by Judith Curry
A few things that caught my eye this past week
In the news
Tapio Schneider’s new paper: climate change does not cause extreme winters [link]
“coral reefs in Palau defying the odds, showing none of the predicted responses to low pH except for an increase…” [link] …
Scientists are coming up with ‘last ditch’ remedies for climate change: [link]
“Researchers turn to the ocean to help unravel the mysteries of cloud formation | [link]
The ocean carbon sink – impacts, vulnerabilities and challenges [link]
“How Atmospheric Rivers Form” [link] …
Temperature
Victor Venema: Comparing the United States COOP stations with the US Climate Reference Network [link]
Paul Homewood: GISS Guessing Arctic Temperatures “Introduces Substantial Errors” [link]
Huge Divergence Between Latest UAH & HadCRUT4 Temperature Datasets [link] …
Polar regions
New paper provides more evidence of the “bipolar seesaw” theory of climate [link]
Scientists finally have an explanation for why huge lakes atop Greenland are vanishing [link]
Greenland melt season kicks off slowly in 2015; the new abnormal [link] …
Susan Crockford new Arctic Fallacy paper- Sea ice stability and the polar bear [link] …
Some news out today on a New Record, latest onset to Greenland melt season [link]
“A check on runaway lake drainage” in Greenland [link] …
New paper finds no evidence of weakened N Atlantic Thermohaline Circulation (models predicted weakening) http://www.ocean-sci-discuss.net/12/1013/2015/
Last Call for Larsen B Ice Shelf [link]
Irreversible loss of world’s ice should spur leaders into action, say scientists | [link]
Climate models
New paper finds models over-simplify cloud structures, causing errors of radiative, dynamic, & hydrologic properties [link]
Isaac Held: “you can also err on the side of uncritical acceptance of model results…seduced by the beauty of the simulations” [link] …
Paleoclimate
New paper finds sea surface temperatures were warmer during Roman & Medieval Warm Periods [link] …
“A long-standing fact widely accepted among scientific community has been recently refuted, has major implications: formation of the Isthmus of Panama [link] …
New paper finds”Orbital control of late Miocene climate & North African Monsoon” but low CO2 sensitivity 280-400 ppm [link]
“removal of atm. CO2 by silicate weathering has been in approximate balance with CO2 degassing over past 600,000 yrs” [link] …
Climate change and health
CATO: Fatal Flaw in the USGCRP Climate and Health Assessment [link]
What’s the Biggest Killer in India: Heat, Cold or Rain? [link]
Math and Statistics
Role of statistics in the self-correcting nature of science. [link]
“The Difference Between ‘Significant’ and ‘Not Significant’ is not Itself Statistically Significant” [link] …
Does “mathiness” distort economic theory? [link]
Scientific misbehavior in economics [link] … “94% report having engaged in at least one unaccepted research practice”
Other new papers
In Australia, warmer temperatures cause more intense storms [link]
Stronger warming amplification over drier ecoregions observed since 1979 (open access) [link] …
New paper finds 20 yr decline of solar magnetic fields, predicts further weakening to 2020 & weaker next solar cycle [link]
Another new paper debunks the ‘dry gets drier, wet gets wetter’ meme [link]
Climate wars
The book Climate Change: The Facts is selling extremely well on amazon.com [link]
New book published: “A disgrace to the profession” biography & quotations on @MichaelEMann & his stick [link]
Mann vs Steyn: state of play [link]
Mark Steyn at Heartland: “Mann for breakfast” [link] …
“When climate change becomes personal: Attacks on skeptics do disservice to scientists & profession” [link]
Disney to lose $120-140 million on preachy, cli-fi/global warming movie “Tomorrowland” bomb [link] …
Merchants of Doubt: Secret donors gave US climate denial groups $125m over 3 years [link]
Stronger warming amplification over drier ecoregions observed since 1979:
“In general, the warming rate
increases dramatically with decreasing EVI, with the
strongest warming rate over the driest ecoregions.
When anthropogenic and natural forcings are
included, climate models are generally able to repro-
duce observed major features of the spatial depen-
dence. When only natural forcings are used, none of
the observed features are simulated. Furthermore, the
temperature changes simulated in NAT are mostly far
outside the range of those simulated in ALL and
observed. These results indicate stronger warming
amplification over drier ecoregions, pointing mainly
to human influence.”
These regions are most effected by the AMO signal, and are wetter with a cold AMO, and drier with a warm AMO. The trouble is that a warm AMO mode is associated with increased NAO/AO, which is the wrong sign to associate with increased forcing of the climate. The increased climate forcing of greenhouse gases should have increased positive NAO/OA and caused these regions to become wetter and not drier.
In realty GHG’s have had little impact on inhibiting the increase of negative NAO/AO since the mid 1990’s, exactly from when the solar wind strength declined.
a warm AMO mode is associated with increased *negative* NAO/AO…
@-The increased climate forcing of greenhouse gases should have increased positive NAO/OA and caused these regions to become wetter and not drier.
Why?
The ‘bias in the NAO seems to be related to the AMO which is now around its peak if you accept the ~60 year period, so the NAO would be retreading the pattern it followed in the 1950-60s.
All of these indices are generally defined on a detrended record so would by construction not show any trend effect.
“Why?”
Because positive NAO/AO is associated with both La Nina and a colder AMO, they increase precipitation in most continental interior drier regions.
Increased GHG forcing = increased positive NAO/AO:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-3-5-6.html
“The ‘bias in the NAO seems to be related to the AMO which is now around its peak if you accept the ~60 year period, so the NAO would be retreading the pattern it followed in the 1950-60s.”
The AMO was decidedly warmer 1925-65, that’s 40 years, and it has been decidedly warmer since 1995, that’s 20 years. The envelope is around ~69 years not 60, so it should cool again like 1965 in the mid 2030’s, and reach its coldest like the mid 1970’s in the mid 2040’s. In fact there is a way to predict that the solar wind wind conditions in the mid 2040’s will be strong and fast as they were through the mid 1970’s, and cause a stronger cooling of the AMO by increasing positive NAO episodes.
Every once in awhile I make a little graph just to remind myself of completely disconnected the AMO actually is from the trend direction of the GMST, and just how precisely aligned the PDO usually is. They’re meaningless by themselves, but they add up to the AMO doesn’t do much at all. Too small. The PDO is a big hairy monster with jets of steam shooting out of its earholes. It’s a bad butt.
Funny that there is such a strong AMO signal in the southern hemisphere too then…
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-amo/from:1900/detrend:-0.6/offset:-0.3/plot/hadsst3sh/from:1900
Funny how detrended temperatures of a fairly large regions of the earth often look like the temperature trends of an even larger section of the earth. Maybe it’s called a coincidence.
Pingback: Week in review – science edition | Enjeux énergies et environnement
From the Diverse coral communities persist, but bioerosion escalates in Palau’s low-pH waters
[…]
[…]
Since the removal of CaCO3 tends to acidify the ocean, a reduction of that removal would tend to counteract ocean acidification, providing a negative feedback.
They observed a number of changes, but the other universal, which they didn’t mention, is that adaptive and flexible ecosystems are present in every case of “more acid” ocean they studied, showing that the risks from ocean acidification don’t extend to massive die-offs, except for limited species, very temporarily.
