A map of the sea surface zone that has cooled since 1979 — from 56S – 72S . It’s a pretty big area. Click to enlarge.
For years the IPCC have said that warming would be amplified at the poles. They warned us things would heat up twice as fast, which would melt sea ice. The oceans surface in turn would switch from being reflective white to a dark absorbing deep blue. Enormous amounts of energy would then flow into the ocean instead of being reflected back out to space. The more it warmed, the more it would warm — unleashing a devastating feedback loop.
As the Arctic warmed, the merchants of doom were keen to tell us how how right they were and this was evidence of man-made warming. But in the Antarctic exactly the opposite trend was taking place.
Mike Jonas has done what the IPCC should have been doing — investigating the trends in the Sea Surface Temperature in the polar latitudes with satellite records. In the latitude band from 56 to 72 degrees south the oceans have cooled, not warmed. The models don’t even have the sign of the trend correct. At the latitudes where the models expected the most warming, the ocean surface cooled as fast as a tenth of a degree per decade. For the sea surface, that’s surprisingly quick.
It’s more evidence that things are seriously wrong in the global models. The modelers don’t understand the climate, they can’t predict the major processes of ocean currents, cloud changes and albedo. How can they even say they “know” what drives changes in the Arctic if their same models fail so badly on the Antarctic? They claim random luck as “success” and throw a veil of silence over the non-random failures.
As McKitrick and Christy point out:
Swanson (2013) noted that the changes in model output between CMIP3 and CMIP5 improved the fit to Arctic warming but worsened it everywhere else, raising the possibility that the models were getting the Arctic right for the wrong reasons. …
When Jonas tried to get this significant finding published in the peer review, the usual gatekeeping process meant these simple but cutting graphs were rejected — without a right of reply (that’s another story for another day).
But here, I’m happy to publish his work in the exact form he submitted for peer review (so we can discuss the peer review process itself. Though I would have suggested some edits). Thanks to Mike Jonas for all his work!
Jo
_______________________________________________________________
Southern Oceans Sea Surface Temperatures contradict a key element of the IPCC Report
Author: M Jonas (Cover note of submission)
Author’s affiliations: None
Abstract
The hypothesis – Surface warming is amplified by sea ice- and snow-related feedbacks near the poles – is supported by climate models and was an important factor in the fifth IPCC report. The sea ice part of this hypothesis was tested, using Sea Surface Temperatures of the Southern Oceans. The test showed clearly that the sea ice part of the hypothesis is contradicted by the data, because there was quite strong overall cooling in the latitudes where amplified warming was expected. There must therefore be one or more important large-scale climate processes that are not reasonably represented in the models. From this, it necessarily follows that the climate models are invalid and their Antarctic projections in particular are now untenable. It also necessarily follows that the climate models’ global projections are unreliable.
Abbreviations
3poly – 3rd-order polynomial fit, AR5 – Annual Report #5, IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, NOAA – (US) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, SST – Sea Surface Temperature, WG1 – Working Group #1.
Standard convention is followed re latitudes: “lower latitudes” are nearer the equator, “higher latitudes” are nearer the poles. All temperatures are in deg C.
1. INTRODUCTION
A significant proportion of the anthropogenic global warming as projected by climate models occurs near the poles, and is amplified by feedbacks. Warming in West Antarctica (eg. Steig, 2009), glacier retreat (eg. Favier, 2014) and ice loss (eg. Rignot, 2008) have been reported, and have been explicitly or implicitly linked by the media and others to the models’ projected global warming – eg. Amos J (2014), Press Association (2015), Fox D (2017).
Sea surface temperatures of the Southern Oceans are examined to determine whether they behave as projected. The relevant latitudes are where sea-ice does or can exist at times (the “sea-ice latitudes”), but the study covers a larger range of latitudes so that the sea-ice and non-sea-ice latitudes can be compared. The sea-ice latitudes cover a large area, so a failure of the temperature in the sea-ice latitudes to behave as projected would indicate that the climate models’ underlying mechanisms or their implementation are invalid.
The climate system is a complex coupled non-linear system (Baede, 2001). ie, the major climate mechanisms interact with and affect each other. Therefore all major climate mechanisms must necessarily be reasonably well represented in climate models in order for the models’ global projections to be at all reliable.
Note: The ocean latitudes examined in this study are from -30 (30S) southwards and are referred to as the “Southern Oceans” to avoid confusion with the official Southern Ocean which lies south of latitude -60 (60S).
2. THE HYPOTHESIS
The IPCC’s hypothesis is that : Surface warming is amplified by sea ice- and snow-related feedbacks near the poles
2.1 The Mechanism
The fifth IPCC Report (Collins, 2013) states: “Feedbacks associated with changes in sea ice and snow amplify surface warming near the poles (Hall, 2004; Soden et al., 2008; Graversen and Wang, 2009; Kumar et al., 2010).”. Hall (2004) found that surface albedo feedback accounts for about half the high-latitude response to external forcing by CO2.
The sea ice feedback mechanism is explained in clear simple language by Pinson (2017), referring to the Arctic: “As the ice recedes, retreating further and further north, solar radiation that was once reflected back into space due to the high albedo effect of ice is now warming an increasing amount of water, and the radiant heat this creates further exacerbates both regional and global warming.”. The equivalent feedback mechanism operates for ice or snow on land.
There is little doubt about these mechanisms, and there is high confidence that they influence large areas. The fifth IPCC Report (Collins, 2013) states: “In summary, there is robust evidence over multiple generations of models and high confidence in these large-scale warming patterns.”.
2.2 Sea-ice Latitudes
Sea-ice feedback can only occur in places where there is a change in sea-ice.
Sea ice feedback operates almost exclusively in summer, as there is little insolation in winter (Morales Maqueda, 2018). The place where the sea ice feedback operates must be between the minimum and maximum sea ice extents – ie. the places that have less sea ice cover than they used to have, either because the sea ice extents are smaller than they were, or because they have the same coverage for less time each year. Visual inspection of Figure 1 shows that the Antarctic sea ice extent is mostly between about 76S (Ross Sea, RH picture) and 56S (Weddell Sea, LH picture). Any sea ice feedback must therefore originate in or near this latitude range, and it must affect the sea surface temperature (see 6.4 Melting from below).
Figure 1. Antarctic 1979-2000 sea ice concentration (Lindsey, 2000). The 1979-2000 medians are shown with a yellow line.
3. THE TEST
Note: The hypothesis being tested is from the IPCC report. The test reported here is therefore not a direct test of the climate models, and in particular it is not a test of any particular climate model. It is a test of certain important statements in the IPCC report. However, because the IPCC report is obviously derived from and supported by climate models, it is reasonable to draw conclusions about the accuracy of the models as a whole, using the demonstrated accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the IPCC’s climate expectations.
The test is conducted by comparing the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) trends by latitude. This use of latitude is particularly suitable for the Southern Oceans, because sea surface temperatures in the Antarctic correlate very well with latitude, with the isotherms approximately following the parallels (Morales Maqueda, 2018).
If the hypothesis being tested is correct, then the SST trends for the sea-ice latitudes (about -76 to -56, see 2.2 Sea-ice Latitudes) should be higher than for other latitudes, and in particular they should be higher than for lower latitudes and, because the test is for amplified warming, they should be higher than the global average.
In the Southern Oceans’ sea-ice latitudes, where any amplified warming from sea-ice feedback must originate, exactly the opposite is shown by the Sea Surface Temperature data (Reynolds, 2002). See Figures 2 and 4. For information about the data and how it was used, see A1 The Data.
Figure 2. Linear trends in sea surface temperature around the Antarctic, by Latitude, for the four longitude lists described in A1 The Data. High latitudes are on the left, low latitudes on the right.
There is no amplified warming in the sea-ice latitudes (about -76 to -56). In fact, the temperature trend there is mostly quite strongly negative, and is in stark contrast to the lower latitudes where there is significant warming. In Figure 2, an increase in trend can be seen from about latitude -65 southwards, but inspection of the Y axis shows that this increase is from quite a strong cooling rate to around zero. From around latitude -70 to -55, there is cooling, not amplified warming. There is more discussion of this in 6.2 High-latitude temperature trends.
The data used is for the satellite period from Dec 1981 to Oct 2017, covering 35 full years or 36 southern-hemisphere summers. This period should be sufficient. Hall (2004) says “the portion of the scenario run corresponding to the present-day satellite record is long enough to capture [the sea ice- and snow-related] feedback.”. That paper was received in June 2003, and there have been a further 14 years of satellite data since then.
So, the amplified warming from sea ice feedback, as projected by the computer models and as reported by the IPCC with high confidence, is not happening. There could be some limited local sea ice feedback, but there is clearly no large-scale warming. The robust evidence over multiple generations of models must come from errors in the models.
4. MORE DETAIL
In this section, the evidence will be looked at in more detail, and checked for any feature which might throw a different light on the broad-area analysis above.
4.1 Other Areas
The data used in the above tests was limited to latitudes with complete data for a reasonable distribution of longitudes. Latitudes south of -72 (72S) and longitudes with some land were excluded because they did not have enough complete data. Data is missing where there is ice (sea or land) or snow.
These excluded areas do need to be tested. There are three such areas: The tip of the West Antarctic Peninsula has land which cuts out most of the lines of longitude in that sector, so it is not well represented in Figure 2. The Ross and Weddell seas have very few lines of longitude without any summer sea ice, and are therefore poorly represented in Figure 2. For maps showing these areas, see A2 Supplementary Information.
These areas were tested by replacing all missing data with values of -2.78. This value was chosen because the lowest non-ice temperature in the input data is -1.78. A grid cell that had ice in earlier years but lost it in later years would therefore be treated as if it had warmed by at least 1 degree. An area continously covered with ice would be treated as having constant temperature. NB. The average temperatures and trends in Figure 3 are not real, because of the artificial value used for sea ice, but if there was any amplified warming in these areas then it should show up. It didn’t.
(a)
….
(b)
….
(c)
Figure 3. Average summer sea surface temperature in (a) an area around the tip of the West Antarctic Peninsula, (b) the Ross Sea, and (c) the Weddell Sea, from 1982 to 2017, with 3rd-order polynomial fit and linear trend. Grid cells with missing data have been given temperature -2.78.Note: Any 3rd-order polynomial fit is for illumination only, it is not used.
4.2 Possible Bias
It is possible that bias could have been introduced in this study by restricting the sea surface analysis to longitudes with complete data. The rationale is that a location with sea ice in the early years, but that had no ice in later years because it had warmed, would be excluded.
This possible bias was tested for, using the same method as in 4.1 Other Areas. All longitudes were used, across all latitudes with any data, ie. from -78 to -30 (78S to 30S).
Figure 4. Linear trends in sea surface temperature by latitude across all longitudes, from 1982 to 2017. Grid cells with missing data have been given temperature -2.78.
The pattern is very similar to those in Figure 2, except that the temperature trend falls in latitudes higher than those present in Figure 2. Those latitudes were absent from Figure 2, because of seasonal sea ice. Figure 4 confirms that there is no amplified warming from sea ice feedback over the southern oceans in general.
5. CONCLUSION
The hypothesis that surface warming is amplified near the poles by sea ice feedback is contradicted by the data. Warming is occurring in the lower latitudes, but the data clearly shows that little or no warming is occurring in higher latitudes approaching the Antarctic continent, and that over most of those latitudes there is net cooling.
That such a large area of the Southern Oceans is behaving so differently from the models’ projections for a significant period of time implies unequivocally that those climate models’ underlying mechanisms or their implementation are invalid. As explained in 6.1 Model projections and observations and 6.3 Model implications, the climate models’ Antarctic projections are now untenable. From this it necessarily follows, as explained in 1. INTRODUCTION, that the climate models’ global projections are unreliable.
6. DISCUSSION
6.1 Model projections and observations
The IPCC Report (Collins, 2013) is very clear: “In equilibrium simulations, amplified warming occurs in both polar regions.”.
It would be reasonable to suppose that 36 years is enough time for the transient response to at least start to move towards equilibrium, and the models do indeed project this: “model trends in surface air temperature are 2.5 to 5 times higher than observed over Antarctica”. The IPCC report provides the following explanation: “The lack of an amplified transient warming response in high Southern polar latitudes has been associated with deep ocean mixing, strong ocean heat uptake and the persistence of the vast Antarctic ice sheet”. But the report then goes on to suggest that the model projections are more accurate than the temperature data: “but here also the observational estimates have a very large uncertainty, so, for example, the CMIP3 ensemble mean is consistent with observations within error estimates (Monaghan et al., 2008)”. The primary justification for this argument is “because station records are short and sparse”.
There are now 36 years of satellite sea surface data uniformly covering the relevant Antarctic latitudes. They show no amplified warming. In fact, they show little or no warming at all. The uncertainty of “short and sparse” land station records is no longer a credible argument for the models’ projections significantly overestimating temperature. Those model projections are now untenable. NB. This argument is not about the uncertainty of the land station records (see A2 Supplementary Information), it is that there is now an additional source of data.
The IPCC’s explanation for the models’ failure, which associated the lack of warming with “deep ocean mixing, strong ocean heat uptake and the persistence of the vast Antarctic ice sheet”, raises another issue: If that explanation is correct, then they have identified some important large-scale climate processes that are not reasonably represented in the models. Without such processes, it is questionable whether the models are fit for purpose.
6.2 High-latitude temperature trends
In Figures 2 and 4, there is a noticeable increase in temperature trend from about latitude -65 (65S) to -72 (72S). But, as noted in 3. THE TEST, this increase is from quite a strong cooling rate to around zero. The average temperatures are taken over the whole 360 degrees of longitude, because the hypothesis being tested relates to the whole area, not to isolated pockets. It is reasonable to expect the overall trend to be nearer to zero at the latitudes with more land (that’s because there is less sea area to provide sea-ice feedback warming for the whole area).
There is a small overall warming in latitudes between about -75 (75S) and -70 (70S). This presumably indicates that there is a pocket (or pockets) of warming between those two latitudes. But the existence of pockets of warming is not enough to confirm an expectation of amplified warming near the poles: that expectation clearly applies to the area as a whole and not just to pockets. In order for the expectation to be met, there would have to be amplified warming over the sea-ice latitudes as a whole. The exact opposite has occurred – the sea-ice latitudes have cooled significantly.
If any of the three separate ocean areas – tip of WA Peninsula, Ross, Weddell – examined in 4.1 Other Areas had shown significant warming, that could conceivably have affected the overall picture of no amplified warming, or they might have given an interesting picture leading to a more nuanced conclusion. They didn’t.
6.3 Model implications
As stated in 1. INTRODUCTION: “Sea surface temperatures of the Southern Oceans are examined to determine whether they behave as projected. The relevant latitudes are where sea-ice does or can exist at times (the “sea-ice latitudes”), but the study covers a larger range of latitudes so that the sea-ice and non-sea-ice latitudes can be compared. The sea-ice latitudes cover a large area, so a failure of the temperature in the sea-ice latitudes to behave as projected would indicate that the climate models’ underlying mechanisms or their implementation are invalid.”.
In more detail:
The climate models operate on a 3D matrix of atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and land cells, using the estimated interactions between them to calculate their climatic changes over time (IPCC, 2013).
Climatic changes are calculated over all of these small(ish) cells over very short time steps, typically about 30 minutes (UCAR, 2011). Those calculations are repeated until the required overall period has been covered. That overall period may range from years to centuries. Only when all of the calculations for all of the cells over all of the time steps have been completed can the results for the individual cells be combined into regional or global projections.
The models’ regional projections are therefore aggregated from their cells’ projections, and the models’ global projections are in fact aggregated from their regional projections even if the IPCC do not choose to explain it that way.
One of the modellers’ major problems is that the cell-based mechanism that they use is unable to adequately represent the laws of physics. As the IPCC explains: “many physical processes, such as those related to clouds, also occur at smaller scales and cannot be properly modelled. Instead, their known properties must be averaged over the larger scale in a technique known as parameterization.” (IPCC, 2013). That the modellers fully understand the laws of physics is not in dispute, but they may still introduce inaccuracies when they parameterise them.
It therefore follows that if the models are in serious error for a major region – such as all of the Southern Oceans’ sea-ice latitudes – then their implementation of the physical laws and/or their parameterisation must be incorrect. The models use the same rules everywhere, ie. globally. They have to use the same rules everywhere, because the laws of physics are the same across the whole planet. If those rules are incorrect, then the models’ projections for all regions and globally are unreliable.
The IPCC do recognise that they have a problem. They say “GCMs may simulate quite different responses to the same forcing, simply because of the way certain processes and feedbacks are modelled. However, while these differences in response are usually consistent with the climate sensitivity range described in criterion 1, they are unlikely to satisfy criterion 4 concerning the uncertainty range of regional projections. Even the selection of all the available GCM experiments would not guarantee a representative range, due to other uncertainties that GCMs do not fully address, especially the range in estimates of future atmospheric composition.”.
The fact that the IPCC recognises that it has a problem does not mean that the problem can be ignored. It means that they really do have a problem.
As explained above, the problem is much more serious than is acknowledged by the IPCC. The problem is compounded by the complex non-linear interactions between the various climate mechanisms and regions (Baede, 2001).
