Shipping tracks, cloud patterns over the ocean. | Photo NASA.
Ships leave a trail of sulfur dioxide in the sky behind them which seeds clouds and causes cooling. At the same time, black soot drops out on the arctic ice, absorbs sunlight and causes warming. So which effect is bigger? Scott Stephenson et al tried to figure out that out and the cooling effect won.
The researchers also factored in global anthropogenic (human-caused) greenhouse gas concentration trajectories, adopted by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), at a level closely aligning with today’s trends, along with global economic output that will drive the transport of goods.
“We attempted to fully integrate the interactions between the various components of the climate system in ways that have not been done before,” Stephenson says.
The main result was that the cooling effect won out over the warming effect in the simulations, to the tune of about one degree Celsius.
Zowie. One real degree of Arctic cooling sounds like rather a lot — even undoing greenhouse gas warming as well as soot based warming.
The cooling effect stops if we clean the smoke stack and remove the sulphur particles. Presumably the warming effect would also stop if we scrubbed out the soot. And there would be no effect at all if we converted most boats to nuclear bulk container ships. (Though some land-based snowflakes at Yale would melt.)
Don’t look now, but sulfur pollution is saving the Arctic
Having found such a politically awkward result the don’t-pick-on-me caveat comes next.
The researchers warn that we must not rejoice, even though Arctic shipping lanes may be 40% shorter, faster and more fuel efficient, because global warming will still be awful, and boats may have accidents in the Arctic. The environmentally better option is, apparently, to have those shipping accidents elsewhere, like, say, British Columbia?
The Arctic continues to warm at twice the global average, and though increased shipping will likely have a cooling impact on the region, the researchers stress that these results should not be interpreted as an endorsement for Arctic shipping, especially as a potential solution to climate change.
Stephenson notes that while trans-Arctic shipping routes would cut travel time by as much as 40 percent, growth in shipping traffic would mean heightened risk of oil spills and clearer access to extractable resources such as oil, gas, and minerals in the region — all scenarios that come with potentially dire environmental consequences should an accident occur. With fewer amenities within reach to respond to a potential disaster, responders would be faced with huge logistical challenges to deal with those scenarios.
“There are clear economic benefits to shipping in the Arctic, with shorter routes and less fuel being burned,” he says, “but there are also enormous potential risks.”
Additionally, the cooling could be offset by international regulation and trade agreements, for instance if planned global limits on sulfur emissions from fuel used by the ships go into effect. Without the sulfur-induced cloud formation, the cloud-driven cooling effect will not happen.
Anyhow, file this one away when Arctic disaster stories arise, or people recommend some expensive geoengineering. If the Arctic warms too much, we can just send more shipping traffic. And if we overdo it, the problem will sort itself out. No more shipping lanes.
Of course, if another little ice age is coming, the last thing we want is to cool the arctic.
REFERENCE
- Scott R. Stephenson, Wenshan Wang, Charles S. Zender, Hailong Wang, Steven J. Davis, Philip J. Rasch. Climatic responses to future trans-Arctic shipping. Geophysical Research Letters, 2018; DOI: 10.1029/2018GL078969
From another angle, I’ve often wondered if ships smashing their way around the Arctic has any negative effect on the stability/persistence of the ice.
50
Depends on how much ice is disturbed.
Having observed square km of the stuff dropping into the ocean, I’d be thinking the impact might be miniscule….
20
Bad luck for the Arctic – the sulphur content of fuel oil (for shipping) has to be reduced a lot by 2020.
To quote the article:
“…From Jan. 1, 2020, the vast majority of the world’s merchant fleet will have to use fuel containing no more than 0.5 percent sulfur, down from 3.5 percent in most parts of the world today. The change is expected to upend both shipping and refining industries, with analysts forecasting higher oil prices, slower-sailing ships, and some observers even warning of risks to world trade…”
70
Ah, the UN trying to rule the world. This is just like the IPCC global warming, sorry climate change scam – something proposed by people that don’t have a clue about the real world.
60
Those are chemtrails.
The people responsible for this covertly mix chemicals/additives with the diesel and then the rest is there for all to see.
Gosh, you would think people would wake up to this caper.
[Right. Move along please we aren’t going to take up “chemtrails” here] ED
31
Sorry ED….LoL
Bit of satire.
30
Interestingly though, chemical trails are real with respect to industry. For example, when effluent industrial waste is dumped into the sea for example, a chemical/pollution trail is created and can be traced right back to its source by following the underwater plume for example.. In this context, chemical trails are quite real.
If those who are chemical trail concerned people could somehow increase their chemical vocabulary so that it encompasses industrial waste/pollution, then the concept of a chemical/effluent trail is quite useful and descriptive.
30
I can see the future. Some money seeker will promote sulphur fires in the Arctic as a way of “saving the ice” and “saving the polar bears”.
As the climate cools the amount of ice will increase anyway so he will be able to deflect criticism about the fall in polar bear numbers. Should that dominate the tiny minds of the gullible “planet savers” then he will propose burning diesel oil so black soot will melt the ice. Just send money, lots of money.
Unfortunately my crystal ball is an old analogue type and I can’t quite make out the money seekers name – Mask?? Mosk??
