Here I go, harping on about the missing hot spot again.
Roy Spencer has been hunting for the famous missing hot spot (like half the climate world) but he’s been looking in the UAH satellite temperature data. Last week Sherwood et al claimed they finally found it (again!) in an iteratively reiterated homogenized and adjusted version of radiosondes. Spencer was not impressed with the black box statistics approach. As I pointed out here, the Sherwood results was adjusted so much it did not look like the original data, and they somehow found the hotspot by adding in data from years when a hot spot shouldn’t occur. They mushed the data to fit one part of their model, but it broke in other parts.
Roy Spencer has used new methods to improve the satellite signal of the hot spot, and is “increasingly convinced” the all important mysterious hot spot is really not there, which fits with 28 million weather balloons and humidity data too. Satellites are not particularly good at finding the hot spot because it is a very thin layer over the tropics and satellites peering down from on high find it difficult to measure signals from 10km up and separate them from signals, say 8km up. Radiosondes are much better at resolving the different layers, which is really what matters — only the uppermost layer of water vapor counts, not the total column. Having said that, satellites are pretty handy over the oceans where not many weather balloons get released, and it would be good if we could use them.
See my last post on the missing hot spot if you can’t figure out why I go on and on about this mythical zone. It’s the key flaw in the models that amplifies the effects of CO2, but which study after study, and millions of measurements, show is probably just a bad guess that ought to have died properly long ago.
What Roy Spencer found was confirmation for the twentieth time that the models are wrong about this their major, most important feedback.
“…what is really striking in the above plot is how strong the climate models’ average warming trend over the tropical oceans is in the upper troposphere (+0.35 C/decade, dark red), which I calculate to be about 1.89 times the models’ average surface trend (+0.19 C/decade, dark green). This ratio of 1.89 is based upon the UT weighting function applied to the model average temperature trend profile from the surface to 100 mb (16 km) altitude.
So, what we see is that the models are off by about a factor of 2 on surface warming, but maybe by a factor of 5 (!) for upper tropospheric warming.
…
This is “preliminary” so needs confirmation, but the results are pretty stark.
Spencer combines two channels to narrow down the satellite bands to 7 – 13km. See his site for the details.
Since we now have a tropopause (“TP”) product, we can combine that with our lower stratosphere (“LS”) product in such a way that we pretty well isolate the tropical upper tropospheric layer that is supposed to be warming the fastest.
The layer just below the tropopause should warm much fast than the surface. It’s called the “hot spot”.
Roy Spencer explains that evaporation drives the water vapor up, but precipitation brings it down, and the models are not good with precipitation.
I am increasingly convinced that the hotspot really has gone missing. And the reason why (I still believe) is most likely related to water vapor feedback and precipitation processes, which largely govern the total heat budget of the free-troposphere (the layer above the turbulently mixed boundary layer).
His whole post includes more discussion as well as links to the data.
h/t Ted M
Climate is a subject based on highly complex interactions, leading to apparently chaotic patterns over time, the surface and three-dimensional space. The empirical data that will confirm or falsify hypotheses about climate is extremely sparse, of short time frames and has measurement issues. That is why we need to specify the distinctiveness of the hypotheses to distinguish that understanding from numerous other, and incompatible, theories. The hot spot would do that.
But one method could be flawed. The weather balloons are mostly released from land, only 30% of the earths surface – and most from a small proportion of that land area. It could therefore be a biased sample. It is therefore good to have corroborating evidence from a more general (but less accurate) source.
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A Hot Spot Missing
Accounts for nothing
In CAGW Land
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If warming, from whatever cause, increases low level evaporation then that increases humidity near the surface.
Increased humidity lowers the dew point which means the moister air need not rise so far before condensation into clouds occurs.
If clouds form at a lower level then radiation to space will be from a lower warmer location and the system will cool.
Upper levels will become drier as observed and there will be no hot spot as observed.
The response of the water cycle to any forcing element is thus powerfully negative and not positive as assumed in AGW theory.
In the real world the greenhouse effect is a consequence of atmospheric mass and not GHGs. It appears that as one descends down through the mass of an atmosphere conduction and convection increase as a result of increased density and that produces more collisions between molecules and less photons released.More energy is transferred by collisional activity and less by photon emission.
Although the surface is at 288K it is actually releasing photons at a rate commensurate with 255K because the other 33K of kinetic energy at the surface is locked into maintaining the hydrostatic balance of the atmosphere through the upward pressure gradient force which offsets the downward force of gravity in order to keep the atmospheric gases aloft.
Any radiative absorption by GHGs is negated by adjustments to the convective overturning cycle but since the greenhouse effect is mass induced and since GHGs have so little mass as a proportion of the atmosphere we could never see the effect of our puny contribution.
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Well put Stephen,
A susinct and comprehensive explanation of observed surface and upper atmospheric temperatures which makes perfect sense.
Could you just clarify this;
I would have said that increased humidity raises the dew point.
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Doesn’t it raise the dew point, but lowers the altitude at which it occurs?
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Better to say that increased humidity brings the dew point closer to the ambient temperature.
The ambient temperature gets warmer at lower levels so the temperature at which the dew point occurs is higher but the height it is found is lower.
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I agree, I think he means that dew point occurs at a higher temperature, because of the moisture load in the atmosphere.
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Have a look at this site and you will see the relationship between dew point, temperature and humidity.
http://www.milfordweather.org.uk/atmospheric.asp
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Thanks, Stephen.
This elaborates more specifically, and with greater eloquence than I could hope to muster, upon my thoughts on this from the very outset.
Alarmists have focussed entirely upon radiative heat exchange as though it were the only relevant detail upon which to focus, to the exclusion of any other thermodynamic factor. Conduction and convection/KE are assumed to be constant (when it suits them anyway), and the water cycle is skewed to only focus upon water vapour as a GHG, ignoring completely the evaporative cooling of oceans, the phase changes of water and the cloud formation albedo effects. So many things have to be ignored or assumed to be irrelevant or constant that it is a wonder that GHG theory has any legs at all.
Of course feedbacks are negative (Duh!), and they are subject to change within a dynamic system with almost limitless capacity to offset the small, possible (though unproven) radiative effect of CO2 increases.
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Winston,
Alarmists think that a surface at 288K must radiate photons upwards at a rate commenurate with a temperature of 288K even if there is ongoing conduction and convection.
They apply S-B to an interface sandwiched between the grey bodies of planet and atmosphere without taking conduction and convection into account.
S-B can only be applied to a surface from which the observer is separated by a vacuum so that no conduction and convection is involved. The appropriate location is therefore outside the atmosphere and from that position Earth does indeed comply with S-B by emitting at 255K.
The existence of the Dry Adiabatic Lapse Rate proves them wrong.
They think that a non GHG atmosphere will become isothermal, even Roy Spencer thinks that. In reality there will always be uneven surface heating leading to density differentials in the horizontal plane so convective overturning and a decline in temperature with height is inevitable even with no GHGs.
As one descends into greater density then conduction and convection reduce photon emission upwards. That is the defining flaw in AGW theory.
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The decrease in probability of upward photon emission as one descends into greater density also puts a stop to any surface thermal effect from back radiation.
Every photon sent downwards by one GHG molecule is absorbed by the next GHG molecule beneath it and there is a reduced probability of re-emission.
The result is that as one moves downward any back radiation is steadily reabsorbed molecule by molecule and integrated into additional convective overturning which converts that back radiation to potential energy within enhanced convective uplift.