The planet’s major ecosystems are highly adaptable, and the results of changes like ocean acidification will probably include cases of sudden, dramatic, change. Such changes (some of them) will be a risk to industries such as fisheries, that are based on specific features of ecosystems. But they are hardly existential, even to civilization, much less our species. In fact, I’d guess the risk from ocean acidification is lower than that from over-fishing.
yikes
You’ve got to be kidding me… oh how alarming.
Don
I think I ask him too many ill defined questions.
Tonyb
@-“Another new paper debunks the ‘dry gets drier, wet gets wetter’ meme [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL064127/abstract]”
‘Debunks’ might be overstating the case.
From the abstract-
“Here we show in a comprehensive CMIP5-based assessment that projected changes in mean annual P-E are generally not significant,… 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.”
The dry get drier, wet gets wetter meme is a LOCAL principle, both in space and time, CMIP5 models are not renowned for accurate regional predictions or replicating the seasonal changes with great accuracy. Global and decadal is where they do have some skill.
It is inevitable that combining 70% of the land surface will nullify the DDWW local and seasonal trends even if they are explicit in the model.
Or does this research indicate that ‘only’ 30% of the land will observe significant DDWW patterns?
70% essentially no change. 30% mixed DWWW, DDWW, DDWD, DDWW. The abstract highlights DDWD in subtropics.
“The Missing Link?”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/10/anthony-sadar-attacks-on-climate-change-skeptics-a/
The Missing link is something the writer you link too does not believe in.
His religious beliefs preclude accepting our common ancestry with other hominids.
Tonyb makes an excellent point. If only people would stop worrying about climate change, we could take care of this whole Isis situation.
Joshua, you are an eternal optimist.
Skeptics need to surrender in the climate wars so we can address the bigger issues.
Are you suggesting tonyb should give up on blog commenting and actually join the fight against ISIS? Interesting.
“Skeptics need to surrender”
I think Warmers need to surrender.
Andrew
Steven, you have become increasingly hostile towards tony, recently. What’s up with that?
It’s easy to become hostile to tonyb. He ‘s unfailingly reasonable, well-mannered, thoughtful, informative, honest and that makes him a fearsome opponent!
@Oldman ” that makes him a fearsome opponent”
Only if you are being a dick. Agreed that Tony is one of the rare contributors to Judith’s blog who actually does original research and who doesn’t seem to have misplaced his head somewhere that is not mentioned in polite company.
Oldman and Peter
Sorry, placed my comment in entirely the wrong place or it could be that the threading is busted. Will try again
‘Thank you for those kind comments.
Bearing in mind this is the 800th anniversary of Magna Charta I am trying to research the climate in England for that date and a decade or so before and after.
This will hopefully be an easier job than the larger task I have set myself of reconstructing the English climate from around 1086 to 1538 where it will then tie in with my research for ‘The Long Slow thaw’ which itself ties in with Instrumental CET from 1650
tonyb
Look forward to your post on that topic Tony. That’s over 800 years of data Tony and the trend seems to be a long slow thaw donnit? :)
As hoped for by Paris COP promoters, and by Californians looking for El Nino precipitation, the Blob in the North Pacific has intensified and may at least partly fulfill both expectations.
HADSST3 results for May are now in, and the sea surface temperature warming anomaly is up:
Global +0.12C over last May,
NH +0.16C over last May.
That will show up also in air temperature estimates, since 71% of the earth’s surface is covered by oceans. For example, UAH TLT anomalies show Global oceans +0.06C over last May, but Global land -0.1C, so Global UAH is only up +0.02C over May 2014. (Note: UAH uses satellites to measure air temperatures many meters above land or ocean, while surface datasets like HADCRUT, BEST, GISTEMP use the measured SSTs in their global mean temperature estimates).
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/06/13/how-about-that-blob-june-13-update/
@-“The West is facing an existential threat from a violent jihadist group and the rather more calculating Russian bear. Man made Climate change is a side show, if it is any sort of show at all. ”
The Syrian revolt was triggered by a persistent drought,(intensified by AGW) and the power of Russia is based on its fossil fuel resources.
Climate and politics are always connected, if only by food and fuel production.
izen – you are full of it. Your weak attempt to blame this on the weather is ridiculous. Here is a time line, from the article:
The Past
* In the spring of 2011, Syrians took to the streets. They were inspired by the protests in Tunisia and wanted to bring about economic and political change.
* The Syrian government responded to the demonstrations by arresting a group of children and teenagers for writing political graffiti. When efforts to have the children released were ignored, the protests spread. That is when President Bashar Assad, whose family has ruled the country for four decades, decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and use violence to quell the opposition. The regime ordered security forces to end the demonstrations, with violence if necessary, and hundreds of protesters were arrested, imprisoned and tortured.
* Assad suspended most constitutional protections, banned spontaneous rallies, restricted media freedom, permitted arbitrary detention and allowed the violent crackdown on protesters to continue. The U.S. and the EU responded by imposing or tightening sanctions for what they termed gross violations of human rights.
…
* Over the next year, skirmishes were fought all over the country. The clashes devolved into bloodbaths and prompted the start of a civil war. In Homs, known as the “Capital of the Revolution,” thousands gathered in the main square on April 17 for a peaceful sit-in demonstration. Assad sent in government security forces, which killed at least 62 people. Over the next two years, the streets of Homs became the epicenter for the battle between the Syrian Army and the opposition. Clashes occurred on almost a daily basis as authorities blocked access to food, fuel and medical care. Rebels fought back with car bombs and sniper fire, often killing civilians in the crossfire. Control of the city has switched hands many times; these pitched battles have forced thousands of residents to flee and reduced buildings to rubble.
* During this time, the opposition formed the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces. This group was intended to bring together members of different sects within the country that were opposed to Assad. The coalition’s mission statement notes: “Because of the deep crisis in Syria, our country, and the struggle our people are facing, all political opposition factions and have come together in unity with the goal of overthrowing the Assad regime, ending the suffering of the Syrian people, and to make the transition towards a free and democratic country. This coalition will comprise of leadership that will mobilize efforts to support and strengthen our people and represent the goals of this revolution in the best way possible.“ In December, dozens of countries recognized the coalition as the sole representative of the Syrian people.
* The coalition is supported by the Free Syrian Army, which is mostly comprised of former Syrian police officers and soldiers. The Free Syrian Army, which numbers between 50,000 and 100,000, also includes untrained citizens, who simply rose up against an oppressive regime. Without a central command structure, communication and coordination between its members remains difficult.
* The rebel army’s ranks have also been assisted by extremists from other countries in the region. These fierce and organized fighters joined the rebels to stop Assad because they have a religious opposition to his Alawite regime and to gain a foothold in the region. Experts say the al-Nusra Front, an offshoot of the group al Qaeda in Iraq, is among the most effective forces in Syria. But to date, the intelligence community has been unable to agree on how many militant forces are working in the country. This lack of clarity makes the idea of giving arms and training to the rebels an unappealing one.
* In March 2012, former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan went to Syria to seek a cease-fire and to get Assad to release the detained protesters. His mission was initially thwarted by the Syrian government, but then Assad said he would end the violence and allow humanitarian groups access to the people. Alas, the violence continued.