130
Black soot on the ice has a melting effect not a warming one. The soot changes the emissivity of the ice which absorbs more energy but the energy coming from the environment gets absorbed in melting the ice.
While the ice melts in your scotch, does the scotch get hotter? Melting ice cools.
This is just another thermodynamic nonsense IMHO.
30
The real reason for this is to dispose of industrial chemicals that are too expensive to dispose of on land….So these days, big corporations etc find it is more cost effective to mix the undesirable industrial waste with diesel/jet fuel (Sold/marketed as a fuel additive) so it can be released into the atmosphere via the combustion cycle of diesel and jet engines.
11
The black soot melts the ice, then as you say emissivity shifts — it takes a dramatic turn — and almost all the sunlight that falls on the same m2 is absorbed instead of being reflected to space.
20
Melting sea ice causes cooling. The sea surface temperature is around 277K. Sea ice surface temperature is typically 50K cooler. The ice is a very effective insulator. The difference in radiative power between water surface and ice surface is about 2.5 times. That overwhelms any increase in absorption for the water.
The Arctic Iris Effect is well supported:
https://judithcurry.com/2015/05/26/observational-support-for-lindzens-iris-hypothesis/
The same effect occurs in the Southern Ocean as verified by the CERES OLR data over the lower latitudes when the Antarctic sea ice extent was unusually low in 2017 following the 2016 El Nino compared with previous years:
https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNgl6A_kPge4FvhyJh
The OLR increase from 55S to 85S averages more than 3W/sq.m due to higher surface water temperature and reduced ice extent.
This is a very powerful feedback mechanism that controls the global average temperature within a narrow range over any annual cycle.
40
Yes Jo, but in one case the light is reflected back to the atmosphere in the other case it converts ice at 0 degrees to Water at Zero degrees underlaid by more tonnes of ice at zero degrees or lower, changing the temperature not one Jot. The Ice acts as a regulator keeping the surface at 0 deg C or lower. On the other hand if the ice is bright white then it reflects energy back into the atmosphere to be intercepted by particles and potentially warming the atmosphere in the process even though most of it goes to space.
Once the ice melts the soot sinks only to be overlaid by more bright white snow and ice as soon as the water refreezes in the very next snow storm. You can’t use a static (Scalar model) to estimate this. In general the energy absorbed by the soot is lost in the latent heat of melting/solidification which has no effect on temperature.
Like I said, if Ice is melting then it is Cooling its surroundings!
For a start it is wrong to assume that the heat absorbed (emissivity) of the soot is constant or accumulating. Once it sinks or is frozen over the emissivity falls again. Emissivity of soot laden ice is not a constant, it’s chaotic because the conditions that account for the emissivity (the weather) is chaotic.
40
Good
10
So warming is Global Warming and cooling is Climate Change. Both man made.
You also have to marvel at the accuracy of Climate Science. SO2 particles and soot efects both calculated to precision. Microscopic changes in a vast area producing incredibly large changes and no other effects are visible? In the world of Climate Scence (which has nothing to do with Meteorology or the weather), everything is known to incredible precision. Amazing. No one even questions these calculations.
The argument is that scientists are never wrong, especially the special breed of Climate Scientists. They use computers too.
150
GI-GO Climate Science in a nutshell.
120
Slightly O/T but kind of related to the reef climate “problem”: A thorny problem….
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-19/crown-of-thorns-funds-funnelled-companies-link-tourism-operators/10257306
“More than $20 million of taxpayers’ money allocated to protect the Great Barrier Reef has been funnelled through a series of companies linked to two tourism operators, one of whom is on the Government board making those funding decisions.
Governance experts said the potential for conflict is so serious, Cairns-based tourism operator Margie McKenzie should reconsider her position on the board of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
“You can’t be a member of the public authority dispersing the funds, and then run a private company receiving the funds,” said Professor Thomas Clarke from the University of Technology Sydney business school.
The money in question has been spent on killing crown-of-thorns starfish, which destroy vast amounts of coral when their population booms.
The funds were allocated by the Marine Park Authority to two not-for-profit companies, both of which have subcontracted a third for-profit company — called Gempearl — to do the actual culling.
Ms McKenzie, who sits on the board of the authority, and her husband Col McKenzie, own 100 per cent of Gempearl.
Ms McKenzie has told the ABC she has not taken part in any discussions or voted in decisions about crown-of-thorns funding in her role at the authority.
But the connections between the McKenzies and taxpayer funds run even deeper.
The two companies in the middle that pass the funding on to Gempearl in payment for culling services are both led by Mr McKenzie.
Two corporate governance experts said Ms McKenzie shouldn’t be able to keep both her role on the board and her interest in Gempearl.”
20
You meant Climate seance..?
80
Isn’t soot a pollutant?
Will the polar bears become grizzly?
Every time man interferes with nature, there are unintended consequences.
Why are some people trying to manufacture a solution to a non problem?
Aah! Power and money!!
60
No, they’ll just become black bears.
20
Personally, I don’t believe any of their studies. And one degree sounds way too much.
60
Yes it does, especially as a lot of the time the arctic is dark, if there is not incoming sunlight SOX and Soot have little energy available to absorb/reflect. I find that a lot of studies just ignore energy availability they set a boundary around the thermodynamic system and (incorrectly) assume the system is closed. They measure an effect and assume the rest based on a closed system assumption. A biggie is west Antarctica ice melt, an effect absorbing 30Watts per square meter being caused by the effect of a well mixed gas causing 0.6W extra retention of solar energy?
