Of seventy four million deaths (that is quite some study) 7.7% of all deaths could be blamed on “non-optimal” temperatures according to Gasparrini et al in the Lancet. But look closely, and 7.3% of deaths were due to the cold and only 0.4% were due to the heat.
This may be part of the reason people retire to Florida, and not so much to Barrow, Alaska.
The biggest killers were not the heat waves that score the headlines, but the moderate cold. Winter kills. (Time to ban winter?)
Cold weather kills far more people than hot weather
Cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather, according to an international study analyzing over 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries. The findings, published in The Lancet, also reveal that deaths due to moderately hot or cold weather substantially exceed those resulting from extreme heat waves or cold spells.
“It’s often assumed that extreme weather causes the majority of deaths, with most previous research focusing on the effects of extreme heat waves,” says lead author Dr Antonio Gasparrini from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the UK. “Our findings, from an analysis of the largest dataset of temperature-related deaths ever collected, show that the majority of these deaths actually happen on moderately hot and cold days, with most deaths caused by moderately cold temperatures.”
The study analysed over 74 million (74,225,200) deaths between 1985 and 2012 in 13 countries with a wide range of climates, from cold to subtropical. Data on daily average temperature, death rates, and confounding variables (eg, humidity and air pollution) were used to calculate the temperature of minimum mortality (the optimal temperature), and to quantify total deaths due to non-optimal ambient temperature in each location. The researchers then estimated the relative contributions of heat and cold, from moderate to extreme temperatures.
What I found really curious was that the death rates due to cold were so low in Sweden, but so high in Italy and Japan?
Around 7.71% of all deaths were caused by non-optimal temperatures, with substantial differences between countries, ranging from around 3% in Thailand, Brazil, and Sweden to about 11% in China, Italy, and Japan. Cold was responsible for the majority of these deaths (7.29% of all deaths), while just 0.42% of all deaths were attributable to heat.
The study also found that extreme temperatures were responsible for less than 1% of all deaths, while mildly sub-optimal temperatures accounted for around 7% of all deaths — with most (6.66% of all deaths) related to moderate cold.
According to Dr Gasparrini, “Current public-health policies focus almost exclusively on minimizing the health consequences of heat waves. Our findings suggest that these measures need to be refocused and extended to take account of a whole range of effects associated with temperature.”
Writing in a linked Comment, Keith Dear and Zhan Wang from Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan, Jiangsu, China say, “Factors such as susceptibility or resilience have not been included in the analysis, including socioeconomic status, age, and confounding air pollutants…Since high or low temperatures affect susceptible groups such as unwell, young, and elderly people the most, attempts to mitigate the risk associated with temperature would benefit from in-depth studies of the interaction between attributable mortality and socioeconomic factors, to avoid adverse policy outcomes and achieve effective adaptation.”
The benefits we can derive,
From warming,helps keep us alive,
While our true foe is cold,
Killing both young and old,
Who with warming would otherwise thrive.
– Ruairi
REFERENCE
Antonio Gasparrini, Yuming Guo, Masahiro Hashizume, Eric Lavigne, Antonella Zanobetti, Joel Schwartz, Aurelio Tobias, Shilu Tong, Joacim Rocklöv, Bertil Forsberg, Michela Leone, Manuela De Sario, Michelle L Bell, Yue-Liang Leon Guo, Chang-fu Wu, Haidong Kan, Seung-Muk Yi, Micheline de Sousa Zanotti Stagliorio Coelho, Paulo Hilario Nascimento Saldiva, Yasushi Honda, Ho Kim, Ben Armstrong. (2015) Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study. The Lancet, May 2015 DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(14)62114-0
It seems like a reasonable study and a reasonable conclusion. Most colds and flu happen in fall and winter. But it always sets off an inner alarm when I see such a long list of authors. If each author cites all the rest of the authors once, then their citation index grows very quickly. I have been on many papers, and the first 2 authors, sometimes the first 3 do most of the work. I may be wrong, but I always felt long lists of authors were just upping each others citation index for grants, promotions, etc.. Anyone else notice these things or am I to believe that 10 or 20 people can really make a significant contribution to writing a paper?
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Note that it required a large logistic exercise in 13 different nations. Obvious if you locally sub-contract that number of associates would be necessary, and, perhaps,
all need recognition . They acknowledge the pitfalls in large meta analysis studies but you would need some pretty large error bars to negate this conclusion!
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I agree diogenese2,it was a large and complex study. But the point I am trying to make is that the rules that used to govern academia, some government agencies, and other agencies publishing scientific papers were pretty strict about what one had to do to be a co-author. For those that contributed labor, administrative skills, or technical skills under the direction of a scientist, could and were, listed in an acknowledgments section. Peer reviewers, if known, were also listed there as were the organizations supporting the research. All this was covered under a code of ethics for authors.
This was to prevent taking credit for someone’s scientific contributions, or to protect scientists from being forced to put the Lab Director’s name on every paper, or rewarding technicians and others who may have worked on the project but did not conduct and document significant contributions. Today I think huge lists of authors often are for the above reasons and to build science citations indices.
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[off topic and I wont pursue further than this]
Leonard – where do you get the idea that the rules were “pretty strict”. If your evidence is that lists of authors were shorter in the past – there are many reasons for that fact that have nothing to do with rules.
My experience in the system is that the rules in the past were extremely lax and that other factors kept a cap on numbers. This laxness is only relatively recently exploited more often. The upshot of this is that many journals have for the FIRST time introduced pretty strict regulations. This is at the insistence of authors, institutions and especially societies.
These rules require the role and contribution of each author to be stated explicitly and this data made available (ie published). You wont find any such statements made in journals earlier than around 10 years ago.
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Oh yes. Pull the other one.
20
What a useless comment
[I would agree except it’s your comment I would find of no use. The link leads to some interesting admissions by Phil Jones about his past activities that are quite topical in the context of the comment at #1 and its replies.] AZ
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True enough. I was putting SSs comment in context as a reply to mine… Mine being off topic. Not only that but I’ve broken my square bracket promise. Apologies.
11
We are in a struggle to save the lives of the defenceless today, not some nebulous years ahead. It’s not theoretical, it’s not scientific, it’s not even pathetically academic. At ground zero, it’s not nice but pick a side or walk away.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/they-sit-with-god-in-paradise/
Pointman
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Pointman, the most difficult thing I find about these studies is that there never seems to be any recognition that the frail elderly who die in extreme weather, in many cases, would have died soon anyway. I know this sounds insensitive, or worse, but is it good enough to just ad up all fatalities as if they were equivalent and pretend we would be achieving anything worthwhile if be could defer death by days or weeks? BTW I am into my 70s.
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me@home, I attended a conference ten years ago or so ago, and heard one of the speakers discuss a phenomenon often observed in connection with heat waves, contagions, bitter cold spells, etc. Mortality rates typically climb at the onset of such events, spiking above the trend line for a time. Later, however, mortality rates usually dip below the trend line for a while. Actuaries apparently term this ” harvesting”: the grim reaper harvests the especially vulnerable during challenging weather or outbreaks of disease, causing the spike, but then, many of the enfeebled having succumbed, death rates briefly subside to lower than normal rates.