In due course that potential energy returns to the surface as kinetic energy beneath the mearest descending convective column and is promptly radiated to space by the surface via the full range of wavelengths thereby by passing the blocked wavelength for the GHG that caused it in the first place.
The surface temperature never changes because the enhanced convective uplift cools the surface beneath it exactly as much as the extra potential energy in the descending column warms it.
But it is too little to measure in any event because the entire process is mass based and GHGs have very little mass as a proportion of the entire atmosphere.
One sees far greater changes from solar and oceanic variability.
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Stephen Wilde May 23, 2015 at 4:50 am
“If warming, from whatever cause, increases low level evaporation then that increases humidity near the surface.”
IF!! OK More water vapor and more airborne water condensate at lower latitudes.
“Increased humidity lowers the dew point which means the moister air need not rise so far before condensation into clouds occurs.”
Exactly backwards!! If over a higher temperature ocean the dew point temperature is the same as as ocean surface temperature.
“If clouds form at a lower level then radiation to space will be from a lower warmer location and the system will cool.”
You have no evidence of this!
“Upper levels will become drier as observed and there will be no hot spot as observed.”
Become drier, only if both WV and condensate precipitate. Why any precipitation? Likely WV only condenses to airborne condensate with little or no precipitation!
“The response of the water cycle to any forcing element is thus powerfully negative and not positive as assumed in AGW theory.”
Negative indeed but no, “is thus”!!
“In the real world the greenhouse effect is a consequence of atmospheric mass and not GHGs. It appears that as one descends down through the mass of an atmosphere conduction and convection increase as a result of increased density and that produces more collisions between molecules and less photons released.More energy is transferred by collisional activity and less by photon emission.”
No greenhouse effect whatsoever, only a lapse rate less steep than a rate via surface EMR flux!!! Please demonstrate any physical example of a photon.
“Although the surface is at 288K it is actually releasing photons at a rate commensurate with 255K”
Please show any evidence of EMR surface exitance greater than 32W/m^2 average?.
“because the other 33K of kinetic energy at the surface is locked into maintaining the hydrostatic balance of the atmosphere through the upward pressure gradient force which offsets the downward force of gravity in order to keep the atmospheric gases aloft.”
The gravitational pressure/temperature lapse does indeed replace any concept of gravitational potential energy of the air or airborne condensate in any part of the troposphere. This LR has no effect on surface EMR exitance which is limited by WV and clouds,to 32W/m^2 average.
“Any radiative absorption by GHGs is negated by adjustments to the convective overturning cycle”
Airborne WV and the conversion of airborne condensate to WV sunside and the release of that latent heat nightside provide all the needed power for all wind, lateral and vertical! The hydrological cycle atmosphere/surface provides less that 20%.
“but since the greenhouse effect is mass induced and since GHGs have so little mass as a proportion of the atmosphere we could never see the effect of our puny contribution.”
No greenhouse effect whatsoever, only a lapse rate less steep than a rate via surface EMR flux!!!
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i) See my reply to Peter C.
ii) Lower denser clouds from higher humidity radiate upward more strongly and reflect more incoming solar energy back to space.
iii) The lower the height that water vapour condenses out the less vapour there will be higher up.
iv) There is a lapse rate effect and there is no radiative greenhouse effect but the lapse rate slope itself is a marker of the mass induced greenhouse effect since it tracks the rise in temperature that must occur with depth and increasing density so that for Earth 255K can radiate out to space past the barrier presented by conduction and convection.
v) THere would be a similar air circulation without water vapour but water vapour being lighter than air does make the system more efficient by lifting surface energy to a point ewhere it can radiate more effectively to space from a higher level.
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Stephen Wilde May 23, 2015 at 11:07 am
“i) See my reply to Peter C.”
More lawyer BS!
“ii) Lower denser clouds from higher humidity radiate upward more strongly and reflect more incoming solar energy back to space.”
Not at all, The higher more structured clouds both radiate more to space and reflect more insolation!
“iii) The lower the height that water vapour condenses out the less vapour there will be higher up.”
The vapour condenses only to condensate or aerosol. No change in column water!
“iv) There is a lapse rate effect and there is no radiative greenhouse effect but the lapse rate slope itself is a marker of the mass induced greenhouse effect since it tracks the rise in temperature that must occur with depth and increasing density so that for Earth 255K can radiate out to space past the barrier presented by conduction and convection.”
There is no greenhouse effect, only an adjustable lapse rate that silly lawyers spout as GHE!
What total BS! Convection and latent heat increase the atmospheric radiative exitance to space! The earth surface exitance is but that of a 140 Kelvin black body. Where are your measurements?
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You seem rather emotional.
Not worth responding in detail.
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“There is a lapse rate effect and there is no radiative greenhouse effect but the lapse rate slope itself is a marker of the mass induced greenhouse effect since it tracks the rise in temperature that must occur with depth and increasing density so that for Earth 255K can radiate out to space past the barrier presented by conduction and convection.” ~ S. W.
Do you have any thoughts on the idea that it would be better to refer to the effect as “the atmospheric effect” rather than the “greenhouse effect”? Seems to me skeptics lose a bit every time they use the politically inspired term “greenhouse”.
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I don’t mind either way but for over half a century I understood the greenhouse effect to be a consequence of mass density and it was only a couple of decades ago that the term was hijacked by the radiative theorists who knew nothing of meteorolgy or the ways in which physics plays out within a real atmosphere.
It may be because astrophysicists took over climatology and they get all their data about distant worlds and stars from radiation alone. The know nothing about adiabatic processes or the effects of conduction and convection within an atmosphere or the ways that an atmosphere reconfigures its circulation in a negative system response to any forcing agent.
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Stephen Wilde May 23, 2015 at 9:19 pm
“I don’t mind either way but for over half a century I understood the greenhouse effect to be a consequence of mass density and it was only a couple of decades ago that the term was hijacked by the radiative theorists who knew nothing of meteorolgy or the ways in which physics plays out within a real atmosphere.”
This is fine, except for accepting the CAGW replacement “greenhouse effect” for the measurable atmospheric decrease in temperature with altitude called a variable lapse rate.
No entity on or about this Earth has any understanding of “why that may be” Each entity only has only some fantasy of why. That they wish to convince others, for profit!
What is the difference between a lawyer and a mosquito? One is a infectious blood sucking parasite. The other is an insect!
“It may be because astrophysicists took over climatology and they get all their data about distant worlds and stars from radiation alone. The know nothing about adiabatic processes or the effects of conduction and convection within an atmosphere or the ways that an atmosphere reconfigures its circulation in a negative system response to any forcing agent.”
I agree the astrophysicists combined the fantasy of the meteorologic, with the insane inverse and backward fantasy of EMR, (what it does, and how). This must result in the fantasy of CAGW. Many others took advantage of such stupidity, for personal gain! Those are smart, the rest of us stupid! 🙂
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Surely it is not just that the universally predicted hot spot is missing. The real significance is that everyone agrees increased CO2 is not enough to explain the warming alleged.
The full theory of global warming was that warming produces increased water vapour itself a greenhouse gas and this produces more warming, amplifying the small effect. It follows that if hot spot is not there, an increase in CO2 is cannot produce the warming observed.
I have to point out that that the theory also presumes the CO2 greenhouse effect is real in a huge, turbulent, complex planetary system, something which cannot be reproduced in a laboratory smaller than a planet. You cannot take effects, apply them on a planetary scale and assume your predictions are right.