* In August 2012, Lakhdar Brahimi was appointed by the United Nations as the new peace envoy to Syria. After meeting with Assad and other officials, a cease-fire was announced in October, just in time for Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, the feast of the sacrifice which marks the end of the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. The cease-fire quickly collapsed, however, as both sides resumed fighting.
syria refugee The Al Zaatary camp for Syrian refugees is seen on Aug. 6, 2012, near the border with Syria. (Photo by Jordan Pix/ Getty Images)
* In July 2012, the head of the Syrian Foreign Ministry threatened to use chemical and biological weapons against what he described as “outside forces.” This threat was one of the many reasons Annan decided to walk away from the peace mission. The threat also inspired many officials in the Syrian regime to defect. President Barack Obama issued his “red line” mandate, saying the use of chemical weapons would cause him to “change my calculus.”
* By spring 2013, reports of chemical weapon attacks started trickling out of Syria. Doctors Without Borders, a medical charity, confirmed that more than 3,000 patients had been treated for exposure to chemical attacks. More than 300 of the victims died.
* On Aug. 21, 2013, an alleged chemical attack killed hundreds of people in the eastern Damascus suburbs. In response, the U.N. called for weapons inspectors to investigate. The team’s efforts were briefly delayed by snipers, but it is unknown who was doing the shooting. However, while the inspectors were still trying to reach the affected towns, Syrian military planes bombed the area. The bombing, to some, made it clear that the regime was responsible for the attack and simply trying to hide evidence.
…
* More than 100,000 Syrians have been slaughtered since the start of the conflict.
* More than 2 million Syrians have been forced to flee the country.
* Another 5 million have become internally displaced.
* Almost half of the refugees are girls and women — who face terrifying conditions at home and inside refugee camps — while another quarter are boys under the age of 18.
* Most Syrian children have been unable to attend school for two years.
* Numerous cultural and historical artifacts have been looted and sold on the black market.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/03/syria-conflict-events_n_3863285.html
And then, izen, if you look at the wider history, your deception becomes crystal clear:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14703995
Here’s a bit missing from your timeline:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/10/drought-helped-caused-syrias-war-will-climate-change-bring-more-like-it/
But Tunisia, of course.
Assad ought to have paid smugglers to turn farmers and herders back to their cotton-free fields.
Willard
You seem to have missed out the link from your own reference showing the high frequency of drought
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/09/09/drought-and-syria-manmade-climate-change-or-just-climate/
whilst the other factors you mention are also important, perhaps the key one is that population has soared from 4.5 million in 1960 to around 23 million today.
http://countrymeters.info/en/Syria
A region with barely enough water at times for 4 million is going to struggle with 23 million I am sure you will agree.
tonyb
From Williard’s link:
BP: To be clear here, you’re not saying drought caused the conflict. But these environmental stresses were an overlooked factor in creating unrest?
FF: The conflict is ongoing, so it’s hard right now to study the dynamics in Syria and look at exactly how population movements might have put pressure on the economic and social dynamics in various areas. So we’re not making any claim to causality here. We can’t say climate change caused the civil war. But we can say that there were some very harsh climatic conditions that led to instability.
The weather is so much the least of problems with Syria. Assad was purposely starving the opposition. And it had zero to do with the drought. Did farmers lead the revolt? No. Alarmists are simply latching on to a weather event in the continual effort to sow lies about “climate change.”
http://rt.com/news/syria-camp-starve-palestinians-513/
TonyB,
What you seem to miss is that your “key” figure does not contradict the fact that there was a drought which led to population movements in Syria and that your “with barely enough water at times for 4 million” is unsubstantiated.
The French Revolution has been preceded by a really harsh winter and a severe drought, which led to a financial crisis.
The bottom line is that in a multi-factorial analysis, there is no key figure.
> The weather is so much the least of problems with Syria.
Nobody cares about weather. It’s water that matters. To try to portray the water problem as the least of the Syrian’s concerns may not be “obviously, intuitively correct,” to borrow Sir Rud’s marvelous expression.
Creating a well-ordered list of its problems (echoing the Lomborg gambit along the way) may be the least of problems for Syria.
Willard
The article was trying to link drought to human caused climate change. I was merely pointing out there have been plenty of droughts without mans help (or otherwise)
An increase from 4 to 23 million is surely going to exacerbate lack of rain isn’t it?
tonyb
The Syrian civil war now running is the most recent chapter in a long story. Perhaps the drought is a contributing factor, but I’ve not see data on this, Gleick’s July 2014 article in Weather, Climate, & Society might give this, but it is gated:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/WCAS-D-13-00059.1
But there are so many other causes: increased population, a population fractured by ethnic and religious differences, a nation between conflict zones, etc.
For a good brief on Syria see this by Martin van Creveld, one of our generation’s top historians:
http://www.martin-van-creveld.com/?p=318
Jim, Tony, I think you are overly dismissive of the weather being a major factor in the breakdown in Syria. But, Willard, the implication that human caused greenhouse gas warming made it worse is beyond ridiculous.
Water management and population growth are far more important and the greenhouse warming is likely to have made drought less bad than it would have been.
Editor
The five fold increase in population in Syria since 1960 is mirrored in the increase in Ethiopia’s population since Live Aid 30 years ago -from 20 million to getting on for 100 million.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4DSGL_enGB415GB416&q=ethiopia+population+1984
These massive increases are likely to continue to give rise to poverty/hardship and hunger and we see the results in the never ending pipeline of economic and other refugees stretching to our own shores.
Will development reduce the rise in population? Richer healthier families tend to have less children. Can that best be achieved through the certainties of fossil fuel or through less reliable renewables?
tonyb
TonyB,
You say:
> I was merely pointing out there have been plenty of droughts without mans help (or otherwise).
Since nobody’s claiming that only AGW can increase droughts, you seem to be unaware that your argument is a red herring.
***
You also say:
> An increase from 4 to 23 million is surely going to exacerbate lack of rain isn’t it?
That depends how far you’re willing to push that neo-Malthusean peanut. You seem to be oblivious to the fact that you’re pushing a neo-Malthusean peanut, like many parts of right-wing populism narratives, incidentally.
> the implication that human caused greenhouse gas warming made it worse is beyond ridiculous.
Your incredulity is acknowledged, Aaron. That implication is not mine. Nor is it the author’s I quoted and cited.
Read back and report.
izen, your government must luv you! The middle east is ripped apart by politics, war and western interference and you blame it all on the weather. Nice job !
tony,
“Will development reduce the rise in population?”
I think we can be more optimistic. Development produces a by-now predictable population boom — followed by a collapse in fertility. The resulting population “busts” will shape the 21st century world, as the population rise shaped the 20thC.
I don’t have data on Syria, but its trend is probably roughly similar to Iran’s — which was flat until ~1980, then dropping 7.0 to 1.9 in 2006. So the forces which will reduce its population are already in motion.
Something tells me izen is the proud owner of multiple Rolex watches. Watches he acquired at a great price. The reason he has so many is they all have this annoying problem of stopping after a week or so.
One for the list:
Suitable Days for Plant Growth Disappear under Projected Climate Change: Potential Human and Biotic Vulnerability
http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002167
Joshua,
The problem I have reading studies like this is that it makes my head ache and my stomach turn.
They just proved that life was better during the little ice age than it was during the Medieval warm period because a warmer earth is worse place to be.
PCT –
==> “They just proved that life was better during the little ice age…”
Huh?