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At Me@home, you’re a perfect example of the smug inhumanity we can never come to any accommodation with. So seemingly reasonable. You and your ilk are prepared to spend the vulnerable, the elderly and the weak. I’m not.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/just-how-far-are-you-prepared-to-go-to-feel-good-about-yourself/
Pointman
712
Gee thanks Pointman. You could not be more wrong about me. I am NOT prepared to “spend” anyone. Of course cold is worse than warm for both comfort and mortality. All I was pointing out that raw mortality statistics do not necessarily tell the full story either way. For your info I lost my lovely wife some years ago due to medical misadventure at far too young an age. The medical resources expended on her in her last days were massive but futile. At a personal level we all want to do the best for our loved ones. However, at the collective level we know (or, at least, should know that resources are finite and we do not help to optimise resource decisions by uncritically looking at raw data.
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There is a recognized rebound effect for mortality during heatwaves where the increase during the heat may be offset by a decrease in the weeks following. This does not seem to happen with cold snaps, and suggests that heatwaves affect people who were more likely to die in the next month or so anyway.
However, there are no studies that I know of where we find out if people would have survived another year if they avoided winter. And even if there were, unless they randomly shifted people across the hemispheres (versus a shift within the hemisphere), it would be tricky to match controls.
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Oops, my apologies, I screwed up. Sorry. I should have noticed you finish every comment with a victimhood thingy. Don’t touch me, I’m over 70, OMG I lost my wife, how dare you intimate I’m a prat.
Again, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to imply you were a prat, because what I actually meant was that you were a liar, a complete and utter one.
Pointman
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And you sir are unspeakable.
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you make a fair argument Pointman. Your blog displays this too and never suffering from undue long windedness.
And I’m a liar too.
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It’s true, I am despicable, but at least I’m honestly despicable and we both know I’m not wrong about you.
Pointman
36
No, just another fool who is too full of himself.
10
Smug little me@home, you obviously have NOT read the article. Had you done so, you would have noted that when there is a spike in deaths during a heatwave, there is a reduction in deaths soon after – in other words, the heat merely hurried the weak along; as you say, they were soon to die, anyway. With a spike in deaths during a cold snap, this is NOT followed by a reduction soon after – in other words, the deaths were significantly premature in that they do not affect the average rate after the event; the victims were not as frail as you seem to think, and may have had years of life ahead of them.
BTW age is no bar to basic stupidity.
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Radical R I did read the article, understood as you did, and was in fundamental agreement with Pointman’s original comment. I simply tried to insert a general observation which I have long held about the risks of death from various causes whether climate related or not. People know that they will die; we used to let people die of old age. Today there has to be an identifiable cause whether lifestyle or otherwise. From my observation people (some,many, most – take your pick) are not impressed unless they know by about how much time their demise has been advanced by that cause. Perhaps others disagree or have different observations. While I prefer to remain anonymous on blogs, I inserted two pieces of information about myself simply to illustrate my personal position in relation to my comments. I’m not sure I’ll be doing that again. And, I am not able to understand why my innocent and meant to be helpful comments gets me branded a prat, an utter liar, smug and stupid – none of which are true. Nor do I understand why such abuse is permitted on Jo’s otherwise excellent blog.
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PM, I think about the doomsday seed vault in the artic circle, and consider how GMO food could cause this even in the USA, Australia, Uk… places where famine is unknown yet could be engineered so. Stalin learnt the power fo famine to kill people and kick the rest into submission.
I think the worst we can do is assume it can never happen to us…but then weve never had the ascendency into power of the psychotic and deranged NWO crowd until now, either…..
I believe the NWO mob have fine tuned all thier murderous “tools of trade” in places like Africa.
50
Pointman you seem to agree with WTF over?
NO, nor pick a side or walk away.
“At ground zero, it’s not nice but pick a side or walk away.”
Learn from the politicians! No need to appreciate, help others to throw up and crawl away quickly!
At ground zero there is no choice. If there is a ground zero, please manage to be elsewhere!
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Will, after a few rereads I have to admit I have no clue WTF point you’re making, if any. Anyway, have some decent music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWwPQ3lAkuY
Pointman
63
Grinn!
41
The variation between countries suggests to me that it might be a cultural issue rather than a climate issue. In Britain if there is a light snowfall the roads are gridlocked; the casualty departments are full of old folks with broken bones. A sudden fall in temperatures in November or December causes the death rate to spike. Thick fog every couple of years causes huge crashes on the motorways. In places like Sweden and Brazil where temperatures are often more extreme, people are adapted to the changes. They expect the extremes, so are prepared.
200
Kevin, that is the point. Whether prepared or not – it is the cold that is worse.
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diogenes
Cold is worse, but it is a darn sight colder in Sweden than here in Britain. Yet in Britain there is a higher proportion of cold related deaths. In Sweden being caught in extreme cold is a killer for people of any age or condition, and those dangerous levels happen every year. So people are prepared for temperature changes.
In Britain if the temperature to freezing, with clear conditions you still find young people walking around without even a jumper. It is a site to behold in many city centers at 2am on Saturday Morning. But if the older folks do not have a well insulated and heated home, it may be lethal at the first frost.
30
Sweden as I recall has cheap heating options for the householder. The only time I experienced cold was walking outside to catch a train or taxi.
30
‘Fewer deaths attributed to warming’ another
benefit of a mildly warming world. Brian Fagan
in ‘The Little Ice Age’ documents the cycles of
colder seasons, bad harvests, epidemics and
increased mortality in the LIA in Britain and
Europe. In the big freeze of 1740 the London
Bills of Mortality show a 53%increase in
registered deaths for the first five months,
compared to the year earlier.
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=LwvkmXt5fQUC&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141&dq=ice+age+mortality+data&source=bl&ots=K4ZGdHJYqG&sig=UjzG04bxX-4NOtTBQpSQS58bgLg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RxReVbarGJHi8AWQ0oGwAw&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=ice%20age%20mortality%20data&f=false
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I’m not a huge fan of Fagan’s book. He was desperate to show, very early in his text, that he was a True-believer in the Warmist cult and that the Little Ice Age, actually, was no big deal, compared to the supposed incoming man-made catastrophe (which would be the one that’s now been on hold for most of an undergraduate’s life and for the entire lifetime of Fagan’s book).
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I suspect the mainstream media will give these findings the cold shoulder.
120
I nominate you for worst joke of the year award.
120
From your icy glare and frosty reception there Rereke Whakaaro I take it you didn’t appreciate Colin’s drift?
I assume that’s a snow!
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but the moderate cold. Winter kills. (Time to ban winter?)
No no If you are a green socialist you just tax winter to make it go away. Ask the Europeans.
181
It should come as absolutely no surprise.
The tropics, that area of the globe between the tropic of Capricorn (23.5 degrees South of the equator) and Cancer (23.5 degrees North of the equator) is the area of the greatest variety of species, plant, insect and animal life forms, by far. (I’ll resist using that magic number 97% but you should get the idea.) Yet at the opposite extremes, the Poles, there are relatively very few species indeed. Polar Bears, seals and walrus at one end and penguins, penguins and penguins at the other.
