New York Times Conceding Low Sensitivity! Now Talking About “CO2 Quadrupling” To Get Catastrophe Scenarios!

By P Gosselin on 14. Mai 2013

It’s not every morning one wakes up and finds you’ve been quoted by the New York Times. That’s what happened to me this morning.

CO2

CO2 losing its fizz. Public domain photo.

In his article, A Change in Temperature, Justin Gillis tells his readers that the issue of CO2 climate sensitivity has become more hotly disputed than ever, but warns catastrophe still looms.

Here are just a few comments I have:

1) The New York Times first have to learn that science is not about insisting you are correct, or being obsessed with a popular pet hypothesis. In the article Justin Gillis and scientist James Annan come across as having a very hard time departing from the hypothesis that CO2 climate sensitivity is high.

2. CO2 lags temperature, history has proven. Moreover, although CO2 has risen tremendously (in relative terms) over the last 15 years, the global temperature has not. For the last 15 years, sensitivity has been zero. Worse, there’s strong, mounting evidence that there isn’t going to be any warming for another 10 or 20 years at least. (Hint: oceans).

3. There’s no correlation between CO2 and temperature. Of the last 130 years, CO2 has risen 100% of the time, but temperature have risen only during 45 of those years (1920-45 and 1978-98). That’s a very lousy correlation. And you only need to look back at the previous Eemian interglacial. While CO2 was steady at about 260 ppm, the temperature dropped 6°C.

Now it’s CO2 quadrupling

4. But what I find particularly interesting about Gillis’s latest article is that the once much ballyhooed consensus is totally shattered, and the overall warmist retreat now taking place. It is clear that scientists are now abandoning the high CO2 sensitivity values in droves. Naturally we don’t expect them to abandon the high values and to run right over to the low CO2 climate sensitivity values. The next logical step is that they adopt the middle sensitivity values, and act like those are going to be catastrophic as well.

…several recent papers have offered best estimates for climate sensitivity that are below four degrees Fahrenheit, rather than the previous best estimate of just above five degrees, and they have also suggested that the highest estimates are pretty implausible. Notice that these recent calculations fall well within the long-accepted range — just on the lower end of it.”

But even mid-range sensitivity values are becoming difficult for people like Annan to defend, and so now they’re forced to consider undramatic low CO2 sensitivity values.

It will certainly be good news if these recent papers stand up to critical scrutiny, something that will take at least a year or two to figure out.”

And German journalist science Jürgen Schönstein writes about the NYT article at ScienceBlogs here:

(Annan assumes that the warming from a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will be at the lower end of the projected ‘range’).

The problem here, however, is that with low CO2 climate sensitivity it gets really hard to conjure up catastrophic warming scenarios with a doubling of CO2. So what to do?

No problem. Gillis and Annan present their latest trick: They talk about tripling or even quadrupling of CO2 to get the catastrophe which they are so obsessed with, and claim it’s really plausible.

Some experts think the level of the heat-trapping gas could triple or even quadruple before emissions are reined in. [...] Even if climate sensitivity turns out to be on the low end of the range, total emissions may wind up being so excessive as to drive the earth toward dangerous temperature increases.”

There you have it. Now climate scientists and the catastrophe-obsessed media are now forced, for perhaps the very first time, to talk about CO2 quadrupling in order to get the much wanted catastrophe scenarios.

 

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400 PPM CO2 Concentration Announcement Unleashes Wave Of Mass Hysteria In Germany

By P Gosselin on 14. Mai 2013

Watching the reaction from the greens, media, climate scientists, and a number of politicians here in Germany reminds me of the time when I was in 6th grade and a friend of mine and I threw a dead mouse in a group of 3rd grade schoolgirls out on the school yard. That sent them off in all directions screaming hysterically. :)

i_survived_400ppm_tshirt WUWT

Order yours at: WattsUpWithThat

Well that’s pretty much the reaction we’ve seen with many of the adults (grown men) here in Germany when Scripps announced that CO2 concentration had reached the 400 ppm level. You see, the day before when the concentration was 399.99 ppm, everybody was just going about their business; life was normal. But when the CO2 concentration reached 400 ppm, the gates of hell opened.

As one of the few calm people here, I now find myself busy dispensing on-site counseling to the emotionally shocked and hysterical in the report’s aftermath, and so I don’t have so much time. But here’s some reaction we’ve seen over the last few hours from the media, greens and “leading scientists”:

Green party honcho, drama-queen Dr. Herrmann Ott:

Exceeding the 400 ppm threshold of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere symbolizes the drama of galloping climate change and the threats to our civilization connected with it. [...] To avert the unimaginable consequences of a continued dramatic increase in CO2, immediate and effective climate protection must have top priority!”

The leftist daily TAZ quoted Ralph Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego [translated, not the original quote]:

‘We are moving into dangerous territory,’ said Ralph Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. [...] In his view the efforts to reduce CO2 have failed. Some impacts of climate change are now irreversible.”

The centrist online FOCUS magazine wrote:

The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has reached a historical high. [...] Policymakers have to finally take action.”

Stephan Bakan of Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg (via klimaretter.de):

The climate models show that independent of short-term fluctuations, the global mean temperature of the lower atmosphere continues to rise with increasing CO2 concentration. With every increase we are moving towards the 450ppm level. And the time remaining for effective emissions reduction reduces accordingly.”

450 ppm? At least now we know when to expect the next outbreak of mass hysteria.

Jelle Bijma of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Ocean Research in Bremerhaven, reported by klimaretter.de):

With this we surpass the 400 ppm mark for the first time in 25 million years. [...] The Earth’s climate does not fundamentally react to the rise in CO2 in a linear fashion, explained Bijma. However there seems to be a relationship: The continued increase in greenhouse gas concentration as a whole strengthens the tendency to warming of the atmosphere. The higher the CO2 concentration, the graver are the consequences of climate change.”