Ed Hawkins has done a brief take down of the methodology in this paper
http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2015/how-not-to-use-daily-cmip5-data-for-impact-studies/
If your ‘science’ tells you that the heat and high CO2 of the Carboniferous Period would reduce plant growth, you may want to reexamine some of your assumptions.
Abbott may have the solution. From the Australian’s front page:
http://m.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/were-asylum-seeker-boats-paid-to-turn-back/story-fn9hm1gu-1227396094420
Tapio Schneider’s new paper: climate change does not cause extreme winters
Clearly this is wrong. Warmer Polar Oceans will cause more moisture for rain and, more importantly, snow.
You don’t get lake effect snow from a frozen lake, you get it from water that is warmer and not frozen.
You don’t get ocean effect snow from a frozen ocean, you get it from water that is warmer and not frozen.
If they had referred to real data, instead of their flawed theory and models, they would have discovered that the most snowfall occurs after the warmest September.
Scientists are coming up with ‘last ditch’ remedies for climate change:
They do not understand natural variability. They better not try to fix some cycle they do not understand. No good can come from that.
Some global warming climate scientists don’t seem to understand natural variability. They are so clueless that I would prefer to believe they are dishonest, the alternative is to posit that they are totally dysfunctional.
Doesn’t matter though. The “first ditch” efforts to head off climate change have been enormously successful and at this point CAGW appears to be impossible.
Why the global warmers aren’t down at the bar toasting their success and are instead still badgering us to waste hundreds of trillions on a solved/non problem just mystifies me.
Researchers turn to the ocean to help unravel the mysteries of cloud formation
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Greenland melt season kicks off slowly in 2015; the new abnormal
This is not abnormal for Greenland. It has most likely worked this way many times over the past ten thousand years.
The difference, this time, is that we can record what is happening.
what a way to spin the data!
The presence of American troops would be a major recruiting tool for Isis. This is exactly what they want. Besides, which of the multiple sides would they join? Does training work? Should they join with Iran or Syria to defeat Isis? Are there any Sunni Iraqis who care about Iraq as a country when it is clearly a Shiite-dominated and Iran-allied government in Baghdad? Do other Sunni states in the region want to fight Isis or fund them? It is a mess, and best stayed out of. Iraq didn’t want American troops there before, and still don’t.
What’s that they say about people who fail to learn from history?
Tony’s alarmism and fear-mongering about the “existential” threat to the West from Isis seems to be linked to not realizing that times have changed since English could just imprint it’s will on countries in the Middle East.
If you blow militant Muslims to kingdom come wherever they are found, recruitment won’t even be possible.
What did you learn from Bush’s mistakes?
Bush didn’t destroy enough of the militant Muslims.
@-jim2
“If you blow militant Muslims to kingdom come wherever they are found, recruitment won’t even be possible.”
The efficacy of this solution is evidenced by the absence of militant Zeusians and fanatical Odinites. (^_*)
izen – Japan and Germany. QED.
The only way to defeat ISIS, Al Quida, and militant Islam in general is to show and educate muslims that this is a big lie and it disgracefully misrepresents both Mohamad and the Koran. This will take a propoganda program much larger, more effective, and actually truthful (by comparison) than the current climate science money hole. Militant climatism and ISIS have a lot in common.
The Arab spring, and subsequent winter of discontent, has Oil to lubricate its way. Similar conflicts driving boats to Australia are also part of the food and fuel wars.
ordvic – Radical, fundamentalist Muslims will never trust anything the West says.
Ordic
Some say that Isis accurately represents a significant strand of Islamic thinking, others claim that, whilst Islamic, its main interest is in power and politics
http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2015/03/mehdi-hasan-how-islamic-islamic-state
tonyb
There are already American planes bombing the ISIS chaps, yimmy. Before that, the simple fact that America existed and supported Israel and had been engaged in several wars in Muslim countries was more than sufficient for their recruiting purposes. They don’t only hate America, yimmy. They are committing genocide against any who don’t bow down to their vicious brand of lunacy. We should just stand by, yimmy?
I haven’t seen any indication that more than a very small minority of Syrians or Iraqis want to live in an ISIS terror caliphate. ISIS is winning with a relatively small number of fanatical and vicious fighters who have caused much larger better equipped formations to turn tail and run at their approach. The Genghis Khan strategy and tactics. What the Iraqi army needs is a backbone and effective close air support. Twenty thousand U.S. combat troops and airstrikes that don’t have to wait for Valery Jarrett to wake up from her nap to give approval. I know guys who fought in Iraq who would get up out of their wheelchairs and do it again. They don’t like to lose, yimmy.
Don
IMHO, ISIS is winning because their opposition is weak and terrified.
Richard
> Japan and Germany.
Don’t forget Italy, which is 400 miles from Lybia.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
New paper finds sea surface temperatures were warmer during Roman & Medieval Warm Periods
This for Mark Steyn.
Oops, one more nail in the hockey stick coffin.
And because these warmer-than-present periods occurred when the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration was only about 70% of what it is today, it is likely that the atmosphere’s CO2 content has had little to do with the development of the recent warmth of the modern era.
We are warm like we were warm before for the same reasons we were warm before and not for the new manmade CO2
WTI remains around $60. Getting really boring here.
In Australia, warmer temperatures cause more intense storms
I did not know that there were any weather or climate people who did not know that.
“Storms that occur on warmer days produce more intense bursts of rain than downpours on cooler days, Australian researchers have found.”
Well, duh. Do these people ever step outside or at least open a window?
It’s like Hilary hiring a team of private investigators with super-computers to find out if Bill has been unfaithful.
Scientists finally have an explanation for why huge lakes atop Greenland are vanishing [link]
Greenland ice cores go back into the last major ice age. For ten thousand years, ice on Greenland has been cracking and moving and rebuilding like this, but this time, we are watching.
We are not watching something new that just started happening, we are learning about what has been going on for ten thousand years.
The What’s Uninteresting With That graph is a version of several I’ve put up here.
From 1999 to 2011 there is a relative balance between La Nina events and El Nino events, so the satellites stumbled like a drunk into the right restroom. That does not mean they knew where they were going.
After 2010 there is a distinct imbalance between La Nina events and El Nino events, and the satellites are clueless on the land temperature.
They’re useless.
Irreversible loss of world’s ice should spur leaders into action, say scientists | [link]
Look at actual data. http://popesclimatetheory.com/page38.html
The warm oceans and open Arctic and open around the Antarctic, are the times during which the snow falls that rebuilds ice on earth.
Moisture comes from warm and thawed oceans to provide the ice. This is a natural and necessary part of a natural cycle.
About 2000 years ago, there was a Roman Warm Period and then it got cold. About 1000 years ago, there was a Medieval Warm Period and then it got cold. That was called the Little Ice Age. It is warm now because it is supposed to be warm now. It is a natural cycle and we did not cause it.
CO2 just makes green things grow better, while using less water.
You put ice on earth when oceans are warm and wet.
You remove ice from earth when oceans are cold and frozen.
You don’t get lake effect snow from a frozen lake.
You don’t get ocean effect snow from a frozen ocean
The sun removes ice from earth every year.
When oceans are thawed it snows enough to more than replace what melted.
When oceans are frozen it does not snow enough to replace what melted.
Got to love The Guardian’s reporting skills! They say “Secretive donors gave US climate denial groups $125m over three years” when the story reports that secretive conservative donors give money to conservative groups, some of who give some of their money to climate skeptics (a few of whom are “denial groups”).