So even if the alleged very short warming period in the 1990s was real, the steady CO2 increase cannot explain this amount of warming without a secondary theory which is conclusively proven wrong. Man made global warming is busted, not least because there is no observed warming since.
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Jo, great post 😀
Anyway , being a skeptic I also did visit a pro CAGW website to get their viewpoint on the “hot spot”. Apparently we have misunderstood the “Hot Spot” 😮
So here is the quote from the said website.(www.skepticalscience.com)
“Climate “skeptics” apparently became convinced that the “hot spot” in Figure 9.1c was the fingerprint of anthropogenic warming..”
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Dispelling-two-myths-about-the-tropospheric-hot-spot.html
“…rather than stratospheric cooling coupled with tropospheric warming”.
It seems that for AGW , in addition to the “Hot Spot (Troposphere)”….there also needs to be a “Cold Spot (Stratosphere)”.
But then I read this from the article…
The mistaken belief in “skeptic” circles is that the existence of anthropogenic warming somehow hinges on the existence of the tropospheric “hot spot”- it does not. Period.
Tropospheric amplification of warming with altitude is the predicted response to increasing radiative forcing from natural sources, such as an increase in solar irradiance, as well.
Stratospheric cooling is the real “fingerprint” of enhanced greenhouse vs. natural warming (e.g. increased solar)
I am really tempted to download the source code from GISS and see what ModelE actually does , because this “hot spot” has an identity crisis …
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You have to love the complex language of obfuscation
“Tropospheric amplification of warming with altitude is the predicted response to increasing radiative forcing from natural sources, such as an increase in solar irradiance, as well.”
So if it is sunnier, it will get hotter and that will also produce a hot spot which isn’t there? So busted.
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ScotsmaninUtah
“I am really tempted to download the source code from GISS and see what ModelE actually does , because this “hot spot” has an identity crisis …”
Might be more minefield than you realise!
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/gistemp/
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Another Ian,
thanks for the link , it s a good effort on the part of Musings from the Chiefio and certainly highlights the issue regarding the models and data integrity.
The adjustments to the GHCN (Global Historical Climatology Network) data sets are very worrisome , especially the removal of temperature sensors from the total set of sensors.
In a paper produced by Williams, Menne and Lawrimore et al (2012a) which explains the adjustments to data , a final report (NOAA Technical Report NCDC No. GHCNM-12-01R ) concluded that impact to century-scale global and US trends of less than 0.002°C/Decade.
However over the timescale of 10,000 years this would result in 2 degree Celsius change in perceived Global temperatures.
what is noteworthy is that the Siberian Traps event resulted in a 5 degree Celsius change in Global temperatures ( for the same period ) and it seems that the adjustments to data will introduce significant temperature change merely by speeding up the process of homogenization.
It is interesting that the temperature change of 5 Celsius ( Siberian Traps event) followed by the release of methane (causing another 5 Celsius increase) happened over a period of approx 60,000 years, and led to the Permian mass extinction event.
But that was because half of Russia was on literally on fire !
The CAGW fraternity seemed to have lost a perspective and their focus on CO2 is just baffling.
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Have they tried looking down the back of the couch, when I lose something it is usually down the back of the couch or under the bed.
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Everyone is missing the fact the hot spot is down near Heard Island but can’t be seen because of all of the cold water near it.
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Or you can realize that something cannot be missing if it never existed in the first place. One thing that is impossible to do is to prove something which has never existed, doesn’t exist and will never exist does in fact exist. Not without some “fudging” along the way.
And I am not referring to anyone’s favorite cookie or candy recipe either …:)
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Wait a minute!
Satellites are not good enough to detect a hot spot between 8 and 10 km above the Earth, but are sensitive enough to measure millimeter changes in sea level?
Something doesn’t smell right here!
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That would be the wet spot.
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Anything pro-CAGW is always a bit fishy.
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So that’s why the sheepish grin Yonnie!
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Charles S. Opalek, PE,
But you’re forgetting the ‘Law of bloody big numbers’ which simply states that when gambling on the statistical outcome of billions of lives being detrimentally impacted always hide the measurement biases with plenty of adjustments. Or as Bernoulli, Poisson Chebyshev, Markov, Borel, Cantelli,Kolmogorov and Khinchin, succinctly concluded on leaving the casino — “Hey, you win some, you lose some.”
Oh, and what you smell is scientifically called fear. Something Police Lt. Frank Drebin had a particularly high sensitivity for.
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10
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I’m Very glad Dr. Spencer brought water vapour into the discussion. I never thought of that before… Convection would be rather hard on the ‘hot spot.’
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I personally think the upper tropospheric hot spot went to the same place the gigatons of energy that was supposed to be hiding in the deep Pacific went. The same place the models came from. That place is the same deep dark smelly posterior location they pulled them from in the first place.
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There’s a hot spot in our lounge room at the moment, the fire is roaring this morning. Does that count?
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I’ve discovered a more substantial hot spot:
Is one allowed to say ‘Oh the irony’?
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Looking at the Sherwood claim again and the increase in wind speed, the whole thing looks very tenuous and needs debunking.
‘As well as confirming the tropospheric hotspot, the researchers also found a 10% increase in winds over the Southern Ocean. The character of this increase suggests it may be the result of ozone depletion.
“I am very interested in these wind speed increases and whether they may have also played some role in slowing down the warming at the surface of the ocean,” said Professor Sherwood.
Alvin Stone (UNSW)
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The Klimatariat argue that the ozone hole has ‘delayed the impact of greenhouse gas increases on the climate of the continent.’
The polar vortex winds have intensified, apparently due to a strengthened ozone hole, but I don’t believe the correlation is soundly based.
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Thanks ScotsmaninUtah #4. Some minor further embellishment to your comments on the piece regarding the trophospheric hotspot myth at SS published in 2011,
The clarity of thought is crystalline isn’t it?
So, when you’re looking for a truly miniscule effect size, completely drowned out by a multitude of other, much larger variables with the chaotic and unpredictable herd characteristics of well-fed feral cats on amphetamines, imagination, proclamation, obfuscation, and denigration appear the only way forward when faced with empirically equivocal findings and the massive inconvenience of a trendless interval of 19 years duration at the end of the HadCRUT4 surface temperature series, and of 16 – 26 years in the lower troposphere.
The IPCC models have never worked, do not work and will not work beyond a trifling instant either side of the present moment. Neither is their case strengthened by the facile reliance on anthropomorphic words like ‘fingerprint’.
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Regretfully I can’t post this UKMet Office official graph on Jo’s site but the WUWT poster “vukcevic” found this real life temperature graph straight from the UKMet Offices Day nursery attendees and posted it.
It has to be from the Met Office’s Day nursery as any self respecting climate scientist would surely ensure a nice clean example of their climate modelling would be presented to their public so as to not disturb the public by showing the disturbing indications that they hadn’t really a clue as to what they talking about let alone the standards and explicit predictions of their climate modeling endeavours.
Of course the same strictures don’t apply to any graphs and etc that emerge from the climate modelling in their day nursery hence the official Met Office [ clickable ] graph as linked;
Decadal Forecasting – What is it and what does it tell us?
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That is just incredible! Figure 5. From a starting point in 2011 (green lines), not one model correctly forecast current temperatures in 2015. Starting the models again in 2012 (blue lines), only one model is close for 2015 and even that one predicts rapidly rising temperatures over the next 2 years.