The German Green Party wrote at their site:

Reaching the 400 ppm mark and the foreseeable increase in CO2 concentrations mean a much warmer world, and foremost a more volatile world connected with a sea level that is meters higher. [...] It has probably been 3 million years since CO2 concentrations have been so high. [...] To avert the consequences of a further dramatic increase in CO2 emissions, we must immediately and effectively protect the climate.”

There’s much more of course. But I’ve got to get back to calming the hysterical here. I’m telling them that over the Earth’s history CO2 have meandered over a broad range of 180 ppm to as high as 7000 ppm. At 150 life really starts having problems. During the ice ages we were dangerously low, below 200 ppm. At 400 ppm we now at least have a small buffer against extinction.

At the moment they are blocking it all out, of course. But tomorrow when they wake up, they will see that the earth is still there. It’s a slow process that moves one step at a time. They’ll wake up 5 mornings in a row, then do so for a whole year, and then for a decade, and more, and the world will still be there. Most by then will have relaxed and returned to a functional life.

 

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Climaphobe German Scientist Insists Climate Scientists Need To Take Over Global Policy-Making

By P Gosselin on 13. Mai 2013

WickeSometimes I really wonder about the people major media outlets choose to interview. The ones with the most spectacularly catastrophic visions get all the attention.

German scientist Lutz Wicke (photo right) said in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) that “future generations will curse us climate scientists” and that we now find ourselves in an “absolutely desperate situation” with regards to climate protection.

H/t: Oliver Geden @Twitter.

Wicke’s alarmist interview comes on the heels of the 4th International Petersberger Climate Dialogue in Berlin, which was supposed to lay the groundwork for the next UN climate conference in Warsaw in November. Representatives from 35 countries atteneded the Berlin Petersberger Climate Dialoge. However, little if any progress was achieved.

If Lutz Wicke is an indication, then activist scientists are becoming increasingly frustrated, outraged and impatient.

Wicke is from the Institute for Environmental Management at the ESCP Europe and in the interview “he is demanding that climate scientists worldwide join together and exert more influence on policymaking.”

Wicke says there’s absolutely no reason for optimism when it comes to nations finding an effective agreement to stem global warming.

Wicke has visions of Sahara-like summers

Wicke expects global temperature this century to rise 4°C, which, he says “means 8°C in the Mediterranaen region“:

Then in the summertime we will have heat waves there like in the Sahara. The living space of billions of people will destroyed.”

Wicke seems to suffer from acute climaphobia and to be obsessed with end-of-world scenarios. One thing is certain: he’s intent on spreading his fear to the readers of the Süddeutsche.

For a long time, the lack of progress in implementing an eco-authoritarianism on the world was blamed on political leaders, especially those from the USA, China and India. But now Wicke says climate scientists must take a share of the blame:

…they should have appropriately advised the political leaders. That didn’t happen. Even climate politicians are not expert enough to tell us in detail how agreements are to be designed so that a reduction in emissions can be reached.”

Wicke angry that states failed to boss citizens around

Here Wicke advocates that climate-paranoid scientists write international agreements for politicians. It gets better. A little later on in the interview he says:

It is crystal clear that states worldwide are not able to require themselves to appropriately reduce their emissions of climate gases, or to comply to these requirements. They can’t influence their citizens and the economy so that they accept it.”

In Wicke’s view, states just aren’t capable of bossing around their citizens and getting them to commit economic suicide. European climate alarmists are growing impatient.

Later in the interview Wicke suggests limiting per capita CO2 emissions globally to five tons per person, or taxing fossil fuels so much that they’ll be too expensive to use.

So why aren’t these brilliant ideas not being discussed, the Süddeutsche asks? Wicke:

Among other other things, climate scientists have been much too quiet about this.”

Wicke says scientists should write the international agreements

Amusingly, the Süddeutsche asks Wicke if climate scienists really are the right people to hammer out international agreements. Wicke:

Who, when not us, should politcians, who we meet at climate conferences, should make concrete proposals? Climate science cannot restrict itself to develoiping computer models. For that, the matter is just too important and dramatic.”

Then he says climate scientists need more funding so that they can do the things they need to do to rescue the planet.

Wicke: climate scientists can rescue the future generations

Wicke disagrees with Hans von Storch, who says science should deliver the results and leave the job of policymaking to the policymakers and citizenry. But Wicke insists:

Scientists cannot act like it’s all none of their business. We can’t just provide the diagnosis and then quit. We also have to try to prevent the prognoses from happening. This is about the destiny of future generations.”

Gee, who really stands to benefit in that deal? What would a roofing company be tempted to tell a homeowner who isn’t allowed to get a second opinion?

By now we get the sense that this Wicke scientist obviously is interested in only one thing. And we thought Schellnhuber was bad.

The Süddeutsche then correctly points out that scienitists in the past have made many false prognoses, so can the scientists really be trusted? Wicke:

The models must undergo continuous correction, that’s completely clear. But in the meantime the biggest problems we had at the start of climate science have been overcome. Also in the next 7-year IPCC report there will again certainly be small corrections to the earlier prognoses. But the certainty of how things will develop will be even greater. And we can thus expect the worst fears to be confirmed … with business as usual there will be with a high probability an increase in temperature of around 6°C by 2100. [...]

If we do nothing now, then also us climate scientists will be cursed by the future generationsfor not having done enough to avoid the catastrophes – even though we knew they would happen.”

Just for Wicke, and his followers, here’s a chart showing what “small corrections” are needed:

ipcc_fig1-4_models_obs

Chart source: Chapter 1 of the IPCC AR5 second order draft.

