One could effectively argue that in the early 1970s the prevailing view was that the earth was moving toward a new ice age. Many articles appeared in the scientific literature as well as in the popular press speculating about the impact on agriculture of a 1-2°C cooling. By the late 1970s that prevailing view had seemingly shifted 180 degrees to the belief that the earth’s atmosphere was being warmed as a result of an increasing CO2 loading of the atmosphere. … The causes of global climate change remain in dispute. Existing theories of climate, atmospheric models, and actuarial experience are inadequate to meet the needs of policymakers for information about future climate.”

According to scientists reporting to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (1974), 22 of 27 forecasting methods predicted a cooling trend for the next 25 years, and “meteorological experts” were thinking an 1800s climate was around the corner, with the concomitant return to monsoon failures, shorter growing seasons, and “violent weather”.

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency,1974

Potential Implications of Trends in World Population, Food Production, and Climate

“According to Dr. Hubert Lamb–an outstanding British climatologist–22 out of 27 forecasting methods he examined predicted a cooling trend through the remainder of this century. A change of 2°-3° F. in average temperature would have an enormous impact. … A number of meteorological experts are thinking in terms of a return to a climate like that of the 19th century. This would mean that within a relatively few years (probably less than two decades, assuming the cooling trend began in the 1960’s) there would be brought belts of excess and deficit rainfall in the middle-latitudes; more frequent failure of the monsoons that dominate the Indian sub-continent, south China and western Africa; shorter growing seasons for Canada, northern Russia and north China. Europe could expect to be cooler and wetter. … [I]n periods when climate change [cooling] is underway, violent weather — unseasonal frosts, warm spells, large storms, floods, etc.–is thought to be more common.”

The Selective Emphasis On Particular Scientific ‘Facts’ To Advance An Agenda

It is rather ironic that the below quote impugning the motives of “skeptics” by Connolley and his co-authors (PCF08) appeared in a paper that insisted the 1970s concerns about global cooling never really happened from a scientific standpoint, and their “proof” that it never really happened is that they could only manage to locate 7 scientific papers (via selection bias) that supported this “contrarian” view:

PCF08:

“Underlying the selective quotation of the past literature is an example of what political scientist Daniel Sarewitz calls ‘scientization’ of political debate: the selective emphasis on particular scientific ‘facts’ to advance a particular set of political values. In this case, the primary use of the myth is in the context of attempting to undermine public belief in and support for the contemporary scientific consensus about anthropogenic climate change by appeal to a past “consensus” on a closely related topic that is alleged to have been wrong.”

William Connolley may have successfully erased the Medieval Warm Period and 1970s cooling concerns from the pages of Wikipedia. He may have successfully written over 5,400 original Wikipedia articles in an attempt to persuade the public to believe in a dominant role for humans and CO2 in causing climate changes. But the internet has a long and expansive memory, and it is unforgiving when opportunists and activists attempt to dupe the public by concocting false narratives and employing the very same practice of “scientization” they hypocritically claim to deride.

285 Scientific Publications Affirming A Global Cooling/Weak CO2 Influence ‘Consensus’

Again, there were at least 285 scientific publications that did not agree with the alleged CO2-warming “consensus” opinion during the 1960s to 1980s. The list is divided into several sub-sections:

Cooling Since 1940, Forecasts for Continued Cooling/Ice Age (156 papers)

Dubious Human Influence on Climate, Low CO2 Climate Sensitivity (44 papers)

Rising CO2 Leads to Cooling (7)

Uncertainties, Lack of Climate Understanding, Climate Modeling Problems (30)

Miscellaneous Questionable Human, CO2 Influence on Climate (12)

Non-CO2 Climate Change Mechanisms (26)

Warmer past despite lower CO2 (10)

The complete list of 285 Global Cooling/Weak CO2 Influence papers from the 1960s to 1980s can be found using the below links:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

For those who may lack the time (or interest) to view the full list of 285, a summarized version of 35 sample papers are listed below. Keep in mind that these 35 sample publications represent less than 1/8th of the total volume of papers published during that era, affirming the position that concerns about global cooling were quite real, widespread, and scientifically-supported.

35 Sample Global Cooling/Low CO2 Climate Influence Papers

Cimorelli and House, 1974

“Between 1880 and 1940 a net [global] warming of about 0.6°C occurred, and from 1940 to the present our globe experienced a net cooling of 0.3°C. … [I]t has since been found that the rate of temperature increase decreases with increasing CO2 and increases with increasing particulates. Therefore, global particulate loading is of foremost concern. … [A]n increase in man-made global particulates by a factor of 4.0 will initiate an ice-age. In order that we safeguard ourselves and future generations from a self-imposed ice-age it is necessary that we effectively monitor global concentrations of particulate matter.”

Angell and Korshover, 1978

“[T]he 1976 surface temperature equated the global record for the lowest temperature set in 1964; but even so the trend in global temperature since 1965 has been small compared to the 0.5°C decrease during 1960–65.”

Schultz, 1972

“The nine-banded armadillos (Dasypus novemcinctus) have been moving northward in the Great Plains region from the late 1800s to the 1950s but now seem to be retreating from their lately acquired northern range. The armadillos have a nontypical homoiothermic blood system which makes them fairly vulnerable to cold climates.”

Wendland, 1977

“The cooling from about 1950 to 1974 is ~0.3°C (Brinkmann, 1976). Moran (1975) suggests that the recent drought of peninsular Florida is largely due to decreased frequencies of tropical storms, associated with the general atmospheric and oceanic cooling since about 1940 (Wahl and Bryson, 1975).”

Nelson et al., 1975

“Concern about climatic change and its effects on man has been increasing. Climatic changes affect the production of food and the allocation of energy resources. … Even with the temperature corrections included, Indiana June, July and August mean temperatures showed a decrease of approximately 3°F [-1.7°C] from 1930 to 1976.”

Douglas, 1975

“According to the academy report on climate, we may be approaching the end of a major interglacial cycle, with the approach of a full-blown 10,000-year ice age a real possibility.”

Bray, 1971

“Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide content was concluded to have had an ambiguous climatic influence and may be less important than sometimes considered. Several studies have suggested increased turbidity has produced a recent global cooling trend.”

Willett, 1974

“[T]he author is convinced that recent increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide have contributed much less than 5% of the recent changes of atmospheric temperature, and will contribute no more than that in the foreseeable future.”