This was posted in Jan 2013. What I find particularly surprising is that the page is still accessible. Anyone who would like to refer to this over the next few years should take a screen shot now because the page will likely be gone very soon.
What it tells me is that the Met Office cannot forecast weather or climate for more than a few days ahead (just like all the other weather bureaus) and that they do not even read their own dud rubbish.
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I’m afraid I find this all very baffling.
Quoting Roy Spencer: ‘One of the most vivid predictions of global warming theory is a “hotspot” in the tropical upper troposphere, where increased tropical convection responding to warming sea surface temperatures (SSTs) is supposed to cause enhanced warming in the upper troposphere …’.
As I understand it the alleged ‘hot spot’ is an indication of a positive water vapour feedback loop from global warming whatever the cause, it doesn’t need to be accelerating as the feedback itself would accelerate the warming. In the case of CO2 forcing, the direct effect diminishes logarithmically.
Surely if the water vapour feedback process hypothesis were well founded it would be operating in any climate warming phase, it doesn’t need to start in the year 2000 as the models indicate.
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My theory is that Extra-Terrestrials have the same response to water vapour as we human have to alcohol. Thus, they are busy condensing the hot spot’s water vapour and returning it to their home planets for re-vapourisation sales to their co-aliens, generating vast profits along the lines of what occurred in the US during Prohibition. That explains their reluctance to come the extra few kilometres to visit us – they are making too much lucre. In the 1940s, one group of vapour-stealing ETs got on the sauce during the condensation process, and crashed in New Mexico, where their remains generated stories that persist to the present day!
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This post from Judith Curry is a bit OT, but is very interesting.
Judith states that Jeb Bush is correct in his interview about climate change. That the leading GOP candidate holds these views is most refreshing and hopefully he’ll expand them if he runs against the Hillary donkey.
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/21/the-method-of-multiple-working-hypotheses/
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You have to wonder how a super complex system like a planet can be modelled at all. Most humans only inhabit the first 1km of the atmosphere. At 10km you are talking minus 60C. Two thirds is covered by huge deep oceans, so few long term records and adequately modelled despite the fact that oceans contains as much air as the atmosphere and 50x as much CO2 and all our weather is controlled by sun and water. The Hot Spot is simply about water vapour. Man has only reached the poles and climbed Everest in the last century, but we can predict surface temperatures to a fraction of a degree? Rubbish.
Can these models explain why the huge Antarctic continent, as big as South America is so cold even in summer? Do they explain why the whole Southern Hemisphere is much colder than the North? Can they predict El Nino and La Nina? Can they explain why sea ice extents in the North and South poles are anticyclic? Do they factor in massive storms, turbulence at all altitudes, radiation and weather at night, summer and winter?
Or is the real object of these models is just to give plausibility the theory that man released CO2 is to blame for Global Warming to an accuracy of a 0.5C? If so, are they accurate enough to predict anything else, or is it all just a self justifying exercise to support a communist political theory that the Western industrialization is wrecking the climate and so perpetuate funding?
Why isn’t the Green lobby angry that China and India are doing nothing? Why are they content that China, the major supplier of windmills and solar panels, is only prepared to look again at the alleged problem in 2030? What a victory for Obama, that China has signed a deal to do nothing. Why is tiny Australia a climate villain with only 2% of industrial CO2 and 0.34% of the world population? Why do we have to do anything at all and why would it matter if we did?
Global Warming is a political fabrication and as a massive source of unaccountable cash now over $1Bn a day. Opportunist commentators includes psychologists, economists, paleontologists, botanists, zoologists, ex public servants, journalists, socialist activists and a whole raft of random academics who redefine themselves as professional expert climate scientists to cash in on the gold rush.
Apart from blogs, there has never been a public science debate between actual scientists. The convenient warmist policy is not to debate with people who disagree. That’s the only policy which makes sense.
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TdeF
You’ll next want ‘climate science™’ to be infected with reality, logic, verifiability, and I dare say, some science.
Why should they do that when the models work so well at the moment?
🙂
‘climate science™’ registered ™ of ‘UN & Hansen Climate Modeling Collusions Inc’, a UN 😈 company.
The UN 😈 — “Living the Elite Life®”
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Jo and / or moderators
Yesterday (May 22) on Jo’s blog about deaths from cold and heat I made a couple of innocent, unremarkable and supportive comments (see #2 on) which saw me labelled a prat, an utter liar, smug and stupid by two commentators neither of whom had any basis for so doing. Is this abuse acceptable on your blog?
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I read your comment me@home.
It seemed entirely reasonable to me. I was surprised by the ferocity of Pointman’s reaction and the me-to-ism by Radical.
I assumed that Pointman’s had got himself very emotionally worked up by the writing of his own essay, which seemed in any case to be a work of fiction. He may not have understood your comment.
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Yeah, frankly I too was a bit surprised by Pointman’s response.
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I felt for you me@home. I was startled by the ferocity of the reaction to what I thought was a perfectly reasonable comment. The same thought had crossed my mind…perhaps the very cold or hot spells accelerated the end that was approaching in any case.
That is not to say that there is any excuse for neglecting the comfort and care of those nearing the end of life…far from it…so please don’t misinterpret us Pointman and Radical Rodent.
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For a full run down on the machinations and contempt for carryiing out real science read Berniel’s ananlysis of the 1995 Madrid Conference proceedings, particularly in this case, his Madrid 1995 and The Quest for the Mirror in the Sky (Part II)
Santer’s “Mirror in the Sky” refers to what today is known as the “Hot Spot”.
In the Assessment Report 4 [AR4 ] of the IPCC , Working Group 1 [ WG1 ] the technical assessment and the most important group , Section 9.2.2.1 Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Response provides the scientific basis and illustrations for the modeled existence and configuration of the hypothesised Hot Spot.
Reading this section shows that the IPCC’s WG1 technical guys and gals are far more careful in any claims of certitude along with many carefully worded caveats on many aspects of the supposed indicators of man made warming than the hard line alarmists and catastrophe pushing fanatics would have us believe.
___________________________________
What is possibly the simplest and clearest explanation of the Hot Spot and it’s importance to the whole concept of a anthropogenicly created global warming can be found and is quoted below from C3 Headlines
IPCC’s Global Warming Hypothesis Fails Ultimate Test – No Tropical ‘Hotspot’ After 17 Years of Immense CO2 Emissions
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aka “The UN Through the Looking-Glass” a fantasy of global horror.
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This will leave the warmists hot and bothered.
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You can treat these clowns as a joke with their data stunt after data stunt but after a while you realise they will eventually do to science what IS are doing to the historical record let alone human beings. There comes a time when you not just realise that professional ethics mean something but that you can start to quantify the effect of their abandonment.
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who needs a hot spot when u have a near-monolithic MSM?
“an unprecedented mix” of CAGW pushers!
21 May: Guardian: Mark Sweeney: Global news organisations agree to share climate change content
The Guardian, El Pais, Le Monde and China Daily are among 25 publishers aiming to raise awareness in the runup to the next UN summit
More than two dozen publishers from around the world – from the Sydney Morning Herald to India Today and the Seattle Times – have agreed to scrap licensing fees for climate change content so that members of the alliance can freely republish articles…
The initiative, called the Climate Publishers Network, aims to create a global pool of content to provide a resource for publishers to widen coverage ahead of the UN climate change summit in Paris in December.