Photo credit Luz Wicke: www.escp-europe/

 

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The Real Reason Why The Warmists Totally Dread The Future Of Rising CO2…Divergence!

By P Gosselin on 12. Mai 2013

I was looking at the Climate4you.com/ chart Joe Bastardi used in a recent post. It shows the CO2 and the temperature curves. In it we already see the first signs of why the warmists are getting seriously nervous. The divergence is beginning:

Bastardi_1

Figure 1: TODAY: CO2 concentration and global temperature. The divergence began in 2005.

I asked myself what is it going to look like in 10 or 15 years with the negative AMO and PDO (let’s leave out the solar activity slumber for now) continuing. So I took the Climate4You chart, cut and extended it out to the year 2030. We know CO2 is going to keep rising. Next I simply extended the negative phase of the AMO and PDO global temp out to 2030 so that it’s behaves similarly to the last negative phase for the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Doing that you get the following development:

000What the warmists are afraid of

Figure 2: 2030…oh my, what a wonderful correlation.

Now you know why the warmists are crapping bricks big time right now. They see the writing on the wall – they know the Great Climate Scam has got but only a few more years to live, and then it is over! RIP! It’s going to get worse with every passing year. In fact, let’s hope CO2 skyrockets to 500 ppm soon…it’ll make their error look even more profound.

Many will argue that you just can’t assume the AMO and the PDO will have a similar impact as it did from 1950s through the 1970s. Well, we’ll see. So far it’s right on track!

And let’s recall that next years will see low solar activity, and so the temperatures could drop even more. It gets even worse if a major volcano erupts. The warmists are not going to have a place to hide.

 

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WeatherBELL: “Major, Historic 3-Day Cold Outbreak” To Grip Northeast USA

By P Gosselin on 12. Mai 2013

No, NTZ has not been taken over by Joe Bastardi and WeatherBELL (But I’m open for offers :) ).

Seriously, it’s just that Joe has had some interesting news lately, and here’s another that’s happening in our time of “global warming” and “record” 400 ppm CO2.

WeatherBELL5_11

Mid-May frost forecast to wipe out fruit. Source: www.weatherbell.com/saturday-summary-may-11-2013

The latest comes from his Saturday Summary 5/11. At the 5:50 mark:

But what the GFS has been insisting on, is the major historic 3-day cold outbreak.”

Are things ever going to warm up?

Over the long-term Joe says it’ll probably cool “worse than we thought”. Read my last post from yesterday.

 

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Joe Bastardi: Cooling In The Future Shaping Up To Be “Worse Than We Thought”

By P Gosselin on 11. Mai 2013

Bastardi_WeatherBELL[Sticky post, hence different color background...new posts below]

Cooling Will Be Worse Than We Thought
By Joe Bastardi, weatherbell.com/

At Weatherbell.com, we try to show people the ‘why’ before the ‘what’.  My father taught me that if you are right, then you should have the reason why first, and not excuses for being wrong later.

From where I stand, the reasons why we are right are clear. But the barrage of excuses coming from the other side is growing shriller with each passing day. And the idea that people spouting the CO2 idea are being driven from the field in spite of the overwhelming evidence against them is nonsense. When facts don’t matter, it’s not the facts that will force them to quit. This is well beyond science. Any rational person can see what is going on and can say that in the least there is enough doubt to stop the madness that demonizes those that disagree. In reality, their point has been driven from the field.

What I am doing here is giving you the ‘why’ before the ‘what’. What I’m amazed at is how people can keep seeing things that are opposite of what they claimed would happen 5 years ago, simply change the terminology and then say the things they say. That kind of mentality is one that does not accept any answer except the one they think it should be. So the fight is not on a level of a normal argument. The arguing is with people who believe they possess the “truth” and that anything short of their “truth” cannot be tolerated.

But we must smile and fight with facts. Debunk, and try not to demean.

In any case the following link will be very helpful in trying to get my point across, and I am going to use relative humidity and mixing ratios to show some of this: weather.cod.edu.pdf.

Here is why this should be simple: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. So what is the source of energy to the Earth? Answer: the sun. If outgoing radiation equals incoming, then there is no trapping and all this hullabaloo is a moot point. Since that is the case, the game should be over.

However if you want to start confusing the issue, then you assign major importance to very minor items, control the language, and then you can control the perception.
The fact is that the Earth has been warming since the very cold period of the 1700s (Little Ice Age). It just so happened sunspots were in the tank, and it was cold. When sunspot activity increased, the Earth responded by getting warmer. Should be simple, right? The link to the oceans in the overall rise that has occurred is obvious in the graph below (from the outstanding site: Climate4you.com/.

Bastardi_1

Figure 1: CO2 concentration and global temperature.

 The cumulative effect of the warm AMO and PDO added heat to the atmosphere, so temps rose from the late 1970s to around 2000. After the air absorbed the heat, it leveled off, the PDO flipped, and we started trending down.

Simply using the PDO, as seen in the chart below from Wikipedia, shows an almost direct correlation:

The warm years from the late 1970s to a bit beyond 2000, the latest downturn can be seen as well. The Pacific is much larger than the Atlantic, but the Atlantic turned warm in the mid-1990s so it is still not fully on board with the cooling. But when it does turn, chances are global temps will respond as one would expect knowing the heat capacity of the ocean is 1000 times that of the atmosphere. This chart alone should cast doubt, if not slay, the CO2 dragon being a major climate factor, if any at all. It’s simply too small to do what these people spouting this agenda-driven idea say it will.