6.4 Melting from below
The West Antarctic melting has been reported as occurring from below (eg. Alley, 2016). It is possible that this is evidence of local sea ice or snow feedback, but perhaps unlikely because sea ice feedback must initially warm the surface. In any case, it is of no direct interest to this study, because the test here is for sea ice feedback that has amplified surface warming. For that to occur, there must be warmed water at the sea surface.
6.5 Volcanoes
It could be worth investigating whether the melting from below is principally or partly caused by volcanoes – see eg. Van Wyk de Vries (2017) reported in Murphy-Bates (2017), and Pappas (2014). See also A2 Supplementary Information.
….
Figure 5. Map of the West Antarctic volcanic region, from Murphy-Bates (2017)
APPENDICES
A1 The Data
The aim was to compare sea surface warming rates between lower and higher latitudes around Antarctica. In order to avoid inaccuracy or bias from incomplete data or from changing sample sizes, data was selected from the satellite record as follows
• Summer-only data. This was to ensure that minimal data was missing because of seasonal sea ice. Sea surface temperature is only useful where there is open water, otherwise the temperature of the sea water is concealed by the ice. The same set of calendar months, Dec-Apr, was used for every temperature comparison to ensure consistency.
• Individual longitudes were discarded if they did not have complete data for the range of latitudes being compared. Data was incomplete where there was ice (sea or land) or snow, or possibly simply missing data.
• Data was only compared beween different latitudes if the set of longitudes with complete data for that range of latitudes was reasonably well populated. The four sets of longitudes used were the longitudes free of summer sea-ice to as far south as, respectively, latitude 65S (“List A”), 70S (“B”), 71S (“C”), 72S (“D”). This was a subjective decision, but the data is all available for inspection.
• The full set of 36 Southern Hemisphere summers 1982 to 2017 was used for all temperature comparisons.
Gridded SST data was downloaded from the USA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (Reynolds, 2002). Each grid cell is 1 degree latitude by 1 degree longitude.
The data is presented in the following files:
• SupplementaryInformation.pdf
• OpenWater.xlsx
• LonLists.xlsx
• SSTsDownloaded3090– Sea surface data as downloaded from NOAA (Reynolds, 2002) for latitudes -30 to -90. SST Data was available only from Dec 1981 to Oct 2017.
The files identified in the appendices are all available online.
A2 Supplementary Information
Only selected temperature graphs are shown in this paper. All of the tested combinations of latitude and longitude are shown in file SupplementaryInformation. This file also has maps showing the locations of the areas used in Figure 3.
File SupplementaryInformation also looks at land station temperature data, and supports the IPCC description “sparse”.
References
Alley KE et al (2016). Impacts of warm water on Antarctic ice shelf stability through basal channel formation, Nature Geoscience, vol.9 April 2016, doi: 10.1038/NGEO2675
Amos J (2014). ‘Nothing can stop retreat’ of West Antarctic glaciers, BBC News.
Baede APM et al (2001). The Climate System: an Overview, in: Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, (Houghton JT et al, 2001), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 881pp
Collins MR et al (2013). IPCC Report AR5 WG1 Chapter 12 Long-term Climate Change: Projections, Commitments and Irreversibility. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. Accessed 2017.
Favier et al (2014). Retreat of Pine Island Glacier controlled by marine ice-sheet instability, Nature Climate Change 2014/01/12/online 4 117, Nature Publishing Group
Fox D (2017). The Larsen C Ice Shelf Collapse Is Just the Beginning—Antarctica Is Melting, National Geographic magazine.
Hall A (2004). The role of surface albedo feedback in climate. Journal of Climate, 17, 1550-1568
IPCC (2013). What is a GCM? Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Data Distribution Centre. Article accessed May 2018
Lindsey R (2000). Antarctic Sea Ice. NASA Earth Observatory.
Morales Maqueda MA et al (2018). Physics and climatology of sea ice. ResearchGate.
Murphy-Bates S (2017). Scientists uncover Earth’s largest volcanic region two kilometres below Antarctic ice sheet, Daily Mail (UK).
Pappas S (2014). Hidden Volcanoes Melt Antarctic Glaciers from Below, LiveScience.
Pinson J (2017). The Arctic is Warming Twice as Fast as the Rest of the Planet – Here’s Why You Need to Care, One Green Planet.
Press Association (2015). Antarctic ice is melting so fast the whole continent may be at risk by 2100, The Guardian.
Reynolds RW et al (2002). An improved in situ and satellite SST analysis for climate. Journal of Climate, 15, 1609-1625. Data accessed in Nov 2017.
Rignot E. (2008). Changes in West Antarctic ice stream dynamics observed with ALOS PALSAR data. Geophysical Research Letters, 35, L12505, doi:10.1029/2008GL033365
Steig EJ et al (2009). Warming of the Antarctic ice-sheet surface since the 1957 International Geophysical Year, Nature, 457, 459-462, doi:10.1038/nature07669
UCAR (2011). Climate Modelling. University Corporation for Scientific Research, Center for Science Education. Article accessed May 2018.
Van Wyk de Vries M (2017). A new volcanic province: an inventory of subglacial volcanoes in West Antarctica, School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh. Accessed Feb 2018.
The IPCC is purely a political organisation driven by Green activists and has a world wide failed socialist agenda.
They use voodoo science backed by propaganda and doomsday predictions backed by gullible media to push theIr agenda.
It’s never been about real science.
The public is slowly waking up.
Its only a matter of time that it will happen in Australia.
The question is will it be too far gone in destroying our coal fired power plants. If not can we avoid a recession or more likely a depression.
503
Mal, we are heading into a recession but I am confident that Shorten will turn that into a depression very quickly.
442
If Australia actually has a recession.
defined as two consecutive
quarterly real GDP declines,
the first since 1991,
then the rest of the world
is in trouble.
62
Only those countries who accept the legitimacy of the IPCC as the arbiter of what is and what is not climate science are in trouble and it really doesn’t even matter which side of green climate fund they’re on.
120
Well I met some friends on the weekend who I would have previously classed as believing in all this man made global warming/climate change rubbish. But to my surprise I think they are now sitting on the fence. I think they may have turned the corner and be on the verge of coming over to the light. Off course I gave them all the encouragement I could as the rest of the table were dyed in the wool warming panic merchants.
So maybe your right Mal.
324
RexAlan
Ask them
“If not for the scary headlines and articles,
would they have noticed
a change in the average temperature,
(which is a temperature that no one actually lives in)
of a few tenths of a degree?
Tell them the global average temperature
is based on haphazard measurements,
where a majority of the planet has no thermometers,
so the “temperatures” for those areas are wild guessed
by government bureaucrats, before they can estimate
the global average temperature.
Had they noticed the climate was warmer, over time, where they live?
(assuming they’ve lived in the same place for a while)
If they have noticed warming, do they think that is good news, or bad news?
160
If they need more evidence, for example that the sea level is not rising, tell them to take a holiday in Surfers Paradise. I’ve been going there for years and I’ve never seen the beaches there so noticeably wide. In years gone by I used to think these beaches were quite narrow.These days the life savers on duty literally need binoculars to see swimmers from the lifesaver towers.
There ain’t no rise in sea levels happening, ha! Oh, mustn’t be any ice melting in Antarctica perhaps?
Of course not.
110
Ask them this:
Have you ever seen actual evidence that man’s CO2 is causing serious global warming?
Before you answer, please read this:
–Evidence of warming IS NOT evidence that man’s CO2 is the cause.
–Warming is NOT evidence of its cause
–Unusual weather occurrences are not evidence of its cause
–Correlation is not causation
–An expert’s assertion is not evidence.
–Majority belief is not evidence
–Government assertions are not evidence.
–“What else could it be” is not evidence
— Polls are not evidence
— Climate models are not evidence
120
Jim Karlock;
Your comment was
clear, concise and
brilliant.
00
there is NO EVIDENCE.. period !!!
00
Nothing new here, the theory doesn’t match the actual records, so the records have to be adjusted as in most AGW ‘reports’.
Good work, Mike but reality doesn’t work in those circles.
232
Global warming disguise.
60
The IPCC are not interested in Science or human safety just cash .
212
2/10/2015
Economic Systems: The alarmists keep telling us their concern about global warming is all about man’s stewardship of the environment. But we know that’s not true. A United Nations official has now confirmed this.
At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism.
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.
Referring to a new international treaty environmentalists hope will be adopted at the Paris climate change conference later this year, she added: “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”
The only economic model in the last 150 years that has ever worked at all is capitalism. The evidence is prima facie: From a feudal order that lasted a thousand years, produced zero growth and kept workdays long and lifespans short, the countries that have embraced free-market capitalism have enjoyed a system in which output has increased 70-fold, work days have been halved and lifespans doubled.
Figueres is perhaps the perfect person for the job of transforming “the economic development model” because she’s really never seen it work. “If you look at Ms. Figueres’ Wikipedia page,” notes Cato economist Dan Mitchell: Making the world look at their right hand while they choke developed economies with their left.
Investors Business Daily
130
Dennis:
The CO2 is Evil cult has been talking about
a huge transfer of wealth for a long time.
Here are some excerpts from a recent article
I wrote about the latest “climate summit”
in Poland:
More evidence of
the wealth transfer goals,
of climate change zealots,
from the past:
(1)
The early
climate summits,
such as Rio, in 1992,
included the term
“contraction
and convergence”,
with the clear goal
of forcing economies
of the western world
to strengthen
the economies of
third world.
(2)
Margaret Thatcher,
from her 2002 book
STATECRAFT:
“The doomsters’
favorite subject today
is climate change.
This has a number
of attractions for them.
First, the science is
extremely obscure,
so they cannot easily
be proved wrong.
Second, we all
have ideas
about the weather:
traditionally,
the English,
on first acquaintance,
talk of little else.
Third, since clearly
no plan to alter climate
could be considered
on anything
but a global scale,
it provides a
marvelous excuse
for worldwide,
supra-national
socialism.”
Ottmar Edenhofer,
co-chair of the IPCC’s
Working Group III,
explained in
precise German:
“we are in fact
redistributing
the world’s wealth
by climate policy
… one must
free oneself
of the delusion
that climate policy
is [about]
environmental
policy.”
The full article is here:
https://elonionbloggle.blogspot.com/2018/12/katowice-poland-climate-summit-actually.html
90
The UN economic model is “Animal Farm”.
40
And wealth distribution
31
‘There must therefore be one or more important large-scale climate processes that are not reasonably represented in the models.’
Would anyone like to hazard a guess as to what these processes might be?
120
Likely hiding in plain sight though
60
Longitude Bias?
30
The models assume additional CO2 has a significant effect on temperature. I expect all of that us wrong.
141
CO2 doesn’t cause warming.
A cooling Southern Ocean appears to be down to SAM.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00382-016-3162-z
42
Ok, I’ve read the Abstract EG, but I’m still none the wiser. Care to summarise this in plain language?
20
There appears to be a lag in the system between the positive and negative phases, but putting that aside, what part does SAM play in upwelling?
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2731?dom=pscau&src=syn
10
SAM is a major player.
‘The non-annular component has a significant impact at the regional scale, especially in the Weddell, Ross, Amundsen, and Bellingshausen Seas. In those regions, the pressure pattern associated with the SAM induces meridional winds which advect warmer air in the Weddell Sea and around the Antarctic Peninsula and colder air in the Amundsen and Ross Seas.
‘This implies a dipole response of sea ice to the SAM, with on average a decrease in ice area in the Weddell Sea and around the Antarctic Peninsula and an increase in the Ross and Amundsen Seas during years with a high SAM index. The long-term trend in the observed sea ice area does not appear to be related to the trend in the SAM index.’
Lefebvre and Goosse 2004
10
Hmm. The nature..com article is still blaming this on AGW, and when a paper does that, I tend to switch off. There must be other reasons.
42
A lot of papers dip their lid to AGW, otherwise no grant monies, so its important to ignore that and concentrate on the bare bones.
‘There must be other reasons.’
Yeah, that’s what we are here to discover and I think SAM will get progressively negative in the decades ahead.
https://climatedataguide.ucar.edu/climate-data/marshall-southern-annular-mode-sam-index-station-based
21
The complexity of the whole system is worth observing.
‘… there is indication that the onset of negative phases of the AAO is related to the propagation of the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO). Suppression of intraseasonal convective activity over Indonesia is observed in positive AAO phases.
‘It is hypothesized that deep convection in the central tropical Pacific, which is related to either El Niño or eastward-propagating MJO, or a combination of both phenomena, modulates the Southern Hemisphere circulation and favors negative AAO phases during DJF.’
Leila Carvalho 2005
10
So not so much models as dinky toys? Or not so much dinky toys as childish scribbles?
130
With a good set of crayons, you can rule the world…it also requires a compliant and gullible public to make it happen though…..
62
Steve, looking at a Youtube video of young Americans being asked simple questions by Jay Leno, it is obvious that the size of the gullible (and very poorly educated) public may be larger than anyone realised. Tell ’em anything you like and they’ll believe it as they know nothing at all.
Sample:
“What language do they speak in England?”
“British?”
“Uh huh. Do you know any words in the British language?”
“No.”
30
*palm to forehead….*
10
A thought provoking article with an unusual amount of deduction from scientific facts (for climate research).
The UN model of anthropogenic global warming is steadily but surely being proven false in every aspect.
Its a pity so many world governments still believe its correct (Australia included).
241
I suspect that many are desperately looking for a way out. A face saving way out. A way to back-track on the cumulative idiocy that they’ve tied themselves into.
The person who comes up with the escape strategy will do humankind a great service.
A point to note: the cold, unadulterated truth will not do the trick. It has to be an emotional, heart-rending lie if it’s to work.
The truth can come later.
120
Skeptical Sam
Prior environmental boogeymen that were
not scaring people enough were quietly replaced
by new scary boogeymen.
Global warming is the latest boogeyman,
and the longest lasting, but it will eventually
be replaced … because real people don’t actually
notice any significant climate change where they live
— so the hoax has already lasted a long time for
an “invisible crisis” no one can see, hear or feel.
110
Not true Sam, I wrote to a number of ministers and senators giving them the perfect escape. The increase in CO2 this far has increased or Co2 sinking capacity by more than 4 times our total emissions.
I made the specific point that Australia has nothing left to do as we are already at zero emission and into negative territory relative to 1990 thanks to our vast forests and a little CO2 fertilisation.
62
With the AMO poised to enter its decadal cold phase, this should all become increasingly interesting to watch
unfoldunravel.131
Record Cold, Snow And Ice In November — Tony Heller
143
It astonishes me metaphorically speaking of course, that linking to and showing such empirical facts #8.1 should elicit three red thumbs. The data suggests the opposite.
Instead, a delighted sigh of relief should emanate from model mongering thermogeddonites, an exhalation of noisey relief that their fantastical catastrophism was just that, a misguided phantasmagoria in a climatism pantomime viewed through the rainbow prism of ideology.
And there is the rub, or the cut, if you will. It is the settled globalist ideology that will suffer and wither as its catastrophism meme crumbles against the relentless force of empirical truth.
That is why there are red thumbs. They are just that; neo-Marxist reds.
40
Oh that IPCC Authority- so outre
re that flawed modelling.
Out on ECS, does’nt match the obs,
Out on that Troposphere Fingerprint
for CO2, like the travesty of Missing
Deep Sea Heat, we seek it yet.
Out on Polar Amplification, say,
time to apply our science tricky
methodology again, its called
‘theory inoculation,’it worked before
but maybe not this time.
90
Another take on that subject of heat, oceans & mini Ice Ages:-
https://www.technocracy.news/ocean-circulation-more-evidence-of-an-approaching-mini-ice-age/
30
They’re a bit earlier than most, but still 3 years slow. Whoever wrote it hasn’t got a clue about the cause. I guess they’re just quoting someone else who also doesn’t have clue.
13
I’m personally fan of the[ cyclic?] Declining Solar Mag Field yarn i.e. the Cloud Experiment/ Ionizing Cosmic Radiation/ high level cloud albedo stuff & all that.
Hopefully I won’t live long enough to see the worst of it.
Notwithstanding that though; anybody who wants a great history lesson on who what when where & how could do a LOT worse than getting a copy of Patrick Wood’s yarn:-
“Technocracy Rising”.
[ hence the site reference]
20
But the latest news from the BBC about Antarctica is that there is more ice melting in East Antarctica than expected!?! Whatever next!
70
Nothing irritates me more than this sort of claim by the BBC, if it is “more” than the models forecast then the models are just as wrong as if it had been less than forecast. The models are wrong if the forecasts are wrong.
And since they are talking about regions, then the reason for the difference us highly likely to be regional anyway.
102
It’s the same argument when they claim “It’s worse than we thought”.
Obviously what they thought was wrong and just as wrong if [whatever] was better than they thought.
80
Or its ‘unprecedented’, which could be shot down in flames if only they would let us speak.
40
That’s exactly why you are not allowed to speak; can’t let the gullibles get an inkling of the truth, can we?
10
C’mon guys: think about it.
1. What is a glacier?
2. What part of the glacier is melting?
3. What proportion of the overall ice cap does the glacier represent? (Hint: tiny)
4. What contribution to sea level does the part of the glacier supported by the ocean add to the sealevel when it melts?
5. Make your conclusions.
If you conclude with Fake Facts and So What? as answers to the BBC article, then you’ve done OK.
30
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/nasa-study-mass-gains-of-antarctic-ice-sheet-greater-than-losses
So how does ‘The Guardian’ spin this press release?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/11/east-antarctica-glacial-stronghold-melting-amid-climate-change
It is worse than we thought….