The goal is to expand the network beyond its founding partners, brought together with help from the Global Editors Network, until the initiative disbands on the last day of the COP 21 summit on 11 December…
***Publishers that are members of the network can cherry-pick the articles they want and, if necessary, can have them translated for use on their own websites.
Guardian director of digital strategy Wolfgang Blau said that the 25 founding partners represented an ***unprecedented mix of political leanings and geographical spread to have pulled together for such a content-sharing initiative.
“It is unprecedented that such a diverse and large group of news organisations from all continents decides to collaborate in this way,” he said. “Climate change is the biggest challenge humanity is currently facing and requires new ways of collaborating across geographic as well as political boundaries.”…
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/may/21/news-organisations-climate-change-content-guardian
50
Accurate – publicly arguing aspects of science doesn’t happen, only emotional marketing gobbledegook. But that sells …
00
22 May: Accuweather Brian Lada: Late-Season Freeze to Threaten Northeast Friday Night
It might feel more like late October rather than late May in the Northeast on Friday night as temperatures dip well below normal.
Frost will threaten gardens across the region on Friday night as chilly air moves in from Canada.
The coldest air will focus across the interior Northeast with some locations bottoming out in the 20s.
Homeowners who have already planted their annual flowers and vegetation should take the proper precautions to protect their plants from the potentially damaging cold.
If left out unprotected, the frost or freeze could damage or even kill vegetation that is sensitive to the cold weather…
This potential for a freeze is occurring later than normal across the Northeast.
In a typical year, many areas outside of the White, Green and Adirondack Mountains experience their last freeze of the season by the middle of May…
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/lateseason-freeze-to-threaten/47460447
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CAGW’s bottom line. in plain sight.
former HSBC exec giving the lecture???
22 May: RTCC: Alex Pashley: Climate change threat demands reform to financial system – UNEP
Stress tests’ for international finance from rising climate impacts, as UN report calls for banking cultural shift
“Blowback” from climate change could wreck the financial system unless regulators rewire it to ditch fossil fuels.
So says Nick Robins, former head of HSBC’s climate change unit and author of a UNEP report published today, which urges sweeping reforms to shift multi-trillion flows of international finance to insulate countries from global warming…
If they are serious, that means a sharp correction in the value of unburnable fossil fuels, with ‘stranded assets’ set to rock the world economy.
Central bankers must pull levers now to soften the destabilising transition to low-carbon alternatives, recommended the ‘Coming Financial Climate’ report by the Inquiry into the Design of a Sustainable Financial System.
“The financial system hasn’t been doing its job as it should be,” Robins, told RTCC, “new tools are required to design it for a new era.”
Robins cites examples from central banks in Bangladesh, Brazil to the UK that are re-writing regulations in recognition of climate impacts…
They range from placing ‘green financing’ on balance sheets, binding banks to set up strategies for ‘environmental risk management’, and monitoring climate risks in the insurance sector…
“It’s something new over the last two or three years, but what’s interesting is the voices arguing for it are coming out of the financial system. If you want long-term sustainable investment, you need to look at the climate,” Robins said.
The flows of capital to avert climate calamity are enormous, moreover.Sustainable development needs reach $17 trillion, though they are just a fraction of global financial assets valued in 2012 at $218 trillion, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)…
Mobilising finance for low-carbon, resource efficient assets like solar or wind power was key.
Those investments for low-carbon generation need to be as much as $1.1 trillion a year between 2010 and 2029, the IPCC estimates…
***One would be getting pension funds and companies to disclose portfolios bearing carbon-intensive assets in the pursuit of transparency.
Bodies like the Climate Disclosure Standards Board and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board are helping, developing new frameworks for sustainability and climate accounting and disclosure…
Convincing central banks they had a mandate for meddling in climate regulation was another.
Robins said the Bank of England was reviewing climate risks related to its insurance industry…
“It’s quite reasonable for a regulator to be dealing with this, due to the spill over or environmental blowback on the financial system,” Robins said…
http://www.rtcc.org/2015/05/22/climate-change-threat-demands-reform-to-financial-system/
22 May: UNEP: On Climate Finance Day: New UN Report Lays Out Financial Reforms Needed to Harness Multi-Trillion Investments towards Insulating Countries, Communities from Climate Shocks and Build Market Resilience
‘The Coming Financial Climate’ report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) identifies measures that cover risk, capital mobilization, transparency and a shift in the financial culture to make climate security an integral part of a sustainable financial system.
Nairobi – Paris, 22 May 2015 – Harnessing the global financial system to deliver climate security, reduce the risks of high carbon assets, and scale up capital for the low carbon transition is possible, but will only happen with a comprehensive, system-wide approach to financing – including the $37 trillion of energy infrastructure – in the next two decades.
Drawing from an array of policy innovations, some of which are already taking place at the country level, ‘The Coming Financial Climate’, a new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), identifies measures that can make climate security an integral part of a sustainable financial system…
***Tackling climate change requires economic transformation and a re-channeling of private finance…
Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said, “The pathway to combating climate change, restoring the balance of planet Earth and unlocking opportunity for billions of people is clear – a peaking of global emissions in the next ten years, followed by a deep de-carbonization of the global economy.”
“In order to achieve this, and support the aspirations for growth and poverty eradication of developing countries, the globe’s financial systems need to better price pollution and invest in real wealth. It is happening but nowhere near the scale required. Paris 2015 can be a trigger that starts directing the trillions of dollars required away from high carbon, high risk investments and infrastructure towards the low carbon, Green Economy that is everyone’s future,” she said…
***In Brazil, for example, integrating environmental and social factors into risk management is increasingly viewed as a way of strengthening the resilience of the financial system…
***The report is available at: http://www.unep.org/inquiry/Portals/50215/Documents/ES_English.pdf
http://unep.org/newscentre/Default.aspx?DocumentID=26816&ArticleID=35048&l=en
40
the UNEP link’s mention of Brazil
– In Brazil, for example, integrating environmental and social factors into risk management is increasingly viewed as a way of strengthening the resilience of the financial system… –
might be out of date already, tho Guardian dreams Obama will play the saviour again, according to anonymous sources (voices in Guardian writer’s head?)!
22 May: Guardian: Jonathan Watts: Brazil’s ditching of climate change targets may not signal policy shift
Dilma Rousseff’s reneging on a plan to limit CO2 emissions had many fearing the worst but June’s summit with the US may simply mean a delayed announcement
First it was there. Then it was gone. The long-awaited announcement of Brazil’s new climate target came and went with a sleight of hand that caused an uproar among environmentalists this week.
But rather than signalling a shift in policy, as some had feared, the sudden appearance and disappearance of the country’s CO2 reduction goals appears to have more to do with diplomatic mistakes, realpolitik priorities and the greater importance of the US than China, the Guardian has learned…
On the website of the Climate Observatory , a coalition of more than 20 NGOs, Sirkis (former chair, Joint Committee on Climate Change of the National Congress) argues these actions will hurt Brazil’s global standing.
“Climate change is one of the few major areas where Rousseff still has the power to make a difference,” he wrote. “But she is idiosyncratically hostile to clean energy.”…
Rousseff, who sat on the board of state oil company Petrobras during her time as energy minister, has made development of pre-salt oil and gas fields the key to the nation’s future development. By comparison, alternative energies such as wind and solar power have seemed far less of a government priority…
???But sources have told the Guardian there is another explanation why the target was removed from the statement: Rousseff wants it to be announced at a summit with US president Barack Obama in June…
***Rousseff’s overriding priority is economic growth, and her government – which includes climate sceptic Aldo Rebelo as science minister and agribusiness advocate Katia Abreu as agriculture minister – says it is still in the process of deciding its targets.
