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As commenter “Bad Andrew” says: You have got to do a post on this. Meanwhile, other countries laugh: Obama Rebuffed As Superpowers Refuse To Sign Arctic Climate Agreement On Sunday and Monday, foreign ministers and other international leaders met in Anchorage, Alaska to attend the Conference on Global Leadership in the Arctic. As a sign…
Guest essay by Eric Worrall The American Geosciences Institute has published a study which claims that Earth and Space Science courses, which include a substantial element of climate studies, is not a prominent part of the US high school curriculum, because a small number of colleges do not accept that Earth and Space Science is…
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach Did you know that one watt per square metre is equal to one kilogram per cubic second? I sure didn’t know that, and at first I didn’t believe it, but it’s true. (Yeah, yeah, I know it’s a second cubed and not a cubic second, but a metre cubed is […]
YESTERDAY
Another claimed tipping point: ocean cyanobacteria will go into ‘overdrive’ and can’t stop
These folks at WHOI and USC ran their bacteria life cycles for the cyanobacteria known as Trichodesmium ahead to predicted ocean conditions (based on climate models) to 2100, and predict that this particular bacteria, important in the ocean food web will go into “overdrive” and won’t be able to turn off like having a “car…
UWA and @PsychScience look the other way on Lewandowsky’s use of minors without consent in his “Conspiracist Ideation” and “Moon Landing” paper
Psychologist Dr. Jose Duarte writes: The Lewandowsky, Gignac, and Oberauer paper in PLOS ONE has been substantially corrected. I had alerted the journal last fall that there were serious errors in the paper, including the presence of a 32,757-year-old in the data, along with a 5-year-old and six other minors. The paleoparticipant in particular had…
Another BBQ Summer Fiasco: Met Office Gets It Wrong (Again)
Warm Bias: The Met Office’s Disastrous Track Record From the GWPF The Met Office has defended its forecast for a hot, dry summer despite some areas looking set to have the most rain since records began. As summer officially came to a close amid extreme downpours on Monday, the forecaster was left facing questions about…
The Arctic Iris Effect, Dansgaard-Oeschger Events, and Climate Model Shortcomings. Lesson from Climate Past – part 1.
Guest essay by Jim Steele Director emeritus Sierra Nevada Field Campus, San Francisco State University and author of Landscapes & Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism Dansgaard Oeschger Events and the Arctic Iris Effect During the last Ice Age, Greenland’s average temperatures dramatically rose on average every 1500 years by 10°C +/- 5°C…
AUG 31
The artificial tree: the “green” replacement for real trees?
Guest essay by Eric Worrall Is the artificial tree the solution to climate change? There have been a number of stories advocating artificial trees recently. Proponents of artificial trees believe that normal trees haven’t got the capacity to deliver the CO2 reductions they want. They insist we should try to improve on nature, by replacing…
Study: Wind farms offer diminishing returns as they grow more widespread
As wind-turbine farms expand, research shows they could offer diminishing returns From the UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LAWRENCE — Renewable wind energy is experiencing a boom, with more wind turbines popping up across landscapes in the U.S. and abroad. Indeed, wind energy accounted for 3.3 percent of electricity generation in the United States in 2011, according…
The Epistemology of Explaining Climate Forecasting so an 8 Year Old Can Understand it
Guest essay by Dr. Norman Page 1. Introduction Dr. Leif Svalgaard said in a comment on a WUWT post: August 17, 2015 at 2:27 pm “If you cannot explain your finding to an [attentive] eight-year old, you don’t understand it yourself.” I agree entirely. Miriam – Webster defines Epistemology as ” the study or a…
Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #194
The Week That Was: 2015-08-29 (August 29, 2015) Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org) The Science and Environmental Policy Project THIS WEEK: By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Divergence: It is summertime in the US, and temperatures are warmer. Several readers have asked TWTW for comments on the recent claims that July…
AUG 30
Climate issues we need to address
We need to fix the climate of fraud, corruption, and policies that kill jobs, hope and people Guest essay by Paul Driessen Reeling stock markets across the globe hammered savings, pension funds, innovation and growth. US stocks lost over $2 trillion in market value in eight days, before rallying somewhat, while the far smaller Shanghai…
Shades of Lewandowsky and Cook: When psychological science isn’t so sciency
Sound familiar? A study revealing a stunning lack of reproducibility in psychological science triggers another instance of reluctance to share data with any but friends, and an “adjustment” of data to fit a theory. Frank Lee MeiDere writes: By now most have probably heard about the paper published in the August 28 edition of Science…
AUG 29
The Hood Robin Syndrome
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach There’s a new study out, under the imprimatur of the Energy Institute of the Haas School of Business in Berkeley, California, entitled The Distributional Effects of U.S. Clean Energy Tax Credits. As the title implies, it looks at who actually profited from the various “green energy” tax credits across the United…
President Obama forced to defend Arctic Drilling Decision
Guest essay by Eric Worrall President Obama, on the eve of a 3 day flying tour of Alaska, to highlight the effects of global warming, has been forced to defend his decision to allow drilling for oil in the Arctic. According to Obama; “Our economy still has to rely on oil and gas. As long…
Where Is the Top Of The Atmosphere (TOA)?
Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball On WUWT, Bob Tisdale recently examined the disparity of results between IPCC models in “No Consensus: Earth’s Top of Atmosphere Energy Imbalance in CMIP5-Archived (IPCC AR5) Climate Models” and wrote that “There are astonishing differences in the modeled estimates of the past, present and future imbalances and the three components that make…
AUG 28
How fast is the Earth warming?