242
Good Work debunker!
140
“Freezing temperatures meant the East Antarctica region was until recently considered largely stable…”
Er, no Grauniad. It was not stable, it was a region of sea ice increase according to the same post-1979 sat record which showed decrease in the Arctic.
Now go back to fishing out stock vision of black smokestacks against blood red sunsets. Or maybe a wistful polar bear balancing on a lump of loose ice. Do what you’re good at, Grauniad. It’s not like you actually need the sales and begged money. If you drop $50m in the year the Scott Trust will pick up the tab for you. And the pixies and fairies who keep the WaPo and NYT afloat will be more than grateful to the Scott Trust.
Just keep serving up your illiterate globalist slop, Grauniad. Don’t try to dazzle us with bodgie science which can be easily checked.
310
Excellent!
90
The Guardian does it without fail every Southern Summer. Their reporters buttons seem to be set on “Loop.” and that, of course also sets “Don’t Check” because this has been written about before.
We’re now going to get this several times over the summer.
If the glaciers are moving, then it means their `catchments’ are overfull with lots and lots of fresh ice and they’re moving the `surplus’ out of the catchment … downhill to the sea. A glacier is a river of frozen water, so it flows, the flow following the gravitational gradient.
Archimedes Principle applies to the glacier tongue, and the Guardian’s reporters so readily demonstrate their ignorance there, too. Now Archimedes discovered his famous Principle somewhen c. 230 BC, during the 3rd Century BC, so there’s no excuse for not knowing it. Shame on the Guardian. It’s so very stupid, it must hurt. Even school children are taught about Archimedes `Eureka moment …
40
You should expect a record amount of warm cold days with a historic amount of dry rain and snowless blizzards because of amplified warming around the frozen poles.
There will clearly be less of more Tornadoes as well as increase in declining hurricanes and cyclones as hot ice increases in mass whilst melting coldly and it will be catastrophic.
Thinking something different is being a DENIER!
Science!
270
Mark you should be doing the weather that was hilarious!
60
Mark
Your “just plain tornados” are lonely without a qualifier. How about
“windless tornados”?
I’ll bow to better suggestions
60
How about “twist-free?”
60
And on cue ABC 7.30 runs a global warming catastrophe story for no apparent reason. Just archive footage of falling ice, bushfires, floods and cooling towers, with B grade environmental journalists telling us we are all going to die.
140
I’d bet they didn’t mention this
“Jordan Peterson and Bjørn Lomborg”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/13/jordan-peterson-and-bjorn-lomborg/
“Video of a recent (December 7) discussion between Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, author and President of Copenhagen Consensus Center, a US-based think tank. and Dr. Jordan Peterson specifically on climate change and the economic arguments, for and against taking measures to address it. Hour and a half.”
80
Thank you Another Ian for this link. What an interesting and different take on the hysteria of global warming and the futile and wasteful attempts that are being made to address it, and the ways money could be so much better spent to improve our world as we know it. ToM
20
Neil, I happened to be channel surfing when I came across the ABC Gerbil Warming journalistic masterpiece! I must apologise to all those hard working industrious people at their ABC as I could not stomach listening to the lies and false predictions, so I changed channels.
Ended up turning the telly off as their was garbage om every channel.
Amazing isn’t it. We went from 4 channels to 16 or 20….and I still can’t find something worthwhile to watch. At least not if they persist with those 4 minutes and 30 seconds commercial breaks!
140
wal1957
We’re all gonna melt and die from global warming and
all you can think about are little rodents?
“I came across the ABC Gerbil Warming journalistic masterpiece!”
Gerbil Warming is actual a symptom of Global Warming.
One of 358 known, peer-reviewed symptoms.
You could look it up.
80
I swear Ive seen a paper (or it was on the ABC), that showed gerbils have marked IR absorption band.
As a matter of fact Ive picked up a gerbil that was in the sun and it was noticeable warmer than ambient.
Somebody told me that apparently they some sort of insulating outer layer that somehow prevents them re-radiating.
They will start exploding anyday.
Then you’ll sorry
80
Matrix
If you paint your gerbils white
they’ll stay even cooler in the sun.
I painted a white stripe on my gerbil,
and I told a girl it was a baby skunk.
However, she had no sense of humor
and threatened to report me to “PITA”.
“The sandwich bread?”, I asked.
90
Pepe le Peu dans un gilet jaune
Ze moon! Ze June! Ze spoon! C’est l’amour!! C’est toujours!
big badda boom
20
Wow ! This is important scientific research… Thank you Mike Jonas & Jo Nova, for publishing this research…
The past day has seen a huge barny on my local Adelaide Hills Chat facebook page over the IPPC. Lots of insults & ad hominem attacks, for presenting the evidence against IPCC. But not a single shred of science based evidence in support at all.
So to be able to drop into the discussion a comment & link to this research here was very heartening. ( But I guess that means there will be more insults and ad hominem attacks from disgruntled folks here on Jo Nova..Sorry Jo ! )
Further Comment : Mike could we have more information about the peer review & editorial process that prevented your research being published elsewhere ?
141
having posted the link to this article on the Adelaide Hills Chat Facebook page..I got this reply :
” Sorry Bill Hankin again, this paper for all its graphs, tables, and pseudoscientific pretense has no scientific or academic standing. It was rejected by his peers. Peer review is the cornerstone of all academic and scientific research. You just can’t write anything that comes into your head and claim it to be science. Nighty night, have a good nights sleep, tomorrow will be a better day.”
A closed mind totally incapable of absorbing new information and forming new opinions…
I remember this was so characteristic of the Communists I knew in my youth. A complete faith in a future Utopia promised by a so called scientific Communist doctrine. Following the collapse of Communism in 1990 in the USSR and with China taking the Capitalist road, the science of communism lost face, place and followers… But in the decades since Greenism has gown into a replacement fake scientific doctrine….With thousands of Greenist followers…
171
Bil. maybe you should point him to pall review process as outlined in the climate gate emails. Peer review as used by the church of climatology is the very antithesis of scientific research and only has one use – to keep the faith alive and stroke fragile egos.
111
yes…you arent allowed to see behind the curtain at the high altar of Climotology…..
20
Umm, here’s a couple of papers from the peer reviewed literature.
There’s Haig and Nott. Solar forcing over the last 1500 years and Australian tropical cyclone activity. Geophysical Research Letters 2016. (complete paper).
Hodge and Elsner. Evidence linking solar variability with US hurricanes. Int. j. Climatol 2011 (complete paper)
Both papers come with really interesting references. Cherry pick those. (I’ve read a few and I’m busy with others … reading for that rest of the year, oh joy! ) 🙂
Check the Abstracts and Conclusions. My thinking here is so that you can show just what science is really doing and all the references should show that there are serious flaws in the CO2 and Human Climate Change thinking. In contrast, the IPCC is just playing with ignorant models and doing no serious science at all to come with childish scare stories.
Good luck. Hope these help.
10
Hi Bill – I’m working with Jo Nova on the next post, on the paper’s 10-month peer-review process, which will hopefully be published here very soon. To my mind, it’s a very informative story! Please stay tuned…
162
Thanks Mike.
I look forward to reading your account.
20
Ha! Something juicy is a coming down the track!
I’m looking forward to that, Mike.
10
The third Milankovitch Cycle is Earth’s precession.
Precession is the Earth’s slow wobble as it spins on axis.
At the moment this causes the southern hemisphere summer to occur when we are closest to the sun (perihelion) and winter when we are furthest (aphelion).
Whereas the northern hemisphere is the opposite (summer furthest, winter closest to sun)
I wonder if this solar cycle has more effect than they calculate in their models.
140
Jeff
The ONLY climate change that matters,
is caused by planetary geometry.
The ONLY climate change prediction
that is important,
is when we are going to exit
the mild climate interglacial
we are now living in.
What doesn’t matter are minor variations
of a degree or two, cooling or warming,
over a century or two … yet that is exactly what
100% of the goobermint attention is on.
I’m sure people are tired of hearing me say this,
but there are NO long-term climate models.
A real climate model has to be based on
a correct climate change physics model,
which does not exist, and has to make
decent predictions of at least
the future average temperature,
which the current so-called models
can not do.
Therefore, those computer games called GCMs,
or “Climate Models”, are, in fact, failed prototypes
— not real models of the actual climate change process
on this planet.
They are someone’s opinion of how climate change works,
and after thirty years of very wrong predictions,
those opinions ( such as: CO2 levels control
the average temperature ) are obviously wrong.
The so called “models” have been falsified
over the past three decades,
by the very wrong predictions
… except it seems that nothing
in modern climate (junk) science
can ever be falsified.
My climate change blog, with
over 28,500 page views so far:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
132
Yes, I think the only real climate threat is returning to a glacial where much of the inhabited world is covered by ice kms thick.
And there is no denying the glacial cycle is controlled by solar Milankovitch cycles.
When you look at the facts –
I think it is possible CO2 may have saved us descending into another glacial, for the time being anyway.
41
Jeff,
Precession is a movement that takes 26,000 years.
Climate models are likely not to include any part except the current position, plus or minus 100 years. The change in this over 100 years is not of significance. That’s my 2 pennies worth.
80
Well put.
And I think that they would even be unaware of the current orbital input, plus or minus 100 years.
KK
40
John, yes, I read it was a 26K year cycle, but just thought the differing distribution of solar energy may have some effect, but maybe not, just an idle thought.
20
Jeff,
Am aware of the Milankovich system but not of the current arrangement, thanks.
From what you said, it seems that we are in the warm zone: it would be interesting to know just where in that warm zone we are. ie can it get hotter? Timeframe?
KK
40
Keith, not sure really, with the Earth precession Milankovitch Cycle at the moment southern has more extreme seasons, summer hotter, winters cooler.
Northern hemisphere has cooler summers and warmer winters, which is preferable for mildness.
But the southern hemisphere has much more ocean, which moderates the temperature a lot, so an equivalent spot on the SH would be milder than the NH, I think.
40
The past 3 Malankovich cycles interglacial periods peaked at 4~6C above todays temperature for up to 4000 years. The last interglacial was at least 2C above for the entire period, 11,000 years. This interglacial has be about 13,000 years and has achieved temperatures 2C higher many times, most recently the medieval warming 1000 years ago. Interglacial periods typically last 4,000~15,000 years.
Source: National Geographic October 2007, Greenhouse Earth.
50
This graph seems to show that the current interglacial has already peaked for about the same length of time as the last 3.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b8/Vostok_Petit_data.svg
from this wiki article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation#Description
10
That data essentially shows the same pattern as the NG graph I have, unfortunately only a hard copy so I can’t post a link (but you can by it from NG for $19.99).
The main difference is your Wiki graph shows the past IGP’s 2~3C above today compared to 4~6C in the NG data. Both show the current IGP fluctuating between 1C lower to 2C higher than today.
I don’t know which is more accurate but both suggest that +2C is not a problem for the planet and not a runaway no turning back point as the IPCC predicts.
20
I also noticed that both data sets show CO2 rise follows temperature by a millennium or so. History tells us that CO2 is a follower of climate variation not a driver. Science tells us that the difference between 300ppm CO2 and 380ppm is immeasurable as by 100ppm almost all of the IR radiation has been absorbed. 300,400,1000ppm makes no difference. At 15,000ppm it becomes toxic but that usually only effects miners and astronauts.
20
I was interested in the CO2 graph too.
To me it is proof that CO2 was a follower of climate variation not a driver, as you say.
Because it is a regular 100K year solar driven cycle.
The wiki says has to concede
“CO2 levels also play an important role in the transitions between interglacials and glacials. High CO2 contents correspond to warm interglacial periods, and low CO2 to glacial periods.
However, studies indicate that CO2 may not be the primary cause of the interglacial-glacial transitions, but instead acts as a feedback.
The explanation for this observed CO2 variation “remains a difficult attribution problem””
20
“When Jonas tried to get this significant finding published in the peer review, the usual gatekeeping process meant these simple but cutting graphs were rejected ” – Jo
This isn’t surprising given Mike’s poor understanding of science.
821
Perhaps you might like to elaborate?
120
Michael262 launched a mindless character attack.
Leftists can’t elaborate on their character attacks.
Because is no thought behind them, only emotions.
The purpose is the “throw mud on” (smear) an intelligent
science study, without saying anything about science
that could be refuted.
When leftists call someone a “racist”, they don;t explain why
they launched that character attack, because the explanation
would not make sense.
They call someone a “racist”, or character attack an author
of a science study, for the same reason a six year-old child
calls another child a “stupid-head”
– that’s the level “debate” their limited intelligence
is capable of !
My climate science blog, since 2014:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
My politics blog, since 2016:
http://www.ElectionCircus.Blogspot.com
My economics blog, since 2008:
http://www.EL2017.Blogspot.com
103
“Cliff Mass: victim of academic political bullying”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/13/cliff-mass-victim-of-academic-political-bullying/
82
Very revealing..
But how can an “Atmospheric Sciences” department issue a statement like ..
Dont they have any basic understanding of carbon science or self esteeme ?
31
Bizarre, weird and very disturbing.
20
Nice try bullocky but doomed to failure—he’ll be thrown out of Trollheim if he breaks the trolling rules.
50
Or perhaps because it would be bad for the business affairs of the carpetbaggers and white elephant builders of Big Green. Pointing out the obvious about Antarctic sea ice increase in the satellite period could cost someone an Uphill Snowy contract. It was hard enough ignoring the BAS findings on West Antarctic sub-glacial volcanism.
Before they publish the likes of Mike they have to think not just of today’s white elephants but of white elephants yet to be born.
82
White elephants or…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PLq0_7k1jk
30
White elephants or…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PLq0_7k1jk
30
Oops, apoology fiewers, danged wordpress, that was a link I sent to E.M.Smith,@ Chiefio…This was my intent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unicorn_in_the_Garden#/media/File:Unicorninthegarden.jpg
50
And I goddamned didn’t send it twice!
40
beththeserf
Stop after a half bottle of wine,
next time !
80
Two glasses are my limit, Richard. )
30
That packs a lot of punch.
Big Green White Elephant Builders.
A good label for renewables infrastructure that gets everybody’s attention.
And renewables infrastructure is the Ultimate Token.
It has been made to look cheap, to look like electricity, but in reality is very expensive and very damaging to the Real Electricity Generation and Distribution systems.
KK
80
$$$ – that’s what it’s all about:
13 Dec: Bloomberg: From Mars to Ikea, Concerns Emerge About Vague Climate Rules
Hope is fading that UN talks in Poland will produce a strict rulebook on how to implement emissions cuts
By Jeremy Hodges
Delegates from almost 200 nations have been working for almost two weeks in Poland to write the rules accompanying the landmark Paris Agreement.
Yet delegates and observers to the discussions say what’s emerging from the meeting in Katowice is likely to fall short on specifics such as when more of the $100 billion a year in promised climate aide will flow and how a global carbon market might be revived. With U.S. President Donald Trump and the government in China pushing priorities other than the environment, companies along with pressure groups are voicing unease about the direction of the UN talks and the deal they are due to produce this weekend…
“Weak rules create uncertainty,” said Jake Schmidt, who watches the talks for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S. advocacy group. “If we have countries showing that they are delivering on their targets but the atmosphere sees rising emissions, then we will know that our weak rules led to runaway climate change.”
There’s a number of sticking points:
*On carbon markets, envoys deliberated how a specific project can qualify as one that has cut emissions, how to avoid double-counting those cuts and what baseline is acceptable to use as a comparison.
*Debate over a Sustainable Development Mechanism was holding up the promise of expanding a global cap-and-trade market covering carbon emissions.
*Developing nations are seeking more certainty on when richer nations will meet their pledge to channel $100 billion a year in climate-related aid. An official report showed those funds are at least $30 billion short at the moment(???)…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-13/climate-rulebook-in-katowice-seen-too-weak-by-mars-ikea-bt
“$30bn short” (even if it were true) is a stupid term to use, given $100bn has to be provided to developing countries every year.
60
12 Dec: WSJ: Around the World, Climate Goals Clash With Reality
China, Canada and the EU all back the Paris accord the U.S. decided to withdraw from, but they also face local pressures that can erode their ambitions
By Emre Peker; Bingyan Wang in Beijing and Paul Vieira in Ottawa contributed to this article
As negotiators at United Nations climate talks in Poland this week hammer out a rulebook to curb greenhouse-gas emissions, some of the biggest boosters of the 2015 Paris accord are undermining efforts back home to curb global warming.
China is ramping up coal-fired electricity generation despite pledges to cut emissions, according to clean-energy advocates. Canadian provinces are challenging federal carbon-price rules and adopting local policies that go against national emissions goals. And the European Union is bickering over how much carbon dioxide cars should be allowed to emit and subsidies to coal-fired power plants that threaten its climate targets…
Since President Trump’s June 2017 decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris accord, China, Canada and the EU have sought to fill the leadership vacuum and uphold the deal to fight climate change…
China, Canada and the EU showed support for the Paris accord by unveiling ambitious agendas ahead of the U.N. talks in Katowice, in the heart of Polish coal country.
***China launched the world’s biggest carbon market last year and is working to expand it.
Canada last week signaled more ambitious emissions-reduction targets.
New EU regulations are lifting the bloc’s target for renewable-energy generation.