???More likely, it seems, is that Rousseff has reasoned, ‘why announce a new climate policy to curry favour with China today, when it can be used to schmooze the United States tomorrow?’
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/22/brazil-climate-change-policy-china-obama
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21 May: Business Green: James Murray: Green departments face early spending cuts, as Osborne demands Whitehall savings
The move is likely to have significant implications for unprotected Whitehall departments, which include all the departments with environmental remits: the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the Department for Transport (DfT), and the Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG)…
The precise scale and timing of spending cuts for ‘green’ departments is yet to be determined, but low carbon business sources urged ministers to protect innovation and infrastructure funding and resist the temptation to curb spending on established policies such as electricity market reform and carbon capture and storage demonstration funding.
One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, argued there was limited room for steep spending cuts at DECC, although they predicted there were some areas that may be targeted for job cuts under any new spending settlement. “If you look at DECC’s budget the big pieces of the puzzle are nuclear waste and the Levy Control Framework and there is not much you can do about that spending,” they said. “If you are talking about cuts unfortunately it is likely to be talking about staffing costs.”
DECC faced some of the smallest spending cuts of any non-protected department following the last election. However, there have already been reports suggesting the department could face steeper cuts this time around. One industry source said the scheduled culmination of the Paris Summit later this year may allow the department to trim the size of its diplomatic team from next year, but added that further cuts would be difficult to identify…
There are also concerns about the potential impact of further spending cuts on Defra, which has faced some of the deepest cuts of any department since 2010…
Nick Molho of the Aldersgate Group of green firms said there were concerns further steep cuts to spending at the department could have an adverse impact on its work with businesses. “Defra had to rationalise its operations a lot over the last parliament,” he said. “It has a huge brief taking in flooding, climate adaptation, waste, food, and the Environment Agency, and any further cuts could be very damaging. You need a minimum number of boots on the ground to deliver its programme.”…
Matthew Spencer of think tank Green Alliance said the new ministerial teams at DECC and Defra may have to push back against Treasury demands for steep cuts…
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2409571/osborne-demands-green-departments-make-immediate-start-to-spending-cuts
22 May: Guardian: Tom Levitt: Business leaders prepare for limited UN climate deal in Paris
Private sector could help close the expected shortfall in emissions reductions necessary to stop 2C of global warming warming, suggests Unilever CEO Paul Polman at climate and business summit in Paris…
However, business leaders did not expect the necessary emissions reductions or their policy requests to be finalised in December.
“We have to be pragmatic,” French oil group Total CEO Patrick Pouyanne told the Guardian. “If we take the sum of commitments made by countries then I am afraid we will not be on the 2C trajectory. There will be a gap…
A failure to bring enough emission cut commitments to put the world on track for avoiding global warming of more than 2C is likely to frustrate the majority of businesses, says the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), with more than 30 companies including Ford Motor Company, Unilever, Nissan and H&M having already pledged to set long-term, ***science-based climate targets…
French companies were represented in large numbers at this week’s summit, with Renault saying it would be “totally stupid” not to have the right regulations, framework and price signals in place after the UN talks…
Private sector could help meet targets
While some have doubted the sincerity of energy-intensive businesses in particular in tackling climate change, Unilever CEO Paul Polman suggests the private sector could help close the shortfall in emission commitments made by governments…
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/may/21/business-leaders-prepare-for-limited-un-climate-deal-in-paris
40
The warmists must now be resigned,
That the keenest researchers can’t find,
A spot which they fear,
In some tropical sphere,
Being hot,might threaten mankind.
140
Great! You have a way with words. Succinct; eloquent.
40
Ahh,
So that is how to spell succinct! I thought my version looked wrong, but spell check let it through.
20
This should be elevated to the bottomw of Jo’s post IMHO.
30
‘Out,damned spot! Out I say.’
H/t Lady Macbeth
[If you avoid such words as damned you won’t get stuck in moderation. This is within Jo’s guidelines and a direct quote (or close to it, I don’t remember the exact words) so I’m releasing it. But keep this in mind for the future. Thanks.] AZ
20
McGeough/Fairfax finally publish a novel-length piece with Lomborg, but full of extraneous BS nonetheless.
PM Abbott US & China’s whipping boy on CC? McGeough needs to go beyond US/China rhetoric & check out what they are doing, fossil-fuel wise, in reality.
is that too much to ask?
22 May: WA Today: Paul McGeough: Too hot to handle?
Many people have not warmed to Bjorn Lomborg’s stance on climate change, but the contrarian says he just wants to help the planet.
PHOTO CAPTION: Bjorn Lomborg with Al Gore at a Washington climate-change hearing in 2007
They lived on opposite sides of the globe – one a man, the other a boy – but long before Tony Abbott quoted climate contrarian Bjorn Lomborg in his 2009 autobiography, Battlelines, the pair shared a sobriquet: critics dubbed Abbott the “Mad Monk” because of an early period spent studying for the priesthood; Lomborg, a one-time altar boy in Denmark’s Liberal Catholic Church, was also known as “the monk” by his schoolmates – his adult detractors prefer to assail him with more trenchant and, possibly, less alliterative epithets than merely “mad”.
Abbott, who told a 2009 meeting in western Victoria that the science of human-induced climate change was “absolute crap”, later came to office chanting “Axe the [carbon] tax.”
***These days, he’s (Abbott) a whipping boy for Washington and Beijing for dragging his heels on the formulation of policy to counter climate change…
As revealed in the increasingly strident reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), from which the UN takes critical scientific advice, the debate among scientists is over.
***By one count, 97 per cent of about 2000 peer-reviewed papers published in the past 20 years affirm that humans cause global warming. Dozens of national and international scientific bodies agree. But if the scientists have consensus, corporations and politicians don’t…
His (Lomborg’s) critics accused him of bias; the over-simplification of complex issues; the misuse, misrepresentation and misinterpretation of data; flawed logic; and wilful ignorance. He achieved the rare feat of being likened simultaneously to Adolf Hitler and Holocaust deniers…
Last year, when the IPCC published a clutch of weighty documents, known as the panel’s Fifth Assessment Report, he went into contrarian overdrive. Ice caps were melting, it said; heat waves and heavy rain intensifying; coral reefs dying; fish and other creatures migrating to the poles, with some species becoming extinct. Predicting possible wars over land, water and other scarce resources, the report sounded the grimmest climate-change warning for the 21st century.