This article presents a method for calculating the Earth’s rate of warming, using the existing global temperature series. Guest essay by Sheldon Walker It can be difficult to work out the Earth’s rate of warming. There are large variations in temperature from month to month, and different rates can be calculated depending upon the time…
A detailed review of the book: ‘A Disgrace to the Profession’, by Mark Steyn
Book review by Andy May Mark Steyn has written a wonderful new book on Dr. Michael Mann’s hockey stick and the controversy surrounding it. It is difficult to overstate the significance or impact of Mann’s Hockey Stick (Mann, Bradley, Hughes (23 April 1998), “Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries” (PDF),…
Friday Funny Bonus: blinkered @greenpeace activists can’t tell the difference between steam and CO2
From the “cooling towers are evil fossil fuel icons” department and the mind of Greenpeace comes this hilariously funny (and stupid) tweet. It demonstrates the usual m.o. of Greenpeace these days, blind uneducated vandalism in the name of a cause. Mind you, this isn’t some rogue splinter faction of Greenpeace putting out this photo, it’s the…
On NASA’s recent sea level claim: “Science Isn’t Broken” (Except when it is)
Guest post by David Middleton From Five Thirty Eight Science… THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD 7:00 AM AUG 19, 2015 Science Isn’t Broken It’s just a hell of a lot harder than we give it credit for. By CHRISTIE ASCHWANDEN Graphics by RITCHIE KING If you follow the headlines, your confidence in science may have taken a…
Friday funny – Stern words
Josh writes: BishopHill has a great story on Lord Stern, infamous economist, on how he flip flops from rich nations having to forget about growth to this kind of idea being a diversionary tactic. Whatever suits, I guess. Even more amusing is that the Guardian links both stories on the very same page! Cartoons by Josh Tagged:…
AUG 27
Throwback Thursday #5 – failed global warming driven hurricane predictions 10 years after Katrina
Oh the mighty media quoting the mighty scientists…have fallen flat on their face. Here’s a collection of failed predictions in the wake of Hurricane Katrina: In 2006, CBS’s Hannah Storm Claims Katrina-like Storms Will Happen ‘All Along Our Atlantic and Gulf Coastlines.’ Just five days before Hurricane Katrina’s one year anniversary, CBS news anchor Hannah…
Claim: Climate change is affecting the dirt (but only in Europe)
Humus depletion induced by climate change? Stagnating crop yields pose a threat to soil From the TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH (TUM) The yields of many important crops in Europe have been stagnating since the 1990s. As a result, the input of organic matter into the soil – the crucial source for humus formation – is…
Wednesday wit – Josh on yet more wasted Green
Josh writes: This week Eric wrote on this blog about the Obama administration announcing $12 billion in new Federal loan guarantees for renewables businesses – somewhat ironic considering the debt-laden ill wind blowing in from the East at the moment. Cartoons by Josh Tagged: Barack Obama, cartoons by josh, Josh
Ten years after Katrina: let’s learn from those predictions of more & bigger hurricanes
Guest essay by Larry Kummer. Editor, Fabius Maximus Summary — Most 10-year anniversary articles about Katrina omit one chapter of that sad story: its exploitation by climate activists. They predicted more and stronger hurricanes. Let’s grade them. Every time activists falsely cry “wolf” we become weaker, less able to prepare for real threats. Remembering is…
AUG 26
Naomi Klein: “we need to be very careful raising expectations over Paris”
Guest essay by Eric Worrall Naomi Klein, the green gift which keeps on giving, appears to be preparing the ground for a disappointing Paris COP 21 outcome. According to Klein; Australia has just announced its emissions reduction target before climate talks in Paris later this year. Do you think it’s sufficient? This game of countries’…
TEX-86 proxy for past ocean temperature reconstructions challenged, possible 21°C error
From the UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON Lab experiments question popular measure of ancient ocean temperatures Understanding the planet’s history is crucial if we are to predict its future. While some records are preserved in ice cores or tree rings, other records of the climate’s ancient past are buried deep in the seafloor. An increasingly popular method…
The ‘Cult’ of Climate Change (née Global Warming)
Guest essay by Ari.H. Global warming has become a religionThis is the opinion of Nobel Prize Winning Physicist Dr. Ivar Giaever , Prof. Richard Lindzen, and many others. Climate change alarmism has a surprising number of attributes of a medieval or even ancient religion. Nevertheless, real religions have some pre-requisites, like a tradition spanning at least…
Obama: $12 billion new federal loan guarantees for renewables
Guest essay by Eric Worrall The Obama administration has just announced $12 billion in new Federal loan guarantees for renewables businesses. According to a Whitehouse press release; FACT SHEET: President Obama Announces New Actions to Bring Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency to Households across the Country President Obama is committed to taking responsible steps to…
Climate Models Fail: Global Ocean Heat Content (Based on TOA Energy Imbalance)
[This is an important essay, so I’m going to make it a top post at WUWT for a day. New stories will appear below this one. -Anthony] Guest Post by Bob Tisdale OVERVIEW I recently presented the modeled energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) in the post No Consensus: Earth’s Top of…
AUG 25
Obvious science: NASA finds vegetation essential for limiting city warming effects
From the “department of limiting UHI” and NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER Cities are well known hot spots – literally. The urban heat island effect has long been observed to raise the temperature of big cities by 1 to 3°C (1.8 to 5.4°F), a rise that is due to the presence of asphalt, concrete, buildings, and…
Tuesday titter – Carbon trading by Josh