In my book the impossibility of this says CO2 cannot be the cause of this melting but the activists (can’t bring myself to call them scientists) don’t care. Energy conservation is only the most important law in science you know!
I have many times done the calcs to estimate the energy cost of the effects and proven they are greater than the energy available, emailed the author to ask How they can attribute this to AGW when the energy to support the effect is not available. Invariably the answer is “that’s what we measured”… well, I write, how can you attribute that to global warming when the effect would be nett cooling it’s environment, the energy source cannot be AGW? That’s when they stop corresponding.
This simulation is in the same class, the energy to raise a few million cubic km of atmosphere in the presence of a few trillion tonnes of melting ice is far more than can be generated. The effect could be no more than a skin of atmosphere a few cm thick.
100
They won’t go far with this idea.
That is because of the obvious implication.
That you can fix global warming by turning off all the flue-gas desulfurization units on coal power plants.
It’d work too. And it would make coal plants cheaper to run…
80
Although you are right how about we just get on with it and start building new coal fired power stations of any kind to catch up with the rest of the world. We are being left behind more and more after each passing year. Before long we will be in the most ridiculous position of having the least number of coal fired power stations of any nation despite the fact we will still be exporting the best quality coal in increasing amounts to those nations that are sensible enough to fuel their ever increasing numbers of coal fired power stations.
110
PeterS look at the bright side.
We might have the lowest number of coal fired power stations (and decreasing) but we may end up with a world record number of diesel generators for baseload production (at a fuel cost per unit of energy of about 45 times that of coal).
80
What happens if China decides to block our diesel imports? We will be exporting massive amounts of our cheap coal to others yet we won’t be able to use it for ourselves because we’ve closed down too many of our coal fired power plants. How stupid is that?
60
Oh no…we’d have to uncap all those wells around Australia that have viable oil and gas but have been on purpose closed off. Not to mention the huge fracking gas deposits we have in the NT…plus coal…plus uranium…. and we haven’t touched the gas fields in the Timor Sea that we “own”…
30
Diesel ??
We have a miniscule amount of diesel fueled generation, and even that could likely be converted to NGas if necessary.
Most ulility scale back up generation is NGas fueled from sources under our own feet..
Whilst i accept coal is a logical source of generation fuel, …i am more than happy that NGas could easily replace coal to give a simpler, more flexible fuel source for utility scale generation..
Even the most ardent RE enthusiasts realise that there is and will be a requirement for gas fueled “back up” generation
11
Most of WA,NT and QLD is powered by Diesel! You have no idea do you, do you really think they bother to run a EHT line out to oodnadatta from the Urban Grid?
31
From memory they left out ‘wet scrubbers’ on the recent Bayswater upgrade, AGL doing its bit to stave off global warming.
40
That was a government approved omission.
Shows how governments can look after their friends.
KK
20
Of course the acid rain (a real problem) wouldn’t matter because ‘global warming’.
30
Isn’t all rainwater acidic ?
40
And if………very big “if”…..’Chem Trail’ proponents could get just as excited about other non airplane types of chemical trails, then they might really have something and an increased chemical pollution vocabulary.
In this instance, they could claim that a chimney stack was causing sulfur dioxide chem-trail.
They might figure out a way of taxing non CO2 industrial pollution by tracing it back to the source via the characteristic plume/trail.
UFO’s can see the chemical trails coming out of estuaries populated by industry and so on…There would be no more chemtrail deniers and everyone would be happily ever after.
10
Nothing new there…
Most Manufacturing industries are already monitored for chemical emmisions, solid, liquid , gasses, etc.
The volumes and concentrations of known pollutants have to be reported regularly and charges (taxs ?). are applied at varioing rates..Exceeding agreed levels results in heavy fines .
20
Good to see you are not a chemical trail/pollution/emission denier.
My frustration is that chem-trail citizen scientists have such a poor vocabulary of chemical trails/plumes/emissions and seemingly blithe with respect to ultra dangerous chemical pollutant plumes/trails caused by human activity/industry etc other than airplanes..
If they could increase their myopic chemical vocabulary, they would make more progress and maybe even achieve taxable status.
For example, industry would have to buy chemical emission credits to pay for the right to pollute.
10
Plutonium emissions could be charged at a premium rate if used in nuclear bombs and so on.
Maybe even a plutonium emission tax (PET)..
10
Peak oil?Excessive oil.Offshore Mega-Terminals Are Coming Because Oil Supertankers Are Too Big for Our Ports
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a23130808/offshore-mega-terminals-oil-export/
20
Save the Arctic? The only thing of significance in danger of extinction that really needs saving is mankind.
40
NASA declares that ships leave cloud trails behind them, and produces a satellite photo which purports to show some ship trails.
But how common are they? Do they even exist?
I have been on some ships. I don’t remember seeing a cloud following us along.
I look at the high resolution satellite images on the BOM website almost every day. The satellite images come from the Japanese Hamawari-8 statellite and they are updated every 10 minutes and hence can be viewed in a video format, which is very informative.