Ellsaesser , 1974

“The 1968 AAAS Symposium on Global Effects of Environmental Pollution initiated a flood of papers supporting monotonically if not exponentially increasing pollution. The particulate increases were usually cited as at least contributing to the post 1940 cooling and possibly capable of bringing on another ice age.”

Schneider, 1974

Introduction: “In the last century it is possible to document an increase of about 0.6°C in the mean global temperature between 1880 and 1940 and a subsequent fall of temperature by about 0.3°C since 1940. In the polar regions north of 70° latitude the decrease in temperature in the past decade alone has been about 1°C, several times larger than the global average decrease. Up till now, past climatic changes (except possibly those of the last few decades [of cooling temperatures]) could hardly have been caused by man’s activities.”

Collis, 1975

“It is not clear how such favorable and relatively consistent conditions are related to the higher temperatures in this century or the peaking of temperatures around 1940. The reversal of this warming trend, however, could mark the beginning of a new ice age as some climatologists have indicated. It should be noted, though, that even if we are in fact heading for another ice age, many years or decades will elapse before this will become apparent”

Gilchrist, 1983

“Unlike some other pollutants introduced into the atmosphere by Man, carbon dioxide is naturally occurring and non-toxic. The direct effect of increased concentrations may be beneficial notably because it will tend to increase the rate of photosynthesis in plants. On the other hand, there may be deleterious effects through its influence on climate but this is still unproven and we cannot be certain whether, on a global scale, it will on the whole be harmful or beneficial. … The problem of determining the effect of increased carbon dioxide on climate is difficult, the more so because there are some essential aspects of the physical basis of climate that are not well understood”

Magill, 1980

“Recent anomalous weather conditions of the 1970s have revealed the possibility that significant aberrations in global climate have and are occurring with serious consequences. The 1970s have seen a generally overall greater variability and instability of global weather. Regions in Asia, Central America, and Africa have witnessed a higher frequency of monsoon failure which has led to a prevalence of severe drought conditions and an extension of desert boundaries. Whereas in other parts of the globe, severe flooding has been recorded. … Records of past climates have indicated that a greater variability of climate is generally synonymous with a major cooling trend in temperatures.”

Bryant, 1987

Conclusions: “The scenario of a CO2-warming globe contains many uncertainties. The warming of the atmosphere is not an established fact, and even if it was there may be no need to invoke increased atmospheric CO2 or other ‘greenhouse’ gases as the cause when such warmings have been a part of our temperature time series historically.”

Gordon, 1981

“Since about 1968/69 the glacier fronts have advanced by up to 158 m following a marked climatic recession [cooling] during the 1960s and early 1970s.”

Kukla, 1972

“A new glacial insolation regime, expected to last 8000 years, began just recently. Mean global temperatures may eventually drop about 1^oC in the next hundred years.”

Williamson, 1975

“Between 1000 and 1300 average summer [Arctic] temperatures were about 1°C higher than today, with the mean annual temperature higher by perhaps 4°C in a largely ice-free Arctic. … [B]etween 1900 and 1940, the most striking temperature gains occurring in the Arctic winter… an average rise of more than 8°C keeping her seas ice-free for seven months of the year instead of barely three months less than a century before. … Since about 1958 the reduced heat transport via the warm air sectors of the depressions has permitted an increase in pack-ice off northern and eastern Iceland to a condition comparable with the 1880s, and Polar Bears Thalarctos maritimus have been able to cross from Greenland for the first time for half a century (Marshall 1968). This relapse from warmth continued into the 1970s with one winter, 1962/63, as devastating over the English Midlands and south as anything experienced since 1740 (Manley n.d., Lamb 1966, Booth 1968). People asked, are we on the threshold of another long climatic recession?”

Robock, 1978

“Instrumental surface temperature records have been compiled for large portions of the globe for about the past 100 years (Mitchell, 1961; Budyko, 1969). They show that the Northern Hemisphere annual mean temperature has risen about 1°C from 1880 to about 1940 and has fallen about 0.5 °C since then … Climate change may be a natural internal feature of the land-oceanic-atmosphere (climate) system. … Three runs were made testing anthropogenic effects of CO2, aerosols and heat. … One could sum the anthropogenic effects for each region, which would show almost no effect in the NH and warming in the SH. … Because the magnitudes of the effects are small, and may cancel, it cannot be concluded that these high correlations show that man has produced climate change.”

Karl et al., 1984

“An appreciable number of nonurban stations in the United States and Canada have been identified with statistically significant (at the 90% level) decreasing trends in the monthly mean diurnal temperature range between 1941–80.”

Newell, 1974

“At the present the imbalance is thought to correspond to a natural cooling of the ocean, which will lead to the next Ice Age.”

Barrett, 1978

“In particular, detection of an anthropogenic influence through statistical analysis alone requires a long run of data of good quality and careful attention to measures of significance. It is most important to avoid the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy that a trend of a few years’ duration or less, following some change in human activities, can be attributed to that change even when no sound physical causal relationship is evident.”

Bulatov and Zakharov, 1978

Changes in the amount of multi‐year ice in arctic seas during the current cooling trend

“[T]he southern boundary of old ice was up to 100 miles farther south to the west of the divide, and up to 100 miles farther north to the east. The significance of these changes with regard to navigation conditions is self‐evident.”

Post, 1979

“Concern over the vulnerability of a heavily populated world to climatic fluctuations affecting harvests and world food supply has emerged only recently. This concern has been stimulated by anomalous weather patterns beginning with the colder winters in Europe and North America in the 1960s, the Indian monsoon failures and droughts in the Soviet and Chinese grainlands in that decade and since, and the drought which continued for many years in Africa and brought chaos to the Sahel and Ethiopia. But, despite the computer revolution in meteorology, no generally accepted theory of climatic change to inform the future exists at this time.”

Dunbar, 1976

“[T]he measured increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to the most recent computations, would not be enough to have any measurable climatic effect.”

Fletcher, 1969

SPECIFIC SCHEMES FOR CLIMATE MODIFICATION

Ice Free Arctic Ocean The largest scale enterprise that has been discussed is that of transforming the Arctic into an ice free ocean.

Bering Strait Dam The basic idea is to increase the inflow of warm Atlantic water by stopping or oven reversing the present northward flow of colder water through Bering Strait.

Deflecting the Kuroshio Current It has been proposed that the narrow mouth of Tatarsk Strait be blocked by a giant “water valve” to increase the warm inflow to the Sea of Okhotsk and reduce the winter ice there.