Bastardi_2

Figure 2: Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO)

Again the overall rise of the past 200 years is easily explained by sunspots, which is why a lot of people are nervous about cooling. After all, if you are claiming the sun caused the warming, and you take it away, and the oceans flip to their negative phase, and a couple of volcanoes blow to boot, then there is real trouble. Hence the triple crown of cooling, which I showed on national TV 4 years ago when explaining why the cooling would commence, and by 2030 temperatures would return to levels seen in the late 1970s.

As for CO2, the rise may be due in part to a lag that FOLLOWS warming, and doesn’t cause it. Since the 1950s, the only time CO2 was correlated was when the oceans warmed. This is not brain surgery.

There is science and pseudo-science. Science comes up with an idea like the oceans are causing warming, and when they cool, the air cools. Pseudo-science says: well CO2 is adding to this, but how much? IT’S A QUESTION THAT CAN NEVER BE ANSWERED. Does the question then become: Would we already be heading into a mini ice age were it not for CO2 saving us?  How do you answer that?  Untold amounts of money are being thrown at a question that isn’t even something of consideration.

Now here is the problem. Temps have been dropping as you can see…not a lot, but some. But what should be very disturbing for planners and people looking forward is that the Relative Humidity is dropping. That means the wet bulb has dropped more than the temperatures.

Bastardi_3

Figure 3: 300 mb (top); 600 mb (middle) 1000 mb (bottom).

Why is the RH dropping? Think about it. A cooling Pacific, especially in the tropics, means less water vapor available to the system. So we get the initial temperature drop off because of the cooling Pacific is no longer adding to the warmth of the air – primarily in the tropics. But the RH is dropping too.

Where it’s dry, it does warm up and the large dry land areas do warm in the summer season, until such the entire earth/ocean system adjusts (the AMO flips to cold too). But the drop of RH, seen above in the chart is a big hint!

Notice how at this time, the 1000 mb is lagging. Eventually, though, the transport of moisture from the lagging low levels will cool the mid levels (increased moisture leading to temperatures falling toward the wet bulb),  leading to more instability, more cloudiness. Until a balance is reached, the earth’s temps will cool. Perhaps faster!

A look at the skew T and the mixing ratio relationship to temperature really drives my point home about why this is a distortion of temps and not warming. By distortion I mean its obviously warmer in the northern areas, but THE COOLING IN THE TROPICAL AREAS, EVEN THOUGH MUCH SMALLER, CARRIES HAS A FAR GREATER IMPACT ON THE WEATHER AND CLIMATE.

A way to think about it like 2 people that weigh the  same, but one may have more mass in one part of the body than the other.

An example of this can be seen when one looks at what it takes to change the mixing ratio 2g/kg at 30°C vs -20°C.

Look at how the mixing ratios increase dramatically with higher temps. In other words, suppose we lower the temps 1°C at 30°C (from Wikipedia chart).

Bastardi_4

Figure 4: Mixing ratios

Doing so, we would change the mixing ratio by about 2g/kg. Now how much of a rise at -20C would we need to offset that? At -20°C the mixing ratio is about 0.7 g/kg. To move up 2 g to 2.7 g/kg, we would have to raise the temp about 15°C.

The changes in temperatures in the tropics have a much greater overall impact on the climate than those in the Arctic. It is, if you will, easy to warm cold, dry air, but to cool warm tropical air is much harder.  So if the Earth’s temperature is about steady, or falling off a bit as we saw in the graph above, and the Arctic is still warm, the compensating drop in the tropics means more to the Earth’s climate than the same movement of temps in the Arctic  It becomes a predictor of what has to happen as the PDO continues cold and the AMO turns cold…the warmer northern polar regions will cool. A degree is not a degree when it comes to the climate system. A one-degree movement up and down where wet bulb temperatures are 30°C have far greater effects on the system than a 1-degree change where its near 0. That is the message behind the mixing ratio example above.

Now let me ask you this question, in terms of the climate system, which is far more important: 1) the tropical oceans and the air masses around them, or  2) what is going on in the Arctic? The answer is given above.

Again this is simply saying there is a natural large-scale thermostat called the ocean. The warmer the ocean, the more it drives the whole climate system.

The slight cooling with dropping RH is a sign of bigger things to come. This means the wet bulbs are falling faster than the actual temps. It is a predictor of future temperature drops (it’s worse than we thought). For usually when the RH falls, the temperatures rise.  But in this case, temps are already falling and the RH is falling too!

At the very least I expect temperatures by 2030 to return to where they were in the late 1970s, which was the end of the last cold PDO phase and, by the way, the start of the satellite era: the most objective form of measurements.

Is the cooling worse than I thought? We are going to find out in the coming decades.

Photo Joe Bastardi: weatherbell.com/

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Joe Bastardi: “17 Years Thrown Away Now Because Of A Ghost “

By P Gosselin on 11. Mai 2013

Meteorologist Joe Bastardi has a commentary at the Patriot Post where he tells us that the ocean cycles play a major role on regional climates and that the cooling conditions now seen in Europe should not have come as a surprise.

bastardi_home-weatherbellMeteorologist Joe Bastardi of WeatherBELL Analytics. Photo credit: www.weatherbell.com

Just a few years ago global warming experts (like David Viner and Mojib Latif) were forecasting balmy, snowless winters for Europe. Now we see just the opposite is taking place.

For the US, Joe says that before the Atlantic turns colder, springs are likely to be colder like in the 1950s.

On Al Gore, Joe Bastardi wonders if he ever looks at anything that challenges his belief.

Do They Even Look?

Baffled German Government Concedes! “Global Warming Has Stopped…Warming Pause Is Remarkable…Unexpected”

This is a headline in my friend Pierre Gosselin’s Blog “No Tricks Zone.” The article is here for you to read, but in it, there is an admission that global warming has stopped and it’s baffling as to why.