The progress of evolution, ie it’s rate of change, is greatest in the tropics. So it “likes” warmth too. Dr Fagan in his book The Little Ice Age clearly documents the drop in European population over its time. Humans weren’t the only ones to suffer. Horses provided the motive power for transport. By the late eighteenth century, horses were expensive and their population barely adequate to service needs. This led to the invention of what is now the bicycle and the death penalty for horse theft.
30
sophocles
I believe there have been occasional sightings of Turneys wandering around the ice, looking lost.
40
There is simply no cold equivalent to sitting under the banyan tree.
I’m at a loss to explain why the self-evident requires, well, evidence. I realise that in the Owellian vocabulary of the UN where cold is hot and no is yes and Climate Change is an officially defined political term, such things urgently become necessary, but in the real world, I think not.
They betray themselves at every turn.
180
2004
Frost will become less and less common across much of the world as global warming accelerates, U.S. researchers reported.
The latest of a series of reports on the real-life effects of climate change shows fewer days and nights when the air temperature dips below freezing.
Ten years later …
Severe frosts will be more frequent due to man-made greenhouse gas
Steven Crimp, the senior research scientist from the CSIRO’s agriculture flagship said the reason behind the change was manmade.
270
Hang on now
CO2 Blocks outgoing surface radiation
Outgoing surface radiation causes frost
Therefore
CO2 increase decreases frost – QED
83
90
Hot or Cold …
For over 2000 years the ancient city of Palmyra has been at war with ‘climate change’ but, still stands.
Climate Change a Greater Threat Than Terrorism, White House Says
. . .
The Green stupid. It hurts.
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https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/obama-isis-sea-level.jpg
20
For over 2000 years the ancient city of Palmyra has been at war with ‘climate change’
Well, there you go. Climate change was caused by the Romans. That is how come they could grow grape vines in southern Britain. It is all their fault. We need to put a tax on Romans.
20
Here it is, May 20th and the temperature here in SW Missouri is 60 degrees. Should be closer to 80. I’ve mowed the lawn maybe three times, where I would normally have mowed it three times that number. My garden… stunted, nothing seems to be growing. Most all the flowers I’ve put out were killed by frost. I wonder if those authors factored in the crop loss due to this cold. I’m going to have to replant half my garden and I am not sure there will be time for the new planting to mature. Global Warming my ….
But our president seems to think AGW is the greatest threat to our national security. Have I ever mentioned that our president is an insipid jackass? All I have to do is look out my backdoor and see the proof of that.
I wish it would warm up.
221
Your thermometer is obviously faulty, it has already been well reported in the MSM that 2015 is shaping up as the hottest year on record, Gavin has spoken!
Sarc/
40
It’s just so apt with the line
How Winter Kills
90
Any doctor with some experience knows that they tend to lose more patients over the winter months.
130
Off topic but on Roy Spencer’s site today: New Satellite Upper Troposphere Product: Still No Tropical “Hotspot”
110
One thing that was not touched upon is that in winter, or when it becomes unseasonably cold, crops do not prosper. When you can’t grow things, even more people die, but from different causes.
80
The benefits we can derive,
From warming,helps keep us alive,
While our true foe is cold,
Killing both young and old,
Who with warming would otherwise thrive.
211
You are brilliant Ruairi! You’ve done it yet again. Annie in chilly old England.
60
Thanks Annie and Will for your kind comments.With just a month to the summer solstice and still feeling chilly,makes me wonder what’s in store for the Southern Hemisphere winter.
40
30C here in Cooktown Far North Queensland Annie, and a pleasant sea breeze too.
40
Unfortunately it will be to chilly Victoria that I have to return! I hope for a day or two to unfreeze the old bones in Dubai.
20
You are getting better and better. Clever and on topic. Few have such skill. 🙂
90
The Lancet will now be condemned as a mouthpiece for fossil fuel funded d3n1al1sts.
And still no reply to my query to BOM chief Dr Vertessy who claims that “heatwaves… are the number one cause of death.” (See continuing saga continuing on from https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/the-bureau-boss-on-temperature-trends-heatwaves-and-climate-change/ ) I’ve put in a formal complaint which got Baldwin’s office moving, but still no further advanced.
261
Depressingly, in ‘sunny’ Broome, we have had a record equaling cold morning in May this year, along with one in 2012, of 7.7C. That’s a 70 year long record. No huge BoM media press releases like a record hot day!
152
And further north…
‘The meteorological phenomenon known as the ‘morning glory’ has appeared in Queensland’s Gulf of Carpentaria three months earlier than usual.
‘The spectacular long rolling clouds are usually seen in the spring months in northern Australia, when the ocean temperature is generally cool but the land temperature is warm.
‘However several people on Sweers Island were treated to an early show this week.’
Blythe and Mailer (Weatherzone)
50
Southern and many other locations in Arizona have been delightfully cool this May. Normally by the last week or two of May it is quite hot.
50
It’s time to crank up the homogeniser.
40
I hope it’s not wind powered…
30
That cracked me up!
20
Meanwhile:
ONE country tries to ensure plenty of life saving heat is available.
EU member Poland breaks ground on new coal fired plant. A groundbreaking ceremony has taken place in Poland on the site of a €800m lignite power plant in Turów. the lignite unit will have a gross capacity of just under 500 MW and an efficiency of more than 43 per cent.
The new unit – which is due to be operational in 2019 – will be built at an existing power plant where there are currently six units with an installed capacity of 1500 MW.
NOTE that efficiency figure. I doubt that our existing brown coal plants run above 36%. The higher the efficiency, the lower the emissions per MWh. Up-grading our plants to this standard would reduce CO2 emissions far more than wind farms have proven to do. And it would mean cheaper and more reliable electricity. ButI guess the Greenies aren’t really interested in reducing emissions.
220
Lignite (brown coal) or the pre-coal deposit that has never had the chance to be buried, subjected to heat and pressure to convert to coal. There is plenty of lignite in Europe and this resource has been used used for centuries. In fact sometimes these things naturally combust underground causing natural fires that are near impossible to extinguish.
Good on Poland to demonstrate that the brown coal can be used in a responsible fashion. Perhaps Germany will see the reason and re-open their mines ?
140
In fact, Germany is operating new tech USC coal fired power plants with their Lignite. They are diverting some of the waste heat exhaust to dry the pulverised (crushed) Lignite powder prior to its injection into the furnace, and are getting the same CO2 emissions rate of the normal black coal USC plants.
Tony.
130
Somewhat relevant to the topic, here is a link to an article published several months ago. The Birts, showing infinite wisdom, have converted one of their coal fired plants to wood burning. Evidently, nobody is concerned about saving the forests any more.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2290444/Madness-How-pay-billions-electricity-bills-Britains-biggest-power-station-switch-coal-wood-chips–wont-help-planet-jot.html
50
And the craziest part is, the wood chips come from the USA !
50
I remember talking to a research scientist in the UK concerned with the British steel industry in the 1980’s. The technology to burn coal more efficiently by pulverising it into fine powder, mix it with water and inject it under pressure to combust more efficiently in order to heat the steel furnaces was the project de jour at the time.
I was musing today that Western decline began the moment when advances made in the 1960’s were surrendered – I think specifically of the SR71, Concorde and Apollo. Some say we are in a technological pause, gathering knowledge before the next great leap.