Eichenlaub, 1971

“Evidence derived from the carefully screened temperature record at Eau Claire, Mich., and from radiosonde data at [A] return to the temperature and circulation features of the early and mid-19th century in the eastern United States may be underway. … All 3 mo[nths] show temperature declines since the height of the recent climatic optimum during the 1930s. July temperatures have decreased about 3.5°F since the decades beginning with the early 1930s, and August temperatures have decreased about 3°F since the decades beginning with the late 1930s and early 1940s.”

Holdren and Ehrlich, 1971

Global Ecology: Readings toward a rational strategy for man [pgs. 76,77]

“A final push in the cooling direction comes from man-made changes in the direct reflectivity of the earth’s surface (albedo) through urbanization, deforestation, and the enlargement of deserts. The effects of a new ice age on agriculture and the supportability of large human populations scarcely need elaboration here. Even more dramatic results are possible, however; for instance, a sudden outward slumping in the Antarctic ice cap, induced by added weight, could generate a tidal wave of proportions unprecedented in recorded history.”

Lamb, 1966

“The large-scale circulation of the atmosphere during the current decade has produced patterns that had never been seen earlier in this century, but which seem to represent a recurrence of a regime that prevailed over long periods before 1895. … On this evidence, something like the climatic regime of the years since 1960 should probably be expected to persist till the end of the century or beyond”

Newell and Dopplick, 1979

“Estimates of the atmospheric temperature changes due to a doubling of CO2 concentration have be with a standard radiative flux model. They yield temperature changes of >0.25 K. It appears that the much larger changes predicted by other models arise from additional water vapor evaporated into the atmosphere and not from the CO2 itself. … It is important to stress…that CO2 is not the main constituent involved in infrared transfer. Water vapor plays the major role and ozone is also of importance.”

Benton, 1970

“In the period from 1880 to 1940, the mean temperature of the earth increased about 0.6°C; from 1940 to 1970, it decreased by 0.3-0.4°C. Locally, temperature changes as large as 3-4°C per decade have been recorded, especially in sub-polar regions. … The drop in the earth’s temperature since 1940 has been paralleled by a substantial increase in natural volcanism. The effect of such volcanic activity is probably greater than the effect of manmade pollutants.”

Skeeter, 1985

“In 1970, Mitchell stated that by the late 1960s global temperatures had fallen 0.3°C from the peak in the 1940s, approximately one-half of the prior rise. … Summaries by Schneider and Dickenson, Kalnicky, Robuck, Roberts, and Agee all report Northern Hemisphere temperatures declines by at least 0.5°C since the 1940s. In summary, Gribbin states ‘In worldwide terms, we are in a situation where the earth is cooling more quickly than it warmed up earlier this century.’ From the above it is clear that the general consensus in the recent literature is that there has been a cooling in the Northern Hemisphere since the early 1940s.”

Kondratiev and Niilisk, 1960

On the question of carbon dioxide heat radiation in the atmosphere

“The dependence of atmospheric heat radiation on CO2 and H2O contents and also on temperature vertical distribution is investigated with the help of the radiation chart. It is shown that the heat radiation of the atmosphere almost doesn’t depend on variations of carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere.”

Hustich, 1978

“The climatic ‘improvement’ of the late 1930’s had, as was expected, given way to a colder trend in the 1950’s and 1960’s … Dunbar (1976, p. 190) writes that he finds it “difficult to believe that either Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, water vapour, freon, or any other substance produced by man’s efforts is going to compete seriously with Nature in changing our climate”. … Heino’s diagrams illustrate the exceptional nature of the climatic improvement experienced in the 1930’s, but they also show clearly the slow deterioration which set in in the 1950’s. The 1960’s constituted climatically a rather unfavourable decade from man’s point of view”

Wahl and Lawson, 1970

“Lamb (1966) had already suggested that it appears likely that we have passed the height of the warming episode in the first half of this century and are now reverting to a pattern characterized by lower zonal flow and intensification of the trough/ridge systems, essentially a reestablishment of the climatic character of the last century.”

Libby, 1970

FIFTY ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS OF TIMELY IMPORTANCE

WEATHER MODIFICATION BY CHANGING CO2 CONTENT OF ATMOSPHERE [p. 48]

Item: American Scientist, January-February 1970, p. 18, “‘Though dire effects on climate of an increase in CO2 have been predicted, they are far from being established. The cycle is not really understood; carbon dioxide may well prove to be the least objectionable or the only beneficial addition to the atmosphere from industrial sources'”

Posted in Climate Politics, Cooling/Temperature, Hockey Team, Media / Bias | 151 Responses

Another One Of Climate Science’s Central Claims To Go Down In Flames Tomorrow – Stay Tuned!

By P Gosselin on 12. September 2016

Today I can only offer a trailer on what will be published tomorrow, as the finishing touches are still ongoing.

Over the past weeks NTZ has assisted in a comprehensive analysis of a large body of climate science literature. At this point I can only say that the results have one climate science’s central claims going down in flames.

Tomorrow the results of that analysis will be published and once again it will reveal science that was shoddily, sloppily and deceptively done, and thus produced a totally erroneous conclusion.

It involves a higher profile actor in climate science.

As we all know climate science over the years has been filled with nutty predictions, bogus claims and outright dubious science. Over the years the field has been hopelessly politicized – taken over and corrupted by activists and bureaucrats who seem to stop at nothing to twist and warp the science to get the results they want to see, and those they feel the public only should see.

One example is the infamous hockey stick chart by Mann et al, 1998, which through the tenacious scrutiny of Steven McIntyre, was shown to be flawed and was later (stubbornly) dismissed by the scientitfic community. Another shown to be flawed is the 2013 Cook et al “97% consensus” paper.

Tomorrow another will be revealed to be of the same dismal quality, and it involves one author who has long been known for bold stuff.

Stay tuned!

Posted in Activism, Climate Politics, IPCC | 7 Responses

Power Expert Says Germany Faces Renewable Energy-Political Fiasco – Technical Problems “Piling Up”

By P Gosselin on 11. September 2016

Professor Fritz Vahrenholt wrote an expert assessment for the Liechtenstein-based Geopolitical Intelligence Services on the situation concerning Germany’s power grid stability and its current renewable energy policy. He says Germany needs an immediate and fundamental course correction if it wishes to avert a disaster.

Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt. Photo credit: DkS.