I am looking for lenticular wave clouds, which generally stay static, and also the Morning Glory cloud in the Gulf of Carpentaria, which moves. Incidentally there is a very beautiful Morning Glory cloud showing right now as I write this.
I have never seem a ship trail! Linear cloud formations are very common but they do not follow the path of ships. Hence NASA should show a movie, not a static image to establish their “ship trails”.
70
Peter C,
If ships leave cloud trails behind them that can cool the atmosphere significantly, as this report suggest, then surely contrails from jet planes flying over the poles should do it even more.
60
Tom,
Aircraft really do create clouds. Contrails are a form of cirrus cloud
However contrails form at high altitude.
There is another NASA myth that high clouds warm the Earth but low clouds cause cooling.
I have performed some experiments to try to measure the warming effect of the down welling IR from high clouds. I was unable to show any warming.
80
Peter C @ # 11.1.1
I think you are delving into Richard Lindzen’s hypothesised IRIS effect of global high level cloud cover and its effects on the global radiation balance.
Judith Curry had a post on this May 2015
Observational support for Lindzen’s iris hypothesis
30
Thanks ROM,
Yes sort of.
My experiment was trying to show any warming effect of downwelling IR from cirrus clouds.
According to NASA, High cirrus clouds are transparent to sun light but reflect upward IR back to the surface;
https://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Clouds/clouds3.php
You and I would probably agree, as glider pilots, that NASA is talking BS. Cirrus clouds block a lot of sunlight. I have been shot down several times by a wide band cirrus cloud drifting across my path. I expect that you have had the same.
My experiment consisted of a surface target, a tarnished steel disc, insulated in a well of polysytrene foam. An overlying film of gladwrap prevented convective heat loss. The apparatus was pointed toward then Sun. The temperature of the steel disc was taken as the sum of direct solar radiation plus any downwelling radiation from the cloud.
What I found was that a clear sky gave the max heating. Very thin cirrus was almost the same. If the cirrus was thick enough to dim the shadows of nearby objects on the ground then the target got cooler. I never saw any warming if cloud was present.
40
Contemporary container ships for traversing ice are dated and irrelevant. The new ships will resemble giant sleds, sliding effortlessly, even without the engine running at times, gracefully gliding over the ice, melting a slippery perfectly profiled cross section into the ice for the next container sled to traverse. When these giant container sleds reach the ocean again they are also able to float and continue in sea water. No problemo.
10
Don’t know how this post ended up here. It was meant to be at the bottom of the page.
20
Anthony Watts ran a similar story with the same photograph from NASA.
The cation was different;
How do we know that these cloud formations are caused by ships? Has anyone seen a trailing track of cloud behind their ship?
This photograph from Wikipedia is a bit more convincing. One might actually be able to see the ship!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_tracks#/media/File:ShipTracks.jpg
20
But maybe they are actually airplanes, emitting contrails.
30
I note that a new study (Accepted but not yet finalized, reviewed, vetted, subjected to lengthy bureaucratic stalling, etc.) called ‘A Test of the Tropical 200‐300 hPa Warming Rate in Climate Models’ by Ross McKitrick & John Christy, reveal the climate models (CMIP3 and CMIP5) upon which so much UN-IPCC political and scientific capital rests, are broken. Or if not broken then wildly inaccurate. Now isn’t that a revelation (not! 🙂 )
In it they say …
and they say so much more.
It’s currently available at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2018EA000401 so get it before the climate consensus machine pulps it pseudo-academically.
40
Sorry, that was a bit off-topic of me but I thought you all may wish to know 🙂
40
In the seventies, coolists could see,
That their scheme for the whole Arctic sea,
Making warm currents flow,
To melt sea-ice and snow,
Would stop cooling if the Pole were ice free.
40
This story has a fundamental error. It assumes that the northern sea routes will be navigable. Actual recordings of passages this century indicates the number of transits peaked in 2013:
http://www.arctic-lio.com/nsr_transits
The actual cargo tonnage transported across the northern sea routes (including domestic) over the last 30 years is an even more interesting picture:
http://www.arctic-lio.com/images/transitstatistics01.jpg
I do not know why there was such a large decline in the late 80s. Maybe something related to decline of USSR.
It is clear that the number of Arctic transits is an insignificant proportion of shipping. It will require a heap more Global Warming before it becomes significant.
I thought the “science” is settled. Maybe this theory explains why the Arctic ice stopped melting despite the rising atmospheric CO2.
40
But that’s how they are saving the planet—one insignificant activity at a time. In a millenium or so, these fact-lets will add up to something which may still be insignificant from the planetary or Nature’s point of view but which will have crushed, wrecked and ruined all the targeted national economies.
Perhaps the cooling is really caused by increasing cosmic rays making more clouds? But guess who will never think of it, nor acknowledge it?
It is settled, at least until Nature shows yet another way in which it isn’t…
30
Are we stupid with LNP or are we stupid with ALP+Greens? We will reap the damage being caused by either major party if the craze over renewables is left to continue. Morrison please don’t bother to explain how the ALP+Greens is worse than your party. It matters not whether we kill a chicken by chopping it’s head off or by killing it with a nuke. It is dead either way.
Mapped: The world’s coal power plants
Move the slide-bar to “Future” to see what I mean.