Josh writes: here’s my take on that well known scam that’s been in the news this week. Astonishing. Cartoons by Josh [Apologies – posted Tuesday not Monday!] Tagged: Josh
Two Cape Verde lows following path of hurricane Danny may develop into tropical storms
From NASA Goddard: Danny has become a degenerate, that is, the tropical depression weakened. Satellite and Hurricane Hunter aircraft data showed that Danny degenerated into an elongated area of low pressure near the Windward Islands during the afternoon (local time) on August 24. Meanwhile two other developing low pressure areas lie to the east of…
If only Lewandowsky, Cook, Nuccitelli, Hayhoe and others could learn from their OWN mistakes…
From the “It’s science Jim – but not as we know it” department. (h/t Foxgoose) Sheesh. Another shedload of 97% consensus, spun to fit Paris COP21. The hubris here is astounding, but not unexpected from these egotistical scientists activists. Learning from mistakes in climate research Rasmus E. Benestad, Dana Nuccitelli, Stephan Lewandowsky, Katharine Hayhoe, Hans Olav Hygen, Rob van Dorland, John…
13 year study claims severe weather is causing longer power outages, but not more of them
From the “ignore all the severe weather outbreaks in the prior century, we’ve got something to prove” department. Imagine if a climate skeptic skeptic scientists released a 13 year study on ANYTHING related to weather or climate – they’d be excoriated for not having a long enough sample. Note that this is not a peer…
Stockholm Environment Institute: Carbon credits undercut climate change action
Guest essay by Eric Worrall A report by the Stockholm environment institute claims that a UN carbon credit scheme “significantly undermined” efforts to tackle global warming. According to the BBC; The vast majority of carbon credits generated by Russia and Ukraine did not represent cuts in emissions, according to a new study. The authors say…
AUG 24
As predicted: Alarmists blame “global warming” for mystery lights in the sky
Guest essay by Eric Worrall An increase in Noctilucent clouds, strange illuminated streamers of light at the edge of space, has been blamed on global warming. According to the SFGate; Mystery lights in space increasing, moving south, potential sign of global warming Strange blue lights glowing on the edge of space first appeared over polar … … Continue reading →
Wrong Again, Again
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach One of the best parts of new tools is new discoveries. So the tools to calculate the heat constants of the ocean and land as described in my last post, Lags and Leads, reveal unknown things to me. A while back I wrote a post called “Wrong Again”, about a crucial…
The easy solution to the looming monster methane apocalypse
Guest essay by Larry Kummer of the the Fabius Maximus website. Summary: The looming disaster from the powerful greenhouse gas methane has become a standard part of alarmists’ shtick. It shows how they’ve abandoned the IPCC — the “gold standard” of climate science — and why we need the IPCC to help defend us against…
Hurricane expert: 10 years after Katrina, North Atlantic hurricane activity well below normal
Noted hurricane expert Dr. Philip Klotzbach of Colorado State University has had some interesting discussion and stats on his Twitter feed, for example: 10 years ago today, TD 10’s remnants brewed north of Hispaniola. 8 days later, Katrina was a Category 5 in the Gulf. It is worth noting that 2005 had 11 named storms, seven of…
Collusion exposed between Governors, White House, and Tom Steyer’s climate advocacy groups
E&E Legal Releases Report Exposing Coordination Between Governors, the Obama White House and the Tom Steyer-“Founded and Funded” Network of Advocacy Groups to Advance the “Climate” Agenda Washington, D.C. — Today, the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal), a 501 (c) (3) watchdog group, released an investigative report, Private Interests & Public Office: Coordination…
Lags and Leads
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach I’ve been thinking about thermal lags in the climate system. Everyone is familiar with thermal lag in everyday life. When you put a cast-iron pan on the stove flame, it doesn’t heat up instantly. Instead, the warming process starts instantly, but it takes some amount of time to actually up…
AUG 23
Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #193
The Week That Was: 2015-08-22 (August 22, 2015) Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org) The Science and Environmental Policy Project THIS WEEK: By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Administration’s Power Plan: Independent analysts continue to provide details of the Obama Administration’s politically named “Clean Power Plan” (CPP). These studies make clear…
Will BBC really fire the Met Office ?
WUWT reader Tony Brown writes: BBC to fire the Met Office from supplying its forecasts and end its 92 year old relationship The Met Office is close by me in Exeter. Its local forecasts are often hopeless and inaccurate and sometimes I feel they would get it right more often if they looked out of…
Sunday sketch – BBC splits from the Met Office
Josh writes: In the news today (The Sunday Times “BBC pulls plug on Met Office”) we learn that the BBC is not going to renew the Met Office’s contract to provide weather forecasts. Interesting. Maybe we will see Piers Corbyn giving the British weather in the future. Cartoons by Josh Tagged: BBC, cartoons by josh, Josh,…
AUG 22
Realities Of Climate Change, Politics And Public Knowledge.
Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball The minute a small cabal hijacked climate for a political agenda it determined that setting the record straight required political answers. Naomi Klein admitted it wasn’t about the science directly. That fighting climate change was necessary to combat capitalism. This was the objective all along and expressed in 1993 when…
Meet the Climate Survivalists: the new Consumer Demographic
Guest essay by Eric Worrall A new group of climate entrepreneurs has arisen to service the needs of true believers. Climate action might be a fading priority for most people. However, despite the general collapse of public interest, there appears to be a stubborn core of true believers, who still genuinely expect to see climageddon…
Climate Crisis, Inc.