Costly for the consumer

Vahrenholt writes that already today Germany has the second highest electricity price (after Denmark) in Europe and that the so-called renewable energy feed-in tariff will rise from 6.35 €ct/kwh today “to an astounding 7.3 €ct/kwh in 2017“. Germany’s green energy feed-in act generates an additional cost to consumers of some 25 billion euros annually, paid by citizens via their power bill. This represents “a social transfer from bottom to top of immense dimensions“.

He stresses four main points in the GIS piece: 1) German consumers and industry pay a hefty price for Energiewende, 2) Technical problems within the German power grid are piling up as the government continues its breakneck drive to change the country’s energy mix, 3) Parts of Germany are already oversaturated with wind turbines and 4) not surprisingly other states are not following the German example as they grapple for their responses to the energy and climate issue.

He notes that unless a drastic course change is enacted, the future looks bleak.

Irrational fear

The driving force behind the socially unstable, frenzied energy policy is an irrational fear that we will irreparably damage our climate with CO2 – despite new scientific findings showing that CO2’s impact on the global climate has been vastly overstated by the IPCC.

The German professor blasts German Green Party in states where it is driving government plans to open forests to allow the construction of wind parks. “This is a catastrophe for most species of predatory birds and bats and the surrounding ecosystem.”

In his piece, Vahrenholt also pleads it is high time for the German federal government to acknowledge that it makes no sense to build additional wind turbines in many areas, as there’s no place for surplus energy to go on windy days.

The German energy expert describes a rising citizens’ resistance to expanding wind energy, but that it may not be enough to deter the government from continuing on its ruinous path. He envisions two possible (gloomy) scenarios for Germany by the year 2020. To find out, readers will have to obtain them from GIS.

Posted in Alternative Energy | 2 Responses

The Arctic Sea Ice Melt Season’s Early End? Still Three Quarter Million Sq Km Above 2012 Minimum!

By P Gosselin on 10. September 2016

Schneefan at wobleibtdieerderwaermung.de here analyzes Arctic sea ice to date…
(Translated, edited by P Gosselin)

====================================

Arctic: Sea ice melt 2016 done at 4.1 million km²? Northwest Passage freezes over!

At approx. 4.1 million square kilometres extent, it appears that the summertime Arctic sea ice melt has ended early, on 7 September 2016.
Here the sea ice area is 743,000 km² greater than the low set on 16 September 2012.

On average sea ice begins to grow again in mid September.

The NSIDC table shows the preliminary low point on 7 September 2016, at 4.083 million km²,. On September 8 the ice area grew by 21,000 sq. km. to 4.104 million km²:

Table for Arctic sea ice extent with 15% ice concentration from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) from September 9, 2016. Source: NH_seaice_extent_nrt_v2.csv.

Also NORSEX shows Arctic sea ice (min. 15% concentration) possibly having turned the corner from the September 7 low point:

Source: arctic-roos.org/observations/in-arctic.

Whether there will be more melting, depends on the wind conditions over the next few days.

But one thing is clear: The northern part of the Northwest Passage was blocked by multi-year ice – foremost the western exit – for the entire summer of 2016, and was even not passable by ice breakers.

The southern part – Amundsen’s Route – was neither ice free in August 2016…

NSIDC sea ice chart (extent) for August 2016 shows sea ice blockage of the western part of northern route through the Northwest Passage. The southern Amundsen’s Route shows partial ice blockage and thus could be traversed only with the help of ice breakers. Source: nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

….nor after the start of September 2016:

NSIDC sea ice chart, September 8, shows a strong ice blocking of the northern route of the Northwest Passage, western exit. The southern Amundsen Route shows closed ice fields. Source: nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/.

When comparing both NSIDC charts, we see a growth in sea ice in early September 2016 along the southern Amundsen Route compared to August 2016.

250 billion tonnes more ice

The Arctic polar winter 2016 has started early this year, as it did a year ago. Greenland ice from to 1 September 2015 to 31 August 2016 grew by 30 billion cubic meters (30 km³). Since the 2011/2012 season it has grown by 250 billion tonnes (250 km³) in mass. [That’s the same as 250,000 sq. km of 1 meter thick sea ice.]

Top: The total daily contribution to the surface mass balance from the entire ice sheet (blue line, Gt/day). Bottom: The accumulated surface mass balance from September 1st to now (blue line, Gt) and the season 2011-12 (red) which had very high summer melt in Greenland. For comparison, the mean curve from the period 1990-2013 is shown (dark grey). The same calendar day in each of the 24 years (in the period 1990-2013) will have its own value. These differences from year to year are illustrated by the light grey band. For each calendar day, however, the lowest and highest values of the 24 years have been left out.” Source: dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland“.

Astonishingly there are some people who wish to navigate the Arctic in sailing vessels because some climate prophets, like Al Gore and Peter Wadhams, claimed that Arctic sea ice would be practically gone in the polar summer of 2016. Read more here on climate scientists who called such claims pure nonsense.

Many people of course can appreciate the sailing skills of the Northabout crew, but no one should risk their lives to prop up the climate fairy tale of man-made global warming with an ice-free summertime Arctic: A Race Against Time.

The next coming days will tell us whether or not Arctic sea ice has reached the minimum for the summer earlier than normal, or if it will shrink some more.

Greetings

Schneefan2015

Posted in Arctic | 24 Responses

German Alarmists Fret Climate Plan “Greatly Watered Down”, Now Only “A Compass” …Targets “In Serious Danger”!

By P Gosselin on 9. September 2016

Germany’s leading climate alarmism site “Klimaretter” (Climate Rescuer) recently fretted that the German government has quietly watered down the country’s climate protection policy and targets for the coming decades.

In short, Germany is walking away from its climate protection commitments declared in Paris.

The site describes Germany’s plan to reduce CO2 emissions by 2050 as now being “non-concrete, watered down and without substance“. Klimaretter reports that as the draft policy has gone through the Chancellors Office “a number of targets for transportation, agriculture or buildings have been eliminated” and that the government intends to adopt an “open path” for reducing greenhouse gases.

The German site writes that the country’s Ministry of Envinonment’s once highly ambitious climate protection plan – forged with the help of climate scientist Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber – has since been greatly weakened:

The draft policy was made public for the first time and is now headed for a vote. Many critics already expected the original text to get greatly softened up. Now it’s official.”