The headline of “conservative donors give to conservative groups” was more accurate but not useful. The wonders produced by a newspaper funded by an endowment!
Conservatives give money to skeptic groups, real skeptics, not the so called, “skeptics” who are consensus on climate.
The governments, on the other hand, gives orders of magnitude more money to the consensus alarmist groups, our money, and I do want that to stop. Congress is working on this.
I like the juxtaposition with the $130m single disney movie.
Compared to Algore’s 300 million political fund, the enormous budgets of alarmist groups, and the hundreds of billions spent by governments, this would be chump change even if all of it was for climate work.
Stanton,
Good point. And I doubt it is the largest area of expenditure for any of these groups.
There is a huge logical flaw in Renne’s blog post on Coop/USCRN stations. All CRNmare by definition pristine rural sites. The comparison was to COOP starions within 500 meters. Those may not be pristine, but they are for sure rural. So the comparison says nothing about all nonpristine, non rural COOP stations with major problems identified by surfacestations.org. The conclusion comes from the flawed comparison. Moreover, it did not include the COOP stations after homogenization. If they are ‘OK’ compared to CRN, then they should not be homogenized. Yet they are.
be careful……You should know that some CRN sites are located in areas where there is population and where there are impervious surfaces nearby which would classify them as “urban” under some categorization schemes.
Steven, from Venema’s Renne guest post on the paper:
“In 2000 the United States started building a measurement network to monitor climate change, the so called United States Climate Reference Network (USCRN). These automatic stations have been installed in excellent locations and are expected not to show influences of changes in the direct surroundings for decades to come.”
“To ensure observational differences are the result of network discrepancies, comparisons were only evaluated for station pairs located within 500 meters. The twelve station pairs chosen were reasonably dispersed across the lower 48 states of the US.”
Please scrutinize the paper’s 12 station pairs enumerated in the post figure 2, and point out any non-rural locations in this study. To help you get started:
1. Holly Springs MS. (North MS R&E Center)
2. Kingston 1NW, RI (URI, Plains Road site next to 30 Acre pond. Visual and CRN comparison stations discussion at wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/06/can-adjustments-right-a-wrong/ About as rural as you can get in RI.)
3. Harrison, NE (Agate Fossil Beds National Monument)
4. John Day, Or (John Day Fossil Beds National Monument)
5. Gaylord, Mi (North central Michigan Elk Preserve in a rural recreational area)
6. Murphy, Id (USDA ARS NW Watershed Research Center, Reynolds Creek site)
7. Crossville, TN (U. Tenn Plateau Research Center)
8. Stillwater, Ok (OKU Ag Research Center)
9. Los Cruces, NM (USDA ARS Experimental Range)
10. Dinosaur, CO (Dinosaur National Monument)
11. Arco, ID (Crater of the Moons National Monument)
12. Muleshoe, Tx (Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge)
“When climate change becomes personal: Attacks on skeptics do disservice to scientists & profession” — link doesn’t work.
Held’s comment was hopeful. His linked blog post the opposite. Focused on wind, rather than more important model feedback failures in clouds and wind. And then when proded by comments, admitted his examples were artificial since did not also model SST–uncoupled atmosphere only. Misrepresentation by deliberate omission.
Climate feedbacks are important to sensitivity, which you have said is ‘the only question’. Wind is not a feedback. And ‘wind’ in an uncoupled AMIP model is not wind as the planet would experience it from thermal and pressure gradients involving the ocean. Clouds and precipitation (affecting humidity) are feedbacks. Held’s blog claimed all was right in the GCM world using only uncoupled atmospheric wind simulations, when it manifestly isn’t. You know, the pause and all that. Other commenters called him on his assertion, and he fessed up on his blog–add oceans, more uncertainty (paraphrase, since won’t waste time reading again). All I did was point this out. Must have been a more important comment than this ‘poser’ realized, since you are factually defensive and verbally offensive in response.
BTW, enjoy my reply to your ‘be careful’ comment on Venema/Renne CRN just posted above. Looking forward to your further scrutiny of the 12 stations used in that paper.
Held makes an important point. Given a good ocean temperature, the atmospheric model is not missing fundamental processes that prevent it from simulating the general circulation. This goes for cloud effects, radiation, surface fluxes, jet streams, tropical circulations, etc., that are all well enough represented to get an excellent match with the observed general circulation. It removes a lot of the uncertainties that people ascribe to the models so that the focus can be where it should be, on uncertainties in the ocean response and feedback, along with the effects of aerosols and other forcing changes that result in climate change. Even with climate change, the forcing is an incremental 1-2%, so these basics of circulation remain essentially the same and we are only looking at percentage perturbations relative to it in what we would call a large climate change of several degrees.
That the models contain reasonable seasonal statistics is not the same as having decadal or centennial scale predictive skill.
Indeed, even predicting one third of a century has proved difficult:
http://climatewatcher.webs.com/SatelliteEraModel.gif
http://climatewatcher.webs.com/SatelliteEraMap.gif
And natural variability increases out to the century and multi century scale, making predictions dubious.
The models have a surface temperature trend of 0.2 C per decade since 1980, and the actual one was 0.17 C per decade. Quite good, and within the uncertainties in the forcing change.
Third of a century cooling trends in the Pacific and Southern Ocean are because the models cannot predict dynamics and that gets worse not better out to a century and beyond.
TE, aren’t you confusing decadal natural internal variability with climate forcing induced trends? The Pacific may go from cool to warm modes and back again several times per century while the forcing just keeps increasing making it dominant on longer terms.
The IPCC link ( and other studies ) indicate internal variance increases from annual to multi centennial scale. Especially since ghg forcing rates have decelerated, attribution will be less and less certain.
Susan Crockford’s piece is a real indictment of Sterling, Derocher, and the rest of the mainstream ‘AGW threatens polar bears’ crowd. She is obviously, intuitively correct. But she shows the summer ice gang know this also and supress the knowledge in their more dire papers
Thanks Rud.
I’ve blogged about the evidence, collected by polar bear biologists themselves, that local changes in spring conditions (thick sea ice; deep snow/shallow snow) impact polar bears far more negatively than the summer sea ice declines that biologists and their models now focus on, but it all needed to be in one place.
The public is catching on. By and large, they are no longer impressed. Except those who choose to feel rather than think.
“The winner must be able to remove 1 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere annually for 10 years and be economically viable, among other criteria. Branson hasn’t said when the prize will be awarded, if ever.”
I admire Branson. He saves emissions by selling trips to space nobody has taken and offers emissions-reduction rewards which will never have to be paid.
Meanwhile, he runs a global airline!
A merry, pleasant, enterprising wag who relies on the airheads of HuffPo, WaPo, the Guardian etc to give him the kind of press other fossil fuel gobblers can only dream about.
Who can blame him? The green flow is a bloody torrent these days. Everyone is a fossil fuel gobbler – you think those whirlygigs and solar panels just make themselves? – so why make it hard for yourself when you have goods and services to sell and employees to pay? Any surprise that Coke and Pepsi have elaborate web pages devoted to planet-hugging?
I don’t think scientists and servants of the public can use the same excuse.
Its the Jesuit style of Capitalism.
Embracing the heathen and his culture while keeping your eye firmly on the bottom line, saving souls.
Hug a Green make a profit.