$1.5 trillion and Larry Bell book explain how profiteers of climate doom keep the money flowing Guest Essay Paul Driessen No warming in 18 years, no category 3-5 hurricane hitting the USA in ten years, seas rising at barely six inches a century: computer models and hysteria are consistently contradicted by Real World experiences. So…
Apple and Google Pour Billions Down a Green Drain
Guest essay by Steve Goreham Originally published in Communities Digital News, republished at WUWt by request of the author. Business has been captured by Climatism, the belief that humans are causing dangerous global warming. Leading businesses announce plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, purchase renewable energy, use vehicle biofuels, and buy carbon credits. But there…
Claim: Global warming makes frost damage worse
Guest essay by Eric Worrall The Australian CSIRO has claimed that global warming increases both the incidence of frost, and the amount of damage frost causes to crops. According to the CSIRO; University of Queensland research scientist, Dr Jack Christopher, said climate modelling of 60 years’ worth of data has shown that while average temperatures…
AUG 21
Claim: For trout fishermen, climate change will mean more driving time, less angling
Looks like a hilarious positive feedback loop, more driving, more emissions, less trout, more driving… From PENN STATE When trying to explain the potential effects of climate change on plants, fish and wildlife, scientists usually resort to language that fails to convey the impact of warming. Now, a study by Penn State’s College of Agricultural…
Europe hit by one of the worst droughts since 2003
From the EUROPEAN COMMISSION JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE Much of the European continent has been affected by severe drought in June and July 2015, one of the worst since the drought and heat wave of summer of 2003, according to the latest report by the JRC’s European Drought Observatory (EDO). The drought, which particularly affects France, Benelux,…
Dueling press releases – one says GHG’s ’caused’ end of last ice age, other says ‘lead factor’
I noticed these press releases for the new “ramp up to Paris” paper at Eurekalert today. One is from Boston College, the other is from Oregon State University. The headlines seem about as far apart as the schools themselves. You’d think that authors of the same paper could get their PR straight. The certainty of…
AUG 20
Claim: You need science fiction to make sense of climate change
Guest essay by Eric Worrall The Guardian thinks climate change is so “dire”, people can only make sense of it with the help of science fiction. According to The Guardian; Climate change is so dire we need a new kind of science fiction to make sense of it Star Trek was one way of dealing…
Throwback Thursday #4 – IPCC’s Pachauri says ‘2012 will be too late’ to stop climate change
The U.N.’s top railroad engineer sexual harasser “climate scientist” said in 2007 we only had four years to save the world. Rajendra Pachauri, the former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said this in 2007 in a New York Times article Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/world/europe/18iht-climate.2.8378031.html?_r=0 Well, it’s now August 2015, the world isn’t destroyed and
Power plant to blow steam rings to announce carbon footprint
I follow Kickstarter, and today they featured this “art” project in Copenhagen that plans to make the carbon footprint of a new powerplant visible city wide. Personally, I don’t see the point of it, but then again some of the best art is often based on what others would consider irrational thinking. From the Kickstarter…
Better late than never: Danny is first Atlantic hurricane of the season
NASA’s Terra satellite passed over the Atlantic Ocean as Tropical Storm Danny intensified into the season’s first hurricane. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, instrument that flies aboard NASA’s Terra satellite flew over Danny at 10:15 a.m. EDT (14:15 UTC) on Aug. 20, just as it was classified as the 2015 Atlantic Ocean Season’s…
‘Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change’ suggests we are going to hell in a handbasket, links climate to Nepal earthquake
Apparently, this came out of the International Islamic Climate Change Symposium held on August 17-18, and is being touted as another run-up to COP21 in Paris. It seems like they want to be aligned with the Pope and his climate statement. Will we soon have statements from other religious organizations wanting to jump on the Paris Climate Bandwagon?…
Spin Cycle: EPA Deflates Climate Impacts, Inflates Significance
By PAUL C. “CHIP” KNAPPENBERGER and PATRICK J. MICHAELS By PAUL C. “CHIP” KNAPPENBERGER and PATRICK J. MICHAELS Well, well, well. The EPA has finally gone and done it. They have actually calculated the climate change impacts projected to result of one of their climate change regulations—in this case, the proposed rules for the…
Ridiculous claim from Columbia University: ‘Warming climate is deepening California drought ‘
From the THE EARTH INSTITUTE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY and the department of “intense droughts only occur in the age of the SUV” department, where they apparently failed to take the climatic history of the region into account: Graphic from North American drought: Reconstructions, causes, and consequences, Cook et al. 2007 PDF here: NADrought Warming climate … … Continue reading →
AUG 19
Is The Signal Detectable?
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [UPDATE] In the comments, Nick Stokes pointed out that although I thought that Dr. Shaviv’s harmonic solar component was a 12.6 year sine wave with a standard deviation of 1.7 centimetres, it is actually a 12.6 year sine wave with a standard deviation of 1.7 millimetres (5 mm peak to…
Peer review is broken – Springer announces 64 papers retracted due to fake reviews
Science publishing giant Springer, with over 2900 journals, has announced on its website that 64 articles published in 10 of its journals are being retracted. Editorial staff found evidence of fake email addresses for peer reviewers. No word yet on what type of papers, or if any climate papers are involved. From press release: Retraction of…
Claim: China has emitted 15% less CO2 than previously estimated
Guest essay by Eric Worrall China’s estimated total CO2 emissions to date may have to be revised down by 15%, according a study published in Nature, because the coal China is burning is much higher quality than previous calculations assumed. The abstract of the paper; Nearly three-quarters of the growth in global carbon emissions from…
How Does The IPCC Explain the Severe Storms Of History?