Lomborg’s response was to accuse politicians and the media of burying the good news: there was, he claimed, in the IPCC’s 4000-plus pages, proof that global warming had dramatically slowed or entirely stopped over the past 15 years. “Almost all climate models are running far too hot,” he insisted, “meaning that the real challenge of global warming has been exaggerated.”…
Lomborg is defiant in the face of the UWA reversal. “I’d seen enough [of the Australian debate] to realise it had turned into something quite vicious – and with no regard for the facts,” he says. “What opens doors with philanthropists and governments is the fact [the CCC] produces credible research. [This decision] says something very sad about the narrow-minded approach to research and debate in some quarters.” When Education Minister Christopher Pyne says the search is now on for an alternative site, Lomborg complains that “the facts [have] been drowned out. The UWA vice chancellor found himself in an impossible position [because] the Centre was used as a political football.”…
The setback bodes ill for his fiercely competitive standoff with the scientific and environmental lobbies – and with Al Gore. Lomborg’s Cool It may have been a direct challenge to the American’s dire warnings contained in his 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, ***but measured in the celebrity currency of our time, it’s Gore who is winning the argument. Gore’s film won an Oscar and he has a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts
http://www.watoday.com.au/good-weekend/too-hot-to-handle-20150522-gh5zwx
McGeough, guess old Al’s “celebrity currency” (so important to the CAGW crowd) isn’t all you, or Gore, thinks it is!
23 May: Daily Mail: AFP: ‘Live Earth’ global climate change concerts delayed
Organisers of Live Earth, a set of global concerts backed by Al Gore aimed at pushing for urgent action on climate change, announced a delay Friday, weeks before the scheduled date.
Live Earth had intended shows on each inhabited continent for June 18 featuring more than 100 artists to raise pressure for a strong agreement at a UN-led climate conference in Paris at the end of the year.
Representatives, however, said that no events would take place that day, and instead a ***free concert would be held near the Eiffel Tower in Paris sometime in the autumn…
***”We are excited to announce that this shift in timing allows us to host a free, public concert,” it said in a statement.
Live Earth representatives said that they still planned events around the world but did not specify whether they would be full-fledged concerts…
Live Earth was initially intended to consist of concerts on June 18 in Australia, Brazil, China, South Africa and the United States, as well as Paris.
But despite an active social media presence, organisers had yet to reveal any ticket arrangements or artists other than “Happy” creator Pharrell Williams, who was involved in the planning…
Live Earth promised that it would still put on a major event later this year, backed by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, which would feature “countless artists.”
“We will host an event which transcends social and cultural barriers, matches the scale of the challenge we face and enables us to maximise our impact on the issue,” the statement said.
Gore, the former US vice president turned champion of action against climate change, had announced the June 18 concerts alongside Pharrell Williams at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January.
“The purpose is to have a billion voices with one message to demand climate action now,” Gore said at the time.
Williams had promised “some interesting surprises coming up” in the lineup.
“We are literally going to have humanity harmonised all at once,” he said…
The US Live Earth concert had been expected at the MetLife stadium in New Jersey of the New York Giants football team, whose former venue hosted the 2007 edition…
DAILY MAIL: SORRY WE ARE NOT CURRENTLY ACCEPTING COMMENTS ON THIS ARTICLE.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-3093259/Live-Earth-global-climate-change-concerts-delayed.html
20
“iteratively reiterated homogenized and adjusted version of radiosondes.”
A process which removes all the saturated fats, leaving the final product 97% fat free.
30
RoHa,
“A process which removes all the saturated fats, leaving the final product 97% fat free.”
But now improved with the addition of —
Calcium glutamate, Monoammonium L-glutamate, Magnesium di-L-glutamate, Maltol, Ethyl maltol, Calcium polyphosphates, Ammonium polyphosphates, Silicon dioxide, Glucono delta-lactone, Sodium gluconate, Potassium gluconate, Calcium gluconate, Ferrous gluconate, Sorbitol, Disodiumguanylate, Disodium inosinate, Sodium 5’ribonucleotide, Mannitol, Glycerin, Polysorbate 20, Polysorbate 80, Mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, fatty acid esters of glycerol, Sucrose esters of fatty acids, Sucroglycerides, Polyglycerol esters of fatty acids, Polyglycerol polyricinoleate, Propylene glycol, Esters of fatty acids, Dioctyl sodium sulphosuccinate, Sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate, Calcium stearoyl-2-lactylate, Stearyl tartrate, Xanthan gum, Karaya gum, Sorbitan monos tearate, Sorbitan tristearate, Pectin, Amidated pectin, Hydroxypropyl-methylcellulose, methylethylcellulose, Sodium carboxymethyl-cellulose, Sodium caseinate, L-Glutamic acid, Monosodium glutamate (MSG), Monopotassium glutamate, and Sodium aluminum silicate.
Thus it has all the enhanced flavor and texture of real man-made consumables but with none of that awkward nutrition.
50
That pissy Propylene glycol, should be Polypropylene glycol for maximum profit!,
22
“New satellite analysis … agrees with millions of weather balloons”
Clearly the satellites and the balloons have gotten together up there, out of sight, and concocted a denialist conspiracy. Probably funded by the Koch Brothers and definitely Toby Abbott’s fault.
40
22 May: Business Insider: David Scutt: After Hanergy Thin Solar’s shares got smoked there’s speculation it has defaulted on its debts
Earlier this week markets watched in awe as shares in Hong Kong-listed Hanergy Thin Solar plummeted nearly 50% in minutes.
The decline, thought to have cost company chairman and majority owner Li Hejung, around $US15 billion in paper wealth, occurred on the day of the companies annual general meeting, which Li failed to attend, and on the back of absolutely no news from or relating to the company…
According to the Caixin online newspaper Hanergy Holding Group, Hanergy Thin Solar’s parent company, used shares in the entity to take out bank loans which, according to sources close to the company, it has since failed to repay…
Midway through Friday’s session shares in Hanergy Thin Solar remain suspended…
22 May: Bloomberg: Hanergy’s Li Hejun Added to Short Position Days Before Plunge
Hanergy Thin Film Solar Group Ltd. Chairman Li Hejun increased the size of his short position in the company’s shares days before the stock plunged, effectively betting the value of his the manufacturer he founded would fall.
Li bought 26.4 million Hanergy additional shares at an average of HK$7.28 each on May 18, according to two separate filings to Hong Kong Exchange on Friday. He also increased his short position to 7.71 percent of Hanergy’s issued share capital from 5.81 percent on the same day…
The transactions add to questions about Hanergy’s valuation before the plunge, which at one time topped HK$300 billion ($39 billion), more than household names such as Sony Corp. of Japan or Twitter Inc…
21 May: Nasdaq: Guggenheim Solar ETF To Drop Hanergy When It Resumes Trading
“MAC Solar, the index provider for Guggenheim Solar ( TAN), will drop Hanergy from its index, effective on the close of the date Hanergy resumes trading,” Ivy McLemore, a spokesman for Guggenheim Partners, said in a press statement Thursday…
Barrons were warning investors:
7 May: Barrons: Chris Dieterich: Half of Solar ETF’s 2015 Gains Come From One Stock: China’s Hanergy
Many investors are growing bullish on the prospects of investing in solar energy, but note that one stock drove half the gains this year in the market’s biggest solar exchange-traded fund…
Research firm Markit is the latest to note that the Guggenheim Solar ETF (TAN) has its heftiest position in a company that many investors doubt and are betting against. This blogger recently wrote about Hanergy Thin Film Power Group (566.Hong Kong), a company that rose from obscurity to become the world’s largest solar-power company by market capitalization.
Relte Stephen Schutte notes that uncertainty about Hanergy is driving heavy short selling, or bets that the stocks’ price will go down…
http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2015/05/07/half-of-solar-etfs-2015-gains-come-from-one-stock-chinas-hanergy/
Fairfax AFR not so much!