Yet all three economies face corporate lobbying, local economic concerns and political blowback eroding climate ambition…
China is now on track to add coal-fired power equal to almost the total U.S. capacity, according to Coalswarm, an advocacy group for clean-energy that tracks plants world-wide. That would push coal-fired production in China up to and over Beijing’s existing cap of 1,100 gigawatts. Its current production is already equivalent to half of the world’s total coal-fired generation and nearly quadruple that of the U.S…
China’s CO2 emissions resumed their rise in 2015 after leveling off in 2013-2014…
Last year China accounted for one-quarter of global CO2 production.
Coal’s relatively low cost and difficulties transitioning to clean-energy sources have frustrated Beijing’s efforts, said Li Shou, Greenpeace’s senior global policy adviser in East Asia.
“The continued building up of coal-powered plants in the country is definitely not in line with China’s climate targets and ambitions,” he said.
China’s foreign and environmental ministries didn’t respond to requests for comment, nor did the government’s top economic planning agency…
In Canada, Saskatchewan and Ontario have filed suit against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s push to toughen emission controls with a national carbon price on pollution. Ontario’s recently elected conservative premier is also reversing his liberal predecessor’s policies, challenging Mr. Trudeau.
Canada has missed every target to curb greenhouse-gas releases it set out since 1992 and is on track to miss its 2020 target, said Catherine Abreu, executive director of Climate Action Network in Canada…
Mr. Trudeau told Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview that aired Sunday that Canada would meet climate targets with help from the planned carbon tax. Lawyers representing the government argue that the provincial challenge to Ottawa’s carbon-pricing measure won’t stand because emissions are a matter of national concern, under parliament’s jurisdiction.
EU governments and the European Parliament on Monday failed for a fourth time to compromise on regulation to reduce car CO2 emissions. Negotiations have foundered over opposition from German auto makers, divisions among the bloc’s 28 members and a parliament push to more strenuously curb polluting vehicles.
“The EU is arguing for greater ambition in Katowice and here we are, cutting ambition on CO2 emissions from cars,” said an EU diplomat involved in the negotiations, who supports larger reductions.
EU members heavily reliant on coal-powered energy also oppose European Parliament efforts to end subsidies to the most polluting plants by 2025, seeking delay of one decade.
In a sign of how incendiary the issue has become, nationwide riots in France began as a protest against a carbon tax on fuel…
https://www.wsj.com/articles/around-the-world-climate-goals-clash-with-reality-11544616000
China’s “biggest carbon market” ain’t the biggest yet:
***12 Dec: CarbonPulse: COP24: China seen on track for ETS launch in late 2020
Government officials are saying little about the possible start date for China’s national emissions trading schemes after two previous delays, but a number of experts familiar with the latest developments say late 2020 remains the likely launch date for the world’s biggest carbon market.
80
This paper obviously took a long time to put together.
To do it justice I’ll have to give it a few sessions but it’s good to hear that there’s a high probability that it makes the so called, Climate Models, look like the nonsense they are.
KK
100
Climate models findings can fool,
Those who forecast by using this tool,
To predict that the seas,
Would warm by degrees,
’round the South Pole which now in fact cool.
210
Ruairi,
Any website or blog that includes your “raps”,
has one big advantage over all the others.
Do you publish elsewhere?
Do you like a fan club?
80
Hi Richard,
Thanks for your supporting words.I would be more than happy to think that my verses were
an advantage to Joanne as almost everything I write on climate is inspired by her posts.While JoNova is the only website I write to, about half a dozen verses have finished up on other sites for one reason or another.I would not be particularly interested in a fan club as I consider the poems as a vehicle to further the skeptic’s outlook on the whole climate issue but if poetry/verses/rhymes or raps can bring more people to think critically about their opinions on climate, this would be all the better.
160
Ruairi
It’s hard to take the junk science seriously.
The arguments are serious.
But the climate is wonderful.
How much can anyone argue about
an invisible “crisis”.
Oh my
it’s a little warmer at night than it used to be
100 years ago —
— head for the hills
— sell everything you own,
— and if you visit New York City’s Wall Street,
bring scuba gear — it will soon be flooded
by the rising seas. ( I’ve already invested
in a gondola concession to rent the boats
so the Wall Street executives can get to work
without getting their shoes wet. )
You should write a book.
I’d buy it.
70
Jo did say something some time ago
about Ruairi’s work being `archived.’
(I think that was the word used.)
So I think it’s safe to say she’s a big fan too! 🙂
40
Ridiculous!
That moderation script is behaving like a climate model! It’s about to become a real laughing stock :-)!
Replacement must be overdue … 🙂
Your comment it awaiting moderation for #21.1.1.1.1
Hmm. Or is it time sensitive? It’s a hint?
10
This reminds me of the time a few years ago when the Antarctic was setting sea ice highs on a regular basis and the response was that southern sea ice expansion was expected with cooling. This was patently absurd because it also meant that sea ice would obviously contact when it was cooling.
Sometimes Science avoids asking important questions.
40
The odd thing is that this is exactly what would be expected with more CO2 in the atmosphere. Because in Antarctica greenhouse gases cause cooling. This has been known ever since the first NIMBUS IR-spectra of the Earth:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PwdZCD2eZ6Y/UOVpiq1CrKI/AAAAAAAAPng/Lp-Ue4Xiuuo/s640/atmospherespectra.gif
The top two spectra are from tropical and subtropical areas, the bottom one from Antarctica. Notice the marked dips in the two top spectra. They are H2O and CO2 absorption bands where there is less IR radiation going out because it is emitted from a higher altitude, where the temperature is lower and therefore less IR emission.
Notice that in the bottom spectrum these dips are replaced by rises. This is because over Antarctica there is a strong temperature inversion most of the year, so temperatures increase with altitude and more IR is therefore emitted in the absorption bands.
So more CO2 means stronger IR emission, which means more cooling in Antarctica which means stronger and colder catabatic winds coming off the continent which means colder oceans around Antarctica.
This is all obvious from those 1960’s NIMBUS spectra. So how did this “arctic amplification” story ever get started? Beats me.
50
tty
That theory makes no sense to me.
.
Greenhouse gases should have their strongest effect
in the very dry atmosphere over the poles
where there’s little water vapor to compete with.
The most warming, so far, has been in the Arctic —
that could be a symptom of greenhouse gases.
But the only warming in Antarctica since the 1960;s
has been local — parts of the glacier edge near
underwater volcanoes — no warming elsewhere.
Greenhouse gases could not cause that pattern of local warming
in Antarctica.
So Antarctica is contrary evidence of greenhouse warming.
There are several possibilities for why there is Arctic warming,
and no general warming of Antarctica. Two I know of are:
— Dark soot continuously deposited on the Arctic snow and ice,
from burning coal and wood in the Northern Hemisphere,
changes the albedo, and/or
— Changes of ocean currents that affect Arctic floating ice,
and could also affect the Antarctica peninsula, but not
the rest of Antarctica.
I don’t buy that more CO2 causes cooling in Antarctica, or anywhere else.
I can accept the possibility that the effect of CO2 is so small,
it is overwhelmed by natural causes of climate change.
42
It is not a theory, it is a generally accepted fact, though rarely mentioned for obvious reasons.
10
Hi Jo. I had been been publishing satellite-era SST model-data comparisons for years. I stopped a couple of years ago.
The graph attached to the following link confirms the models are showing warming, while the data show cooling, for the Southern Ocean:
https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/figure-21-southern.png
From the post:
https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2016/02/12/climate-models-are-not-simulating-earths-climate-part-2/
Cheers,
Bob
181
Good diagrams Bob, clear and simple.
You’ve obviously put a lot of work into your blog.
KK
60
Bob Tisdale’s charts are the gold standard of climate charts
— the best charts online.
60
I was aware that you and others had been pointing to cooling in the southern oceans for some time. Not a lot seemed to get into the peer-reviewed literature though I may have missed it. Maybe I should have included references in the paper, but I wanted to avoid the situation where I was attacked for quotes from others. I felt that a plain but complete vanilla case was best.
Many thanks for all your efforts over the years.
132
Bob..have you seen the Salby presentation from Hamburg inOctober ? It was posted by Bill in Oz earlier this week
https://youtu.be/NtIgMftbUuw
It gives a different analysis of the temperature records and results.
Relavent section starts at 15 mins
10
Bob or Jo,
Could you comment on criticism of Jonas’ paper? The criticism was as follows:
“The paper is lacking detailed explanation of methods that should be included in any published work. Where he doesn’t know the numbers for some areas, he just replaces them with a number he estimates. There is the logical flaw that it is supposed to be examining the effect of albedo on temperatures due to changing snow cover, but only includes regions that are water. There is the logical fallacy that the amplification of warming caused by the changing albedo, only amplifies the warming at the poles, and is not distributed throughout the entire climate system?”
What would you say to that?
00
It’s great that this work is now published. In the internet world, it hardly needs peer review as the evidence speaks for itself, unless there is something wrong with the data.
The IPCC is wrong again, but that’s not news. They ignore scientists who disagree with the preformed conclusions and have a record of misinterpreting others because the IPCC is a political body, explicitly an inter governmental panel and not of scientists and so obviously with a political agenda, not a scientific one. There is no money in cooling.
Personally I would be surprised if any complex system was so susceptible to a single simplistic theory like reflection goes down so sea surface temperature goes up. Ocean currents, air currents, temperature changes over the vast tall plateau which is the size of South America will have huge effects with the 40-80km/hr adiabatic winds falling from a mass of ice 4km thick and the size of South America, a frozen ocean in the air. All apparently irrelevant if a single unproven IPCC approved theory of local warming exists and now, so obviously wrong.
The fact that such a self evident observation of temperature in the relevant region contradicts the IPCC pronouncements is obviously the entire reason it is not published. This is not denial. It is significant contradiction, by the facts.
191
The wind has swung around to the south, and what do you know, it’s winter in South Australia again!
110
A few days of extreme heat is replaced by a cold air outbreak from the southern ocean, which keeps temperatures low for a few days. Then summer returns in all its glory and the cycle begins again, it has the appearance of a stadium wave.
20
As an alternative to the ship of fools, the BBC on the evening news interviewed someone who was involved in designing an autonomous boat so they don’t have to risk their lives when taking measurements.
Apparently they have a number of problems to sort out.
How to remove ice buildup without anyone on board.
How to power the boat, apparently they have realised that it gets dark in the antarctic winter and solar panels don’t like that!
They also have to work out what to do if it gets iced in. (Shakletons boat was crushed by the ice when it got iced in).
Good luck.
140
I’ve stood on the bridge of a ship moving through moderately dense sea-ice near Antarctica. They had one man constantly scanning ahead with binoculars for growlers. Sea-ice is fairly soft. Hitting a growler (basically a small iceberg, i e glacier ice) is equivalent to running into a rock. It was a growler that sank Lindblad Explorer and it was actually hitting a growler in thick weather that forced the “Ship of Fools” to stop and get iced in. Fortunately for them in their case the puncture was above the waterline.
Try to automate looking out for growlers….
50
Even if the models were right it still doesn’t mean CAGW is real. Simply put correlation does not imply causation. However, when real evidence is presented as above that doesn’t agree with the CAGW models then the models are definitely wrong and so must be rejected by anyone who has any amount of honesty and truth in them. The onus is now on the alarmists either to show the evidence is false or admit they are wrong and stop spreading their lies. Of course the likelihood is they will do neither because it doesn’t fit their agenda to destroy Western civilisation, which is now being attacked on many other fronts. If the West falls I shudder to think what will replace it.
112
Climate models long ago departed from any physical relationship with what occurs naturally. They are now self-tuning computer games. Each time a skeptic of note identifies a failing to predict something that goes the opposite way to what was predicted for some time period, the game gets another tuning constant and the AI within the game retunes all other constants so all the identified variables match the input variation over the historical record. The games can be accurately tuned to any past record for any number of selected variables and will still extrapolate warming based on increasing CO2.
The climate gamers might actually believe that being able to accurately reflect the historical input data provides a sound basis for predicting the future.
Computer games like Grand Tourismo actually have far greater reliance on physical relationships to represent real world processes than climate games.
51
And yet Antarctic sea ice is in decline. Those volcanoes have always been there, so their effect must be seen as a constant.
64
Not necessarily. Surface, and therefore observable venting, is noticeably periodic e.g. Rabaul with a periodicity of decades and Yasur in Vanuatu which explodes every 15 minutes.
KK
72
And yet there was silence about the marked increase in Antarctic sea ice from 1979 till 2015. A 35+ year increase ignored while there was loud bleating over the Arctic increase in the very same sat record. It’s only good to talk about Antarctic ice since 2016. Before that they just mentioned the melty bits in the west. (Mentioning volcanism and that massive sub-glacial ash sheet in the vicinity of PIG was considered as rude as a belch in a lift.)
The climatariat waits for an event, statistic or trend that suits its narrative then squeals “Gotcha!”. Mention something which doesn’t suit the narrative (like the entire Holocene according to geology, stratigraphy, glaciology, speleology, history, archaeology and agronomy) and they just go “nyah-nyah”.
112
Yep, the extent has increased in the years cited, but the volume has gone in the opposite direction. Less ice spread thinner. The Antarctic is not constrained by land masses so the ice does spread out more.
66
Peter, I’m a skep who does not deny the possibility of global warming in various lines and cycles. My view is that it is utterly trivial and skeptics should not be drawn into the matter. No, not the amount of warming, but the very fact of warming is utterly trivial because Holocene climate is a slow two-horse race where cold has to win in the end. We are actually at a warm point of a cooling trend since the Sahara pluvial etc, and that is of some concern. I mean, you only get a few thousand years of interglacial, right?
However, it can’t have escaped your notice that any reduction in Antarctic ice volume has been slight, while area increase has been very marked all through the (shut down) climate debate. I followed the Arctic ice reductions for many years and never sought to deny them. I did have to wonder about increases before the sat record following the Arctic temp plunge of the 1960s, and about those previous melts reported by responsible persons in the period after the Napoleonic Wars and again in the 1920s. What open-minded person wouldn’t wonder?
Understanding climate before we return to more average Quaternary conditions shouldn’t be about “gotcha” and “nyah-nyah” and general distraction. Sadly, it is.
100
I respect your view Mosomso. My view is that we produce a lot of heat, and that heat has to go somewhere. Like you, I’m sure that without that extra heat, we would be heading to a cooler period.
46
opps Mosomoso, sorry
20
And the beautiful thing about sea-ice volume is that it can’t be measured, only modelled.
By the way sea-ice in the Southern Ocean doesnät “spread out”, it largely freezes and melts “in place”.
40
Not necessarily.
Volcanic venting when visible is often periodic, as evidenced by the eruption cycles at Rabaul and Mount Yassur in Vanuatu. Yassur erupts every 15 minutes or so and Rabaul has a periodicity of decades.
Unfortunately studies of this ocean floor behaviour will not be possible at the moment because it would give weight to the idea that human activity in the area of CO2 is absolutely quantitatively irrelevant compared to Nature.
KK
101
Are you suggesting that all the volcanic activity in the antarctic is somehow synchronised, and the period just happens to match that of the observed melting. If so, would not the seismic data back up this claim?
58
Peter this has NOT been studied. And the observed melting could be a result of volcanic activity decades ago or even a hundred years ago..It probably takes a while for water in the deep depths of the oceans being warmed by tectonic or volcanic activity, to manifest by melting ice on the surface..
51
Peter Fitzroy said:
Yes, it most probably is synchronised, they’re all along the same subduction zone between the Pacific/Antarctic tectonic plates and the period has nothing to do with everything melting—that’s just a side effect of volcanic activity, they do melt ice—but it has a lot to do with the sun. Yes. The Sun.
You probably haven’t paid much attention to it but the sun is rapidly approaching the minimum sunspot activity for the current SunSpot Cycle 24. It’s one the most inactive minima since the start of the space age, or you could look at it as being the most minimal minimum we have so far seen. We (all humanity currently alive) have not seen it this low before.
However, because it is so low, our exposure to Cosmic Rays is now the highest we’ve experienced since the start of the Space Age. The next cycle SSC 25 is not going to any better and SSC 26 is predicted to AWOL. That’s going to make interesting amounts of cold. (So stop worrying, nothing will be melting for much longer.)
I’ve included some blog articles to make life a bit easier on your intellectual resources. The link with earthquakes was discovered in the last couple of years. You will notice from these articles that seismic data does back this claim up.
Most of the Antarctic’s volcanic fields (yes, fields) were discovered over the last decade as they all started to erupt, some of them above the ice and some of them below the ice … but you should know that.
Remember: volcanoes view time differently from us—to them, human beings are May flies. We may think 50 years between two volcanoes going off is a long time, to them, it’s the same time. Think in terms of `geologic time’ which anything up to billions of years.
I could find some more peer reviewed literature on the solar wind and its effects on tectonic subduction zones, but I figured you knew how to use an Internet search engine, so go for it. I searched on “Cosmic Rays volcanoes” on Duck Duck Go and it returned pages of links. That took me a minute or so, so you shouldn’t have any trouble finding that stuff for yourself.
[Peer reviewed and published paper:]
Toshikazu, Ebisuzaki et al. Explosive volcanic eruptions triggered by cosmic rays: Volcano as a bubble chamber. Gondwana Research 2011 [ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1342937X10001966 ]
Some blog links where you will find more understandable commentary:
1. Do Cosmic Rays Trigger Earthquakes, Volcanic Eruptions? Yes, they apparently do …
2.Cosmic Rays: The Driving Force in Climate Changes, Volcanos …
3. Astrophysicists link volcanic eruptions and Grand Solar Minimum
50
That’s an assumption Peter.