“A long-standing fact widely accepted among scientific community has been recently refuted, has major implications: formation of the Isthmus of Panama [link]
plants and animals had been migrating between the continents nearly 30 million years earlier.
Look at the data. Clearly, something major changed about 30 million years ago and something else major changed about 15 million years ago.
http://popesclimatetheory.com/page81.html
The rate of change of the temperature does not tell us what happened, but it tells us that something did.
From 50 million years ago, until the cold major ice ages, during the most recent million years, more and more water was being removed from the oceans and placed on land as ice. It could be, and likely was, that the lowering of the oceans did uncover the Isthmus of Panama, or at least, was part of the cause.
Isaac Held: “you can also err on the side of uncritical acceptance of model results…seduced by the beauty of the simulations” [link] …
Henry Pohl, a NASA manager, often said, they start believing the output from their computers and they stop thinking. He still says that.
Paris is gearing up with a so-called scientific conference on climate change, next month, apparently from UNESCO:
http://www.commonfuture-paris2015.org/.
My wife and I attended the “Tenth International Conference on Climate Change” in Washington, DC
I did read a little Climate Etc while there but not enough. I caught up some this morning.
Dr Curry, how do you come up with so much when you are gone and so busy?
I recommend that all you go to the Heartland Website and watch the speakers. Everything was recorded and is online. You will recognize a lot of names.
I have only attended two of their ten conferences, this was really great.
https://www.heartland.org/
http://climateconference.heartland.org/
Dr Judith Curry was quoted and referenced many times by multiple speakers.
Only a fraction of the money given to groups skeptical of climate change is spent on climate change. These groups have many other interests.
Could you list some of those other interests?
AGW activist groups also often have other interests, a comparison of those associated issues might be revealing.
It depends on the group of course, but libertarians like Cato and CEI are concerned about government expansion in general, and the environmental juggernaut in particular. AGW activist groups like NRDC, Sierra Club and EDF are part of the juggernaut, so broader than just climate. UCS is broader than the green groups, while 360 is focused on climate. Does this help? There are hundreds of activist groups involved in the climate debate, on both sides, probably thousands. It is an historic debate.
Heartland Institute’s web site shows interest in fracking, endangered species, electric cars, school choice, welfare reform, industrial silica sand, patent reform, the EPA, etc.
Franklin Center is primarily interested in news reporting. Their site says, “Franklin Center identifies, trains, and supports journalists working to detect and expose corruption and incompetence in government at the state and local levels.”
izen,
are you lazy or simply incompetent? It took me less than 5 minutes to Google the organization at the top of the donations list (Franklin Center), which I had never heard of before. Their primary interest is political reporting from a conservative viewpoint. They don’t even have a position on climate change.
Organizations I have heard of Cato & Heartland, do cover climate change, but it is only a small fraction of their interest.
In other words, the Guardian article was an excellent example of shoddy journalism. But then, considering the lead author, it is to be expected, as she is a cheerleader for gang Green.
This is something I came across yesterday I thought was really interesting.
It’s from U Mcgill (montreal) research publication, so maybe not exactly peer-review but it is from Dr Huang’s research group, who seems to have a solid reputation.
http://msurj.mcgill.ca/vol10/iss1/Blanchette2015.pdf
They have studied the spectrum of OLR during the hiatus. It seems to be showing that by studying the spectrum they are able to show that while in the CO2 part of the spectrum there is increased blocking of OLR ( as you might expect with continuing increase in CO2 in the atmosphere). If you look at the H2O part there seems to be a decline and suggests its most likely due to a reduction in tropospheric humidity. So for the decade they’ve studied it would suggest that the hiatus has been caused, in part, by a weaker water vapour feedback.
An on going energy imbalance with the extra energy going into an unmeasured part of the system ( such as the oceans) might be an over-simplification of the hiatus.
Enjoy!
Thanks.
Human
Why has this study only now been done? Isn’t it a study that should have long ago been done? in pursuit of a basic question?
Richard
CATO: Fatal Flaw in the USGCRP Climate and Health Assessment [link]
“Figure 1. Life expectancy at birth, United States, 1900-2013 (data source: Centers for Disease Control, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr64_02.pdf).”
The CATO link provides what I believe is the most relevant link: Center For Disease Control and Prevention Life Expectancy from 1900 to 2013. With my discerning eye I can spot dips in US life expectancy beginning with: US participation in World War I along with the 1920 Flu Pandemic, the 1930’s Depression; World War II; the Korean Conflict; the Viet Nam Conflict commingled with HIV/AIDS; and maybe a dip in life expectancy with the onset of Middle Eastern & Afghanistan military conflicts.
It seems to me that the greatest impact upon the health and well-being to the American public in the late 20th Century is war. Each time a war begins, US life expectancy data shows a decline. When the fighting stops, the life expectancy trajectory resumes its course upward.
As we have not, at least to my perception, had a shooting climate war here in the USA, I am going to make a prediction: US life expectancy will continue an upward trend, albeit diminishing for biological reason, until the shooting starts of course.
More US servicemen were killed by the Spanish flu than from combat deaths – around 54,000 KIA/MIA presumed dead. Civilian deaths from that flu are estimated from 700,000 to 900,000.
What time frame are you talking about for 54,000 KIA/MIA?
The Spanish flu epidemic is usually described as happening in 1918,1919, and 1920. My Grandfather died of it in January 1919. His wife and unborn son, my father, survived it. The 700,000 to 900,000 is estimated US deaths. It would probably include US servicemen, many of whom died stateside.
So WWI casualties. Unclear to me you were linking only to that period vs Spanish Flu. Previous comment by Riho08 was broader.
Held :
“I am claiming that the comparison to reanalyses is a good measure of the quality of our simulations for these kinds of fields. (You need to distinguish estimates of the mean climate described here from estimates of trends, which are much harder.) If you accept this then I think you will agree that the quality seen in the free-running model (with prescribed SSTs) is impressive (which does not mean that some biases are not significant, for regional climates especially). This quality is worth keeping in mind when reading a claim that atmospheric models as currently formulated are missing some fundamentally important mechanism or that the numerical algorithms being used are woefully inadequate.
I would also claim that these turbulent midlatitude eddies are in fact easier to simulate than the turbulence in a pipe or wind tunnel in a laboratory. This claim is based on the fact the atmospheric flow on these scales is quasi-two-dimensional. The flow is not actually 2D — the horizontal flow in the upper troposphere is very different from the flow in the lower troposphere for example — but unlike familiar 3D turbulence that cascades energy very rapidly from large to small scales, the atmosphere shares the feature of turbulence in 2D flows in which the energy at large horizontal scales stays on large scales, the natural movement in fact being to even larger scales. In the atmosphere, energy is removed from these large scales where the flow rubs against the surface, transferring energy to the 3D turbulence in the planetary boundary layer and then to scales at which viscous dissipation acts. Because there is a large separation in scale between the large-scale eddies and the little eddies in the boundary layer, this loss of energy can be modeled reasonably well with guidance from detailed observations of boundary layer turbulence. While both numerical weather prediction and climate simulations are difficult, if not for this key distinction in the way that energy moves between scales in 2D and 3D they would be far more difficult if not totally impractical.