There is much to be gained from this about the methods of people pushing this issue. The headline above uses the word “baffled.” It should not be, and here is why: Most environmentalists simply will not look at anything that can challenge their idea. The turn to colder in Europe and the far East has been easier to forecast than the US following the turn to colder in the Pacific Decadol Oscillation. The linkage to colder is much faster in these areas, when the Atlantic is in its warm cycle as it still is (I have a de-icing company that supplies both areas, so being right is crucial.) In the US, it lags because…”

Continue reading here…

 

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Today Germany Sadly Recalls…May 10, 1933…80-Year Anniversary Of Nazi Book-Burning…Eerie Parallels

By P Gosselin on 10. Mai 2013

Today is the 80-year anniversary of mass book burning by Nazi Germany in 1933, one of the darkest chapters of human civilization.

Literary and philosophical works that did not conform to the ideological standards of the Nationalist Socialist Party were collected from prestigious university libraries and burned in public. They included some of the greatest works ever written. Much of the burning was zealously carried out by students and academics.

Wikipedia writes: “On April 6th, 1933, the Main Office for Press and Propaganda of the German Student Association proclaimed a nationwide ‘Action against the Un-German Spirit’, which was to climax in a literary purge or ‘cleansing’ (‘Säuberung’) by fire. The students described the ‘action’ as a response to a worldwide Jewish ‘smear campaign’ against Germany.”

Today the German media are carrying many reports and reflecting on this dark, shameful chapter.

Book burning, calls for executions are back today in climate science

Many of us might think: “Well, this happened 80 years ago, and could never happen today, especially in Europe or America.” Think again. It just happened on a small but poignant manner in sunny, enlightened California, at the University of San Jose Department of Meteorology and Climate Science. Read about it here at WUWT.

Recently a University of Graz professor called for the execution of climate science skeptics. Aren’t the parallels eerie? This ought lead us to pause and reflect deeply for a moment.

Berlin, Bücherverbrennung

The face of arrogance, intolerance, ignorance and hatred. Photo credit: German National Archives, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license.

 

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Germany’s No. 1 Daily – Bild – Puts Focus On, Slams Climate-Cash-Making Gore – 11,000% Wealth Increase!

By P Gosselin on 10. Mai 2013

No. 1, multi-million circulation national daily Bild here has an unflattering piece about Al Gore and his newly found mega-riches titled: “Al Gore earned 75 million euros – in one month!”

So profitable can the global warming scam be! Never mind that there hasn’t been a bit of warming in 15 years.

The Bild piece starts with:

Rich, richer, Gore! The former vice president of the USA, Albert ‘Al’ Gore, alone in January earned 75 million euros. Now he has an estimated wealth of 153 million euros (200 million dollars)!

[...] That’s an increase in wealth of 11,000%!”

Much of this comes from spreading fear over global warming (which, again, hasn’t happened in 15 years). The more fear that Gore spreads, the more his investments in green energy and “climate-protection” technologies and activities pay off.

Bild also informs readers that Gore earned huge amounts from sales of shares of Apple and “Current Network TV“.

This was sold in January for 382 million euros to ‘Al-Jazeera,’ a TV network in Qatar. An estimated 70 million euros found their way into Gore’s bank account. The politician is a stakeholder in various companies and investment funds. Among other things, he’s a co-founder of ‘Generation Investment Management’, which made a profit from 2008 to 2010 of 166 million euros.”

Not too shabby.

Gee, suddenly where are all the anti-capitalist, anti-speculation greens? Bild also tells its readers of another source of income:

Because of his popularity, Gore receives a fee from industry associations, symposiums, and other events of up to 130,000 euros – per speech!”

So what on Earth could Gore be possibly doing with all that climate-cash? Bild tells us:

With his millions, Gore bought a 20-room mansion in Nashville/Tennessee and a luxury beach house in Montecito, California. So nice losing can be: Had Al Gore won the US presidential election election in 2000 against George W. Bush, he would have earned ‘only’ 306,000 euros per year.”

Most Germans have a strong aversion to wealth of this sort. An unflattering piece for Al Gore. Bad publicity to say the least.

Hat-tip: Meteorologist Dr. Wolfgang Thüne, by e-mail.

PS: Another reader wrote: “Yeah, this is how someone can get filthy rich with supposed climate-protection. No wonder so many so-called environmental scientists and countless institutes want to imitate him.”

Things are beginning to come around for Al Gore and his scam.

 

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Spiegel Report: “Greenland Melting More Slowly Than Expected” …Sea Level Rise Alarm Called Off!

By P Gosselin on 9. Mai 2013

GreenlandmountainsOnline Spiegel magazine (SPON) has an article today by Axel Bojanowski titled: “Sea level rise: Greenland melting more slowly than expected“.

Bojanowski writes:

Melting in Greenland is a decisive factor on how fast the sea level rises. Now research on five glaciers on the country are showing: The northern ice cap will indeed melt more gradually than assumed.”

This dumps cold water on the global climate catastrophe scenarios that the German government-funded climate institutes, media, and politicians of every party like to trumpet.

The Spiegel article cites a new study here that finds “melting Greenland glaciers will lead to less sea level rise over the next 200 years than earlier feared” and that “the accelerated ice loss of the past decades will not continue at the same rate.”

The Spiegel story contradicts an older 2010 New York Times 2010 doom and gloom portrayal of Greenland, which cited Stefan Rahmstorf, who said:

The past clearly shows that sea-level rise is getting faster and faster the warmer it gets. Why should that process stop? If it gets warmer, ice will melt faster.”

Of course we know that it hasn’t gotten warmer at all in 15 years, and may have even cooled slightly, and so the process naturally will not accelerate.