***’Rational excitement’ as China primes for solar boom
The Australian Financial Review-18 May 2015
21 May: Forbes: Michael Lynch: Hanergy Solar Collapse: Looks Like A Tale Of ***Irrational Exuberance
Chinese thin-film solar panel maker Hanergy was a high-flying stock this year, with its price soaring six-fold to a valuation of $37 billion despite what should have been numerous warning signs, including the brand being built on the CEO’s charisma, the often-careless promotion of Cleantech for its green character, and wishful thinking about a too-expensive technology. Sounds all too familiar.
Think Solyndra or Israeli electric car company Better Place. Both were much ballyhooed by Cleantech proponents, raised lots of money (from the government in the first instance), and seemed much more focused on technical accomplishments than economics. Hanergy claims it was chosen by MIT’s Technology Review as the only Chinese company on the list of 50 smartest companies, but it doesn’t seem to have passed muster on the business end.
Go to Hanergy’s website and the numbers provided primarily involve the stock value and the potential efficiency of its gallium arsenide thin-film solar cells. For a backroom startup, that wouldn’t be surprising but a company worth $37 billion should have some financial info, in my estimation. A brief survey of the Internet finds lots of stories about the company spending money—on acquisitions and store openings—but not so many on income. The company claims to have 60 “flagship” stores, yet now we hear that nearly all its revenue was from sales to its parent company, which sounds like the kind of financial manipulation another high-flying stock, Enron, engaged in…
There’s a huge difference between government support and commercial success, which Cleantech entrepreneurs often blur and which advocates carelessly ignore…
One has to wonder how many other Cleantech companies might suffer from the fallout of this implosion.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellynch/2015/05/21/hanergy-solar-collapse-looks-like-a-tale-of-irrational-exuberance/
00
A consensus of balloons.
50
97% of HOT AIR balloons agree?
20
Is this worth investigating: http://multi-science.atypon.com/doi/abs/10.1260/0958-305X.26.3.417?
Former UN Lead Author: Global Warming Caused By ‘Natural Variations’ In Climate: http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/22/former-un-lead-author-global-warming-caused-by-natural-variations-in-climate/
00
Tracking the missing heat …
“When I noticed from the hydrographic data that the Pacific Ocean heat content has been decreasing since 2003 or so, I was very surprised and puzzled,” Sang-ki Lee told Eos. “And when I found a large heat increase in the Indian Ocean, I was almost convinced that there was something wrong with the hydrographic data.”
WUWT
30
a shocking, second attack on Lomborg by McGeough below – over what?
a $US1.4 million annual budget & a couple of six-figure salaries.
McGeough, go read UNEP’s “The Coming Financial Climate” report before you attack Lomborg for focusing on the economics of CAGW, something the public understands.
of course Fairfax/ABC/Guardian would prefer to keep the public in the dark about the suicidal economics of CAGW policies. their hack journos prefer to pretend they understand the science!
keep telling people to invest in solar & wind, McGeough.
keep telling people it’s moral to allow their Super Fund Managers to invest their retirement funds in the likes of Hanergy, Solyndra, et al. lol.
23 May: Brisbane Times: Paul McGeough: CCC’s Bjorn Lomborg appears unfazed by criticisms and setbacks
Amidst uncertainty over his planned expansion into Australia, sponsored and part-funded by Canberra, Danish climate contrarian Bjorn Lomborg is unapologetic over secret donor funding and his own, at times, large salary as head of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre (CCC).
Defending the donations, Lomborg doubled-back on a position he took late last year when he volunteered, in a Freakonomicstalk in the US, “almost all” CCC donors wished to remain anonymous.
However, in a lengthy April interview and subsequent email exchanges with Fairfax Media’s Good Weekend, Lomborg spoke of only “a small number of donors” who didn’t want to “paint a target on their backs [because of] the negativity and viciousness of attacks on the [CCC] from some online bloggers and activists.”…
Asked if the combination of past trenchant scientific and environmentalist criticism of his “bang-for-your-buck” analysis, which underpinned the outrage at UWA, and of his willingness to accept some anonymous funding risked the credibility of his proposed Australian operation, Lomborg countered: “CCC has been recognised repeatedly as a top global think-tank – it has a strong reputation because of the excellent research that it produces with more than 100 leading economists and seven Nobel laureates.”
Yet Lomborg baulked, when asked about the intellectual hinge in his relationship with Canberra – did the Abbott government enlist him in the Australian discourse because he had always believed humans cause global warming, or because he now spent most of his waking hours articulating arguments against controversial proposals to cut carbon emissions?
Citing what he described as the “latest” published records, Lomborg said the CCC budget in 2013 was $US1.4 million. Referring to the long shadow cast by the multibillionaire brothers who dominate conservative political funding in the US – industrialists Charles and David Koch – Lomborg dismissed claims that some of his donors move in the same political orbit as the brothers: “There is no Koch connection.”
Quoting published tax-filings by various American foundations, ***DeSmogBlog’s Graham Readfearn***, operating from Sydney, reported in April that $US200,000, almost one-third of CCC’s declared donations in 2013, had come from so-called ‘vulture capitalist’ and Republican-funder Paul E Singer.
In the 2013 filings, Lomborg’s salary was revealed to be $200,484, but in the previous year it was more than three times that amount – $US775,000.
***That figure caused a rolling of eyes in some scientific and environmental corners. But unabashed, Lomborg told Fairfax Media: “My salary is assessed by a compensation committee. My position is as leader of a globally recognised, top-ranked think-tank and research funder, interacting with hundreds of the world’s top economists, opinion-makers and leaders.”…
***Asked if there was something ***unseemly about the narrow economic focus in his methodology, Lomborg responded: “You do need to have the economic part of the conversation and it becomes a wonderful way to compare across a wide range of areas. Of course it would be great if we had Platonic ideals and infinite time to see all sides of an issue, but the reality is that you end up with what looks good on TV.”
Told that some might read his bang-for-your-buck modeling as something from a dystopian Cheney or Rumsfeld realm – ‘and after giving security and intelligence to subcontractors, they turned to privatising policy formulation’ – Lomborg took no offence…
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/cccs-bjorn-lomborg-appears-unfazed-by-criticisms-and-setbacks-20150522-gh6h2g
seriously quoting Graham Readfearn! bringing up Cheney & Rumsfeld? what a joke.
btw go check some of those six-figure ABC salaries, McGeough. paid for by the taxpayers. for what?
then meditate for 24 hours on Christian Figueres’ statement re CAGW:
“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history.” Figueres, Feb 2015.
to date, that quote has not even been reported by Fairfax, as far as i can tell from searches online, not even in Fairfax’s mocking of Maurice Newman’s NWO piece which highlighted the quote.
however, back in 2013, Fairfax did carry a Bloomberg report, which included:
SMH: Energy system needs ‘full transformation’: UN climate chief
“There’s nothing that humanity has ever attempted that is of greater impact than what we’re trying to do right now,” Figueres said. “This is a full transformation of the economic structure, of the energy system and of the economic logic that underpins growth. It’s a full transformation of social values and behaviors.”…
http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/energy-system-needs-full-transformation-un-climate-chief-20130530-2nezf.html
Fairfax/ABC/Guardian, drop your scientific pretensions & provide the public with information from all sides that will allow them to protect their retirement funds from the carbon cowboys & cowgirls. that would be worthwhile.
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Why the angst about the hot spot? As far as I can tell it is a hypothesis that can be used to rule out certain types of external forcing and modelling (greenhouse gas or solar). May be the models are incomplete.
Perhaps I will read the article again.
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