Maybe.
In the meantime, we are literally being distracted from advancement by what may only be described as eco-terrorism by the political elite. I think when politics supplants native intelligence and rigorous science, as it did in Germany in the 1930’s, the end result was global carnage and the demise of German science, something they never really recovered from.
70
“Study on 74 million deaths: Cold weather kills 20 times more than heat does”
We are not told this by our Govts or the MSM.
With the next LIA imminent all citizens from high latitude countries (mainly those living in the Northern Hemisphere e.g. Europe, Russia, China, Canada & northern USA) will be praying for GW but none will be forthcoming because pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere will achieve negligible GW – the UAH & RSS Satellite Global Temperature data of the Lower Atmosphere during the past 18.4 years proves this beyond any doubt the ~ 10% CO2 increase fails to deliver any “Warming” in planet Earth what so ever.
71
The slow melting of the glaciers which covered Europe and America allowed humans to expand into new fertile areas only in the last few thousand years. They came in great numbers, pushed by population pressures from Africa and India and East Asia. The gypsies (supposedly from Egypt) only arrived in the last thousand years from Northern India. Only in warm countries could humans survive and thrive and plants grow. Warmth is the key to human existence.
Some now regret the loss of the glaciers, dread the loss of ski fields and fear the opening of an Arctic channel for ships. It shows the perversity of humans. Given everything we wanted and the ability to escape the narrow warm areas, now 60% of humans live North of the Tropic of Cancer and some idiots want the ice back?
We have no reason to fear a warmer world and every reason to dread the return of the ice. We may well be at a turning point, not a tipping point in which half the planet will quickly be uninhabitable and the water drops 100 metres. Unfortunately we now know from simple observation that CO2 will not even slow let alone stop the coming ice age. The only certainty is that the doomsayers will want money, either way.
120
The fascinating Etymologicon talks about the many names for the last major tribe to quietly invade Europe, seeking a better life. The names Gypsies, Romany, Bohemians, Flamenco, Zingara relate to their supposed origins including Egypt, Romania, Bohemia, Flemish. England and Scandinavia are still rocketing upwards after the loss of weight from the ice. It takes a special sort of doomsayer to find a problem with a warming world because where the ice starts, the people stop.
120
A new market for refrigerators TdeF, to stop food from freezing.
90
Yes, I well remember a winter in Fort Collins, Colorado at -40C and the freezer was +20C warmer than outside!
This raises all sorts of questions about sensible use of energy use as everyone paid to stop frozen food from getting colder. In summer the same location was +38 every day, +40 at night and 95% humidity. For six weeks.
So a swing of +80C ever year and the doomsayers would have us believe a change of +0.8C in an average is the end of the world? The Climate Change in Colorado every year is 100x as much. Consider -40C will kill you in minutes. +40C will not.
50
a Gambino puts it nicely! LOL:
21 May: Guardian: Barack Obama: climate deniers pose serious threat to US security
by Lauren Gambino in New York and agencies
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/20/barack-obama-climate-change-poses-risk-to-us-military-bases
61
Amazing. Cannot get actual National security right or have a clue in foreign affairs, so he wants to save the planet by reducing carbon dioxide? It is a very good argument for not having innumerate, illogical, science ignorant lawyers in the top job. However to be fair, he has everything else wrong, so this is just consistent.
170
And together with the Guardian, O’Bumma slides neatly Through the Looking Glass with Alice
it’s really quite difficult to construct a sentence more opposed to reality than this
120
Actually, Obama may be the worst thing to happen to climate advocates. His outlandish claims that a temperature change is somehow more threatening than a terrorist with a machete make the entire debate look unrealistic and ridiculous. If he keeps this up, the number of people who recognize just how idiotic this is will go up. Besides, Americans are used to everything coming out of Obama’s mouth being the opposite of the truth, so where does that put climate change?
60
Shh. It’s a secret plot by big-oil. They plan to kill the whole shindig with a president so climatically-extreme that he’s satire in action. Perfect.
60
We dare not forget that Obama still has that accursed pen and phone with which he can still manage a lot of damage before he’s out of office.
We dare not assume anything of the kind.
40
Also Indur Goklany has shown that deaths from extreme events has declined by over 90% since the early 20th century.
Lomborg used these facts in his book as well.
Just more proof that CAGW is a load of BS.
http://www.thegwpf.com/indur-m-goklany-global-death-toll-from-extreme-weather-events-declining/
71
I have heard that the death rates from hot spells on Chicago are higher than those of hot spells in Atlanta. This is probably due to the same factors that make Sweden have a lower Cold weather death rate than Italy. The Swedes are more experienced at dealing with cold just like the people in Atlanta Ga are more experienced at dealing with the heat than the people in Chicago.
80
22 April: Fraser Coast Chronicle: Maryborough low of 6.2 degrees is coldest April morning on record
UPDATE: Maryborough’s minimum of 6.2 degrees at 6.13am on Tuesday is the city’s lowest April temperature on record, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.”In Maryborough, we haven’t seen this occur in the last 107 years,” Bureau of Meteorology spokesman Jess Carey said.
“That’s not to say it hasn’t occurred before but certainly the time at which we’ve been taking temperature records there, since 1908, we haven’t seen a temperature this cold in April…
Mr Carey said both Maryborough and Hervey Bay were 10 degrees below their April averages…
http://www.frasercoastchronicle.com.au/news/mboro-low-62-degrees-coldest-58-years/2614706/
18 May: Global News: Cold temperature records set in Saskatchewan
SASKATOON – It’s a Victoria Day for the record books. Environment Canada says some temperatures reached new lows on the May long weekend in Saskatchewan…
Saskatoon reached a new low of -5.7 on Monday with the old record being set in 1949 at -5°C.
At least two other records were broken in the province.
A new record low temperature was set in North Battleford at -4.5. The previous low point was set in 1895 at -3.3.
Swift Current also broke a record at -5.9, beating out -5.6 which was set in 1923…
These weather advisories are issued during the growing season when temperatures could cause potential damage and destruction to plants and crops.
Farmer started seeding weeks ago with more than one-third of the 2015 crop in the ground, according to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture last week…
http://globalnews.ca/news/2003916/cold-temperature-records-set-in-saskatchewan/
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Pat,
I see that that a silent red thumber makes their mark every time you report unusually cold weather.
Is the red-thumber a cold weather denı€r?
90
It seems we must hate to be warm
Else greenies erupt in a swarm
So get used to the cold
just die weak and old
and pretend that its doing no harm.
131
19 May: NewsNet5: Freezing temperatures Memorial Day Weekend? Tracking frosty weather in Ohio
Frost at the end of May is never a good thing, as the growing season has already begun…
For commercial growers, garden centers and farmers, a frost this late would cause major problems.
That’s why, when I see a graphic like this for Saturday morning, I sit up and take notice.
This particular computer weather guidance program is not just seeing frost. It’s seeing a hard freeze across a large portion of Northern Ohio, especially east of Interstate 77…
http://www.newsnet5.com/weather/weather-news/more-cold-could-mean-record-low-temperatures-this-weekend
20 May: Record-Eagle: Erin Sloan: Growers see some damage, prepare for more cold
TRAVERSE CITY — The region’s farmers toiled overnight to protect their orchards from a deep freeze.