Rahmstorf is a leading scientist at the notoriously climate-catastrophe-obsessed Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. He once accused Spiegel of “climate scientist bashing” and “defamation”. Why? Because Spiegel dared to question his brand of bed-wetting alarmist climate science.

Bojanowski at SPON writes that the scientists reported here at Nature that a melting calculated under strongly rising temperatures for all of Greenland would lead to a sea level rise of maximum 18 cm…”well within the prognoses of the UN IPCC.”

But with global temperature data showing no warming in 15 years, oceanic cycles like the PDO and AMO turning negative, solar activity tanking, and many scientists projecting a slight to moderate cooling over the next decades, these newest prognoses may very well turn out to be exaggerated as well, especially for the next 50 years. Many parts of Greenland are indeed thickening.

In summary, it’s all very much in dispute. But we know things just don’t disintegrate like they do in Rahmstorf’s wild collapsing-world fantasies.

Bojanowski writes that glacier behavior is complex, and that predictions are fraught with uncertainty: “…the strong increase in ice loss of the past years will not continue in a linear manner, but instead will tend to moderate, the scientists suspect“. Remember – the scientists are assuming strong warming, which is not even happening.

The scientists say their predictions are “only a rough estimation that has to be fine-tuned with respect to the strong individual different dynamics“. Spiegel adds: “Calculations over ice melt in Greenland fluctuate because only very few glaciers have been systematically observed over many years.”

Photo credit: John at en.wikipedia, GNU Free Documentation License.

 

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DWD German Weather Service Tweets Public That It Only “Feels Like It’s Cooling”…It’s All In Our Heads

By P Gosselin on 9. Mai 2013

With leaders from 35 countries now meeting at the Petersberger Climate Dialogue in Berlin, every German government-funded institute is now busily issuing press releases to get their two cents worth of alarmism in. The DWD national German Weather Service is no exception.

Two days ago it tweeted a message telling the public that it only “feels like its cooling“. You see, the last 5 bitter-cold winters are just in our heads.

DWD_Twitter

Figure 1: The DWD tweets: “Climate press conference of the DWD: #Temperature will continue rising globally – inspite it feels like it’s cooling #Winter.”

With every press release coming out of the DWD, two things are becoming clear: 1) It is becoming increasingly activist and misleading and 2) its statements are more and more confused and contradictory.

Temperatures are rising, even if they are stagnant

It seems the DWD can’t decide whether temperatures are rising or stagnating. Its latest (2013) press release says (my emphasis):

Global temperature, despite the current stagnation, is rising over the long term. ‘The Earth’s mean temperature has stagnated over the last 15 years at a high level. However, it is not necessary to rewrite the story of climate change,’ underscores Dr. Paul Becker, Vice President of the German Weather Service (DWD) at its annual climate press conference of the Federal Authorities in Berlin.”

In 2013 they write global temperature has stagnated over the last 15 years.

But in May 2012 they wrote:

The long-term trend of rising temperatures in Germany and worldwide continues uninterrrupted.”

Well, which statement is the false one?

Of course the DWD may protest and claim the warming is long-term trend and the stagnation is not. Is it really? Let’s take a look at the temperature data for Germany since 1890.

Temperature Germany 120 years with UHI correction_Kowatsch

Figure 2: Germany’s annual mean temperature chart. Source: EIKE.

Above we see a more or less flat trend from 1890 to 1985, i.e. 95 years. It is only from 1985 to 2000 (15 years) that we have seen a temperature jump. And then from 2000 until now we have a declining trend. How can the brief rise of 1985 – 2000 be called “longterm” and the last 15 years not?

The following chart shows Germany’s mean annual temperature for the last 15 years.

Temperature Germany since 1998

Figure 3: Germany’s annual mean temperature. Data source: Deutsche Wetterdienst, Chart by: EIKE

The models from “climate scientists” projected 0.4°C of warming for the above shown period. But in reality, precisely the opposite occurred! The German Weather Service provides no explanation for this. Instead they simply tell readers that it’s getting warmer (over the long-term) and tweet that the cold is only in our heads.

Using the cold 1961-1990 period as a reference

Another trick the DWD likes to use is the cold period of 1960 – 1990 as the reference. This is how they come up with all the warm anomalies for today. The DWD writes on global temperatures:

Although the years 2011 and 2012 did not set any records globally – they are among the 12 warmest years since 1880 with an annual mean temperature of of 0.5°C over the 1961-1990 reference period.”

On Germany’s mean annual temperatures, again they use the cold 1960 to 1990 period (many weather outfits use the 1980 – 2010 period), see Figure 2.

Also the mean temperature of 9.1°C for 2012 was significantly over the mean of 8.2°C. The year 2012 was thus the 16th warmest since 1881. According to evaluations conducted by the DWD, 24 of the last 30 years in Germany were too warm.”

That is if you compare the last 30 years to the cold 1961-1990 period. This is how DWD creates headlines.

DWD says he (felt) cooling is caused by natural drivers

Natural influences currently are masking the man-made climate change. Even a few years without records, or isolated weather periods – for example a winter that is too cool – are thus not suitable to draw real statements on climate change. The question of climate change must be viewed over the long-term. We cannot expect that temperature increase to occur as smoothly as the CO2 increase in the atmosphere. Climate is impacted by many factors. Among them solar irradiance and volcanic activity, as well as large internal variability of the climate, for example the regular changes in the sea surface temperature in the Pacific through Eö Nino and La Nina.

Here they make it a point to totally ignore the powerful PDO and AMO cycles, who positive phases occurred precisely during the 1980 – 2000 warming. Best not to bring that up.

The DWD press release concedes there are many unknowns:

Becker: “All these effects overlap each other and  to some extent mask man-made climate change  – of which there is no doubt. Today for this reason we still cannot say which factors are 2/3 of the impact on our climate. But we’re convinced: Over the long run the man-made impact is the strongest and thus a further temperature increase is coming.”