50
From the Danish Meteorological Institute’s Arctic Ocean and Ice Services 17 September –
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icethickness/thk.uk.php
Whilst Canada’s Northwest Passage has been ice-bound and impassable all summer, Russia’s Northeast Passage has been ice-free and open for shipping since August. Therefore, I propose the 97% Consensus Believers will blame Vlad and his Russkies for emitting evil Siberian hydrocarbon CH₄ methane gas – to melt the Arctic to flood New York and/or the Maldives – thereby dominating the dastardly high seas! No correspondence regarding wind or ocean currents nor sunspots nor natural ebb-and-flow cycles shall be entered into. Then again, it could be all Trump’s fault.
50
Isn’t it amazing just how the climate reacts to a political statement? Trump has only announced the intention to withdraw from Paris. It hasn’t happened yet. But the announcement created Hurricane Florence—it was all his fault. I loved the lack of mechanism and the ways in which Florence didn’t behave at all as
predictedprojectedanticipatedforecastah claimed it would and was right on the borderline of Cat 1 and mere Tropical Storm when it landed. 🙂 .Nothing has changed, just the vitriol. They’re all proven idiots. And they’ll all make cretinous coprocephalics of themselves again at the next one. Cretinous coprocephalaea seems to have become an increasingly widespread cognitive ailment. What’s more, it’s cause is known: a surfeit of bad propaganda.
80
Yes, and Leftists remind me of mice with the parasite in them that makes the mice suicidal…once they get going like nhilistic energizer bunnies, you cant pull them back….
I commented yesterday about how a 2nd american revolution might go – my thoughts are the Left will be Darwin Award-level self limiting, by picking a stupid fight with the majority of middle class Americans who are armed and thoroughly fed up with the PC nonsense and the mess of American the Left has created. I think it will be a fast and furious stoush, with the Left being shredded by a hail of lead…..righteous anger by those who have suffered under the Leftists oppression for many years will boil over very quickly I think.
40
The first test Steve will be the midterm elections in November.
If there are enough right thinking middle class Americans left the Dems should go down mightily.
20
The longer I observe the Democrats in the USA the more I think a form of demonically-driven madness has taken hold and now we are seeing the democrats for what they really are…… Its almost like God has grabbed them by the scruff of the neck, forced them to bare their previously concealed fangs, so we can see what we are truly dealing with.
I think people are now mentally lining them up for hiding…..and if they kick off violence, I don’t think Americans will stand for it.
November should be very interesting.
00
If the MC Great Orange One, aka Mr McGoo, was the cause of Florence briefly hitting Cat 4 status, he was also the reason the next four (4) tropical storms did NOT hit Cat 4 status; or, the evil carbon effect only works 1/5th, or 20%, of the time. Another very average hurricane season so far in the Atlantic… ho-hum.
http://tropical.atmos.colostate.edu/Realtime/index.php?loc=northatlantic
Meanwhile in points closer to home and further south – snow Thursday and Friday, and Sunday to 700 metres, as a series of southerly fronts roar up from the frozen Antarctic, perfectly timed for the spring equinox on the 23rd. Nature at its best!
https://www.metservice.com/mountain/southern-lakes
30
Given that it is known that volcanic activity cools the troposphere (see https://www.livescience.com/21411-weak-volcano-climate-effects.html ).
And that the Actic region has in it active volcanoes (see https://www.livescience.com/4992-volcanoes-erupt-beneath-arctic-ice.html ), with many active volcanoes around the periphery of it — Iceland, the Aleutian Trench complex, and Kamchatka Peninsula (Alaska Peninsula out to Russia — see https://prd-wret.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium/production/s3fs-public/styles/full_width/public/thumbnails/image/AirRoutes_AKvolcanoes.jpg ).
Surely just one or two significant eruptions would do more than all the ships in the Arctic sea.
80
Really tom0mason: volcanoes are not Man Made, nor can they be anthropogenically attributable. (Not yet, but we can be sure some university researcher is working on that somewhere). They don’t count. You should know that.
80
Funny I seem to remember a Mexican farmer digging a hole which started one .
30
Does that mean if we start filling holes back up the volcanoes will stop erupting? 🙂
20
So much ,
Deep State wise,
has been tossed
down memory holes,
enough, you’d surmise,
to stop volcanoes
erupting, if ’twas
not that Global
Warming…oops,
‘Climate Change,’
ensures that
destructive
Acts of God
proliferate.
20
Sorry sophocles,
For some unknown reason I drifted into the unreliable area of getting scientific data from observed evidence — how very antiquated and silly of me.
I should know by now that modeling results for preconceived outcomes is the only approved method for real climate science.
So, it must all be Trumps fault (again). 🙂
/sarc-off
30
You know, that huge Lombok eruption in 1257 and the totally filthy Laki series in the 1780s, plus Tambora, Krakatoa etc, don’t really explain stuff like this: http://notrickszone.com/2018/03/01/another-new-paper-shows-arctic-sea-ice-has-been-increasing-overall-since-the-1930s/
Lining climate up with volcanoes makes more sense than lining it up with shipping…but neither really work for me. There was deadly toxicity and climate disruption from Laki, but not for long. And there was a truly catastrophic monsoon failure more than a decade before Laki blew.