If you want to use it as conslusive evidence, it’s need proving.
50
I did, and you could too, there is no correlation with seismic records and the observed melting. Again, if volcanos were to be a factor, then you would be able to see that effect, and you don’t
35
See my post just above Peter. Read the links.
In two words: YOU DO.
60
By the way, Mr. Fitzroy, the Antarctic is not melting. Just some bits of ice at the ends of some glaciers sticking out into the water. The article was written to scare people who don’t know those patches of ice make up about 0.001% of Antarctica’s ice … in other words: it’s propaganda.
71
There is a fundamental flaw in the Albedo Feedback hypothesis. Nadir-viewing satellites, which are most imaging satellites, only estimate albedo based on what is back-scattered into the aperture. Most of the land (including snow) is composed of diffuse reflectors, which scatters light in all directions. (Albeit, most materials also have a strong forward scattering lobe.) Hence, a good estimate of the relative absorption of different land cover can be obtained. However, water is quite different. Water is dominated by specular reflectance, which can vary from about 4% to 100%. A nadir-viewing satellite will see diffusely reflected light from suspended sediment and plankton. Depending on the viewing geometry and time of day, the satellite may also pick up specular reflections from the water. Although, there is an attempt to minimize that because the sensors for imaging satellites usually saturate and nothing can be observed. Under the best of circumstances, the total reflectivity of water is probably much greater than the albedo derived from diffuse reflectance. Unquestionably, open water above +/- 65 degrees latitude is going to be dominated by the specular reflectance. This is important because diffuse reflectance scatters back towards the observing platform, while specular reflectance results in the light leaving the surface in a direction AWAY from the sensors, if the illumination is behind the sensor platform. Those few satellites attempting to measure the outgoing specular reflectance have to be careful to not damage the sensors by direct viewing of the sun. Further, they ‘bin’ the data in wide viewing angles where Fresnel’s equation shows the reflectance to be changing most rapidly. To put it in layman’s terms, polar waters look dark because the diffuse reflectance is low, and the specular reflectance is high. To observe specular reflectance, you have to be in line with the sun, and looking at the same angle as the sun is above the horizon. Think about the last time that you were driving on wet pavement while the sun was setting in front of you. The pavement glare was so bright as to be uncomfortable, while looking out the side window the pavement looked black, albeit with a sheen from the Rayleigh scattered blue light that gave the pavement what we recognize as the appearance of being wet. Thus, those who talk about the “dark water,” at the poles simply aren’t in the right position to observe the light being reflected. They are not seeing the whole picture!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/12/why-albedo-is-the-wrong-measure-of-reflectivity-for-modeling-climate/
111
For Jo, and others interested, a Clinton Foundation hearing is starting live –
Oversight of The World’s Most Profitable Nonprofit – Meadows’ Clinton Foundation Whistleblowers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqHHxY9PmtY
40
“What a Mess – The Congressional Hearing With Clinton Foundation Investigators…”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/12/13/what-a-mess-the-congressional-hearing-with-clinton-foundation-investigators/
10
“The oceans surface in turn would switch from being reflective white to a dark absorbing deep blue. Enormous amounts of energy would then flow into the ocean instead of being reflected back out to space. The more it warmed, the more it would warm — unleashing a devastating feedback loop.”
Impossible.
How long can NASA make believe this thermodynamic bullshyte.
“The more it warmed, the more it would warm — unleashing a devastating feedback loop’ Break the second law heat with out any input.
80
There are always two distinct questions. Whether mankind controls CO2 levels at all and whether the 50% increase in tiny CO2 produces any significant warming. Both are false statements. The second takes measurement over a long period but after thirty years of this, it is no.
The first of man made CO2 levels is open and shut. It is not true. I have no idea why people believe their cholesterol levels and the multitude of other medical factors obtained by simple scientific measurement and refuse to believe there is only a tiny amount of fossil fuel CO2 in the air. Fossil fuel CO2 has no C14. It is a trivial and unequivocal measurement well known since the 1950s.
101
The whole CO2 debacle is total C R A P. PERIOD. The oceans absorb nearly ALL the CO2 like a fissy drink. 95% of CO2 is IN THE SEA WATER, warm water releases it cold absorbs it, according to Henry’s Law. Hence the absurd idea that CO2 goes up causing warming when the opposite is true. Cooling absorbs CO2.
the earth is COOLING PERIOD. If you dont like it, go to another planet, this one is cooling.
More …
“Coldest December on Record in China,” according to Armstrong Economics.
10 Dec 2018 – At 6 below zero C, “China is also experiencing the coldest day on record during December, and snow is falling in Beijing to Shanghai. Temperatures in China have been held under 4 below zero C on only seven December days since 2000. This is the coldest on record so far.”
I watch CCTV on satellite, the frost is so severe that the giant bamboo is falling over due to ice load. Bamboo grows in the South! Which is traditionally warm.
102
The RealUniverse claimed:
Sorry theRealUniverse, but you tweaked my Pedantic Nerve. The seas/oceans contain not 95% of the planet’s free CO2 but 98.8%. Just thort you needed to know …
20
Yes I was quoting from another source but hadnt checked the real number..even better @ 98%!! 😉
00
Interesting take in the definition of an Ice Age
https://www.iceagenow.info/make-no-mistake-we-are-in-an-ice-age-right-now/
“An ice age is defined as any period in which at least one pole is glaciated. The south pole has been glaciated for 13 million years.”
There was a time when Antarctica was ice free, when it was in a different position. Forests grew there, same type as in South america and Southern NZ.
50
The people need to be told that Antarctica cannot melt, but the bipolar seesaw is still fascinating.
‘…It does appear that the Antarctic is almost always out of phase with the Arctic during glacial and intrglacial stages. One of the best examples is the Younger Dryas glacial interstadial. Antarctica warmed during the Younger Dryas. The Antarctic equivalent of the Younger Dryas, the Antarctic Cold Reversal, proceeded the Younger Dryas by about 1,000 years.’
David Middleton
20
True, good point
10
Antarctica and Australia were stuck together. It was about 40 MYA (very approximately!) they all separated and Antarctica drifted south. It started building its glaciers about 33MYA while Australia put its skates on and headed North, where it’s still heading today, moving relatively fast.
We are in an ice age at present: the Quaternary ice age which started about 3MYA about the same time the Solar System entered the Orion Spur (spiral arm) and Goulds Belt, which is where we are at present.
By the way, El Gordo: stadial = cold time (or ice time)
interstadial = the warming between cold stadials
Yeah: the bipolar seesaw is fascinating …
10
behind paywall:
(excerpts found, not necessarily in correct order)
Queensland public sector wages to blow out by $925m, Jacki Trad says
The Australian – 19h ago
QUEENSLAND’S public service wages bill will come in at almost $1 billion more over the next four financial years than initially estimated, funded by booming coal royalties…
Queensland’s projected public sector wages will blow out by $925 million since the June budget, Treasurer Jackie Trad has revealed, bankrolled by a resource royalties windfall…
However, the coal boom will not affect Queensland’s debt level, which remains on track to exceed $83.5 billion in 2021-22, according to the state’s mid-year budget update…
Following a hiring spree that has swelled the Queensland public sector’s ranks by more than 28,500 full-time positions to 225,416…
Since the June budget, the four-year general government wage projection has blown out by $925m, not including the cost of employees’ super entitlements…
Ms Trad insisted the government would keep its election commitments to hire more public servants…
pathetic responses from the LNP:
13 Dec: BrisbaneTimes: Public service bill leaps amid coal-fuelled boom
By Felicity Caldwell
Asked what he would do to cut down on public service expenses, Mr Mander said it was “not about numbers, it’s about outcomes”…
Current opposition leader Deb Frecklington has promised there would be no forced redundancies under a future LNP government…
Coal royalties were a blessing for the state’s bottom line and were expected to tip in $4.26 billion in 2018-19, $739 million more than expected due to an improvement in coal prices.
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/politics/queensland/public-service-bill-leaps-amid-coal-fuelled-boom-20181213-p50m4r.html
50
13 Dec: ClimateChangeNews: Sydney and Melbourne vow to ditch coal power
Australian cities joined global alliance to end coal-fired power, while the federal government proposes using taxpayer cash to underwrite new plants
By Natalie Sauer
The cities of Sydney and Melbourne committed themselves to phasing out coal on Thursday, in a move at odds with the Australia’s aggressively pro-coal national government.
The country’s two largest cities joined an international coalition of states, regions, cities and businesses who have committed to ending coal power generation.
Australia is the fourth largest coal producer in the world. Its federal government is known for its fierce support for the sector and signalled (LINK) on Wednesday that it would use taxpayer money to underwrite new coal plants…
Neither city provided a specific end date for coal. Sydney has committed to a 100% renewable supply by 2035…
Scotland, gas and electricity company Scottish Power, Senegal and Israel are also joining the alliance, which has been convened by Canada and the UK…
“We all need to get off coal,” Canada’s environment minister Catherine McKenna told a side-event at the UN climate conference in Katowice, Poland. “That is the reality, if we are going to meet the ambitions under [the Paris Agreement], every country needs to get off coal. It doesn’t have to be today, but you need to set a goal – Canada has a goal of 2030 to phasing out coal.”…
UK minister for energy and clean growth Claire Perry said: “We will be off coal by 2025. If the market doesn’t deliver, I will legislate to do so.”…
Founded by the UK and Canada in 2017, the powering past coal alliance aims to slash reliance on “unabated coal generation” – or coal generation that does not use carbon capture and storage. Without taking into account its new recruits, there are 75 members, including 28 national governments, 19 sub-national governments, and 28 businesses or organisations…
Extinction Rebellion, a protest group, repeatedly heckled Perry, challenging her over her support for fracking.
Perry also reiterated the UK’s keenness to host the 2020 UN climate summit, also known as Cop26.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/12/13/sydney-melbourne-vow-ditch-coal-power/
30
OK, so UK is “dead” as a country by 2025….Ive made a mental note to avoid the place…..
20
12 Dec: WaPo: Trump can’t actually exit the Paris deal until the day after the 2020 election. That’s a big deal.
The Trump administration can file paperwork to withdraw next year, but it still takes another year for the process to be complete. Which brings the whole matter past Election Day in 2020.
By Chris Mooney
The Trump administration could have pursued a more radical means of withdrawal from the Paris agreement, but it is still going by the book — and in this case, that means Article 28 of the Paris agreement. That text specifies that after joining the agreement, a country can’t leave for three years, after which there is a one-year waiting period for the leave to be fully in effect.
Here’s what that actually means for the United States — a timeline that, as we’ll see, has major political resonance.
The Obama administration moved very fast to have the United States formally join the Paris climate agreement, and other countries did as well. That means that the agreement itself legally entered into force on Nov. 4, 2016.
So that’s the day when the clock started ticking for any possible U.S. withdrawal, under the terms of the agreement.
“The U.S. can initiate the withdrawal process as early as of November 4, 2019, which is three years from the date on which the Agreement entered into force for it,” said Susan Biniaz, a former State Department climate negotiator and currently a lecturer at Yale Law School, by email.
There’s a formal process involved for withdrawal, but it is not burdensome. It has to be done in writing, and written notice has to go to the United Nations.
“It would just be probably a letter or something like that from the State Department,” said Dan Bodansky, an international environmental law expert at Arizona State University. “But it would be an official document.”
Assuming the Trump administration is ready to go and files that document at the earliest possible time, another clock starts ticking. After one year passes, the U.S. withdrawal would then be complete and it would quietly, but concretely, leave the agreement.
But the earliest possible day that could come is consequential — at the earliest, Nov. 4, 2020.
Election Day is Nov. 3, 2020.
This is where things get very interesting. If we assume that Trump will be the Republican nominee again, and that any Democrat running against him would want to rejoin the Paris agreement, then the election could potentially put the United States right back in again if the Democrat wins.
Granted, on this timeline, the United States would at least briefly leave the agreement even in the event of a Democratic victory. That’s because the new president is not inaugurated until January 2021.
But after that, reversal could be swift, at least under the Obama administration’s interpretation that the agreement is not one that needs to be submitted to the Senate for ratification.
It would then take 30 days after submission of notice for the United States to rejoin the agreement formally, Biniaz explained. This, again, is based on the text of the Paris climate agreement.
Of course, if Trump wins, and has withdrawn from the agreement formally, then his victory could be expected to cement the U.S. withdrawal.
What this means, clearly, is that unless Trump somehow changes his mind and decides not to withdraw after all, U.S. participation in the Paris climate agreement seems likely to be a live matter of political debate in the next two years, especially after the formal withdrawal paperwork gets filed.
“Climate change could easily be a campaign issue, and then President Trump, if he’s given notice of withdrawal, then the clock starts ticking,” Bodansky said.
In the meantime, if you think U.S. participation in international climate talks has been rather awkward lately, just wait until next year’s annual climate meeting. Negotiations will probably take place next December, though the location is up in the air because Brazil just announced the country will no longer host the meeting.
That meeting could occur right after the United States has formally submitted its Paris withdrawal paperwork but while the country is still in the waiting period for the withdrawal to occur. In other words — on the outs but not quite there yet.
And again, that could then be followed by a major case of international climate whiplash if the United States promptly rejoins. But that’s just the way it goes when you have treaties with formal timelines, and an extremely polarized climate change debate domestically.
It wouldn’t be the first time such a strange reversal has happened in the international arena. Just to give one rather messy example: Iceland, a whaling nation, was a member of the International Whaling Commission for decades. It withdrew in 1992 after the body enacted a commercial whaling moratorium but rejoined (after an extremely close vote) in 2002, with a reservation to the moratorium.
“Countries do withdraw from treaties and rejoin,” Bodansky said. “It does happen.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/12/12/heres-what-election-means-us-withdrawal-paris-climate-deal/
20
Sounds like Trump is being tied down by lots of bureaucratic string, just like Gulliver when he was in Lilliput in “Gulliver’s Travels”.
Gulliver just stood up and the strings all broke or came undone.
Time for Trump to do the same in America.
90
Actually it’s easy to fix, send the ratification to the Senate to refuse, if it’s refused then they were never in.
Secondly they can withdraw from the UNFCCC which takes just one year.
Thirdly he could just get the supreme court to rule that three agreement isn’t valid (because it wasn’t ratified by the Senate/government and is based on unsound science.
My favourite, he could declare the UN a hostile terrorist state. AGW is the biggest terror issue in the history of the world, it is being used to spread fear.
10
note publishing dates/times, allowing for any potential time differences:
14 Dec 2018 3:45 AM: Bloomberg: China Accuses Rich Nations of ‘Backsliding’ on Climate Pledges
By Jeremy Hodges; With assistance by Maciej Martewicz
China accused some of the richest nations in the world of “backsliding” on pledges to clean up pollution and provide $100 billion a year in climate-related aid by 2020.
The comments at a United Nations conference on global warming in Poland spearheaded a push by a group of the 49 Least Developed Countries for clarity on when those promises will be fulfilled. It indicated deepening tensions as the talks that are due to conclude in the industrial city of Katowice on Friday.
“Some delegations we are seeing backsliding,” Xie Zhenhua, China’s lead envoy to the talks in Katowice, said at a briefing on Thursday afternoon. “There are still quite a number of developed countries who did not start” providing financial and technological support that they had pledged in the Paris Agreement three years ago. “We cannot accept any backsliding.”…
The LDC group and China were joined by the 40-nation Alliance of Small Island States in calling for a “strengthening global response” to climate change including a measure that “scale up finance.”…
Business leaders attending the talks expressed concern the Katowice Rulebook, which is supposed to emerge from these talks, will be too vague to serve as a guide for how they should cut their own emissions.
“We do need the rulebook because that will reduce the risk that we have and increase the number of regions where we can invest in,” said Carlos Salle, an official following the talks for Iberdrola SA, Spain’s largest utility…
Miners attending the talks objected to the overall drift of the UN effort, which would quickly limit the fuel they produce…
“What is being forced on us is the idea that unless we get rid of coal yesterday, the planet will cease to exist tomorrow — it’s not true,” Jaroslaw Grzesik, deputy head of the mining arm of Poland’s Solidarnosc union, said at the talks on Thursday…
“We will get a rulebook because there are countries who are not ready to leave without it,” said David Levai, head of climate governance at IDDRI, a French research group advising on sustainability. “The question is how strong this rulebook will be.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-13/china-accuses-rich-nations-of-backsliding-on-climate-pledges
earlier?
13 Dec 2018 6:11pm: ClimateChangeNews: China open to ‘uniform’ climate rules, sidestepping old allies
Shift comes as EU and China hastily draft proposals to break an impasse on the toughest issues at UN climate talks in Poland
By Sara Stefanini
***Xie Zhenhua, China’s special representative on climate change, ***suggested on Thursday that the country was on board – ***as long as the developed side helps out…
“Developing countries also have varied levels of capabilities,” Xie told reporters. “Some might need greater flexibilities, while others could voluntarily do more and accept uniform standards. With more support given to them and enhanced capabilities for these developing countries, they will be able to meet their requirements earlier and faster.”…
The EU is willing to make it ***voluntary, so countries can choose when to join, as long as there is a clear deadline by which everyone must comply, a developed country negotiator following the talks said. “But we would expect China to start from the beginning.”…
The EU and China are hastily drafting new proposals on parts of the “rulebook” under negotiation, at the request of UN secretary general António Guterres on Wednesday, according to the negotiator…They plan to deliver the proposals to the Cop24 summit’s Polish presidency so it can incorporate them into a draft of the entire text, which is due Friday…
After agreeing to work with China, the EU also held a series of meetings on Wednesday and Thursday to shore up support for its flexible system of applying the rules. Those included Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Mexico, Japan, Switzerland, Norway and some African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, the developed country negotiator said.