The initial draft has been so strongly watered down that klimaretter writes that there is “not much of it left“. Gone are:

the requirement to end coal power
any mention of taxes on fossil and heating fuels
duties on building heating systems
requirements for reducing the consumption of meat

Another thorn in the eye of climate protection activists, writes the alarmist klimaretter: “The preamble of the draft now includes a statement that the German government wishes to place ‘central attention’ on maintaining the competitiveness of the German economy’” The plan itself is to only serve as a “compass“, and not as mandatory targets.

Declared targets “in serious danger”

German Greens and leftists are fuming over the hefty changes. Klimaretter quotes: Eva Bulling-Schröter, spokesperson of the Linke (Communist) Party:

Now at the latest it has to be clear that with this government Germany’s declared climate targets of reducing CO2 emissions 40% by 2020 and 95% by 2050 are in serious danger.”

Posted in Climate Politics | 18 Responses

25 New Papers Confirm A Remarkably Stable Modern Climate: Fewer Intense Storms, Hurricanes, Droughts, Floods, Fires…

By Kenneth Richard on 8. September 2016

It has by now become common practice for just about any and every unusual weather occurrence, extreme temperature anomaly, or seismic event to be somehow, someway linked to the human practice of using energy derived from fossil fuels. No hurricane, flood, drought, storm, wildfire … is spared from potential anthropogenic implication.

Last week, a named hurricane (Hermine) that ultimately devolved into a tropical storm landed along the Florida coast — the first landfall in 11 years. As expected, the usual suspects reflexively blamed the storm on humans.

When a volcano erupts, the headliners are quick to point out that humans have made volcanic eruptions more likely.

When wildfires consume the landscape, human-caused warming is claimed to be fueling them.

In one year, human-caused warming can be said to be a cause of catastrophic drought in Texas.

“2011 Texas drought was 20 times more likely due to warming, study says”

A few years later, human-caused warming leads to catastrophic flooding in Texas.

“A new study directly links human-caused global warming to the [2015] catastrophic flooding in Texas and Oklahoma this spring.”

Even shifting plates beneath the Earth’s crust (earthquakes) can be creatively connected to human-caused climate change.

Those who may dare to question the link between humanity’s growing oil, gas, and coal consumption and a weather or tectonic event are swiftly called “climate deniers,” and the substantive discussion that never happened (and was never going to happen) ends then and there.

In the 1970s, extreme weather events were blamed on global cooling

Interestingly, in the 1970s it was common for severe weather anomalies (for example, the deadly catastrophic drought plodding throughout the continent of Africa) to be linked to the global cooling occurring at that time. In 1974, NOAA acknowledged that many climate scientists had linked the drought and other extreme weather anomalies to the -0.5°C drop in temperatures that had occurred from the 1940s to 1970s.

NOAA, 1974

“In the Sahelian zone of Africa south of the Sahara, the countries of Chad, The Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, and Upper Volta are enduring a drought that in some areas has been going on for more than six years now, following some 40 previous years of abundant monsoon rainfall. And the drought is spreading—eastward into Ehtiopia and southward into Dahomey, Egypt, Guinea, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, Tanzania, and Zaire. … Many climatologists have associated this drought and other recent weather anomalies with a global cooling trend and changes in atmospheric circulation which, if prolonged, pose serious threats to major food-producing regions of the world. … Annual average temperatures over the Northern Hemisphere increased rather dramatically from about 1890 through 1940, but have been falling ever since. The total change has averaged about one-half degree Centigrade, with the greatest cooling in higher latitudes. A drop of only one or two degrees Centigrade in the annual average temperature at higher latitudes can shorten the growing season so that some crops have to be abandoned. … [T]he average growing season in England is already two weeks shorter than it was before 1950. Since the late 1950’s, Iceland’s hay crop yield has dropped about 25 percent, while pack ice in waters around Iceland and Greenland ports is becoming the hazard to navigation it was during the 17th and 18th centuries. … Some climatologists think that if the current cooling trend continues, drought will occur more frequently in India—indeed, through much of Asia, the world’s hungriest continent. … Some climatologists think that the present cooling trend may be the start of a slide into another period of major glaciation, popularly called an “ice age.”

But, like now, there were still a collection of scientists willing to reconsider the common-knowledge “beliefs” of the time. For example, Boer and Higuchi (1980) investigated the “belief” that more extreme climate variability accrued as temperatures cooled, concluding that the climate had not undergone significantly more extreme shifts in weather patterns and events during the mid-20th century global cooling period.

Boer and Higuchi, 1980

“In recent years there has been increasing concern about climatic change and variability and its influence on man and his activities. This concern has been formally expressed in a WMO statement on climate change and variability (WMO, 1976). Many studies concerning climate change have been undertaken. Most studies have concentrated on long-term trends in temperature. … There appears to be a general belief that the climate has become more “variable” in recent times. For instance, there is the suggestion that “since the 1940’s and 1950’s . . . the atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere appears to have shifted in a manner suggestive of an increasing amplitude of the planetary waves and of greater extremes of weather conditions in many areas of the world” (GARP, 1975, p. 16). … The results of this study do not support the contention that the climate has become significantly more variable, nor do they support a connection between variability and either mean temperature or north-south variation of temperature.”

Modern scientists also question the assumption that more warming means more variability

Likewise, today’s peer-reviewed scientific literature is teeming with examples of scientists who don’t appear acquiesce to the humans-cause-more-extreme weather-and-climate-events alarmism.

What follows below is a compilation of scientific papers published within the last year that do not support the popular contention that the Earth’s climate and weather (and seismic activity) have become more variable and more extreme in recent decades, or that warmer temperatures are necessarily associated with more variability and potential catastrophe. Instead, these papers indicate that the modern (20th, 21st century) climate is, and has been, remarkably stable, with significantly less extreme variability than in previous centuries and millennia.

For example, the scientific literature reveals natural global-scale climate warmings of multiple degrees per decade routinely occurred in the recent past. Greenland typically warmed at amplitudes of about 10.0°C in a matter of about 40 years during the last glacial — while CO2 levels remained stable and low (180 ppm) throughout. In contrast, the IPCC has concluded that the Earth has warmed at a rate of about 0.05°C per decade since 1850, or while CO2 levels have risen from 280 ppm to 400 ppm.