That graphic linked above is just the assessment by Lamb and others of ice history in one part of the world up to the 1980s, but it makes you think that when the planet’s going to cool down or ice up it’s just going to do it. And “just going to do it” is a lot more scientific than making stuff up.
60
.
Models!!
.
Now don’t get me wrong!
Even at my advanced years there are some Models of the female gender who make my eyes glaze over although thats about all they can do these days.
[ is the use of “gender” politically correct as of the last hour or so or should I catch up a bit more ? ]
.
But “Climate models”!! Sighhhh!!
On what are Climate models based and just what does support Climate Models such as those that supposedly explain the origins of Arctic cooling / warming and mankind’s chances of changing the plus or minus temperature / emmissions/ carbon / environment / polar bear survival / number of kayaks paddling towards the North Pole / amount of ice / sea ice/ thin ice / thick ice / melting rates / Gore effects etc, signs ?
[ strike out inappropriate “cooling / warming” or whatever term above according to your choice]
More Climate models of course!
I think this quote below sums up much of climate alarmism science and its use of models today which is very much in line with the “Little Old Lady’s” beliefs.
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish.
The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?”
“You’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”
— Hawking, 1988[1]
60
Umm, would they be turtoises or tortles?
30
There is little doubt that the start of the LIA was assisted by large volcanic eruptions, but lets not concern ourselves with that possibility.
‘In a new twist to what is being described by analysts as the biggest man made risk to Australian Agribusiness since the formation of the Australian Greens Party, hysteria has today ramped up as a Betoota Plains farmer discovered a needle in a haystack which had been delivered to his farm as part of the nation-wide drought relief campaign.’
Betoota Advocate
70
You can say ‘women’ or ‘girls’ as far as I’m concerned ROM! I won’t be offended…promise 😉
20
Annie!
You are a Lady.
Albeit a smart,tolerant and pretty lively one I suspect!
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🙂
I’m not very tolerant of greenie, lefty bossy-boots!
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15 Sept: Xinhua: China’s “Tian En” ship wraps up maiden Arctic tour in Sweden
Chinese cargo ship Tian En arrived Saturday at the Swedish port of Harnosand, ending its maiden voyage across the Arctic region to deliver wind power equipment to Europe.
“After all the ice-zones and storms, we made it,” said Chen Xiangwu, captain of the multifunctional ship built in 2017…
Prior to Harnosand, Tian En docked at the French port of Rouen on Sept. 5 to a warm welcome from local authorities, and swarmed by a media frenzy…
“European reporters were keen to know what we’d been through in the Arctic, and, of course, why we chose that route,” Chen said.
“I told them some stories along the ‘Polar Silk Road,’ and that the route via the Arctic is much shorter and safer than the traditional one passing the Suez Canal,” he said…
Lu Yi, second officer of the ship, told Xinhua that the route across the Arctic has saved about one third of sailing days and around 300 tons of fuel. “It’s really economical, both for us and our European clients.”
In a white paper on its Arctic policy early this year, China said it would intensify cooperation with other countries to jointly build the Polar Silk Road, part of the Belt and Road Initiative…
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-09/15/c_137470136.htm
March 2017: The Diplomat: The Power of Ports: China’s Maritime March
Insights from Sam Beatson
By Mercy A. Kuo
(This conversation with Dr. Sam Beatson – teaching fellow at the Lau China Institute, King’s College London; chairman of the Smart Societies Institute; and founding leadership fellow of St George’s College, Windsor Castle – is the 82nd in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series”)
BEATSON: China is expanding as a maritime power in terms of port and shipping assets, naval power, and independence, not unlike the U.K. 200 years ago in its exporting to other areas of Empire…
We worked out around $46.6 billion investments involving 40 port projects had been announced or completed, the largest five of those for which we found data being: Tanzania (Bagamoyo—$10 billion); Sri Lanka (Colombo and Habamtota—$3 billion); Burma [Myanmar] (Maday Island—$2.5 billion); Australia (Darwin, Newcastle, and Melbourne—$2.2 billion) and Israel (Ashdod and Haifa—$2.9 billion). Ownership level and scope of investments vary. Taken together, Chinese port operators China Merchants Port Holdings, Cosco Group, and China Shipping Terminal Development, all mainland companies, easily rival the top two companies in the world by container flow (PSA International of Singapore and Hutchison Ports Holdings of Hong Kong). The FT article shows that Chinese container shipping lines taken together dwarf other countries’ container flow.
Where the matter of Chinese ownership and container shipping flow becomes particularly interesting — and baffling — is in the case of China’s 2013 49 percent stake (favorable terms) in Terminal Link making the China Merchant Holdings—CMA CGM (France) group the third largest in the world. This came after CMH purchases in Taiwan and Africa, propelling it into the global league. This indirectly brings Miami and Houston ports in the United States under what is all but in nominal (‘49 percent’) terms a Chinese controlling stake. Dubai World Ports had failed to acquire ports of much lower annual container flow a couple of years earlier and the media was in uproar. The CMH CMA CGM deal went through almost under the radar. An intriguing case and one you would not have expected from the United States — allowing Houston Terminal Link Texas (Houston) and South Florida Container Terminal (Miami) to come under 49 percent Chinese ownership…
The Vivekananda International Foundation published a piece on strategic implications of OBOR (LINK) last year which is worth reading for further information.
https://thediplomat.com/2017/03/the-power-of-ports-chinas-maritime-march/
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Is there the least reason to believe in a previously stable Arctic climate, when huge swings in ice levels have been observed and detailed since the period just following the Napoleonic Wars?