“Farmers just don’t go to bed when it’s that cold,” said Heidi Friske, general manager of Friske Orchards in Ellsworth…
Friske Orchards took preventative measures against the frost Tuesday night by using large wind machines, irrigation and sometimes brush piles, Friske said…
Apples mostly were affected in Antrim County, while sweet cherries in Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties took a blow, too, said Nikki Rothwell, coordinator of Michigan State University’s Northwest Michigan Horticulture Research Center…
http://www.record-eagle.com/news/local_news/growers-see-some-damage-prepare-for-more-cold/article_2a1bc39e-1bc6-5dc5-9448-7274c14e9802.html
61
18 May: KELO: Potential For Record-Setting Cold On Tuesday
SIOUX FALLS, SD – Temperatures were only in the 40s and 50s Monday afternoon; that’s at least 20 degrees below average in many locations. The wind also gave us an extra bite in the temperatures.
Temperatures on Tuesday morning may be record setting…
http://www.keloland.com/newsdetail.cfm/potential-for-record-setting-cold-on-tuesday/?id=180172
81
‘Morning glory’ cloud phenomenon rolls into the Gulf of Carpentaria three months early (weatherzone)
~ ~ ~
“Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Michelle Berry said cool ocean temperatures combined with warm land temperatures are among the factors that help to bring about a morning glory.”
> Must be part of ‘the dance’ – the “Indonesian Shuffle”.
Indian Ocean storing up heat from global warming, says study
“By running ocean circulation models, he found that the heat stashed in the Pacific had hitched a ride on the ocean conveyor belt and danced its way through the Indonesian archipelago, ending up in the Indian Ocean.
The Indonesian shuffle means that the Indian Ocean is now home to 70% of all heat taken up by global oceans during the past decade.
What its means for future El Niño cycles is less clear, however.”
. . .
BOM: We’re calling it, the 2015 El Niño is here
60
According to BoM the warm sea temperatures around Australia, plus extra warmth in the eastern Indian Ocean, offers the promise of rain in NSW.
It will be interesting to watch El Nino and IOD battle it out.
50
And let’s not forget SAM.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/history/ln-2010-12/SAM-what.shtml
So many variables.
50
I see the IMF has a claptrap paper out claiming $5 trillion in fossil fuel subsidies:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp15105.pdf
The assumption is that CO2 is bad, therefore should attract an externality cost, which not being paid by Big Fossil Fuel, is therefore a subsidy. Took me all of a minute to see what garbage the underlying assumption was – I wasn’t even trying hard. No need to read further. You’d expect to see better from the IMF … even the Australia Institute did a better effort than this. At least they specified real budget expenditures, not imaginary costs.
I assume this economic pseudopsychobabble is ready made for Paris later in teh year to justify more cash for
clunkerswindmills.90
this came up in another thread and because I raised it I was accused of supporting it. Anyway, just to annoy my accusers I pointed out that they (and you, and me) share an opinion (broadly) with this blogger
http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2015/05/18/fossil-fuels-subsidised-by-10m-a-minute-says-imf/
geez I hope that Pointman doesn’t want to tell me off for something
51
To call these sums “subsidies” is an abuse of the English language (as well as economics). The mind set is that of regarding your post-tax income (or even the pre-tax income)as a welfare benefit (aka subsidy). The relationship described is that of master and slave, the pre-feudal economic status quo. Even the Stoat sees that. By the way – it is a discussion paper NOT IMF policy, see the small pint – if you can.
A classic ‘hoist with their own petard’.
60
It is classic socialist thinking to assume a tax (they like) which does not exist and has therefore not been paid, as a “subsidy.”
You’d have to have a mind like Lewandowsky to even begin to rationalise that.
90
Dio 2
I didn’t mention policy did I?
11
The countries that have the largest subsidies are all developing countries.
No Western nation subsidizes fossil fuels, but they do subsidize, to the tune of billions, windmills and solar panels.
20
In the late 17th century cold weather meant famine.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0477%281979%29060%3C0775%3AGHETWS%3E2.0.CO%3B2
60
NASA update on polar ice;
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2015/05/19/updated-nasa-data-polar-ice-not-receding-after-all/
60
“What I found really curious was that the death rates due to cold were so low in Sweden,…” [Jo said]
I live in a place that can go from well below freezing to hot as h—.
I am not poor.
So, I have the means and the knowledge to prepare for (and live in a house prepared for) cold or hot weather. I do not attribute this to my Swedish last name. Further, our summer maxT often exceeds the known Max ever recorded in Sweden.
All those living near me have the ability to deal with our weather.
Where weather extremes rarely occur, I suspect folks are not prepared. For example, US-southerners will have water pipes freeze and burst because houses are not properly built for cold. When folks are living in their homes here, and not in Florida or Arizona, such things do not happen.
40
Proof the globe is not warming;
http://pindanpost.com/2015/05/22/proof-the-globe-is-not-warming/
50
When the world caught cold because of our inconstant sun the ramifications were immediate and devastating.
http://co2science.org/articles/V11/N16/C2.php
The failure of the Indian Monsoon these day would be more akin to economic dislocation than mass starvation.
40
Hobart Gab Fest links SOI and SAM to sun.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=3717
40
Look, I know this is off topic, but I wanted to get the link up here before it vanishes. It’s about the Tesla battery, their wonderful Powerwall, and it’s up at the ABC site (at this link) and was hyped for all its worth. I know it has been discussed before, but I just want to add one thing.
This is targeted at Australians especially because of the high uptake of rooftop solar power here, and it’s hyped that consumers can go totally ‘off grid’ with this wonderful new innovation. (/sarc Tony, /sarc)
All going well, it might be taken up by perhaps one residence in a thousand, if that.
So, that’s 0.1% of the Residential sector.
Here in Australia, that Residential sector consumes a tick under 30% of all power consumption.
So, if this goes really well, then this will result in saving 0.1% of 30% of power generation, or 0.03% of all power consumption.
So, what’s remaining is, (and I need to make this bold, hence the block quotes)
of power generation.
If this is going to have any effect at all, I’ll go hee!
The average Commerce consumer is residential multiplied by ten, and the average Industry consumer is residential multiplied by 100, so it’s only aimed at that Residential sector, and at very very very few people at all.
This is absolutely useless.
Tony.
130
Thanks Tony, the green left have gone bonkers on Tesla, aunty should stop pushing commercial propaganda.
90
Just a few snippets to dampen the euphoria of the resident [snip]
“Physiological effects leading to heat-related deaths are not well known yet, and probably vary for different mortality causes. In the case of the association of heat with cardiovascular mortality, the cause accounting for the greatest burden, acute events seem to be triggered when the body exceeds its thermoregulatory threshold, after changes in heart rate, blood viscosity and coagulability, reductions in cerebral perfusion, and attenuated vasoconstrictor responsiveness.27 Heat also increases mortality risk for other causes: a suggested mechanism is through the alteration of fluid and electrolytic balance in people affected by chronic diseases or in people with impaired responsiveness to environmental conditions.1, 8 These sudden physiological responses are consistent with the steep, supralinear increase in risk above the optimum temperature (figure 1, appendix), which was associated with a comparatively high burden attributable to extremely high temperature.”