The aim: “To have a critical mass of developed and developing countries, to support one system of transparency when we go to the plenary on Friday.”
Xie’s comments on Thursday broke away from China’s traditional allies: Brazil, South Africa and India. This group – known as the Basic group of emerging economies – had to date been the loudest in demanding a clearer division of labour, or bifurcation…
A US state department spokesperson declined to comment on the kind of system it would support…
Many expect the summit to run over into the weekend…
The main concern for negotiators was that Poland had yet to deliver a full draft of the rules – making it hard for ministers to decide where they were willing to make trade-offs. Plus, many of the open questions were still extremely complex. “There are risks around ministers dealing with technical issues; that things could be weakened if they haven’t been fully briefed,” a British source said. “So we’re not there yet.”
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2018/12/13/china-open-uniform-climate-rules-sidestepping-old-allies/
20
wow: “EU, Canada, New Zealand and developing countries to keep global warming below 1.5C.”
that means the rest of us can ditch Paris:
13 Dec: Guardian: Climate change talks lead to renewed pledge to cut emissions
EU, Canada, New Zealand and developing countries to keep global warming below 1.5C
by Fiona Harvey, Ben Doherty and Jonathan Watts in Katowice
The UN believes China could play a stronger role in the absence of leadership from the US. Sources said Guterres would make a telephone call to Xi to ask for his help in nudging talks forward…
Campaigners praised the decision by the High Ambition Coalition group of countries, made up of the EU and four other developed countries, including Canada and New Zealand, as well as the large grouping of least developed countries and several other developing nations, to scale up their emissions-cutting efforts in line with a 1.5C temperature rise limit…
Wendel Trio, director of the Climate Action Network Europe, said: “The spirit of Paris is back. The statement will boost greater ambition at the crunch time of these so far underwhelming talks. For the EU this must mean a commitment to significantly increase its 2030 target by 2020, even beyond the 55% reduction some member states and the European parliament are calling for. We call upon the countries that have not signed the statement so far to stop ignoring the science.”…
Behind the scenes, delegates said there had been strong progress on finance thanks to a doubling of commitments by Germany and Norway to help poorer nations adapt to climate change and build institutions capable of monitoring emissions. Nicholas Stern, the author of a landmark review on the economics of climate change, praised “the level of ideas and cooperation”.
But others said there were still many disputed brackets in the negotiating text on transparency and other elements of the rulebook…
“There has been some progress, but it’s a very worrying time. There is still a lot more on the table than we hoped for at this stage,” said Helen Mountford, vice-president of the World Resources Institute…
Janos Pasztor, the former climate adviser to Ban Ki-moon, told the Guardian that Guterres was doing the right thing by intervening at a crucial stage. “He needs to make clear what the IPCC has described as a major challenge, and that we have to deliver on that,” he said…
David Levaï, who was part of the French government team that helped to broker the successful 2015 conference, said the geopolitical winds were far less favourable today. Globally, the rise of nationalists such as Donald Trump in the US and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil has tilted power towards fossil fuel and agribusiness interests.
He said: “In the year before Paris, all countries made clear that they wanted an agreement. Now, there are repeated attacks on multilateralism, and this has empowered groups that take negative actions.”…
Levaï, who is at the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations, expressed hope that the secretary general might make a difference. “The fact that he has come back shows he feels a need ***to whip countries into order,” he said…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/12/un-chief-antonio-guterres-attempts-to-revive-flagging-climate-change-talks
30
some background, given the wide use of quotes from David Levaï, IDDRI (Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations), which was founded by Laurence Tubiana:
IDDRI: Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation (ECF), Founder of IDDRI
Laurence Tubiana is:
CEO of the European Climate Foundation (ECF)
Professor, Sciences Po Paris and Professor, Columbia University
Founder, former Director (2001-2014), Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI)
Co-Chair, Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Leadership Council
President, French Development Agency (AFD) Board of Governors…
Before joining the ECF, Laurence was France’s Climate Change Ambassador and Special Representative for COP21, and as such a key architect of the landmark Paris Agreement. Following COP21, she was appointed High Level Champion for climate action…
She has been member of numerous boards and scientific committees, ***including the Chinese Committee on the Environment and International Development.
https://www.iddri.org/en/about-iddri/governance/laurence-tubiana
IDDRI: David Levaï, Lead, International Climate Governance
David Levaï leads IDDRI’s activities on international cooperation for climate action. In this context, he follows, analyses and informs the climate negotiations ***under the aegis of the United Nations and the transition of national public policies.
After an MBA at ESSEC and a Master of Public Administration (MPA) at Columbia University in New York, David joined the international microfinance NGO ACCION in Washington, DC, where he developed projects in Africa linking access to energy and access to financial services. He continued in this vein at PlaNet Finance in Paris before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2013, where he joined the climate negotiations team for COP21…ETC
https://www.iddri.org/en/about-iddri/team/david-levai
20
TWEET: Antoine Simon, Friends of the Earth Europe, Fossil Free Campaigner
Yesterday, 461 MEPs (73% of voters) rejected a proposal to stop using EU taxpayers money for new #fossilfuels projects. In the middle of the @COP24 & 2 months after the 1.5°C IPCC report.
ALDE & S&D MEPs should stop pretending they care ab climate change
GRAPH OF VOTE
13 Dec 2018
FOLLOWUP TWEET: Antoine Simon 7h ago
Do you want to know which MEPs explicitely rejected an attempt to exclude fossil fuels from the scope of the #CEF EU budget? Here is the list…
https://twitter.com/FoEE_Antoine/status/1073140238455848960
12 Dec: FriendsOfTheEarthEurope: EU hitches itself to climate-incompatible gas subsidies until 2027
The European Parliament today voted to approve a 7-year extension of EU subsidies for climate-wrecking fossil gas projects, as part of the new budget.
While the climate emergency rightly takes more and more space in the political debate, it is still business-as-usual when opportunities to withdraw from fossil fuels come up, said Friends of the Earth Europe.
This decision means new mega-pipelines for gas or Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) terminals can continue to be funded by public EU money until 2027, and the next EU budget will not bring an end to subsidies for fossil fuels…ETC
http://www.foeeurope.org/EU-hitches-itself-climate-incompatible-gas-subsidies-until-2027-121218
40
After all these erudite comments, I am sorry to be pedantic, but I am intruiged by Jo’s headline. Perhaps ‘AMPLICATION’ should be ‘AMPLIFICATION ‘
90
I’m intrigued too!
11
Any open ocean water is warmer than 270K. Temperature of sea ice surface is usually cooler than 250K:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/plots/meanTarchive/meanT_2015.png
The relative radiating power of open water to sea ice is 40% higher. So loss of heat from open water is significantly higher than the adjacent sea ice. The sea ice actually provides an insulating layer to slow loss of heat. The thicker it is the better it insulates.
The insulting property of sea ice overwhelms any extra heat input from the small change in reflectance of sea ice relative to open water at high angle of incidence. Accordingly open sea will lose heat faster than ice covered sea. Loss of sea ice is a negative feedback.
The iris effect of sea in the Arctic is well known:
http://landscapesandcycles.net/arctic-iris-effect-and-dansgaard-oeschger-event.html
Nothing new – climate models still just computer games for Humpty Dumptys.
41
“This discrepancy suggests that present climate models do not adequately incorporate the physical processes that affect the Polar Regions.”
Thats science speak for ‘we got it wrong, the models are total baloney, based on a baloney hypothesis’
30
Rickwill @ #39 said:
Ye-e-es. I can see overwhelmed extra heat input being thoroughly insulted … 🙂
00
Don’t worry, my keyboard makes mistakes too and so does Jo’s although I don’t think hers does it as often as mine does. 🙂
10
There is no error. It means what it states but you have truncated the sentence. Sea ice insulates against the release of heat from water below. The insulating factor is greater than the slight increase in reflection of sea ice compared with open water. Hence more ice means greater heat retention. Less sea ice means greater heat loss.
00
@PADRE you beat me to it. I tried to look up amplication and no such word exists.
30
That never stopped Shakespeare
50
I like it ! 🙂
20
He’s reputed to have invented the name Jessica (Shylock’s daughter, Merchant of Venice) so he didn’t let a little thing like a name get in the way of a good play! It’s a pleasant sounding name with a nice rhythm.
amplication: maybe we should emulate the bard and give it an appropriate meaning?
10
keep in mind, Nitin Sethi goes along with CAGW. page is topped by his latest article, which I will post separately:
Twitter: Nitin Sethi, Senior Associate Editor, Business Standard, India
TWEETS: (all 2h ago)
The US says reference to equity throughout the rulebook and loss and damage not acceptable
If US president @realDonaldTrump wants to leave #ParisAgreement why are his diplomats trying to give their interpretation to the agreement at #COP24 and asking for changes in the rulebook ? At 1 38 am.
For those who think United States is out of #ParisAgreement. You should hear it speak a long list of changes its asking in the rulebook. Move reference to next ipcc report not this one. Dilute scope references. Dilute differentiation. Bound flexibility…(some summarised)
China: flexibility for dc in transparency not sufficient. Same in gst
China: improve text to reflect Paris Agreement and correctly reflect cbdr and equity
Turkey speaks while the US raises its flag to join the list of nations waiting to read their lists of complaints. Its 1:10 am. Supposed to be the last day. Clearly is not going to be so
Mauritius for Aosis: disappointed to see no reference to support for loss and damage #cop24
https://twitter.com/nit_set?lang=en
10
note Bill Hare references – he is one of the most quoted individuals by FakeNewsMSM at COP24:
14 Dec: BusinessStandardIndia: The influence international NGOs wield in Katowice climate change talks
The possibility of a conflict of interest rings larger when think-tanks from developed countries, and which draw funds from developed countries, help small developing country groups
by Nitin Sethi
What roles do North-based think tanks and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) specialising in climate change play in negotiations? One obvious answer is they engage in advocacy under full public gaze, with public campaigns; interpret science and policy facts to influence the negotiations towards agreements they think are best.
Then, at another level, they engage and lobby with governments to convince them to do what they believe is the best route to fight climate change. This includes lobbying with governments in countries the think-tanks are based, and the developing countries. But, a third route they take to influence the outcomes sometimes raises questions and doubts, particularly in the G77+China group, of which all developing countries are members. They become deeply integrated into groups of smaller developing countries, and help them draw their negotiating priorities, positions and strategies.
To understand the range of influence such think-tanks from the North hold within and over the developing country groups, and their negotiating positions, Business Standard spoke to three climate change legal and science experts, five negotiation experts, more than half a dozen government diplomats in developing country groups, including the least-developed countries (LDCs) and Alliance of Small Island States (Aosis), and three diplomats who have served in these groups at very senior positions. All of them wished to remain anonymous.
Of these, six brought up the name of Climate Analytics — a Germany-based think tank — unprompted. Rest did so while giving examples of think-tanks from the global north that influence negotiations through country delegations from LDCs, AOSIS or African nations. Or, by putting their employees on delegations of poor developing countries as negotiators
One diplomat provided documentary proof as example trying to explain the relation between the think tank’s employees and the LDC secretariat. The documents showcased, in his view, how deeply Climate Analytics is integrated into the secretariat, and how much influence it wields. “I am uncomfortable with such relations. Sometimes, you can say, I am troubled,” is how he characterised it.
For the record, it is legitimate and legal for all countries and groups to choose whoever they wish to represent them, or help them negotiate. Most countries draw knowledge, capacity and understanding from such think-tanks and experts. Some even have revolving doors between the think tanks and spaces in climate change diplomacy.
But, it is the nature of influence they wield that makes the difference. The possibility of a conflict of interest rings larger when think tanks from developed countries, drawing funds from developed countries, ‘help’ small developing country groups in a detailed manner. Employees of think tanks from the North are often found representing small developing countries as formal negotiators. A scan of the list of registered participants for the Katowice talks also showed up Northern think tank employees carrying ‘party badges’ of small developing countries. Several of them were from Climate Analytics.
About a month-and-a-half before the negotiations kick-started at Katowice, the 47 LDC group met at Addis Ababa in October to strategise and present a united stance. At the end of a three day meeting, the officials agreed on a collective communique on their expectations from the Katowice talks.
Except, the communique was not first drafted by either the government officials or the ministers. The first drafts were done by Climate Analytics, show documents reviewed by Business Standard. Set up in 2008, the think tank says its mission is “linking scientific and policy analysis”. It says by doing so it “provides state-of-the-art solutions to global and national climate change policy challenges.”
Backed by an array of funding organisations, and steadily by the government of Germany, its solutions can include drafting the base versions of notes, negotiating stances, briefing papers and specific interventions for the LDCs, show internal documents of the group reviewed by Business Standard.
The think-tank runs a project, Impact, which it describes as providing “scientific, policy, analytical and strategic support, capacity building and advice for delegations from the small island states (SIDS) and the LDCs in the international climate negotiations.”
But it is in the LDC secretariat, chaired by Ethiopia at present, where Climate Analytics is able to show more impact today than before. Earlier, its focus and heft was as much, if not more, supporting the Aosis backoffice.
Detailed queries were sent to Climate Analytics through its employee, who works as ‘Advisor to the LDC Chair for the multilateral process of the UNFCCC’, and nearly a dozen working government diplomats (coordinators, as they are known) of the LDCs.
None of them responded. Gebru Jember Endalew, the chair of the LDC group, replied to the queries sent to Climate Analytics. He chose not to respond to specific questions, and made a statement, “The idea that the LDC group is somehow being influenced by ‘northern’ organisations in the context of the climate negotiations is preposterous, and somehow implies the LDC group doesn’t have its own policies and opinions….We accept support, capacity building and help from a number of different organisations, irrespective of where they are based, but our views, policies and statements are our own, as stated above.”
A review of the documents shows that while the final approvals on statements and negotiating positions, etc were taken by the government officials in charge of negotiations, they, at times, got the drafts drawn by the think tank at the last moment, or in almost ready state. The tone or the key points had been drafted before hand. Two people described how the interventions made in closed-door rooms were also drafted quickly and provided to diplomats from the LDC group to assist them negotiate. Business Standard did not independently verify these descriptive anecdotes.
“I preferred not to have them so deeply involved in the secretariat. Our positions should be drawn by people from our countries and governments. They should not lead from front at the negotiations for us. It is about being in the driver seat. These are political and economic decisions, not merely scientific ones. One can listen to their advice, but we should be able to draw our own conclusions. This is where it should stop ideally. It also depends on the leader of the group. He or she has to be aggressive,” said one senior government diplomat, who has worked in the group secretariat earlier.
Climate Analytics used to wield a greater influence over the SIDs till a while back, said multiple sources. But, that changed with the change in chairs of the group. “When Maldives became chair this time, I know the Aosis secretariat preferred IPCC scientists to tell us about science rather than them,” said an official from Aosis countries.
Bill Hare, founder of Climate Analytics, was at least once reported taking a stance in public that most developing countries find difficult to stand by and give an easy pass to developed countries on reducing their emissions.
The influence and direction they provide can be subtle at times, and more sharp before or during the negotiations, said another negotiator.
“There are two kind of advisers here. Lawyers and scientists. Their job is to advise; work on a brief given by the political leadership, the governments and the group. At times, this turns on his head, when the lawyers from the think-tanks begin to write the brief,” said one person, who has been involved in developing country negotiations on climate change and other issues.
“One way to see this support or capacity building is as bilateral aid from a developed country to a developing country routed through a think-tank. Very little bilateral aid comes without strings-attached. The degree to which the support is tied up to interests of donor country can depend on institutions these are routed through. Also, how these institutions are driven by their own agendas and that of their funders is important,” said a diplomat, who has dealt particularly with bilateral agreements for a middle-income developing country for three years.
“Yes, we do not have the capacity to engage in these negotiations on our own. We should ideally pick institutions to work with we can trust. Even in institutions driven strongly by their own agenda, you sometimes find an individual expert who is committed to your interests, and not her or his own or their employers’. They come in all hues. You have to remember you are the painter,” said another senior diplomat.
Besides other questions, Climate Analytics was asked if its support under the project includes drafting group positions, interventions, statements and documents for the process on and during the negotiations such as the one at Katowice. It was asked how much funds it has received from different donors and governments to work with the LDC and SIDs/Aosis group. It did not reply.
But its annual reports list out names of donors, which includes Germany consistently.
***Germany is one of the leading voices of EU, which operates as a single unit at the climate change talks. EU often claims leadership on the mitigation front (reducing emissions), but has issues and positions similar to the US about providing finance and technology, easing IPR regimes and enhancing support to developing countries.
Earlier, it has anchored coalitions of LDCs and AOSIS to push emerging economies such as India and China to focus more on emission reductions and less on support. This has broken unity and lowered common grounds of agreement within the G77+China group.