I have been focusing on some things that our atmospheric models are good at. It is often a challenge to decide the relative importance, for any aspect of climate change, of the parts of the model that are fully convincing and those that are works in progress, such as the global cloud field or specific regional details (you might or might not care that a global model produces a climate in central England more appropriate for Scotland). You can err on the side of inappropriately dismissing model results; this is often the result of being unaware of what these models are and of what they do simulate with considerable skill and of our understanding of where the weak points are. But you can also err on the side of uncritical acceptance of model results; this can result from being seduced by the beauty of the simulations and possibly by a prior research path that was built on utilizing model strengths and avoiding their weaknesses (speaking of myself here). The animation in post#2 is produced by precisely the model that I have used for all of the figures in this post. I find this animation inspiring. That we can generate such beautiful and accurate simulations from a few basic equations is still startling to me. I have to keep reminding myself that there are important limitations to what these models can do.”
climate models do a reasonably good job of simulating the large-scale fluid flow in the atmosphere and ocean, provided that the horizontal resolution is reasonable. What they do poorly is the fast thermodynamic feedback processes (clouds, water vapor, lapse rate), which is the name of the game when it comes to climate sensitivity. And of course they don’t get regional climates right.
So if you come up with a policy relevant issue that doesn’t require the correct feedback or regional climate, but merely a realistic sense of large scale fluid flow, please let me know.
Judith
Its regional climates that we all live in. Climate scientists trying to create meaningless global averages seem to forget that.
tonyb
Twenty years ago Mike MacCracken told me that the climate models do a “reasonably good job.” As a logician I still do not know what this means, but modelers say it all the time. For example, I doubt we have much understanding of the large scale fluid flow(s) in the oceans. As for the atmosphere , I do not know what large scale flow means. Highs, lows, fronts, or what? Both the atmosphere and the oceans are basically thin films so every flow is regional.
“So if you come up with a policy relevant issue that doesn’t require the correct feedback or regional climate, but merely a realistic sense of large scale fluid flow, please let me know.”
Simple: total limit on carbon emissions.
nope, this depends critically on climate sensitivity, which is dominated by the fast feedbacks.
Tony
I agree. When presenting the idea to SoD last year he said “From what I understand, regional climate projections have much more uncertainty than global climate projections.”. Is this an insurmountable dilemma?
Richard
It is my understanding that the large scale fluid flows are more or less the direct consequence of fluid motions on a rotating sphere, given the constraints represented by, for the oceans, the land-ocean interface. The topology of the surface of the solids is not resolved by the models and codes, so if the large scale is correctly calculated, that must not be critical.
On the other hand the states of the atmosphere at regional scales is sometimes determined by the mesoscale topology of Earth’s solid surfaces; monsoons, rain shadows, &etc.
It is a given that calculation of the weather, the perturbations in the state of the atmosphere at a given location caused by distributions of energy input and redistribution of the prior content, is beyond reach at the present time.
Further, for decision support only the weather that counts. (And possible changes in the volume occupied by Earth’s oceans.)
The task then is to determine, at mesoscale, the changes in the weather due to changes in the composition of the atmosphere. I think this is an impossibly tough problem.
Getting global scale-metrics roughly right has the same importance as getting the lightening strikes to ground dead on. Interesting, but not very useful.
Climate is what you expect. Because that is determined by where you are on Earth’s surface, the time of the year in Earth’s orbir around the Sun, and a couple of other factors, including in some cases mesoscale topology.
Weather is what you get. And that, “what you get” is what is required to be determined for decision support.
To get a different perspective on calculation of atmospheric flows, use The Google with S. Lovejoy, D. Scherzer and A. F. Tuck, in combinations and separately as author(s), and atmospheric turbulence as keywords.
Clouds are, I think, are described solely by parameterizations; including their vertical motions. Possibly an outcome of the state of the vertical component of the momentum equations.
Steven Mosher: “I have been focusing on some things that our atmospheric models are good at.”
Given that they haven’t managed to narrow down the range of climate sensitivity – 1.5 to 4.5 deg C – in over 35 years, providing a career-long source of steady, undemanding employment must come very high on your list.
Useful tools for understanding the vagaries of the Earth’s climate, however…
TonyB,
Obama is by far the worst US President in my lifetime. He’s been, weak, ignorant and incompetent in international relations; he’s allowed the Middle east to become a train wreck and allowed ISIS to get a good start, he’s allowed Russia to grain enormous confidence and harassing Europe, he’s China to gain enormous strength in the Pacific and Africa, including setting up the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank to compete with World bank and other international financial institutions.
However, Europe has much more to answer for. They have not pulled their weight in international affairs for many decades. They expect US to do all the work. Europe is a disgrace on this front. They did near nothing and expected US to do nearly all the work in Korea, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine.
US may have a hopeless current President who has done enormous damage to world peace, but EU has been pathetic, gutless, useless for 50 years (UK is an exception, it has mostly pulled it’s weight).
Willie Soon is apparently being ethics investigated by science publishing giant Elsevier, for not disclosing fossil funding. My understanding is that Southern Company’s contract with Smithsonian (not Willie) mandated anonymity, but what the Elve’s goofs will decide is anyone’s guess.
http://insideclimatenews.org/news/10062015/willie-soons-fossil-fuel-funded-work-draws-ethics-review-publisher?utm_source=Inside+Climate+News&utm_campaign=077fc95ece-Weekly_Newsletter_6_13_20156_11_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_29c928ffb5-077fc95ece-327531733.
Who guards the ethics of the guardians of our ethics? Salary
creep, commuting by air from work to home, liaisons with
large orgs, let us count the ways.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/23/greenpeace-losses-financial-disarray
At the above link:
“It requires a cultural change. NGOs tend to see themselves as insurgents. They have now become the establishment but without the structures that are required for such large organisations – they can no longer think of themselves as insurgents but as corporate organisations. That hurts their self-image but there is no other way to avoid the financial meltdowns that can take place.”
To defeat corporations, you have to think like corporations. Given how long Green Peace has been around, we’d expect adequate financial controls.
There’s a link missing for one entry:
The Missing Link has been found:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/06/14/week-in-review-science-edition-10/#comment-710428
Interesting that the organization listed as receiving the most in donations in Suzanne Goldenberg’s article doesn’t have a position on climate change.
More proof that a degree in journalism is evidence of someone going to college to party.
Energy rather than science: Nuclear power expansion: The Australian reports that in the past week the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported that the Japanese government has figured out it will need 35 working reactors by 2030 as part of its long-term energy strategy. The country has 43 reactors (none of which is working) and three under construction.
China last week switched on a second reactor at the Yangjiang power station in Guangdong province with two more due to be in service by 2019. As of early this year, 23 reactors were under construction in China and 45 more in the advanced planning stages.
And Reuters is reporting that South Korea is dropping plans for four new coal-fired power plants, instead building two more nuclear reactors. And Russia seems to be the preferred builder for at least some of the nine nuclear reactors planned by South Africa.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/uraniums-red-tape-tangle/story-fnciihm9-1227397525629
Svante Arrhenius –
“By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind.”
Steven Mosher wants to stop the percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere from increasing.
According to Arrhenius, Mosher’s proposal would result in us missing out on more equable and better climates, and more abundant crops.
Which vision would you prefer?
Who should Warmists take more notice of – Svante Arrhenius, or Steven Mosher?