So if all humanity lived in an optimal environment, lifespan would naturally increase. Cold environments below “normal” induce a greater mortality rate. Warming of any environment above “normal” induces the highest mortality risk.
[There is no one in a state of euphoria about the possibility of dying from either cold or heat. I’ve snipped the least possible amount of your lead sentence and approved the rest. How you fare with other readers is up to them.] AZ
29
How cold is it this morning in Mt. Beauty, Marion?
20
protesters, MSM at this week’s Paris climate talks!
shock, horror, fossil fuels will be around for decades.
***religious language creeps in again:
21 May: Guardian: Fiona Harvey: François Hollande calls for ***’miracle’ climate agreement at Paris talks
François Hollande, president of France, has called for a “miracle” to happen later this year at a crunch climate change conference in Paris, saying this would be needed for a compromise to be reached on the future of limiting greenhouse gases that would involve both developed and developing countries…
“We must have a consensus. If within our own country, that’s difficult, imagine what it’s like with 196 countries. A miracle!” He added he was confident it could be achieved…
But there were clear signs that a compromise will be hard to reach. The chief executive of Statoil, Elder Saetre, said a carbon price was needed to encourage companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But, as one of the few fossil fuel companies represented, he also vowed that his company, and others, would be producing oil and gas “for a long time”.
His views echoed those expressed by other fossil fuel companies, which have told the Guardian and their shareholders that they would continue to produce carbon-generating products for decades to come…
Outside the conference, protestors called for businesses to be banned from the COP in Paris this December, calling oil companies in particular “part of the problem, not the solution”…
Christiana Figueres, the UN’s climate chief, who is coordinating the Paris conference, said that businesses should not be demonised. “It is not a question of demonising [companies],” she said. “In my book, this is not about confrontation. Quite to the contrary. This is about collaboration. If you’re thinking about confrontation, forget it! Because we’re not going to get there.”
***But she also said: “We must be clear – there is no space for any new coal.”
She said: “The science is clear – global emissions need to swiftly peak as a prelude to a deep de-carbonisation of the global economy by the second half of the century. Many businesses know this and are planning for that future. It is time for the rest to come on board.”
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/20/francois-hollande-calls-for-miracle-climate-agreement-at-paris-talks
40
20 May: UK Telegraph: Emily Gosden: Britain ‘at greater risk of blackouts’ as SSE closes Ferrybridge coal plant
Energy giant SSE announces fire-damaged coal plant will close, as it reports soaring profits and faces calls to cut prices
Britain faces an increased risk of blackouts in coming winters, experts have warned, after SSE announced it would close Ferrybridge coal-fired power station.
The energy giant on Wednesday said it would not re-open part of the plant damaged by a fire last year and would shut the station altogether by March, blaming rising environmental taxes and its failure to win subsidies from the Government.
SSE also faced calls to cut household gas and electricity prices after it announced that energy supply profits soared 50 per cent to £368.7 million in 2014-15, despite losing half a million customer accounts…
The closure worsens Britain’s looming power crunch, which is already expected to see spare capacity – the buffer between peak demand and supply – fall to unusually low levels this winter…
One industry expert said: “The crunch was always going to be in 2015-16 and 2016-17. It was due to be eased by new build, but there hasn’t been new build. Each closure is building up to a situation where the numbers are looking pretty grim in 2016-17.” …
But Alistair Phillips-Davies, SSE chief executive, played down blackout fears, saying SSE hoped to have the option to restart the mothballed Keadby gas-fired plant this winter to help compensate for the loss of the damaged Ferrybridge unit…
Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “SSE is making more money from fewer customers. Consumers will rightly question why their bills are so high when the supplier’s profits are increasing…
A DECC spokesperson said: “We sympathise with those affected, however this is a commercial matter for the company.
“The Government takes security of supply very seriously and has worked with National Grid to put in place an effective plan which worked well last winter. This plan has been robustly stress-tested to cope with the toughest system conditions, and is flexible enough to adapt to individual plant closures.”
A spokesman for energy regulator Ofgem said: “We don’t comment on the impact outages and closures at specific plants have on margins in the capacity assessment, but we do look at a range of scenarios when carrying out the analysis.
“The New Balancing Services provide National Grid with additional tools to help it balance the system this winter (2015/16). If National Grid believes there is a need to extend these services beyond March 2016, we will consider whether to allow this.” …
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/11618253/Britain-at-greater-risk-of-blackouts-as-SSE-closes-Ferrybridge-coal-plant.html
50
Say, what wonderful news that a coal fired power plant is closing down. (Tony, how many times have I told you not to be so sarcastic!)
Greenies everywhere are having paroxysms of delight.
This is the last of three plants at the site.
The first (125MW) opened in 1927 and closed in 1976. (49 years operation)
The second (300MW) opened in 1957 and closed in 1992. (35 years in operation)
This last (4 Units totalling 2034MW) opened in 1966 and will now close in March.
One unit was fire damaged and was already slated to close early in 2016. They are not re-opening the fire damaged unit, and the remainder will close in March, so right on schedule, after 50 years of operation
The plant was positively ancient.
The closure is not one cause of the coming crunch in power generation.
That crunch is caused by failure to construct (real) replacement power plants.
50 years.
Renewables can only dream about that.
Tony.
80
Gore, spruiking for Blood & Gore’s Generation Foundation, the advocacy initiative of Generation Investment Management!
“carbon bubble” now well & truly co-opted to mean the opposite of what it really means with: “Drawing on the increasingly influential ‘carbon bubble’ hypothesis”.
and, religious-speak: “Morally, we think divesting is a good idea”.
20 May: BusinessGreen: James Murray: Al Gore slams ‘mass delusion’ fuelling global carbon bubble
Former US Vice President warns valuations for carbon reserves are ‘even more absurd’ than thinking that proceeded sub-prime mortgage crash
The former US vice president and Nobel Prize winner warned the global fossil fuel industry was risking a crash even larger than the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis unless urgent action is taken by investors to secure a better understanding of carbon-related risks…
“We have used the phrase sub-prime carbon assets as a conscious reference to sub-prime mortgages,” he said. “Because there is a certain unreality to the assumption that the proven reserves on the books of these companies – $7tr in public multinationals, another $14tr owned by sovereigns – are all going to be burned. They are not.”…
***Drawing on the increasingly influential ‘carbon bubble’ hypothesis, Gore argued fossil fuel companies were wrong to dismiss warnings about stranded assets by predicting governments will fail to deliver stronger emissions regulations…
“Whether [or not] there are governmental policies put in place to limit emissions, there are multiple pathways to stranding: the downward cost curve for renewables is another [pathway], the pressure from investors, the pressure from students at universities like Oxford, there are many reasons,” he said…
“During the sub-prime mortgage crisis there was a mass delusion that in the US 7.5 million mortgages given to people who didn’t make down-payments and couldn’t make monthly payments were going to be good risks,” he said. “It was absurd. But it is even more absurd to base the value of equities in companies that have these proven reserves on the assumption the stated book value is accurate – it’s not. When does it collapse? We have no idea. Will it collapse? Yes, it will. When that realisation takes hold the mass delusion will be punctured and the assets will be stranded.”…
***Gore was speaking to journalists ahead of the launch today of a new whitepaper on sustainable investment practices from Generation Foundation, the advocacy initiative of Generation Investment Management, which Gore set up alongside former Goldman Sachs executive David Blood.