This brings us to an old question that remains unanswered today: “If unknown factors are acting to cool global temperature today, then why are these very factors not repsonsible for the warming from 1980 to 2000?

The DWD spreads the fear of a public health crisis

The DWD finishes the press release by stoking up public health disaster scenarios resulting from climate change and embellishing in some unbridled speculation. Here it seems to be extending its outdated logo-chart way out to yonder. The DWD writes:

The temperature increase will not only be limited to outdoors, but will also impact indoors. Climate scientists have determined that from May to September for the upper Rhine region, in an average year, 15% of the average nighttime indoor temperatures are over 25°C. By the middle of this century, that figure will rise to 35%.”

The increasingly alarmist DWD also writes that life for people with allergies could get a lot more miserable.

People with allergies are going to suffer from pollen a lot more. [...] Becker: ‘The bad news for people who have allergies is: They are going to have to struggle with other types of pollen and are going to have to live with longer pollen seasons.’ Just these few mentioned aspects show, according to DWD estimates,  what explosiveness as a whole the expected changes could have for the people in our country.”

This is ludicrous speculation based extrapolating the outdated curve that it uses as its logo. It’s hard to think of any orgnaization that has deteoriated so much in the klast few years.

It was once one of the world’s most renown and respected weather institutes. But in the recent years, during a time of cooling German temperatures no less, it has meandered off deep into the realms of the unserious, and is rapidly approaching the preposterous and absurd.

It’s not the climate that is radically changing – but rather it’s the institutions that monitor it.

 

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DWD German Weather Service Misleads Public By Using Prominent, Deceptive Logo At Its Website!

By P Gosselin on 8. Mai 2013

Obviously the German Weather Service (DWD) just couldn’t be bothered to update the chart it prominently features as part of its website logo. Perhaps it’s because an updated version would completely spoil the desired message of “uninterrupted warming“.

DWD logo

Figure 1: Part of the DWD internet logo totally misleads the public. Source of graphic: DWD

The chart-part of the DWD logo is definitely misleading, and likely controversial legally. Notice how the curve starts to fade already in 2005 (compare to Figure 2 below) and ends in the warm year of 2007, conveniently leaving out the colder years that follow, which would almost totally spoil the impression of warming.

Worse, only the section from about 1975 [correction: 1955] to 2006 is shown – the only section that shows real warming from the entire 120-year long chart. The rest is ignored!

No wonder Harald Martensen was fooled and bought a house at the Baltic Sea, thinking it would become the new Mediterranean.

Apparently the DWD allowed former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to have a peek at the up-to-date chart. Schröder went ahead and purchased a home down south in sunny, warm Turkey, which is supposed to burn up because of global warming.

I happen to have the up-to-date Germany temperature data for the readers.

Temperature Germany 120 years with UHI correction_Kowatsch

Germany’s annual mean temperature chart (Use the light blue curve, which is uncorrected for the urban heat island effect). Oh look! Now the temperature is cooling. Source: EIKE/.

I’m not a lawyer, but I think there’s an excellent chance to legally force the DWD to take down this old, very deceptive logo. False advertising. More importantly, the DWD ought to update it in order to maintain accuracy. The institute is supposed to help provide accurate forecasts based on real data, and not false ones based on speculation.

Over the last few years, lots of businesses planned for warm winters, and got burned by cold ones.

Here’s a chart showing the last 15 years, from EIKE/.

Temperature Germany since 1998

 Figure 3: Last 15 years in Germany have been cooling.

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Hans von Storch On WBGU: “Suffering From Planet-Rescue Fantasies” … Neil Cavuto On Gore: “He’s Nuts”

By P Gosselin on 7. Mai 2013

Von StorchToday I bring an assortment of short, unrelated stories.

1) Hans von Storch at Klimazwiebel comments of the WBGU.

Hans is known for his direct speech and speaking his mind. Yet, I found a comment he left at his blog even more direct than usual – about the German FDP party blocking the re-assignment of the WBGU, the advisory board of alarmist “experts” who are tasked to advise the German government of matters concerning the environment and climate.

For me the WBGU is essentially a club of alarmists that is suffering from planet-rescue fantasies and a chronic overstepping of competence. Actually it is a good thing that a political group is for once requesting a reining in.”

Unfortunately the latest news is that the FDP party has ended its resistance to the re-appointment of the WBGU members. So they will still be there, yet no one says they will have to be listened to.

2. Stefan Rahmstorf concedes natural factors (at least when it cools).

At the German RealClimate sister-blog klimalounge, bedwetter in-chief Stefan Rahmstorf boasts about the Klimalounge site getting a million hits since coming online 5 years ago (NTZ reached that mark after just a year, and WUWT gets three times that every month). Anyway, while boasting about that, Rahmstorf brings up the global temperature stagnation, telling readers not to worry, the climate catastrophe is coming. For those who question this:

The answer is still the same as in 2008: no, global warming is unfortunately not over and has not slowed down significantly, the deviations from a steady, continuous warming trend are part of the usual short-term fluctuations, which are caused by, among other things, El Niño, ocean circulation fluctuations and solar activity.”

(My emphasis) At least he finally admits natural factors, though only for the short-term. So you see how simple it is for them.  When it cools, it’s because of natural factors. But when it warms it’s all because of CO2. Not surprisingly, this is how they’ve rigged their models. And so you warmists can all go on wetting your beds without worry.