Scientists have also found the frequencies of storms and tsunamis have decreased during the 20th, 21st centuries; the frequencies and intensities of hurricanes have decreased in the last several decades; and there are far fewer wildfires today than centuries ago. Furthermore, scientists have found no significant trends (even decreases) in extreme precipitation events in recent decades compared to past centuries; drought frequencies and intensities are stable or decreasing; tornado occurrence has remained stable or decreased since 1950; climate models are too “unreliable” to simulate variability or extremes in weather patterns; and a warming climate is a more stable climate.

In other words, these papers do not support the popular assumption that just about every adverse weather event can be linked to global warming in general, or human activity in particular.

More weather instability/extremes, much higher climate change rates in cold periods than warm periods

Mayewski, 2016

“The demonstration using Greenland ice cores that abrupt shifts in climate [i.e. warming amplitudes of full degrees C per decade], Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) events, existed during the last glacial period has had a transformational impact on our understanding of climate change in the naturally forced world. The demonstration that D-O events are globally distributed and that they operated during previous glacial periods has led to extensive research into the relative hemispheric timing and causes of these events. The emergence of civilization during our current interglacial, the Holocene, has been attributed to the “relative climate quiescence” of this [warm] period relative to the massive, abrupt shifts in climate that characterized glacial periods in the form of D-O events“

Hewitt et al., 2016

“Many northern hemisphere climate records, particularly those from around the North Atlantic, show a series of rapid climate changes that recurred on centennial to millennial timescales throughout most of the last glacial period. These Dansgaard-Oeschger (D-O) sequences are observed most prominently in Greenland ice cores, although they have a global signature, including an out of phase Antarctic signal. They consist of warming jumps of order 10°C, occurring in typically 40 years, followed generally by a slow cooling (Greenland Interstadial, GI) lasting between a few centuries and a few millennia, and then a final rapid temperature drop into a cold Greenland Stadial (GS) that lasts for a similar period. … [S]teady changes in ice-sheet runoff, driven by the AMOC, lead to a naturally arising oscillator, in which the rapid warmings come about because the Arctic Ocean is starved of freshwater. The changing size of the ice sheets would have affected the magnitude and extent of runoff, and we suggest that this could provide a simple explanation for the absence of the [abrupt climate change] events during [warm] interglacials and around the time of glacial maxima [coldest climates].”

Rasmussen et al., 2016

“Extreme climate changes in the past Ice core records show that Greenland went through 25 extreme and abrupt climate changes during the last ice age some 20,000 to 70,000 years ago. In less than 50 years the air temperatures over Greenland could increase by 10 to 15 °C. However the warm periods were short; within a few centuries the frigid temperatures of the ice age returned. That kind of climate change would have been catastrophic for us today.”

Agosta and Compagnucci, 2016

“The climate in the North Atlantic Ocean during the Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3) —roughly between 80,000 years before present (B.P.) and 20,000 years B.P., within the last glacial period—is characterized by great instability, with opposing climate transitions including at least six colder Heinrich (H) events and fourteen warmer Dansgaard–Oeschger (D-O) events. … During the D-O events, the high-latitude warming occurred abruptly (probably in decades to centuries), reaching temperatures close to interglacial conditions. Even though H and D-O events seemed to have been initiated in the North Atlantic Ocean, they had a global footprint. Global climate anomalies were consistent with a slowdown of AMOC and reduced ocean heat transport into the northern high latitudes.”

Pratte et al., 2016

“The highest dust fluxes in the Baie bog were recorded from 1750–1000 cal. BP to 600–100 cal. BP and occur at the same time as periods of high variability in the macrofossil record (i.e. successive layers dominated by Sphagnum or Ericaceae). The timing of these events in the dust and macrofossil records also corresponds to documented cold periods. These two periods have been identified as episodes of climatic instability, which could have been caused by changes in the wind regime.”

Degeai et al., 2015

“A comparison with North Atlantic and Western Mediterranean paleoclimate proxies shows that the phases of high storm activity occurred during cold periods, suggesting a climatically-controlled mechanism for the occurrence of these storm periods. Besides, an in-phase storm activity pattern is found between the Western Mediterranean and Northern Europe. Spectral analyses performed on the Sr content revealed a new 270-year solar-driven pattern of storm cyclicity. For the last 3000 years, this 270-year cycle defines a succession of ten major storm periods (SP) with a mean duration of 96 ± 54 yr. Periods of higher storm activity are recorded from >680 to 560 cal yr BC (SP10, end of the Iron Age Cold Period), from 140 to 820 cal yr AD (SP7 to SP5) with a climax of storminess between 400 and 800 cal yr AD (Dark Ages Cold Period), and from 1230 to >1800 cal yr AD (SP3 to SP1, Little Ice Age). Periods of low storm activity occurred from 560 cal yr BC to 140 cal yr AD (SP9 and SP8, Roman Warm Period) and from 820 to 1230 cal yr AD (SP4, Medieval Warm Period).”

Frequencies of storms and tsunamis have decreased during the 20th, 21st centuries

Dezileau et al., 2016

“Storms and tsunamis, which may seriously endanger human society, are amongst the most devastating marine catastrophes that can occur in coastal areas. Many such events are known and have been reported for the Mediterranean, a region where high-frequency occurrences of these extreme events coincides with some of the most densely populated coastal areas in the world. In a sediment core from the Mar Menor (SE Spain), we discovered eight coarse-grained layers which document marine incursions during periods of intense storm activity or tsunami events. Based on radiocarbon dating, these extreme events occurred around 5250, 4000, 3600, 3010, 2300, 1350, 650, and 80 years cal BP. No comparable events have been observed during the 20th and 21st centuries. The results indicate little likelihood of a tsunami origin for these coarse-grained layers, although historical tsunami events are recorded in this region. These periods of surge events seem to coincide with the coldest periods in Europe during the late Holocene, suggesting a control by a climatic mechanism for periods of increased storm activity.”

Frequencies and intensities of hurricanes have decreased

Chang et al., 2016

“Extratropical cyclones cause much of the high impact weather over the mid-latitudes. With increasing greenhouse gases, enhanced high-latitude warming will lead to weaker cyclone activity. Here we show that between 1979 and 2014, the number of strong cyclones in Northern Hemisphere in summer has decreased at a rate of 4% per decade, with even larger decrease found near northeastern North America. Climate models project a decrease in summer cyclone activity, but the observed decreasing rate is near the fastest projected. Decrease in summer cyclone activity will lead to decrease in cloud cover, giving rise to higher maximum temperature, potentially enhancing the increase in maximum temperature by 0.5 K or more over some regions. We also show that climate models may have biases in simulating the positive relationship between cyclone activity and cloud cover, potentially under-estimating the impacts of cyclone decrease on accentuating the future increase in maximum temperature.”