The paper, entitled Allocating Capital for Long-Term Returns, argues all investors should assess carbon risks and price carbon in all capital decisions; use sustainability analysis to enhance investment frameworks; and acknowledge that considering sustainability factors in investment decisions is an essential part of fiduciary duty…
***He added that investors needed to recognise “the transition to a low carbon economy will be the most significant change in economic history”, and as such numerous risks and opportunities will emerge over the next five to 15 years that sustainable investors will be best placed to navigate…
The Generation Foundation whitepaper joins a growing body of work that seeks to highlight the financial benefits of sustainable investing and the full scale of the ***’carbon bubble’ risk some leading investors fear the economy is being exposed to…
***”Morally, we think divesting is a good idea,” said Gore…
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2409392/al-gore-slams-mass-delusion-fuelling-global-carbon-bubble
30
telling the truth about China for a change, RTCC? what ever happened to all your talk of an Obama/Chinas historic climate deal?
21 May: RTCC: Alex Pashley: What China’s investment binge in Latin America means for the climate
The Asian giant is funnelling cash into mega-projects, but not clean energy, as Amazon railways and canals take shape
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will tour Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru over the next week with a bevy of billion-dollar deals ready to be inked…
The world’s top emitter of greenhouse gases has sent $119 billion since 2005 around the continent to finance mines, dams and city transport systems.
And the proposed 5,300-km railroad, ferrying soy and iron ore imports from Argentina and Brazil to Peru’s Pacific ports and bypassing the Panama Canal, will make up some of the reported $50 billion to be signed in the three-day Brazilian visit alone.
A Nicaraguan canal and Mexican high speed railway are too in the works…
But amid China’s big-hitting, what does the slew of pipeline projects mean for the environment? …
Chinese investment in those sectors risked locking the continent into a high carbon-intensive future, wrote Guy Edwards at Brown University’s Climate Development Lab.“This may be entrenching high carbon developments in Latin America and pulling the region in an unsustainable direction,” Edwards said.Latin America is favouring exports with a large carbon footprint, than looking to reduce that through clean energy generation, as the world seeks to finalise a global climate pact cutting carbon…
http://www.rtcc.org/2015/05/20/what-chinas-investment-binge-in-latin-america-means-for-the-climate/
50
TonyfromOz –
compare our CAGW-infested AFR (not even bothering to open this):
Saudi Arabia eyes phasing out fossil fuels for renewables
The Australian Financial Review-7 hours ago
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter, could phase out the use of fossil fuels by the middle of this century, Ali al-Naimi, the kingdom’s …
with the reality:
21 May: WSJ: Summer Said: Saudi Oil Minister Says World Can’t Abandon Fossil Fuels
Ali al-Naimi says it doesn’t make economic sense to switch to investing in solar energy in the short term
Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said on Thursday that he sees a great future for solar power but that the world can’t abandon fossil fuels in the short term
Mr. Naimi, speaking on a panel in Paris, addressed questions about whether the world’s oil-and-gas companies should move on to other forms of energy in the face of climate change linked to human carbon emissions. He said it wouldn’t make economic sense to make a dramatic move now.
“You say decarbonize. Are you willing to have me go back home and shut all the oil wells? Can you afford that today?” Mr. Naimi said at the Business and Climate Summit in Paris, broadcast by Bloomberg. “What will happen to the [oil] price if today I remove 10 million barrels per day of the market.”
Mr. Naimi is among a growing number of top oil-industry figures to argue that fossil fuels are still needed to meet energy demands from both the developed world and emerging markets…
The kingdom has invested in renewable energy like solar, though with limited success.
For now, many parts of the world, notably Asia and Africa, can’t develop solar energy and are still heavily dependent on fossil fuels, Mr. Naimi said…
http://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-oil-minister-says-world-cant-abandon-fossil-fuels-1432222315
30
I think the Saudis are packing it right now-the Mid East is very unstable and becoming more so, thus being self sufficient to a point in renewables makes sense. It won’t save them of course- Saudi will be partitioned up and they know it, thus the mad push to the green kook aid to try and maintain some form of ability to function post partition……bizarre…..
20
20 May: Forbes: Michael Lynch: IEA And World Bank Say Throw Money At Renewables
The world was stunned today to hear the news that the IEA and the World Bank say not enough money is being spent on renewables, and that their solution is to spend more. Okay, that’s triply wrong: it’s not news, we’re spending too much, and nobody on the planet will be shocked to hear that the solution is to spend more. It’s rather reminiscent of US generals in Vietnam who found they were not winning the war, so they argued for sending more troops.
The same day, we were informed that Six Flags is planning a large solar installation—which would require cutting down 19,000 trees. This raises a good point about another kind of support, namely political support, which is waning as a blind push for renewables leaves citizens cold, whether its wind farms off Cape Cod, solar plants in New Jersey, or biomass plants almost anywhere. It turns out that renewables also have intangible costs, which supporters gleefully ignore because they consider renewables to be righteous…
Thus, Greenpeace waves off concerns about bird and bat kills by saying, “A common argument against wind farms is that they kill birds and bats. However, if environmental impact assesments [sic] are conducted and migratory and local bird population patterns are assesed [sic] before construction, this is avoided completely.”Indeed, all too many cleantech advocates appear willing to follow another Vietnam-era prescription, and destroy the economy in order to save it…
More investment will not solve this problem: more solar panels on rooftops will not lower the costs appreciably, innovation will. And the possibility that a later generation solar cell will obsolete all of the panels now being installed, rather as LED lights are taking over from compact fluorescents, means that ***most of the subsidies being paid out now will have been wasted.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellynch/2015/05/20/iea-and-world-bank-say-throw-money-at-renewables/
***ain’t that the truth.
40
Its only weather, but snow remains on the ground in Colorado, northern China and Germany. Italy acknowledging that its uncommon for this time of year.
20 May 2015 – ‘While the center and south of the peninsula is very sunny and warm, in the north it snows. Even for our latitude snow in late May is not common.
‘Spring snow in Alto Adige. On the A22 motorway on the Austrian border movement of vehicles partially restricted. Huge traffic jams and many accidents.’
50
And snow on the ground in Calgary, Winnipeg and other cities in south western Canada.
10
It has always been amazing to me that the vast majority of the people are convinced that warming a couple of degrees (F or C) would harm humanity in any way.
The scientific consensus is that humanity evolved along the equator in a much warmer and more humid environment than we find ourselves today. Yet the majority of people today seem to think that the climate of, say, Scotland is much to be preferred over the climate of Colombia.
What the hell is wrong with warm? We are in an interglacial period of an ice age. What would be wrong with an end to the ice age itself and a return to the warmth of a “hot house” earth? Too much prosperity?
Regardless of the above, the simple fact is that mankind’s release of CO2 does not warm the earth anyway. So, mother nature is in charge. Deal with it.