Guest Opinion Dr. Tim Ball Every day we hear that storms of greater intensity than ever before are occurring, and it will get worse because of global warming. These claims contradict the current and historic evidence and the mechanisms of formation for mid-latitude cyclonic storms and tornadoes. The misinformation is further evidence of the misdirection…
Climate Craziness of the Week: James Hansen is using children to sue US government over climate
So the question is, just how low will activists stoop? We predict that eventually Gina McCarthy will say “we are compelled by law to take stronger action”, just as Lisa Jackson did with Massachusetts vs EPA. From RTCC: This week a group of young Americans aged 8-19 filed a lawsuit against the US Federal Government to…
The ‘Arctic Methane Emergency’ appears canceled due to methane eating bacteria
Many readers know that we’ve covered the supposed “ticking time bomb” of methane that is supposedly going to be released somewhere, somehow, either from methane clathrates on the sea floor due to ocean warming, or from melting permafrost. Due to methane having a greater GHG warming factor, a potential of 34 times that of CO2…
The Missing ~ 11-Year Signal
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach Dr. Nir Shaviv and others strongly believe that there is an ~ 11-year solar signal visible in the sea level height data. I don’t think such a signal is visible. So I decided to look for it another way, one I’d not seen used before. One of the more sensitive…
AUG 18
EPA’s gross negligence at Gold King Mine includes disappearing 191 incident photos from their website
WUWT contributor Russell Cook notes: EPA has scrubbed all 191 photos off their photo log / list view pages http://www.epaosc.org/site/image_listview.aspx?site_id=11082 . If the #1 item at this page is an accurate indicator, the scrub took place on Sunday. I had visited that site last week when the event first happened and I wrote my first…
Cooling and Warming, Clouds and Thunderstorms
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach Following up on a suggestion made to me by one of my long-time scientific heroes, Dr. Fred Singer, I’ve been looking at the rainfall dataset from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite. Here’s s the TRMM average rainfall data for the entire mission to date: Figure 1. Average annual…
Tuesday Tantrums, I get hate mail
People send me stuff… Readers may recall back on May 13th of this year I posted about a change in policy related to hate mail and hateful comments that get sent our way in: Hump day hilarity: WUWT’s new policy on hate mail – your hate mail will be published Since then, it seems the…
The next big worry: Claim of major U.S. aquifers contaminated by Uranium – but is it really a problem to health?
Study: 2 major US aquifers contaminated by natural uranium Naturally occurring uranium is being mobilized by farm-related pollution From the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Nearly 2 million people throughout the Great Plains and California above aquifer sites contaminated with natural uranium that is mobilized by human-contributed nitrate, according to a study from the University of…
Claim: A pioneer “frontier mentality” causes climate denial
Guest essay by Eric Worrall Naomi Klein has claimed that the reason Americans, British, Australians and Canadians are the world’s leading “climate deniers”, is that we share a “frontier mentality”. According to Klein; Klein said the denial of climate science was prevalent in English-speaking countries such as Australia, Canada, the US and the UK because…
AUG 17
How we broke the climate change debates. Lessons learned for the future
From the Fabius Maximus website. By Larry Kummer Summary: This, my 305th post about climate, explains what I’ve learned so far. I believe that climate science as an institution has become dysfunctional; large elements of the public no longer trust it. The politics of climate change are polarized and gridlocked. The weather will determine the…
The recurrent problem of green scares that don’t live up to the hype
By Matt Ridley (originally in the Wall Street Journal, sent to WUWT by the author) ‘We’ve heard these same stale arguments before,” said President Obama in his speech on climate change last week, referring to those who worry that the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon-reduction plan may do more harm than good. The trouble is, we’ve…
My Thanks, Apologies, and Reply to Dr. Nir Shaviv
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach Dr. Nir Shaviv has kindly replied in the comments to my previous post. There, he says: Nir Shaviv August 15, 2015 at 2:51 pm There is very little truth about any of the points raised by Eschenbach in this article. In particular, his analysis excludes the fact that the ocean…
Claim: some coastal dwellers of US at high health risk from climate change
From the THE EARTH INSTITUTE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY and the “we need a task force and more money” department comes this ridiculous pandering claim. Gotta love the caveat “Although future trends are difficult to project, climate change may also…“. Yep all this from a small change in temperature less than what one would experience by…
July 2015 Global Surface (Land+Ocean) and Lower Troposphere Temperature Anomaly & Model-Data Difference Update
Guest Post by Bob Tisdale This post provides an update of the values for the three primary suppliers of global land+ocean surface temperature reconstructions—GISS through July 2015 and HADCRUT4 and NCEI (formerly NCDC) through June 2015—and of the two suppliers of satellite-based lower troposphere temperature composites (RSS and UAH) through July 2015. It also includes…
Study: On Wikipedia, politically controversial science topics are vulnerable to information sabotage
The “William Connolley effect” gets quantified, apparently anything that is not “consensus science” is considered sabotage. When researching acid rain, evolution, and climate change — cast a critical eye on source material From the CARY INSTITUTE OF ECOSYSTEM STUDIES (Millbrook, NY) Wikipedia reigns. It’s the world’s most popular online encyclopedia, the sixth most visited website…
Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #192
The Week That Was: 2015-08-15 (August 15, 2015) Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org) The Science and Environmental Policy Project THIS WEEK: By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) Social Benefits of Carbon: Craig Idso of CO2 Science has a post on the Cato web site describing the great benefits of enhanced…
AUG 16
The Cattle Cycle, Sunspots, Climate Changes and the Orbital Interactions of the Gas Giant Planets
[Note, I don’t necessarily agree with the conclusion this publication, as it smacks of barycentrism, which I don’t give any credence to, but it does discuss some other concepts, and I thought it might make for an interesting and entertaining discussion – Anthony] Guest essay By Brian T. Johnston, Abstract Researchers have long suspected a link…
EPA: $8 million to study “indoor” climate change
Guest essay by Eric Worrall h/t JoNova – The American EPA has just awarded $8 million to study the impact of climate change on the indoor environment. According to the Washington Times; Forget violent storms, raging wildfires and steamy outdoor temperatures, the Obama administration’s war on climate change is heading indoors this time. The Environmental…
AUG 15
New York’s new Climate Change Museum
Remember back in the boring old days, when science museums contained meticulously researched information about the distant past, such as the age of the dinosaurs, interesting mineral exhibits, or educational demonstrations of scientific principles? All that is about to change, with the planned construction of New York’s new climate change museum – a museum dedicated…
AUG 14
Is Ozone Recovery Warming the Stratosphere – And Adding Credence to Solar Variability?