So what’s “cooling”? Is it when any season shows lower max, lower min or both? Or is it when all seasons show lower max, lower min or both? What about low ice in the Arctic but big freeze in Europe, as after 1815? Ignore? Whatever the standard, over how many decades does a “warming” or “cooling” need to extend before the nappy-moisteners start to shriek?
And if a period of Arctic ice decrease is concurrent with Antarctic ice increase? Ignore? (In fact, they did ignore.)
If the Arctic cooled overall in the period after WW2 and ice levels increased into the late 1970s do we attribute that to shipping, more sulphur than soot etc? Or is it just possible that nobody knows enough…and that in an age of dogma and priestcraft few in power want to know (unless they’re Russians who badly need warm water ports)?
What if you have a period of low precipitation causing min and max to diverge, with lower min but higher max? What if a period of high precip causes the opposite effect? Do you still just average them out and ignore causes?
Is a final annual minimum of sea ice (Sept for Arctic) more significant than ice levels at another time of year? If so why? Does a September hurricane determine our notions of “warming arctic” more than what we can actually learn about such a complex matter?
If human agency is such a big deal, how do you explain the total roller coaster which is the climate of the Quaternary Period and the relatively modest roller coaster of the last ten thousand years?
Lastly, is geo-engineering for harmless big babies or is it for dangerous big babies? (I reckon dangerous, with double infantile.)
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What kind of idiots, like Al Gore are in today science of climate change?
WE MUST REEVALUATE THE DEADLY WRONG SCIENCE AS SOO AS POSSIBLE.
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I’m not so concerned about such idiots. We should be more concerned about those who fall for their idiocy, which includes many if not most in both major political parties as well as far too many voters who keep voting for them.
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Or is this simply another outrageous scam.
First CO2 was supposed to have removed all Arctic sea ice by now.
To save face and their incomes “Climate Sciences” have decided to blame international shipping, the lifeblood of Western economies.
So the reason the ice is not melted is more industrial pollution than they thought. It has taken 30 years for this nonsense to be busted, but there is always a glib excuse. Why has this one taken so long to make up? Or is Global Warming causes Global Cooling simply too ridiculous?
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Or did melting sea ice allow more shipping by money grubbing Western industrialists and that produced more pollution which stopped the ice from melting? You know it makes sense. The Climate Scientists should have seen this coming.
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Basically these clowns are trying the science fiction concept of terraforming.
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18 Sept: LiveScience: Melting Arctic Permafrost Releases Acid that Dissolves Rocks, Releases CO2
By Mindy Weisberger
As temperatures rise in the Arctic, permafrost — permanently frozen ground — is defrosting at an alarming rate. But the permafrost isn’t the only thing in the Arctic that’s melting.
Exposed rock that was once covered in ice is dissolving, eaten away by acid. And the effects of this acid bath could have far-reaching impacts on global climate, according to a new study…
https://www.livescience.com/63612-arctic-acid-permafrost.html
5 Sept: WileyOnline: Geophysical Research Letters: Mineral Weathering and the Permafrost Carbon‐Climate Feedback
Scott Zolkos, Suzanne E. Tank, Steven V. Kokelj
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2018GL078748
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At the other end of the world CO2 is ineffectual in causing warming.
“Antarctica is the only place in the world where the surface is colder than the stratosphere,” says Justus Notholt, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Bremen in Germany. The continent’s surface temperatures are typically 20°C colder than the temperature a few hundred meters up in the atmosphere, he explains.
‘The persistent temperature inversion causes high-altitude greenhouse gases to actually emit more heat to space than they trap, Sejas says. Recent studies identified this negative greenhouse gas effect over Antarctica.’
Science
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Ain’t science wonderful.
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I might agree with the conclusion that there is a negative greenhouse effect over Antarctica because I have seen that published before,
But this part is wrong;
Today at Mawson station: Surface temp -12C, Stratosphere -78C.
http://www.bom.gov.au/aviation/observations/aerological-diagrams/
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“Antarctica is the only place in the world where the surface is colder than the stratosphere,” says Justus Notholt.
Umm, I think Justus Notholt is probably wrong here as any high desert region has the potential for this to occur. Night in Atacama Desert region comes to mind as a likely candidate however I don’t know whether it has been seen or recorded.
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19 Sept: ABC Late Nite Live: Climate change, battery boom threatens life on the ‘roof of the world’ — the Tibetan Plateau
RN By Victoria Pengilley and Sasha Fegan
Climate change is sometimes discussed as a problem of the future, but on the “roof of the world”, it has already arrived.
The remote, icy plains of the Tibetan Plateau — the highest and largest plateau on the planet — cover a massive 25 per cent of China’s landmass.
It plays an important role — it contains the largest supply of fresh water outside the polar regions, and gives birth to some of Asia’s most legendary rivers…
Climate change has caused temperatures to rise on the plateau faster than anywhere else in Asia.