80
The next global warming pushing troll that comes along should be required to provide a firm number on just how many degrees he/ she/ they believe the global temperature should be made to fall to prevent any climate change catastrophes and / or provide a firm average global temperature number that the planetary climate should be the aimed for controlled global temperature.
After all they have had some 27 years since Hansen’s testimony in 1988 to the American Congress committee on the immense dangers of an anthropogenicly warmed climate to consider just exactly what temperatures the warmists believe the Earth should be operating at and what they are aiming for in actual spelled definitive global temperatures.
This constant haranguing of everybody on some nebulous personal hang up about something they can’t even define and then to not even be able to give a firm carefully considered real actual aimed for global temperature after having 27 years of constant high level and supposedly the best brains in science working on the percieved problem and still not be able to give a firm aimed for planetary temperature reeks of mindless intellectual vacuousness and smacks of gross intellectual incompetence on the part of the warmists and their trolls.
I think I might witness porcine aviation on a large scale a long time before that ever happens!
41
Soon to be released: definitive evidence about the religion of the Pope!
40
Sigh! Down at the bottom again.
I started researching this this morning but had to get on with the Chook feeder marketing project in the workshop.
So just where do all the people live on this planet and what is the climate where most prefer to live?
The land area of the Northern Hemisphere covers 68% of that hemisphere.
The land area of the Southern Hemisphere covers just 32% of that hemisphere’
The Tropics of Cancer in the NH and Capricorn in the SH, is the furtherest latitude north or south the Sun will be when it is directly overhead during the Solstice after which it begins it’s movement back towards the other hemisphere.
Here in Australia in 2015 the summer Solstice will be December 22nd @ 4.48 UTC ie ; 1428 hrs EST or if you are a member of the public, about half past two on the 22nd of December.
If you are are a NT or a north Queensland local it’s a couple of days before Christmas.
[There is a Northern Territory aviation joke involving time in there. ]
The official Tropic’s of Cancer and Capricorn latitudes are both set at 23.5 degrees latitude.
Roughly 88% of the world’s population lives in the northern hemisphere,
About half the world’s population lives north of 27°N.
Taking the northern and southern hemispheres together, on average the world’s population lives 24 degrees north of the Equator.
A histogram of both the population concentrations according to latitude and the populations of the eastern and western hemispheres , the only such graph / map / histogram I can find on the web which can be found on a number of sites, was put together by a Bill Rankin who seems to be into radical cartography.
His histogram of the hemispheric distribution of population can be found here; The World’s population by Longitude in 2000 and Latitude.
A tit bit of quite useless information unless you believe in a catastrophic sea level rise from a catastrophic global warming;
From all of that and looking at the histogram [ can’t find any simple data or tables on the population distribution by latitude but land / ocean distribution ratios and areas by latitude can be found here plus lots of other global information ] one can see that by far the largest percentage of the global population favours the warmer regions of the planet.
And even that northern hemisphere favouring population distribution is quite significantly skewed by the bulk of the global land surface, humanity’s living surface , two thirds in fact being well north of the Equator.
In fact from the table in the land /ocean latitude distribution [ link above ] ] it is not until you get to between the latitudes 15N to 20N that the percentage of land area between those two latitudes climbs to 30% land and ocean area falls to 70% of the area between those two latitudes which cuts out a very large area of the tropics that would have had a large human habitations if the land was there.
Which goes a long way towards explaining why half the world’s population lives north of latitude 27 degrees N.
The land area is just not there near the equator for human settlement.
Although the Indonesians with their nation on and spread both north and south of the equator over its 18,307 islands, a total land area of 1.9 million square kilometres which is a bit larger than Queensland at 1.7 million square kilometres and with some 240 million population making it the fifth largest nation on earth by population, has shown the concentrations of humanity that can be sustained long term in a relatively prosperous and adequately fed situation in the so called heat of the highly productive equatorial tropics and do so on what, considering the population density, is a quite small area especially and more so considering the scattering of it’s land mass over those 18,703 islands.
—————-
From Griffith University we have what is probably a data mining paper written by researchers whose paper might have been somewhat easier to decipher if they had stuck to their Chinese calligraphy;
How much does latitude modify temperature–mortality relationship in 13 eastern US cities?
80
Usually cold weather brings shortage of food, fuel, cuts the amount of traveling (even to seek or give aid). Vermin tends to invade human living space in a bid to escape the cold. The vermin carrying with them infections and diseases that can more easily get passed to people weaken by starvation and the cold.
By contrast warm periods bring abundance of food, and easier environment to live in. Historical text shows us that through the ages warm periods have brought expansions in both peoples’ habitats but also improvements the general good of most of nature.
If it does warm, and I for one wish it would, then life would generally improve. Deserts would shrink as the rainfall globally goes up, trade over the polar region would be more cost effective, fuel less needed in cold regions, food easier to cultivate, and wood for building (not burning) would become more plentiful. What is there not to like?
If we are to have global warming make it like the Eocene optimum (6-9° warmer than now) when there were no polar ice caps, CO2 levels were at life enhancing 800-1000ppm minimum, and subsequently all flora and fauna thrived all over the globe.
30
See E.M Smith’s comment at —
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/21/some-pushback-against-obamas-ridiculous-climate-remarks-at-the-coast-guard-commencement/#comment-1941503
for a more erudite explanation than I can muster.
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On the subject of the greater lethality of winter, vis-a-vis summer, I’ve just started reading “Wellington – The Path to Victory”, by Rory Muir, of the University of Adelaide. He refers to the disastrous British campaign of 1794 in the Netherlands and makes it quite clear that the 33rd Regiment of Foot, the then command of Arthur Wesley (not yet Wellesley, let alone Wellington) suffered far more in the winter months than in the summer ones. The Frogs barely scratched the surface.
“…Thirty men died in November and another forty-five in December and the regiment’s strength was only maintained by the arrival of drafts from England.”
Two hundred soldiers of the regiment died from disease and hypothermia, as against six from enemy action, even though the 33rd was involved in heated engagements against the French.
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I would like to suggest that we stop helping the extreme Greens political agenda by refusing to use the terms “green” or “renewable energy”.
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“What I found really curious was that the death rates due to cold were so low in Sweden, but so high in Italy and Japan?”
The populations do not die at different rates due to the cold or the circumstances they live in.
This is a purely statistical record problem.
What is a death due to cold ?
how high are the correlations and attributions?
The differences are purely due to how the different countries are attributing deaths to cold.
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Angech, I’m not convinced about that. Neither Japan nor Italy is a stranger to harsh winter weather, because both countries are extremely mountainous, but in neither is a hard winter an annual event, as it is in Scandinavia. Houses in Italy and Japan have to be built in much more reliable expectation of pretty warm summers. I’ve never been to Sweden, but I have been to Norway, north of the Arctic Circle, at the depth of winter, and I remember being amazed at the way drivers tear around the place, partly because the snow-ploughs at least level the ice on the roads, but mainly because all vehicles, by law, are equipped for the conditions.
Now, I’m not saying that road fatalities are caused by the cold (although the unhappy motorist who dies of exposure while stranded in a drift definitely is a victim of cold and one is more likely to become such a victim in a country where severe winters are not regularly expected). What I’m suggesting is that some countries, or, perhaps, just some regions, are much better adjusted to handling cold than others.
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