Williams et al., 2016

“Bayesian age–depth models, derived from eight AMS radiocarbon dates, suggest that the frequency of typhoon strikes was 2–5 times greater from 3900 to 7800 cal. yr. BP compared to 0–3900 cal. yr. BP. Possible explanations for this variability in the typhoon record are that typhoons were more frequent and/or more intense in Southeast Asia in the mid-Holocene because of climatic changes associated with the Mid-Holocene Warm Period or that the record reflects site sensitivity changes resulting from a mid-Holocene sea-level highstand.”

Sugi et al., 2015

More tropical cyclones in a cooler climate?

“Recent review papers reported that many high-resolution global climate models consistently projected a reduction of global tropical cyclone (TC) frequency in a future warmer climate, although the mechanism of the reduction is not yet fully understood. Here we present a result of 4K-cooler climate experiment. The global TC frequency significantly increases in the 4K-cooler climate compared to the present climate. This is consistent with a significant decrease in TC frequency in the 4K-warmer climate.”

Fewer wildfires today than centuries ago

Doerr and Santín, 2016

“Wildfire has been an important process affecting the Earth’s surface and atmosphere for over 350 million years and human societies have coexisted with fire since their emergence. Yet many consider wildfire as an accelerating problem, with widely held perceptions both in the media and scientific papers of increasing fire occurrence, severity and resulting losses. However, important exceptions aside, the quantitative evidence available does not support these perceived overall trends. Instead, global area burned appears to have overall declined over past decades, and there is increasing evidence that there is less fire in the global landscape today than centuries ago. Regarding fire severity, limited data are available. For the western USA, they indicate little change overall, and also that area burned at high severity has overall declined compared to pre-European settlement. Direct fatalities from fire and economic losses also show no clear trends over the past three decades.”

No trends (decreases) in extreme precipitation events in recent decades compared to past centuries

Tozer et al., 2016

“The reconstruction shows that significantly longer and more frequent wet and dry periods were experienced in the preinstrumental [19th century and earlier] compared to the instrumental period [20th, 21st centuries]. This suggests that existing drought and flood risk assessments underestimate the true risks due to the reliance on data and statistics obtained from only the instrumental record.”

Pausata et al., 2016

“Following the devastating droughts that ravaged the Sahel in the 1970–1980s, many efforts have been directed at investigating climate variability in Northern Africa, focusing on vegetation–climate feedbacks and the dynamics of the West African Monsoon (WAM) system (Charney et al., 1975 and Giannini et al., 2003). However, the past millennia have witnessed much larger precipitation changes than those seen in recent decades. One of the most dramatic changes in the WAM began around 15000 yr BP, when increased summer precipitation led to an expansion of the North African lakes and wetlands.”

van Wijngaarden and Syed, 2016

Changes in annual precipitation over the Earth’s land mass excluding Antarctica from the 18th century to 2013

“The trends for precipitation change together with their 95% confidence intervals were found for various periods of time. Most trends exhibited no clear precipitation change [from the 1700s to present]. The global changes in precipitation over the Earth’s land mass excluding Antarctica relative to 1961-90 were estimated to be: -1.2. ±. 1.7, 2.6. ±. 2.5 and -5.4. ±. 8.1% per century for the periods 1850-2000, 1900-2000 and 1950-2000, respectively. A change of 1% per century corresponds to a precipitation change of 0.09. mm/year.”

Yadava et al., 2016

“We developed the first boreal spring precipitation reconstruction for the western Himalaya covering the last millennium (1030–2011 C.E.). … The precipitation reconstruction revealed persistent long-term spring droughts from the 12th to early 16th century C.E. and pluvial from the late 16th century C.E. to recent decades. The late 15th and early 16th centuries (1490–1514 C.E.) displayed the driest episode, with precipitation being ∼15% lower than the long-term mean. The early 19th century (1820–1844 C.E.) was the wettest period of the past millennium, with mean precipitation ∼13% above the long-term mean. The reconstructed boreal spring precipitation from the western Himalaya revealed large-scale consistency with hydrological records from westerly dominated regions in Central Asia, indicating synoptic-scale changes in atmospheric circulation during the major part of the Medieval and Little Ice Age periods.”

Hoerling et al, 2016

“Time series of US daily heavy precipitation (95^th percentile) are analyzed to determine factors responsible for regionality and seasonality in their 1979-2013 trends. …. Analysis of model ensemble spread reveals that appreciable 35-yr trends in heavy daily precipitation can occur in the absence of forcing, thereby limiting detection of the weak anthropogenic influence at regional scales.

Analysis of the seasonality in heavy daily precipitation trends supports physical arguments that their changes during 1979-2013 have been intimately linked to internal decadal ocean variability, and less to human-induced climate change.”

van der Wiel et al., 2016

“[T]he observed record and historical model experiments were used to investigate changes in the recent past. In part because of large intrinsic variability, no evidence was found for changes in extreme precipitation attributable to climate change in the available observed record“

Drought frequencies and intensities are stable, decreasing

Cheng et al., 2016

“The results thus indicate that the net effect of climate change has made agricultural drought less likely and that the current severe impacts of drought on California’s agriculture have not been substantially caused by long-term climate changes.”

Hofmann et al., 2016

Abrupt mid-Holocene megadrought in northwestern Montana

“One of the best studied examples of historic drought in North America includes the 1930s Dust Bowl event (Woodhouse and Overpeck, 1998) that heavily impacted agriculture in the Great Plains region and that is well represented in lake sediment records in North America (e.g. Alley et al., 2003). Interestingly, lake sediment records that contain a signal of the Dust Bowl event (e.g. Alley et al., 2003) also show that such events occurred more frequently and on a higher magnitude throughout the late Holocene (Laird et al., 1996).”

Stahle et al., 2016

“Nationwide drought is predicted to become more common with anthropogenic climate change, but the MXDA reconstructions indicate that intense “All Mexico” droughts have been rare over the past 600 years and their frequency does not appear to have increased substantially in recent decades.”