Guest essay by Steven Capozzola Even though declining ozone cooled the stratosphere in the 20th Century, the IPCC says this cooling proves solar variability doesn’t impact surface temperatures. The climate community has repeatedly dismissed solar variance as a key driver of rising temperatures during the 20th Century. But their reasoning may have a key flaw,…
USGS plays the ‘100 year threat’ game with sea level rise
From the “not a verifiable forecast” department, and the “auxiliary department of funding acquisition worry” comes this headline from USGS today. Some other 100 year headlines follow. Study Shows Sea Level Rise to Threaten West Coast Tidal Wetlands Over the Next 100 Years CORVALLIS, Oregon – The U.S. Geological Survey and Oregon State University released a…
Problematic Adjustments And Divergences (Now Includes June Data)
Guest Post by Professor Robert Brown of Duke University and Werner Brozek, Edited by Just The Facts: Image Credit: Steven Goddard As can be seen from the graphic above, there is a strong correlation between carbon dioxide increases and adjustments to the United States Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) temperature record. And these adjustments to the surface…
Halfway to Hell? – Alarmists are Growing Desperate in Their Efforts to Influence Public Opinion
Guest Post by Bob Tisdale INTRODUCTION Apparently, based initially on a 1975 “first intuition” by an economist (not a climate scientist), politicians have sought to limit global surface warming to 2 deg C above pre-industrial levels by restricting greenhouse gas emissions. To that end, those politicians created the political entity called the Intergovernmental Panel on…
AUG 13
The New Sunspot Data … and Satellite Sea Levels
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [UPDATE: Upon reading Dr. Shaviv’s reply to this post, I have withdrawn any mention of “deceptive” from this post. This term was over the top, as it ascribed motive to the authors. I have replaced the term with “misleading”. This is more accurate since it describes the effect of the analysis…
Another excuse for the pause, Trenberth says ‘Internal climate variability masks climate-warming trends’
From the AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE and the “if warming can’t overcome Nature, is it really there at all?” department. Amid climate change debates revolving around limited increases in recent global mean surface temperature (GMST) rates, Kevin Trenberth argues that natural climate fluxes – larger than commonly appreciated – can overwhelm background…
Steyn’s book on Mann surges in Amazon rankings, leaving climate alarmism books in the dust
Readers surely recall the review I gave of Mark Steyn’s new book A Disgrace To The Profession on Michael E. Mann’s science as told by other climate scientists around the world. On August 11th, when I ran my review, this was the ranking for the book in Amazon – #12,246: Today, two days later, the…
UAH Global Temperature Report: July 2015 – the pause continues
Global climate trend since Nov. 16, 1978: +0.11 C per decade July temperatures (preliminary) Global composite temp.: +0.18 C (about 0.32 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for July. Northern Hemisphere: +0.33 C (about 0.60 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for July. Southern Hemisphere: +0.03 C (about 0.05 degrees Fahrenheit) above 30-year average for July. Tropics: +0.48…
AUG 12
God help us! Pope declares September 1st to be annual global warming prayer day
(Via Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has decided to set up a “World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation” which will be celebrated on September 1st annually. He made the announcement in a letter to the heads of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.…
August 2015 Update for The Blob
Guest Post by Bob Tisdale This post provides background information and a quick update on the naturally occurring warming event in the eastern North Pacific known as The Blob. Not just any blob, The Blob. Figure 1 INTRODUCTION We first discussed an unusual hotspot in the sea surface temperature anomalies of the eastern extratropical North…
AUG 11
A review of Steyn’s scathing new book about Michael Mann: “A Disgrace To The Profession”
Yesterday, I received my advance copy of this book, and after spending about an hour with it, I Tweeted this: Just received advance copy of book “A Disgrace to the Profession” from @MarkSteynOnline all I can say is: Mann, that’s gonna leave a mark! And today, after spending a full day with it, that statement still…
An analysis of BEST data for the question: Is Earth Warming or Cooling?
Guest essay by Clyde Spencer The answer to the question is, “Yes!” Those who believe that Earth is going to Hell in a hand basket, because of anthropogenic carbon dioxide, go to extraordinary lengths to convince the public that uninterrupted warming is occurring at an unprecedented rate. One commonly reads something to the effect that…
No Consensus: Earth’s Top of Atmosphere Energy Imbalance in CMIP5-Archived (IPCC AR5) Climate Models
Guest Post by Bob Tisdale This post provides an initial look at climate model simulations of the top of the atmosphere (TOA) energy budget and its three components. It includes the outputs of the climate models stored in the CMIP5 archive (used by the IPCC for the 5th Assessment Report). There are astonishing differences in…
AUG 10
Claim: Severe droughts could lead to widespread losses of butterflies by 2050
From the CENTRE FOR ECOLOGY & HYDROLOGY and the Edith’s Checkerspot Club comes this tale of possible bug disaster we’ve all heard before. Except, Nature often finds a way, and scientific claims of extinction sometimes end up being proven wrong by nature itself. — Widespread drought-sensitive butterfly population extinctions could occur in the UK as early…
EPA causes a major environmental disaster, the question is: will it fine itself and fire those involved?