As a result, the region’s glaciers and grassland are thawing at an alarming rate.
If melting continues, an estimated two-thirds of the plateau’s glaciers will be gone by 2050, one scientist told the Asia Society conference in 2009…
While climate change is slowly transforming the landscape, so too is China, which controls the semi-autonomous region.
In the late 1950s, when China sent in troops to assert its claim over Tibet, thousands of nomads were dispersed and resettled into neighbouring Chinese provinces. Others fled as refugees to Nepal and India…
Human rights organisations and advocates of Tibetan self-determination have previously denounced China’s rule over Tibet, claiming it has led to an eradication of culture, language and traditions.
“Tibet has been under the Chinese occupation for the last 70-odd years, and for all these years there has been a vicious cycle of repression and resistance,” says Kyinzom Dhongdue, a Tibetan refugee and journalist for the Times of India.
Ms Dhongdue was born to Tibetan parents in India, where she is a member of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile.
“Although I have never seen the physical Tibet, [it] is very much part of who I am,” says Ms Dhongdue, who is now based in Australia…
In recent years the Chinese Government has stepped up mining in the Tibetan Plateau, along with transmigration — a forced relocation project that moves Chinese citizens to the region…
But activists say it leaves Tibet’s natural resources of lead, zinc, asbestos and lithium vulnerable to exploitation…
According to the Environmental Justice Atlas, Tibet holds 90 per cent of China’s lithium reserves, and has been a big drawcard for technology companies supplying lithium-based batteries for smart phones, tablets and electric cars…
Ms Dhongdue says development and increased tourism in the region has also exacerbated the already dire effects of climate change.
“The Chinese Government likes to claim that they have brought a lot of development inside Tibet but it has come at a great cost,” she says.
“It has brought loss of a culture and the development has actually facilitated the transmigration — the influx of a huge number of Chinese migrants to the Tibetan Plateau — and further enabled the marginalisation or the disempowerment of the Tibetan people inside Tibet…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-19/climate-change-mining-threaten-tibetan-plateau/10241596
seens ABC has not carried the following which was picked up around the world, though this is the only report (from a Swedish original linked) that includes the ***final paras excerpted:
13 Sept: Voice of Europe: Dalai Lama: Europe belongs to Europeans and refugees have to go home
At a press conference in Sweden, the Tibetan spiritual leader, Dalai Lama shocked the audience by saying that Europe belongs to the Europeans and that the refugees should go home, Fria Tider reports (LINK).
The Dalai Lama, who spoke at a conference in the multicultural city of Malmö, said Europe is “morally responsible” for helping “a refugee really facing danger against their life”.
“Receive them, help them, educate them… but ultimately they should develop their own country,” the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize winner told the audience.
He added that he believes “Europe belongs to the Europeans and that “they [the refugees]ultimately should rebuild their own country”.
His remarks caused anger amongst the Swedish journalists who were present at the Dalai Lama’s press conference on Wednesday…
***He also repeatedly said that Chinese mass immigration to Tibet is the biggest threat to the nation’s identity.
“The unimpeded influx of Chinese immigrants to Tibet has the effect of flooding Tibet’s distinct cultural and religious identity and Tibetans being reduced to an insignificant minority in their own country.
“It is nothing less than a cultural genocide”, he said during a speech in connection with the 38th anniversary of the Tibetan uprising.
https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/09/dalai-lama-europe-belongs-to-europeans-and-refugees-have-to-go-home/
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VIDEO PROMO: 18 Sept: Montana Public Radio: ‘Threshold’ Season Two Explores Climate Change In The Arctic
The ice is melting, the polar bears are in trouble – but what about the 4 million people who call the Arctic home? The award-winning podcast & public radio show, Threshold, brings you stories about people adapting to a quickly changing world. It breaks down complex science, weaves in culture and history, and illuminates what’s at stake – for all of us – if the Arctic crosses a series of thresholds.
The Threshold team spent 18 months reporting in all 8 Arctic countries. It’s time to start a new kind of conversation about climate change and the Arctic. Will you join us?
Season 2 launches September 25. Subscribe to Threshold right here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
http://www.mtpr.org/post/threshold-season-two-explores-climate-change-arctic
Threshold: From Montana Public Radio
S02 Preview: 18 Sept 2018
What is the Arctic, anyway? Like, is it the North Pole, or the south? Do penguins live there? Polar bears? What about people?…
This season is underwritten by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Production partners: Montana Public Radio and (Public Radio International) PRI’s The World
https://www.npr.org/podcasts/512986859/threshold
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Sounds like another study based on fake data..The Arctic is cooling, ice is increasing, Greenland ice is well above normal. (Danish met service). Quite frankly I dont buy the sulphur crap. A ship may put out SO2 but nothing compared to the air volume above +60N (I guess that is where the study is). I would guess there study uses so called GH Theory calcs which are physically flawed anyway. Reminds me of the other great 1980s swindle the GREAT CFC scare. Based on one flawed paper.
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Good points.
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As we speak Arctic sea ice is back to average and when it comes to Greenland, natural variables rule.
‘A new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) shows that the rate of melting might be temporarily increased or decreased by two existing climate patterns: the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO).’ wuwt
There is considerable evidence to suggest the NAO is influenced by the sun’s behaviour.
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