“The question really is, are these influences driving wedges within the G77+China group? If the group stands united on any issue, it is hard for the developed countries.” said one expert observer. “It is all fair as long as it is done in open and transparently. Capacity building and support are vague terms that allow a gamut of operations. We should be able to understand what roles these think-tanks are playing with greater clarity. The process is inclusive, and requires all kinds to work together. But the process is also highly political and involves high stakes. This is the one multilateral agreement that is about the global economic drivers and the developing countries need to have a better voice and form of representation,” said the senior diplomat from a developing country that is member of two groups.
https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/ngos-influence-on-developing-nations-in-climate-talks-cause-for-concern-118121400012_1.html
20
Climate Anaytics: Bill Hare
Bill Hare is a physicist and climate scientist with 30 years’ experience in science, impacts and policy responses to climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion. He is a founder and CEO of Climate Analytics, which was established to synthesise and advance scientific knowledge on climate change and provide state-of-the-art solutions to global and national climate change policy challenges.
Bill has contributed actively to the development of the international climate regime since 1989, including the negotiation of the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and the Paris Agreement in 2015. Throughout this time supported international and regional scientific assessment processes, including the IPCC, in different capacities to the present time.
He was a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report, for which the IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He led the influential World Bank Turn Down the Heat reports series in 2013-2014, and has authored, or co-authored, many peer-reviewed articles in leading academic journals including Nature Climate Change, Nature, Climatic Change, Regional Environmental Change, and Climate Policy.
Bill has regularly advised and presented science and policy assessments to Ministers and Heads of Government from the most vulnerable countries. One of the key projects he is directing at present is the IMPACT Project, which is developing new scientific tools to help small island states (SIDS) and the least developed countries (LDCs) in West Africa respond to the impacts of climate change, as well as providing scientific support for delegations from these countries in the international climate negotiations implementing the Paris Agreement. Bill has been described as “the physicist who has become a go-to climate adviser for dozens of poor nations and supports and advises ministers from Small Island Developing States and Least Developed Countries in the context of the UNFCCC climate negotiations.
He is also one of the leaders of the Climate Action Tracker, recognised as one of the most credible sources of information on national and global action on climate change.
Bill is a graduate of Murdoch University in Western Australia and a visiting scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Blog posts
Beyond offsets? Market mechanisms under the Paris agreement Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Claire Fyson, Bill Hare, 07 December 2018…
Declining Cost of Renewables and Best Practices Can Enable Nations to Expand Their NDC Ambitions , 19 June 2017…
ETC ETC ETC
Publications
Peer reviewed
ETC
https://climateanalytics.org/about-us/team/bill-hare/
20
***what Hare omits from his CA bio:
March 2011: NoFrakkingConsensus: Peer into the Heart of the IPCC, Find Greenpeace
by Donna Laframboise
This is perhaps best illustrated by a Greenpeace climate change publication that appeared in early 2007. The foreword to this document, which focused on New Zealand, was written by none other than Rajendra Pachauri. At the end of his remarks, beside his photograph, he is identified not as a private individual expressing private opinions but as the chairman of the IPCC.
I’ve mentioned previously that the fact that Richard Klein worked as a Greenpeace campaigner at age 23 was no impediment to the IPCC appointing him a lead author at age 25. I’ve also drawn attention to the fact that some of those who’ve served as IPCC expert reviewers are actually Greenpeace employees.
But the cozy relationship doesn’t end there.
***Bill Hare has been a Greenpeace spokesperson since 1992. By 2000 he was climate policy director for Greenpeace International. According to various Greenpeace blog posts he is “a legend” in that organization, served as its chief climate negotiator in 2007, and remains a chief policy advisor. Yet none of this has prevented him from being nominated – and chosen – to fill senior IPCC roles.
In 2000 policy director Hare served as an expert reviewer for an influential IPCC emissions scenarios document. When the 2007 edition of the climate bible was released, we learned that he’d served as a lead author, that he’d been an expert reviewer for 2 out I’ve mentioned previously that the fact that Richard Klein worked as a Greenpeace campaigner at age 23 was no impediment to the IPCC appointing him a lead author at age 25. I’ve also drawn attention to the fact that some of those who’ve served as IPCC expert reviewers are actually Greenpeace employees.
But the cozy relationship doesn’t end there. Bill Hare has been a Greenpeace spokesperson since 1992. By 2000 he was climate policy director for Greenpeace International. According to various Greenpeace blog posts he is “a legend” in that organization, served as its chief climate negotiator in 2007, and remains a chief policy advisor. Yet none of this has prevented him from being nominated – and chosen – to fill senior IPCC roles.
In 2000 policy director Hare served as an expert reviewer for an influential IPCC emissions scenarios document. When the 2007 edition of the climate bible was released, we learned that he’d served as a lead author, that he’d been an expert reviewer for 2 out I’ve mentioned previously that the fact that Richard Klein worked as a Greenpeace campaigner at age 23 was no impediment to the IPCC appointing him a lead author at age 25. I’ve also drawn attention to the fact that some of those who’ve served as IPCC expert reviewers are actually Greenpeace employees.
But the cozy relationship doesn’t end there. Bill Hare has been a Greenpeace spokesperson since 1992. By 2000 he was climate policy director for Greenpeace International. According to various Greenpeace blog posts he is “a legend” in that organization, served as its chief climate negotiator in 2007, and remains a chief policy advisor. Yet none of this has prevented him from being nominated – and chosen – to fill senior IPCC roles.
In 2000 policy director Hare served as an expert reviewer for an influential IPCC emissions scenarios document. When the 2007 edition of the climate bible was released, we learned that he’d served as a lead author, that he’d been an expert reviewer for 2 out of 3 sections of the report (see here and here), and that he was one of a select group of only 40 people who comprised the “core writing team” for the important Synthesis Report.
Hare has once again been appointed a lead author for the upcoming version of the climate bible, expected to be released in 2013…
It’s worth noting that the IPCC is less-than-candid about his Greenpeace ties. The 2007 climate bible says he’s affiliated with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. When the IPCC announced, last June, the list of authors for the version of the climate bible currently in progress the Potsdam Institute was once again used as cover. Since Hare is, in fact, a visiting researcher at the institute the IPCC hasn’t lied…
A number of passages in the 2007 climate bible blandly cite research papers authored by Hare and Meinshausen as though it’s immaterial that they are Greenpeace personnel (see here and here, for example). Indeed, the IPCC goes so far as to reprint a graph that first appeared in a paper for which these two men are the sole authors.
And people wonder why the IPCC’s reputation has sunk so low.
https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/03/14/peer-into-the-heart-of-the-ipcc-find-greenpeace/
21
That’s 98%. The only disagreement is over the time for it all to be absorbed in the ocean. I could find only two references in the IPCC report as it is really a collection of papers on a huge variety of subjects. One said 80 years. The other said thousands of years. Neither tried to explain or justify their figures. So the IPCC as a whole stays away from it all, because the CO2 goes into the water quickly. Gaseous exchange is rapid or the fish would drown.
50
The Moronville messenger had a front page story stating we have the highest power prices in the country once again.
Over 10000 disconnections for the year, gone are the days where they tell you to change your light bulbs, now we have to shop around for a netter deal. When this fails we will be encouraged to turn our fancy light bulbs off.
We will never discuss the root cause because that would mean a betrayal of faith.
70
The root cause will never be discussed because both major parties shy away from any discussion. Until we elect a government that decides to discontinue the current emphasis on reducing our emissions the trend will continue, electricity prices will remain high or go higher, and there will be more disconnections.
52
China demands developed countries ‘pay their debts’ on climate change.
China is calling on rich countries to pay their debts on climate change, and is criticising developed countries for not doing enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide finance to help poor countries do the same.
How about China stops building 100’s of coal fired power stations? Or would that be a declaration of war? I think what China means it wants the West to increase their speed on committing economic suicide so they can step in and take over. I thought the Chinese were very patient people. All they have to do is wait a decade or so and we’ll finish the job very well.
31
After reading the article linked below it appears the solution for the West is to follow China and India’s lead on reducing carbon emissions by building more coal fired power stations. How else are they achieving those results reported therein?
China Accuses Rich Nations of ‘Backsliding’ on Climate Pledges
50
After all we are selling China & India the coal. Why not burn it here to generate cheap power ?
50
Why not indeed. The only possible reasons are that our politicians on both sides are either stupid or enemies working with overseas interests to destroy our economy. However, I doubt they have the intelligence for the latter so it has to be the former.
20
In other words, who is kidding who? China and India is kidding the West and the Western governments are kidding the people. It would be more appropriate to ask who is NOT our enemy?
40
CO2 is just contrary and diabolical. It keeps you forever guessing what it’ll do next. It makes green houses simply freeze solid, or else buries them in snow! It threatens to digest fish and coral in a warm acid-bath, but then nothing even happens. It keeps threatening to extinguish all life on earth, but then we get ‘global-greening’! It just keeps disemboweling all memes and narratives.
Stupid gas.
60
Science is settled but stupid gas is a denihiler.
40
I wonder if I can sue all you armchair, unqualified “scientists” for fiddling while Rome burns?
To be honest, I hold you and your ilk complicit in the weather havoc that’s resulting in year after year if record temps and various deluges.
Have your little spittle filled rands, kids, we’ll find out the consequncesy of you denial ism each and every year.
02
A list of your own science qualifications (it must be verifiable) would be enlightening.
40
btw a friend saw Nitin Sethi’s tweet asking why Trump’s negotiators still trying to influence the text. of course, if Trump doesn’t run, or loses, in 2020, Trump wouldn’t want “loss and damage” etc in the rulebook. doubt it would be different with Obama’s team (some of whom are probably in the Trump team). of course, US is not alone in this, but the MSM likes to blame Trump:
13 Dec: EurActiv: COP24 diary – day #11
By Claire Stam reporting from Katowice
Get on with it. Earlier on, in the afternoon, UN Secretary-General António Guterres diplomatically pounded the negotiating table, urging delegates to get on with it.
“I left Katowice hopeful, but uncertain. While I was away, three more reports were added to the long list of warnings signals: a Special WHO report on impacts to health due to climate change; a UN Environment Programme report which highlights the opportunities for reducing emissions in the construction sector; and NASA’s research on the first signs of significant melting of glaciers in East Antarctica. Returning to Katowice, I see that despite some progress in the negotiating texts much remains to be done,” Guterres said ETC…
630 Brackets. Taking into account that no major progresses was made and that negotiators were stuck into the nitty-gritty of the text, COP president Michał Kurtyka said on Tuesday evening (11 December) that he was taking control of the talks.
“Based on the reports we’ve just heard and the advancement of work, I can see that current approach to negotiations is exhausted,” he said, before urging delegates to come up with a new textual proposal the following day.
“Look at the big picture, leave the micro issue, don’t add brackets,” he told them.
On Wednesday evening, the series of draft documents began to be published. So, how many brackets are still left? Simon Evans, deputy editor at UK-based Carbon Brief, says the number of brackets have decreased from 2,809 in October to 630, while the number of pages went down from 236 to 136 pages…
German angst of yellow vests. Germany’s Environment minister Svenja Schulze called on Wednesday (12 December) for larger EU budget to support the “just transition” in coal regions.
“I would very much welcome it if in the next EU budget we could provide more funds for the regions affected by structural change,” she said at a press briefing, noting that this would also benefit German regions.
She also announced that Germany will support the exchange of experience between Europe’s coal regions. “We have around 40 coal regions in Europe, many of which face similar challenges to the German regions,” she stated.
“It is important to provide an alternative to workers in the regions and involve them in deciding on a path to exit fossil fuels. If the people are not involved in the decision, then they put on yellow vests and demonstrate against it,” she said.
Germany. COP24 highlighted the internal divisions within the Polish government over energy and climate issues.
The same can actually be said about Germany: Early November, Germany’s environment ministry Svenja Schulze announced she was planning to team up with the finance ministry to put a price on carbon that would include sectors such as heating and transport.
A few days later, the finance ministry rejected her plan, stating: “there are no considerations to introduce a CO2 tax or a new CO2 price and to increase the burden on citizens.”
Now, in Katowice, Svenja Schulze twitted that enough was enough: “I am now proceeding so that all dedicated departments should think about how they can contribute to save CO2. The old game which consists of considering that only the environment minister is to make proposals on climate change and that everybody else is saying it won’t work, is over”.
Saudi Arabia. In a statement, the delegation of Saudi Arabia complained about what it sees as a sharp deviation from the provisions agreed in Paris.
“Indeed, we are seeing an undue emphasis on energy and particularly oil, with efforts to impose excessive and unrealistic taxes on hydrocarbon fuels,” the statement reads.
“To fully deliver on the Paris Agreement, we must first accept that the shift to low-emission economies will take time. We must make ample and reliable energy supplies available for the long transition in order to ensure an orderly change,” it also says…
https://www.euractiv.com/section/climate-environment/news/cop24-diary-day-11/
20
13 Dec: SMH: ‘Sprint to the election’: Anti-Adani groups target Labor
By Peter Hannam
The Stop Adani Alliance – which claims two million supporters among its 38 member groups – will on Thursday unleash an advertising campaign and release polling showing four in five respondents want the government to intervene to stop the project.
The first of a three-phased strategy will involve a so-called “summer of action”, aimed at pressing federal Labor to shift its ambiguous stance on the mine, which has the potential to open up the huge new coal province in Queensland’s Galilee Basin if it proceeds.
Mobile billboards will buzz the ALP’s National Conference in Adelaide, while organisers within the event will try to raise the Adani issue during Sunday’s debate on Labor’s climate platform
Phase two will involve a “sprint to the election”. “We will make stopping Adani the number one issue in what will be the climate election,” John Hepburn (FORMER GREENPEACE ACTIVIST), executive director of the ***Sunrise Project, said…
Last month, Mr Shorten said of Adani: “We don’t know what they’ll be up to by the time we get into government. So we’ll deal with facts and the situation [related to Adani that] we’re presented with if we win the election in 24 weeks’ time…We’ll be guided by the best science and the national interest.”…
(LOL) The (Stop Adani) Alliance’s national ReachTel poll of 2345 conducted on December 4 found 56 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement: “Digging new coal mines in Australia is no longer in the national interest”.
Among those self-described as Labor supporters, 80.2 per cent agreed or strongly agree with the statement, compared with about 24 per cent of Liberal and 28.6 per cent of National voters…
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/sprint-to-the-election-anti-adani-groups-target-labor-20181212-p50ls9.html
reminder from Podesta emails re Sandler Foundation were among those funding the Sunrise Project:
Sandler: Astonishing and frightening actions by Australian government. Full disclosure. We are a funder of the Sunrise project as part of our work on climate change.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/18938
20
behind paywall:
Rocky workers rush to grab Adani jobs
Rockhampton Morning Bulletin-2 Dec 2018
“If evidence was ever needed as to how eager regional Queensland is to see the …
Labor needs to account to Queenslanders about its anti-coal position
Courier Mail-7 Dec 2018
Opinion: Spectre of Adani sours Trad’s sweet coal ‘sugar’ hit
Courier Mail-18 hours ago
But for the Deputy Premier who nearly lost her seat off the back of a concerted anti-Adani campaign run by the Greens, shaking off the spectre
13 Dec: AFR: Queensland Treasurer Jackie Trad ‘unconvinced’ about Adani’s Carmichael mine
by Mark Ludlow
Queensland Treasurer Jackie Trad has refused to endorse Adani’s controversial $2 billion Carmichael mine, despite a surge in coal royalties boosting the budget bottom line of the cash-strapped Palaszczuk government…
But even though a $678 million surge in royalties, courtesy of higher international coal prices, helped boost the predicted surplus for 2018-19 by almost $400 million, Ms Trad would not support the opening up of the frontier Galilee Basin and potential coal projects such the Carmichael mine which could deliver further royalties into state coffers.
In a sign of how politically sensitive the issue of the Adani coal mine is for Labor ahead of next year’s federal election, she said she did not believe the Adani project would ever get off the ground.
“I am unconvinced it will occur. There is a lot of scepticism around this project,” Ms Trad said after the release of the budget update in Brisbane on Thursday…
Ms Trad said the Labor government was aware of how reliant the state was on coal royalties to help balance its budget. Coal royalties are delivering $14 billion into state coffers over the next four years, including an estimated $4.26 billion this financial year.
“This is something we are incredibly conscious of. We are looking at diversifying our economy and encouraging new industries, particularly innovation, into Queensland because we do know they will be the stable jobs of the future,” she said.
https://www.afr.com/news/politics/queensland-treasurer-jackie-trad-unconvinced-about-adanis-carmichael-mine-20181213-h1929h
20
behind paywall:
Turnbull’s exit boosts Liberal Nationals in Queensland
The Australian-2 Dec 2018
Queensland’s emboldened Liberal National Party is gunning for the regional federal … A clear fault line between the candidates is their approach to Adani’s …
20
The intriguing part of all this climate stuff is, no sooner were the
climate scientists warning about the world cooling, around 1973, and the
world couldn’t feed itself if it continued, then we were being told the world
was warming and we’d all die of heat stroke in somewhere between a hundred and
a thousand years. With the run of cooling, nobody seemed offered reasons to say
why it was happening. Could the social activists not work out a theory to terrorise
people with to enforce most people to bend to their will and control?
One suspects Climate science was in its infancy in the 70’s; no wads of cash for
pushing a political fable. Heating and CO2? What a Godsend! Just look at that cash
flow. Activists flying to all parts of the globe ensuring CO2 increases as best
they can; 3% human caused gives them something to work with; is better than nothing.