From the “if a citizen or company did this there would be hell to pay” department: Guest essay by Emily Zanotti (via Somewhat Reasonable) The Environmental Protection Agency often justifies its own existence by noting that corporations, who see profit as their goal rather than environmental protection, are ill-equipped (or at least, ill-prioritized) to care for…
Claim: NASA simulation indicates ancient flood volcanoes could have altered climate
From NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER and the “maybe they should have checked with Willis first” department comes this modeling claim: In June, 1991, Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines exploded, blasting millions of tons of ash and gas over 20 miles high – deep into the stratosphere, a stable layer of our atmosphere above most of…
August 2015 ENSO Update – Another Westerly Wind Burst in Late July Should Help El Niño Evolve
Guest Post by Bob Tisdale This post provides an update of many of the ENSO-related variables we presented as part of last year’s 2014-15 El Niño Series. The reference years for comparison graphs in this post are 1997 and 2014, which are the development years of the strongest recent El Niño and the last El…
AUG 09
Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #191
The Week That Was: 2015-08-08 (August 8, 2015) Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org) The Science and Environmental Policy Project THIS WEEK: By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) The New Plan: On August 3, the Obama Administration announced its plan to control the production of electricity in the US in the…
Al Gore’s Climate Reality? Dismal viewcounts; nobody is watching
Tom Nelson pointed out something quite interesting on Friday August 7th. He wrote on Twitter: I thought to myself, “how could this be?”. Gore spent millions on a professional set, hired a leggy spokesmodel to emcee, spent huge amounts of money on web advertising, and claimed he had millions of views during the event. And…
A Simple Tale About Switching To Renewable Power: Requirements & Consequences.
Don Bogard, © 2015 (published here with permission) The tale below is fictional, but every one of its elements and issues has been or will be experienced somewhere in the process of switching electrical power production from fossil fuels to renewable wind and solar. Hopefully this tale will illustrate in a non-technical way some of…
The Trouble with Global Climate Models
Guest essay by Rud Istvan The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, Working Group 1 (AR5 WG1) Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) was clear about the associated Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) archive of atmosphere/ocean general circulation models (AOGCMs, hereafter just GCM). CMIP5 results are available via the Royal [Koninklijk] Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). The SPM said…
AUG 08
Six climate headlines from 2009 that tell us something important about the run-up to the 2015 Paris climate conference
Same old scare stories, different decade. By Larry Kummer, Editor of the Fabius Maximus website, from which this is reposted. Summary: This is the first in a new regular feature on the FM website showing the best of the propaganda headlines that fill our news. Today we have six headlines telling an important story about…
Validation Of A Climate Model Is Mandatory: The Invaluable work of Dr. Vincent Gray
Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball Early Awareness Vincent Gray, M.A., Ph.D. is one of the most effective critics of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) through his NZ Climate Truth Newsletter and other publications. He prefaces comments to the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition as follows. As an Expert Reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel…
Charles Koch: Climate models need to be falsifiable
Guest essay by Eric Worrall Charles Koch has given a rare interview to the [Washington Post] New York Times, covering a range of issues, including Climate Change. So what does Koch think about Climate Change? Q: Are you worried about climate change? A: Well, I mean I believe it’s been warming some. There’s a…
AUG 07
Newsbytes: Global Coal Boom Accelerating Despite Obama’s Green Posturing
New Survey: Less Than Half Of Climate Scientists Agree With The IPCC’s Key Claim At the very moment President Obama has decided to shutter America’s coal industry in favor of much more expensive and less efficient “renewable energy,” coal use is surging across the globe. A new study by the prestigious National Academy of Sciences…
Indian Environment Minister dismisses Himalaya Global Warming concerns
Guest essay by Eric Worrall Indian Environment, Forests and Climate Change Minister Prakash Javadekar has submitted a written response to a question posed in the Indian parliament, which categorically rejects concerns that global warming might be having an adverse effect on the Himalayas. According to NDTV; “There is no study reported so far, which supports…
Friday Funny: Mann gets real time
Our favorite climate publicity hound, fake Nobel Laureate Dr. Michael E. Mann is going to get some real time on ‘RealTime’, where presumably, he’ll wail about the embellished injustices heaped upon him by people that question his hockey stick, his interpretation of science, and his sanity on Twitter. Bill Maher has been known to throw…
AUG 06
Throwback Thursday #3: another failed “end of snow” climate prediction
We are all familiar with the most famous of all snow predictions, which sets the gold standard for failure, that of Dr. David Viner: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html From the article: Global warming, the heating of the atmosphere by increased amounts of industrial gases, is now accepted as a reality by the international community. Aver
The Pause draws blood – A new record Pause length: no warming for 18 years 7 months
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley For 223 months, since January 1997, there has been no global warming at all (Fig. 1). This month’s RSS temperature shows the Pause setting a new record at 18 years 7 months. It is becoming ever more likely that the temperature increase that usually accompanies an El Niño will begin…
Satellite analysis of Super Typhoon Soudelor moving toward Taiwan
From NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER Heavy rain, towering thunderstorms, and a large area are things that NASA satellites observed as Typhoon Soudelor moves toward Taiwan on August 5, 2015. A 3D video analysis follows. NASA’s Terra satellite passed over Soudelor on August 5, 2015 at 01:45 UTC and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument…
NOAA: Increased likelihood of below-normal Atlantic hurricane season
Updated outlook calls for 90 percent probability of below-normal season The NOAA Climate Prediction Center’s updated2015 Atlantic Hurricane Season Outlook calls for a 90 percent chance of a below-normal hurricane season. A below-normal season is now even more likely than predicted in May, when the likelihood of a below-normal season was 70 percent. “Tropical storms and hurricanes…
Pocket-calculator climate model outperforms billion-dollar brains
From Press Release:Four skeptical researchers’ new Chinese Academy paper devastatingly refutes climate campaigners’ attempt to criticize their simple model… In January 2015, a paper by four leading climate researchers published in the prestigious Science Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was downloaded more than 30,000 times from the website at scibull.com. By a factor…
New study asks: More tropical cyclones in a cooler climate?