Dai and Zhao, 2016

“How drought may change in the future are of great concern as global warming continues. In Part I of this study, we examine the uncertainties in estimating recent drought changes. … Consistent with reported declines in pan evaporation, our calculated potential evapotranspiration (PET) shows negative or small trends since 1950 over the United States, China, and other regions, and no global PET trends from 1950 to 1990. Updated precipitation and streamflow data and the self-calibrated PDSI_pm all show consistent drying during 1950–2012 over most Africa, East and South Asia, southern Europe, eastern Australia, and many parts of the Americas. While these regional drying trends resulted primarily from precipitation changes related to multi-decadal oscillations in Pacific sea surface temperatures, rapid surface warming and associated increases in surface vapor pressure deficit since the 1980s have become an increasingly important cause of widespread drying over land.”

Tornado occurrence has remained stable since 1950

Guo et al., 2016

Variability of Tornado Occurrence over the Continental United States since 1950

“The United States experiences the most tornadoes of any country in the world. Given the catastrophic impact of tornadoes, concern has arisen regarding the variation in climatology of U.S. tornadoes under the changing climate. … Based on the 64-year tornado records (1950-2013), we found that the trends in tornado temporal variability varied across the U.S., with only one-third of the continental area or three out of ten contiguous states (mostly from the Great Plains and Southeast, but where the frequency of occurrence of tornadoes is greater) displaying a significantly increasing trend. The other two-thirds area, where 60% of the U.S. tornadoes were reported (but the frequency of occurrence of tornadoes is less), however, showed a decreasing or a near-zero trend in tornado temporal variability. Furthermore, unlike the temporal variability alone, the combined spatial-temporal variability of U.S. tornado occurrence has remained nearly constant since 1950.”

Unreliable climate models do not simulate variability or extremes – warming stabilizes the climate

Bellprat and Doblas-Reyes, 2016

Attribution of extreme weather and climate events overestimated by unreliable climate simulations

“The framework illustrates that unreliable climate simulations are prone to overestimate the attributable risk to climate change. Climate model ensembles tend to be overconfident in their representation of the climate variability which leads to systematic increase in the attributable risk to an extreme event. Our results suggest that event attribution approaches comprising of a single climate model would benefit from ensemble calibration in order to account for model inadequacies similarly as operational forecasting systems.”

Ljungqvist et al., 2016

“[T]he intensification of the twentieth-century-mean hydroclimate anomalies in the simulations, as compared to previous centuries, is not supported by our new multi-proxy reconstruction. This finding suggests that much work remains before we can model hydroclimate variability accurately, and highlights the importance of using palaeoclimate data to place recent and predicted hydroclimate changes in a millennium-long context.”

(press release)

According to a new study, the Northern Hemisphere has experienced considerably larger variations in precipitation during the past twelve centuries than in the twentieth century. Researchers from Sweden, Germany, and Switzerland have found that climate models overestimated the increase in wet and dry extremes as temperatures increased during the twentieth century.

Gaucherel and Moron, 2016

“‘Tipping points’ (TPs) are thresholds of potentially disproportionate changes in the Earth’s climate system associated with future global warming and are considered today as a ‘hot’ topic in environmental sciences. In this study, TP interactions are analysed from an integrated and conceptual point of view using two qualitative Boolean models built on graph grammars. They allow an accurate study of the node TP interactions previously identified by expert elicitation and take into account a range of various large-scale climate processes potentially able to trigger, alone or jointly, instability in the global climate. Our findings show that, contrary to commonly held beliefs, far from causing runaway changes in the Earth’s climate, such as self-acceleration due to additive positive feedbacks, successive perturbations might actually lead to its stabilization.”

Greve and Seneviratne, 2015

“Substantial changes in the hydrological cycle are projected for the 21st century, but these projections are subject to major uncertainties. In this context, the ‘dry gets drier, wet gets wetter’ (DDWW) paradigm is often used as a simplifying summary. However, recent studies cast doubt on the validity of the paradigm and also on applying the widely used P-E (precipitation-evapotranspiration) metric over global land surfaces. Here we show in a comprehensive CMIP5-based assessment that projected changes in mean annual P-E are generally not significant, except for high-latitude regions showing wetting conditions until the end of the 21st century. Significant increases in aridity do occur in many subtropical, but also adjacent humid regions. However, combining both metrics still shows that ca. 70% of all land area will not experience significant changes. Based on these findings we conclude that the DDWW paradigm is generally not confirmed for projected changes in most land areas.”

Posted in We're To Blame, Weather | 29 Responses

"Not here to worship what is known, but to question it" - Jacob Bronowski. Climate news from Germany in English - by Pierre L. Gosselin

“Reconstruction of April-July minimum temperature on Laobai Mountain for the last 414 years [1600-2014]. The smoothed line indicates the 11-year moving average, and blue dots represent minimum freezing events.”

“Monthly variations of the areal averaged atmospheric and surface greenhouse effect parameter anomalies (Gaa and Gsa) from 1979 to 2014 for the (a) globe”

Explanation: Cloud Variations, Water Vapor Dominate Greenhouse Effect, With Insignificant CO2 Influence

Scientific Literature Substantiates Insignificant CO2 Influence

Arctic Sea Ice Rebounds

Are More Alarming Studies Needed To Elicit Belief, Concern?

The Concoction Of ‘Consensus’ Achieved Via Exclusion

An 83% Global Cooling/Weak CO2 Influence Scientific ‘Consensus’ During 1960s, ’70s

The 1970s Global Cooling Scare Was Not Mythological

The Selective Emphasis On Particular Scientific ‘Facts’ To Advance An Agenda

285 Scientific Publications Affirming A Global Cooling/Weak CO2 Influence ‘Consensus’

35 Sample Global Cooling/Low CO2 Climate Influence Papers

Arctic: Sea ice melt 2016 done at 4.1 million km²? Northwest Passage freezes over!

In the 1970s, extreme weather events were blamed on global cooling

Modern scientists also question the assumption that more warming means more variability

More weather instability/extremes, much higher climate change rates in cold periods than warm periods

Frequencies of storms and tsunamis have decreased during the 20th, 21st centuries

Frequencies and intensities of hurricanes have decreased

Fewer wildfires today than centuries ago

No trends (decreases) in extreme precipitation events in recent decades compared to past centuries

Drought frequencies and intensities are stable, decreasing

Tornado occurrence has remained stable since 1950

Unreliable climate models do not simulate variability or extremes – warming stabilizes the climate

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**“Monthly variations of the areal averaged atmospheric and surface greenhouse effect parameter anomalies (G_aa and G_sa) from 1979 to 2014 for the (a) globe”**