It has been argued that the amplified warming of the Arctic relative to lower latitudes in recent decades has weakened the polar jet stream, a strong wind current several kilometres high in the atmosphere driven by temperature differences between the warm tropics and cold polar regions. One hypothesis is that a weaker jet stream may become more wavy, leading to greater fluctuations in temperature in mid-latitudes. Through a wavier jet stream, it has been suggested, amplified Arctic warming may have contributed to the cold snaps that hit the eastern United States.
Wrong. The reason the jet stream has been more meridional is due to changes in ozone distributions in a horizontal /vertical sense due to low solar activity.
Gap filling does not cut it. Especially when it is biased which is what AGW enthusiast do to tall of the data.
Gap filling in the Arctic is complicated by the presence of land, open water and temporally varying sea ice extent, because each surface type has a distinctly different amplitude and phasing of the annual cycle of surface temperature. Notably, the surface temperature of sea ice remains flat during the sea ice melt period roughly between June and September, whereas land surface warming peaks around July 1. Hence using land temperatures to infer ocean or sea ice temperatures can incur significant biases.
Francis’s explanation is 100% wrong for the reason for the wavy jet stream a I mentioned in my previous post. She is ignoring past data which shows what she says has no correlation.
All this has me expect it would take quite the opposite pattern for 2015 melt to hit the high melt in 2014 (in fits and spurts, with warmest June on record here in ‘Kanger’, west Greenland), extreme melt in 2012, 2010, high melt in 2011, 2009, 2008, 2007. The past warm episodes were due to persistent atmospheric circulation, a.k.a., stick weather patterns, favoring heating of west Greenland. What we have in 2015 and in 2013 the sticky cold pattern opposite.
There is evidence, two most recent of a growing list of citations, of Arctic warming slowing the jet stream, causing it to meander more, creating sticky weather patterns. Welcome to the new abnormal.
» J. Francis and S. Vavrus 2015, Evidence for a wavier jet stream in response to rapid Arctic warming, Environ. Res. Lett. 10 014005 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/10/1/014005
» D. Coumou, J. Lehmann and J. Beckmann. The weakening summer circulation in the Northern Hemisphere mid-latitudes. Science, 2015. doi: 10.1126/science.1261768.
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Younger Dryas had global cooling on a global scale it did not feature a bi polar seesaw climatic global effect.
It is likely that a majority of the referenced studies are flawed. While it may be interesting to wonder which ones, the real curiosity is why anyone would treat ANY of them as accurate before being replicated and confirmed.
I completely agree. Blog comments from both sides of the great AGW divide do not constitute an adequate system of peer review, regardless of whether these papers support AGW or not. The time periods of most of these studies are IMO insufficient for the purposes of drawing valid conclusions about where climate is trending for the next 85 years or so.
Peter Davies,
I assume that nature involves non linear and chaotic systems. If this is true, then no length of time will suffice to predict the future, from examination of past trends.
Even where it appears that a linear trend exists, the length of the trend may tell you precisely nothing about the future. As investment advisors are usually required by law to state “past performance is no guarantee of future performance”.
So you can gather precisely no information about how long the trend may continue, and what may happen after its next (if any) inflection point.
Nobody even seems to have a useful definition of climate. One man’s ill wind may well be another’s good fortune. This may be a significant problem, if they live side by side. Who is to decide whether more rain or less rain is better? More sunshine or less sunshine?
I’m happy enough to let Nature decide Natural things. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and so on.
I’ll cope as best I can. So far I’ve survived floods, drought, hailstorms, cyclones, tornados, bushfires, earthquakes, landslides, unknown viral infection (that one was interesting!), head on collisions, credit squeezes, inflation, financial crises, and other things that I would have avoided if I knew how. On the other, what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger (so they say). I’m not so sure!
So yes, sorry to blather on, I agree with you. The studies are too short. Also pointless in a practical sense.
Hello Mike. Sure the climate system is complex and chaotic but full of cycles too, all of which seem to be damped by feedbacks at some stage. The feedbacks may be positive or negative for extended periods but it seems that ultimately, the long term AGT trend is downwards and I base this on entropy of all natural systems, such as our Earth, Sun and Solar System.
From the article:
…
A recent article in the New York Times revisits the generalized pandemonium in the 1970s over fears of a global population explosion, due in large part to Paul R. Ehrlich’s 1968 doomsday bestseller: The Population Bomb. The article inadvertently ties Ehrlich’s apocalyptic thesis—and the widespread willingness to believe it—to the current climate change hysteria that has swept a large part of the planet.
Ehrlich sold the world the idea that mankind stood on the brink of Armageddon because there was simply no way to feed the exponentially increasing world population. The opening line set the tone for the whole book: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over.”
Being a well-credentialed scientist—as a biologist lecturing at Stanford University—Ehrlich’s trumpet call of the end times struck many as the plausible theory of an “expert.”
In the book, Ehrlich laid out the devastating future of the planet. He predicted that hundreds of millions would starve to death in the 1970s (and that 65 million of them would be Americans), that already-overpopulated India was doomed, and that odds were fair that “England will not exist in the year 2000.”
Ehrlich concludes that “sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come,” meaning “an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity.”
It is fascinating to compare Ehrlich’s hyperbolic forecasts with those of the recent climate workshop sponsored by the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Science.
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http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/13/is-climate-change-hysteria-the-new-population-bomb/
So Judith, you take down my comments but you leave little jimmy’s lies, distortions and insults. WTF?
I did my best to take down ALL of the ISIS comments. I have limited time this morning to clean up the blog. I need to hop a train to Oxford in about an hour. Then early afternoon I need to hop a train to london, where I have a BBC interview and then my talk at the house of lords, which I am trying to prepare for.
ISIS is now a word that will land you in moderation, we don’t need to talk about this here if the conversation is going to degenerate into name calling.
Judith
Sorry for causing you problems. You do realise the banned word is what they call the River Thames as it flows through Oxford? :)
Have a great day, sounds an interesting one.
tonyb
Discussions of Lindzen’s IRIS effect are banned?
“Scientists are coming up with ‘last ditch’ remedies for climate change.”
Thank you, thank you, thank you, oh kind and great scientists!
I’m really, really, fed up with the climate changing all the time!
Please make it stop!
Can you make it so it just stays nice? I don’t like it cold, wet, and rainy.
“Merchants of Doubt: Secret donors gave US climate denial groups $125m over 3 years [link]”
OR
How many times can you say “climate denial” in a single article!?
No question where the politics of the Guardian lies.
Apropos of not much at all, it occurred to me that hydrocarbons contain hydrogen and carbon. “So what?” I hear you say.
Well, taking just about the simplest hydrocarbon I can think of, C2H2, when you burn it with enough oxygen you get CO2 and H2O. Nothing else.
Other hydrocarbons behave similarly, so, if you burn fossil fuels consisting mainly of hydrocarbons, you return to the atmosphere nothing more than the CO2 and H2O sequestered from the atmosphere previously, plus other compounds if other than carbon and hydrogen are available to be oxidised.
If 100 tonnes of fossil fuel are burned, what are the relative amounts of CO2 and H2O produced? Given that H2O is the primary greenhouse gas, is it as dangerous to mankind as CO2? Or is it beneficial, like CO2?
If it is good to capture CO2, why not capture H2O? It would seem to be a lot easier, and you wouldn’t see all those nasty emissions coming out of chimneys, which people often think are CO2. Ridiculous, I know.