With historical peak of the Atlantic hurricane season just weeks away, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is preparing its updated outlook for the remainder of the season to be released today at 11 AM.To-date, three named storms have formed in the Atlantic basin: Ana, Bill, and Claudette. The Atlantic hurricane season began June 1 and continues…
AUG 05
Obama’s climate policy is ‘practically worthless,’ says Dr. James Hansen
From MSNBC. During his big emotional climate speech this week, President Ovbama said: “I don’t want my grand-kids to not be able to swim in Hawaii or not be able to climb a mountain and see a glacier because we didn’t do something about it,That’d be shameful of us.” But for some who study climate…
A curiosity in space: a “Blue Marble” look-alike
From the “watch the skies” department, and ESO, comes this “Blue Marble” look-alike, hence the name, The Planetary Nebula:. The ghost of a dying star This extraordinary bubble, glowing like the ghost of a star in the haunting darkness of space, may appear supernatural and mysterious, but it is a familiar astronomical object: a planetary nebula,…
Super typhoon Soudelor reaches Cat5
NASA’s Aqua satellite and RapidScat instrument analyzed Super typhoon Soudelor’s extent and winds as it reached Category Five typhoon status on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale. RapidScat is a NASA instrument that flies aboard the International Space Station. RapidScat gathered surface wind speed and direction data on Soudelor on Aug. 3 at 1900 UTC (3 p.m.…
Switzerland is James Hansen’s climate survivalist recommendation
Guest essay by Eric Worrall Former NASA GISS Chairman James Hansen has suggested that Switzerland is safest place to be, if you want to maximise your chances of surviving climate change. According to The Atlantic; Scientists warn that extreme weather will get worse and huge swaths of coastal cities will be submerged by ever-more-acidic oceans.…
AUG 04
Another climate scare story about New York City; climate models say it will ‘resemble Oklahoma City today’
Usually we are treated to scare stories about sea level rise inundating NYC, this one says its worse than that, by the 21st century, they’ll be like “Okies”. From the CARNEGIE INSTITUTION, and the department of modeled scare-de-jour, comes this claim: End-of-century Manhattan climate index to resemble Oklahoma City today Washington, DC– Climate change caused … … Continue reading →
Will Obama’s energy plan save you money?
Guest essay by Eric Worrall Back in 2009, Obama said that his energy plan will cause energy bills to skyrocket. In 2015, Obama says his energy plan will save you money (from 14:45) The following is a condensed version of the relevant parts of the speeches (note the full 2015 speech contains additional material of … … Continue reading →
Coal, Death Trains, Climate, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Guest essay by Charles Battig, M.D. Mike Huckabee’s recent comment about President Obama, “He would trust the Iranians and he would take the Israelis and basically march them to the door of the oven,” produced much shock, indignation, and verbal condemnation from the media, late-night news airheads, and some members of the Jewish community…perhaps not…
HadCRUT4 joins the terrestrial temperature tamperers
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley In the carefully-planned build-up to the Paris “climate” conference whose true purpose is to establish an unelected and all-powerful global “governing body” (they’re no longer brazenly calling it a “government” as they did in the failed Copenhagen draft of 2009, but one can imagine what they’re thinking), the three longest-standing…
New study calculates the speed of ice formation
From Princeton: Researchers at Princeton University have for the first time directly calculated the rate at which water crystallizes into ice in a realistic computer model of water molecules. The simulations, which were carried out on supercomputers, provide insight into the mechanism by which water transitions from a liquid to a crystalline solid. Understanding ice…
Claim: Glaciers melt faster than ever
From the UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH and the “lets ignore some of these other growing glaciers” department The World Glacier Monitoring Service, domiciled at the University of Zurich, has compiled worldwide data on glacier changes for more than 120 years. Together with its National Correspondents in more than 30 countries, the international service just published a…
AUG 03
Well, if CO2 reduction won’t matter, let’s not worry about it
On the day Obama announces a new plan to curb CO2 emissions, this statement comes along… These changes would linger even if the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration were to be restored to pre-industrial levels at some point in the future From the Carnegie Institution: Washington, DC–Continuing current carbon dioxide (CO2) emission trends throughout this century and beyond would leave a…
How good is the NASA GISS global temperature dataset?
Guest essay by Rud Istvan It is generally accepted that there are two major land temperature record issues: microsite problems, and urban heat island (UHI) effects. Both introduce warming biases. The SurfaceStations.org project manually inspected and rated 1007 of 1221 USHCN stations (82.5%) using the 2002 Climate Reference Network (CRN) classification scheme (handbook section 2.2.1).…
Quicky Early August 2015 ENSO Update: NINO3.4 Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies Still Just Above the Threshold of a Strong El Niño
Guest Post by Bob Tisdale The post provides a look at the most recent weekly sea surface temperature anomalies for the equatorial Pacific. It also includes a Hovmoller diagram of the wind stress (not anomalies) along the equator…to confirm that there was another westerly wind burst at the beginning of last month. NOAA’s weekly sea…
Announcing Obama’s new ‘Carbon Pollution’ plan
I got this email this morning direct to my private email, and not part of an email list. I suppose the White House thinks the reach and impact we have at WUWT have is important enough to merit a direct email to me of this press release. So, I’ll play the game, publish this PR,…
Obama May Finally Succeed!
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach For this post I’ve taken as my departure point a couple of very interesting graphs from over at Not A Lot Of People Know That. I’ll repeat them here: Interesting, no? But I’m a numbers guy, I wanted to actually analyze the results. Using the data from those posts and…
AUG 02
New Earthquake Early Warning System to be Deployed by USGS
USGS Awards $4 Million to Support Earthquake Early Warning System in California and Pacific Northwest RESTON, Va.— The U.S. Geological Survey has awarded approximately $4 million this week to four universities – California Institute of Technology, University of California, Berkeley, University of Washington and University of Oregon – to support transitioning the “ShakeAlert” earthquake early warni
Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #190
The Week That Was: 2015-08-01 (August 1, 2015) Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org) The Science and Environmental Policy Project Brief TWTW This Week This TWTW is very brief. It focuses on two recent articles by S. Fred Singer of scientific importance: 1) Editor of Science Magazine Should Resign!; and 2) A Paradigm Change: Re-directing…
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