3. Joe Bastardi on climate science at his Saturday Summary of the 4th of May (see video, right side bar). The warmists he says are only making excuses when they start changing the terminology:

You folks have to understand that it’s been getting cold in a lot of places and that it hasn’t been reported on. And of course, the value, if you want to call it that, in this climate fight that is going on, the value is that it’s waking some people up in America. They’re saying, ‘Where in the heck did this come from?’ And again, I don’t think you can change the playing field from global warming to climate change. You know, you just change the terminology – you know you’re wrong about what is going on, and you’re giving us excuses. So that’s what I think. Get used to it because that’s what nature does.”

4. Neil Cavuto in a Fox News interview with Joe Bastardi on Al Gore’s latest unhinged performance in Hollywood, at the end of the clip:

He’s nuts, by the way. I just think he’s nuts. But that’s just me.”

You can include me.

Source of photo Hans von Storch: institute/coastalresearch/.en

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Experimental Guinea-Pig Germany: “…One Of The Greatest Experiments An Industrial Society Ever Performed”!

By P Gosselin on 6. Mai 2013

Ottmar Edenhofer can hardly contain his glee – like a mad scientist thinking this time it’ll really end with a huge, spectacular result! That’s what he thinks his data show.

Face it, what we have in Germany are a group of out-of-control, dangerous academics, a group of elitist, unelected scientists, totally drunk on towering arrogance, given license to perform an experiment on an entire nation, and itching to perform it on the rest of the world. H/t: a reader by e-mail.

Edenhofer

Prof. Ottmar Edenhofer wants to use Germany as an experimental economic guinea pig. (Photo: Marco Urban, PIK)

Just look at the PIK’s own words:

‘The energy transformation is one of the greatest experiments that an industrial society ever performed,’ Edenhofer said. ‘An experiment of this dimension needs to be supported by scientific policy advice.’ This should be organized as a social learning process, he pointed out. ‘Science is mapping possible pathways, but it is up to politics to decide which way to go,’ Edenhofer said.”

He calls it himself an “experiment”. They act like they can just gamble with an entire society. Do they think they’re in a casino! This is very close to madness. Read it all here.

The probloem with Edenhofer’s arrangement is that the citizenry is moved to the sidelines, stripped of having a say, and are expected to just accept whatever the scientists and leaders hand down. They no longer have the competence to decide it for themselves. Germany is entering a dictatorship by a scientific elite.

It doesn’t matter what data you present to them, or that other experts are already calling it “a capital destroyer of historical dimensions“, or that Germany’s entire solar manufacturing industry has already been wiped out despite 100 billion euros in subsidies. Oh no, just put the pedal to the metal – just drive right over the edge…don’t worry about the landing.

They are hell bent on pushing an entire nation over the precipice, once again, for the fourth time in the last 100 years.

The territory isn’t really uncharted; central planning has been tried many times before with the result being failure every single time. But the PIK, the WBGU, the drugged up on green leaders are convinced this time it’ll work – they made models that tell them so.

Maybe it’s time to cash in the chips and to move on to a saner place.

 

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Leading Economics Publisher Calls Germany’s Subsidized Solar Industry “A Capital Destroyer Of Historic Dimensions”!

By P Gosselin on 6. Mai 2013

The ever excellent Achse Des Guten (Axis of the Good) has what is probably one of the most stinging criticisms of the solar industry I’ve read to date (and I’ve read some awfully harsh ones up to now). The latest is authored by Dr. Wolfram Weimer, a leading German publisher of news and economics magazines.

Weimer

Wolfram Weimer calls Germany’s solar subsidies “a capital destroyer of historic dimensions”. Photo credit: Reto Klar, FOCUS, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

His latest piece is titled: Das sozialistische Solar-Desaster (The Socialist Solar Disaster). German solar energy and the EEG renewable feed-in act, once hailed as examples for the rest of the world to follow, are described by Weimer as a sure road to economic ruin.

Any country or state leader considering following the path of Germany may want to contact Weimer first. It may save you billions.

Over the past two years, dozens of German solar manufacturers have been shuttered, among them big ones like Solon, Q-Cells, Solar Millenium and Conergy. Recently electrical engineering giant Bosch announced that its solar operations had lost 1 billion euros, read here.

Recently German solar leader Solarworld reported it was on the brink of insolvency, drowning in billions of red ink, and that its high-flying CEO Frank Asbeck was begging the country of Qatar for a bailout.

The overall result under the bottom line for the German solar industry, despite all the massive subsidies, is devatstation. Weimar writes (my emphasis):

More than 100 billion euros in solar power subsidies have been wasted, and not a single target of the transition to solar energy has been reached. [...}

A chain reaction of insolvencies and bankruptcies litters the landscape, more than 30,000 jobs have been lost. [...] The German solar industry has in the meantime become a capital destroyer of historic dimensions. [...]

The existing solar socialism shows where this is all headed – to a world of bankruptcies, rising electricity rates and panhandling trips to Qatar.”

Weimer writes that subsidizing industries is the sure way to ruin them.

In many fields of machine building, Germany is the global leader. And it is precisely in the fields where billions in forced payments are mobilized does one become a loser.

The solar ruin did not happen despite the subsidies, but it was because of them that it turned into a disaster. It is the very combination of eco-ideology and central planning methods that assured the collapse.

The state robs the market of the possibility to develop cheaper and more competitive power generation. Instead green bureaucrats decide what share each different type of energy is to have. Like in the five-year plans of the Soviets, quotas, targets, and amounts are prescribed inside central ministries. This ecological central planning and its subsidy monopoly continuously erodes away the market price mechanisms.”

For readers who are interested in finding out more about the total  failures of subsidzed renewable energy, you’ll find dozens of posts I’ve written over the last couple of years in the right side bar under: Categories – Alternative Energies.

Meanwhile leaders from 35 nations are now meeting in Petersberger in Berlin in order to find ways to get the whole world to embark on the “road to ruin”.

 

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