No mention of global greening nor abundance of food. That’s like flooding rains filling
dams that were never supposed to fill again; very rude to point such out to such learned
activists.
Its past time that all activists are called to account, were put to the sword of deep
interrogation about THEIR degrees of expertise in climate studies that gives them THEIR
right to be heard. After all, $Billions, lowering of standards of living and social
disruption are all their own doing. Business people need to be challenged about connivance
and cash. The political classes should be challenged, as the agents for disruption, about
how closely they research climate matters as they do through the Parliamentary Library for
everything else. Is the National Chief scientist chosen for his overall open mind and scientific
expertise, or is the position filled with being a true believer the first priority. What
expertise allows politicians to label people sceptics to simply and conveniently shut them
out of this debate? By doing so, the politicians have destroyed the idea of ‘the scientific
method’ in this country. It’s the same weakness that labelled people ‘Delcons’ for the same
reason – that they be not heard. The same arguments apply to the msm which is the force that
empowers the true believers.
Nobody foresaw this Western World reversion to the level of thinking of the Dark Ages, but that’s
exactly where we are.
82
An interesting and well written lead up to the final conclusion: and how very apt.
Our thinking and ability to grasp the Truth is at the level of the Dark Ages and we have been scammed and skimmed and enslaved by a hidden wealthy Elites.
As someone here commented, Malcolm Turnbull didn’t go to New York to walk the streets and sight see.
KK
41
It’s time once again for, ………..“Let’s Scare the kiddies”!
BOM and the ever hysterical Australian media circus are crying wolf once more over ‘Cyclone Owen’, which according to BOM is now a raging category 3, and looking to become a real life-taker ramping up to category 4 at landfall over a bunch of crocodile-infested mangroves and salt bush, on the almost deserted western Cape York Peninsula.
Owen is in the running to be the smallest and weakest looking ‘cyclonic’ swirl that I’ve seen on radar return. If you look closely and squint a bit you can pick out a few fairly suspect looking pixels to the north of Mornington Island, that are smaller in area than any self-respecting thunderstorm. That horrifying apparition is the devastating category 3 Severe Tropical Cyclone Owen. Yes it is.
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR361.shtml#skip
From the movement it looks like the winds could be reaching at least 35 knots so there’s a real risk of catastrophic white-cap development, and quite choppy conditions if you’re out and about in the dinghy trying your luck with that trusty 3 horsepower seagull outboard that granddad gave you (may he rest in peace).
The satellite image is mildly more reassuring that there’s actually something brewing there, as it looks like a blob of sheared-up moderate convection cells struggling for altitude, within a minor tropical swirl:
https://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/tc-bin/tc_home2.cgi?AGE=Latest&ACTIVES=18-SHEM-05P.OWEN,18-SHEM-91S.INVEST,18-IO-94B.INVEST,18-WPAC-94W.INVEST&PHOT=yes&ATCF_BASIN=sh&SIZE=full&NAV=tc&ATCF_YR=2019&ATCF_FILE=/SATPRODUCTS/kauai_data/www/atcf_web/public_html/image_archives/2019/sh052019.18121318.gif&CURRENT_ATCF_FILE=/SATPRODUCTS/kauai_data/www/atcf_web/public_html/image_archives/2019/sh052019.18121318.gif&CURRENT=20181214.0556.f15.x.vis1km.05POWEN.75kts-973mb-151S-1391E.100pc.jpg&CURRENT_ATCF=sh052019.18121318.gif&ATCF_NAME=sh052019&ATCF_DIR=/SATPRODUCTS/kauai_data/www/atcf_web/public_html/image_archives/2019&MO=DEC&BASIN=SHEM&STYLE=tables&YEAR=2019&YR=19&STORM_NAME=05P.OWEN&ARCHIVE=active&AREA=pacific/southern_hemisphere&AID_DIR=/SATPRODUCTS/kauai_data/www/pacific/southern_hemisphere/microvap/dmsp&PRODUCT=vis&DIR=/SATPRODUCTS/TC/tc19/SHEM/05P.OWEN/vis/ols/1km&TYPE=vis&PROD=vis&SUB_PROD=ols&SUB_SUB_PROD=1km
But the TV assures me this monster is the real deal, it stalks innocent Aussie crocodiles in swamps and stuff.
Yeah, well one of these days the real wolf is going to show up on our coastline once again, … then another, … then another … but BOM and the media seem to think we don’t know the difference between a wild wolf and an old grumpy domesticated chihuahua.
The real wolf (TC Yasi, February 2nd, 2011):
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vOE6k2uuWII/TVdNrCyNmDI/AAAAAAAAAGA/t79oob7dqm4/w1200-h630-p-k-nu/yasi+google+earth+20110201+7pm+2011-02-01_194051+3.JPG
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Yasi_2011-02-02_1300Z.png
That tiny swirl that is catastrophic ‘Owen’ could fit right inside that wolf’s eye, And that calm eye would actually be stronger than Owen.
11
And as expected, ‘Owen’ came ashore over night with a whimper just south-west of Kowanyama
From:
Latest Weather Observations for Kowanyama
15/01:31am 26.7 27.1 23.8 84 2.0 NE 28 48 15 26 999.0 998.9 36.0
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ60801/IDQ60801.94268.shtml
So Kowanyama experienced a brutal peak wind gust of a devastating 26 knots at the peak.
This will go down in BOMs records and stats as something quite impressive you can be sure of that. No sense of professional ethics any longer, or shame apparently,
10
Delving into paleo climate history we find the Antarctic Centennial Oscillation and according to Jackson Davis et al 2018 ….
‘The contemporary global warming increase of ~0.8 °C recorded since 1850 has been attributed widely to anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere.
‘Recent research has shown, however, that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has been decoupled from global temperature for the last 425 million years owing to well-established diminishing returns in marginal radiative forcing (ΔRF) as atmospheric CO2 concentration increases.
‘Marginal forcing of temperature from increasing CO2 emissions declined by half from 1850 to 1980, and by nearly two-thirds from 1850 to 1999.
‘Changes in atmospheric CO2 therefore affect global temperature weakly at most. The anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis has been embraced partly because there is no convincing alternative explanation’
‘The ACO provides a possible alternative explanation in the form of a natural climate cycle that arises in Antarctica, propagates northward to influence global temperature, and peaks on a predictable centennial timetable.’
31
Do you have a link Pat ?
10
My colleagues call me EG, please feel free.
https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/6/1/3/htm
30
Bugger ! Sorry EG. But I lived for a while in Argentina and have a friend there who is affectionately nick named “El Gordo” with none of the nasty connotations that this means when translated into English…
Thanks for the link !
00
12,000 years of WAIS activity.
‘The history of deglaciation of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) gives clues about its future. Southward grounding-line migration was dated past three locations in the Ross Sea Embayment. Results indicate that most recession occurred during the middle to late Holocene in the absence of substantial sea level or climate forcing.
‘Current grounding-line retreat may reflect ongoing ice recession that has been under way since the early Holocene. If so, the WAIS could continue to retreat even in the absence of further external forcing…’
Conway et al, 1999
10
theirABC – funded by Australian taxpayers – continue their war against coal/Adani:
14 Dec: ABC: Adani aims to quash traditional owner challengers, tells court they’re ‘impecunious’
Exclusive by Josh Robertson
The mining company applied for a court order to secure potential legal costs if it wins against Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) representatives, who are seeking to overturn a crucial mine site land deal…
The lawyers said Adani’s opponents had to date ignored its demands for payment of $637,000 with costs orders now totalling $870,000 from previous Supreme and Federal Court proceedings.
In August, Federal Court judge John Reeves upheld Adani’s Indigenous land Use Agreement (ILUA) with the W&J, saying none of the grounds for challenging it had “any merit”…
Five W&J representatives who unsuccessfully argued it was a “sham” agreement — Delia Kemppi, Lester Barnard, Linda Bobongie, Adrian Burragubba and Lyndell Turbane — are appealing that ruling before the full bench of the Federal Court…
Queensland Mines Minister Anthony Lynham said in September that Adani “needs to prove they can reach financial close [certainty] before we finalise processes for this project”.
He also said the Government recognised the rights of traditional owners to legally contest the ILUA…
An Adani spokeswoman said the new appeal involved “the same technical question on meetings between traditional owners that the court previously found to have no merit”.
“As these appellants now owe legal costs of more than $600,000 to Adani, we are seeking assurances they can pay our costs if they are again unsuccessful.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-14/adani-aim-quash-traditional-owner-challengers-over-money/10616732
3 Dec: AFR: Aurizon launches Supreme Court legal action against anti-coal activists
By Mark Ludlow and Luke Housego
Listed rail company Aurizon has launched legal action against environmental activists who have been blocking coal trains in Queensland, saying the protests were disrupting their business and could end in someone being killed.
Aurizon’s lawyers have sought an indefinite injunction against the group, Frontline Action on Coal, which has been erecting 10-metre tripods over rail lines to disrupt coal haulage services…
Frontline Action on Coal, also known as FLAC, have been involved in about five incidents blocking coal trains on Aurizon’s central Queensland coal network as well as near the Port of Brisbane…
Aurizon applied to the Supreme Court in November to stop the group from disrupting its rail services amid fears there could be a fatality. Frontline Action on Coal gave an undertaking not to trespass on Aurizon property until the matter was heard in court next year.
The protest group extended that undertaking in the Supreme Court in Brisbane on Tuesday saying it would not procure or incite any person to trespass on the Aurizon rail corridors in Newlands, Goonyella, Moura, Blackwater or Brisbane or interfere with Aurizon locomotives or wagons pending a full hearing before the court…
Aurizon train drivers have complained to the company about their fears of killing a protester, saying the new tactic of erecting tripods or teepees over the rail line and then protesters suspending themselves from the top was putting enormous stress on staff.
We can’t just pull up on a whim. We’ve got 10,000 tonne of coal at the back of us and when we’re hurtling along at 80 kilometres per hour. It takes at least two-and-a-half kilometres to pull up and stop the train,” one driver said…
Frontline Action on Coal activist Clancey Maher, who is described as a “climate warrior”, faced Bowen Magistrates Court on Tuesday and pleaded guilty to trespass when she blocked coal trains from entering Abbot Point coal terminal on October 29. She was fined $2200.
Frontline Action on Coal has previously issued a call on their Facebook page for more activists to help “#BlockadeAdani”…
“Adani will be stopped and if these companies don’t step away, we will stop them as well, all over the country.”…
“This is a cynical move that Aurizon hoped would silence and immobilise opponents of the coal industry,” spokesman Scott Jarvis said…
Adani Mining chief executive Lucas Dow said on Monday that critics needed to stop demonising the Carmichael mine and accept that it was going to be built…
Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane said there should be zero tolerance of anti-resources activists who break the law to stand in the way of projects that have been approved by state and federal governments…
https://www.afr.com/news/politics/aurizon-launches-supreme-court-legal-action-against-anticoal-activists-20181204-h18orh
10
it’s not only ABC CAGW activisim – it’s ABC partisan political activism:
8 Dec: ABC: Stop Adani protesters gather in cities, take aim at Scott Morrison’s activism comments
By Kevin Nguyen
Student activists who felt the Prime Minister was condescending last week over climate issues have vowed to remove the Liberal Party from power — and keep it out — as long as it maintains its current policies.
Thousands of protesters gathered in capital cities on the east coast on Saturday in a coordinated march against Indian energy giant Adani’s Carmichael mine and rail project…
While the attendees at the rally were diverse, it was school-aged students who were leading the crowds.
“It’s awful to see our leader feels like we shouldn’t have opinions and we shouldn’t care and they shouldn’t listen to us,” 14-year-old Jean Hinchliffe said in response to Mr Morrison’s calls last week for “less activism in schools”.
“It’s just atrocious. As students we are very informed and very educated and that’s why we’re taking action.
“We’re fighting for our own futures.”…
A national ReachTell poll (RELEASED BY AUSTRALIAN YOUTH CLIMATE COALITION, ABC) conducted after the student strikes showed 62.7 per cent of the 2,345 surveyed agree school students have a right to “demand that the Morrison Government act urgently” on climate change.
The number increased to 80 per cent among Labor voters, whose party were a target of fury at Saturday’s protests for their perceived silence on the Carmichael mine…
While school-aged students will not be eligible to vote in next year’s federal and state elections, they are becoming the face of the Stop Adani and climate strike movements determined to make it a persistent election issue…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-08/adani-student-protesters-vow-to-keep-liberals-out-of-power/10597022
29 Nov: ABC: Adani’s Carmichael mini-mine opens the floodgates for more Queensland coal mines
By Stephen Long
PIC: #BLOCKADEADANI PROTEST: Photo:There is little doubt that the Adani mine will continue to face anti-coal protests.
The giant conglomerate run by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani will, apparently, dig into its own pockets to 100 per cent finance a much pared-back mine and rail project.
Some are still sceptical. Julien Vincent of Market Forces, a long-time critic, describes the claim of “financial close” as “highly questionable”…
Eventually, Adani claims it will “ramp up” to output of 27.5 million tonnes a year — less than half the 60 million tonnes a year output which has approval.
The railway to transport the coal will be narrow gauge which greatly limits the potential capacity.
Its hoping to rely on a spur line from the mine that would join up with an existing railway owned by Aurizon, but as yet it has no agreement in place that guarantees this rail access…
Why now?
One suspects there may be a political strategy in play in the timing of Adani’s announcement.
In the debate about climate change versus coal mining, Adani has become a totemic issue.
Announcing a go ahead — even for a small, scaled-down project — could blunt the community and political campaign against the mine and reduce the likelihood of Adani’s mine becoming a major focus of the coming federal election campaign.
For those concerned about climate change, and for those seeking to exploit the nation’s coal reserves, the issue is that the Adani mine may just be the start…
A slew of other Galilee basin projects are in the pipeline: Alpha coal, a joint venture between Indian giant GVK and Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting; the China Stone project, which could potentially loop into Adani’s railway; and Clive Palmer’s Alpha North coal “monster mine”.
It’s not clear whether these projects would be commercially viable…
Although the highest quality thermal coal has been rising in price, in the face of climate change concerns the price of the lesser quality coal — of the kind found in the Galilee Basin — has been falling, and recently hit a two-year low.
But if the huge resources of the Galilee are exploited many fear it could spell climate change disaster…
Proponents of the mines reckon these projects make little difference to global warming because power stations in Asia would get the coal from somewhere, and potentially from inferior quality coal resources.
The economic reality, however, is that if there is a flood of new coal onto world markets it will push down prices and encourage more coal-burning, at a time when the world’s climate scientists are warning that catastrophic climate change can only be avoided if the world curbs its use of coal (LINK IPCC).
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-29/adani-mini-mine-gets-go-ahead-from-indian-parent/10568420
10
TWEET: Nitin Sethi, Business Standard India
19 minutes ago:
Notes outed from behind closed door: #COP24 heads for a crisis, a possible crash as differentiation is diluted beyond #ParisAgreement in the draft rulebool and US demands equity and loss and damage to be scrubbed out from it LINK
https://twitter.com/nit_set/status/1073542807565025280
tons of detail, but the update is at the end, as excerpted here. however, best to read it all:
14 Dec: BusinessStandardIndia: Climate Conference faces a crisis as differentiation is diluted in rulebook
US does want equity and Loss and Damage mentioned in the Paris Agreement rulebook
by Nitin Sethi, Katowice
Several delegates from developed and developing countries also talked in the corridors after the talks shut at around 3:30 am on Saturday that the current negotiations could be suspended and reopened in six months again due to the impasse – an indirect way of saying the Katowice negotiations could collapse to failure because of the wide chasm that continued to exist between developing and developed countries till the last day.
https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/climate-conference-faces-a-crisis-as-differentiation-is-diluted-in-rulebook-118121400657_1.html
10
13 Dec: EurActiv: COP24: Return of king coal
By Aline Robert; translated by Rob Kirby
Poland is hosting lobbying for coal and fossil fuels of a scale that has rarely been seen during an annual UN conference on climate (COP). The EU is turning a blind eye to this new facet of its ‘enfant terrible.’ EURACTIV France reports (LINK)…
The country’s stand is covered with coal and displays products derived from coal, such as soaps and jewellery. On 4 December, at the opening press conference, Polish President Andrzej Duda highlighted the 200 years’ worth of coal reserves the country possesses on its own territory.
Fossil fuels in general have an open forum just about everywhere in the conference, whether it is gas or oil, as is the case at any energy fair. The Polish stand actively contributes to this by holding events on gas, steel and “clean” coal, which relies on carbon storage and capture
“The main subject of COP24 is coal and fossil fuels in the future,” MEP Jerzy Buzek had no hesitation in saying at an event on coal at the European Union’s stand.
The president of the European Parliament’s Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee backed up his comments with the fact that the European Parliament recently supported an initiative to allocate a €5 billion budget from the future European budget (2021-2027) to fund the “just transition” of coal regions.
This proposal is in line with the initiative to earmark 30% of the European budget for addressing global warming. However, it not clear how these funds will be used by the coal regions. While some genuinely want to accelerate the energy transition, others simply want to fund the status quo…
“The decision on this fund hasn’t been made yet, but we’re not so supportive, we support a just transition, but not by transferring funds,” said Wendel Trio, Director of Climate Action Network Europe.
The Greens also believe that the idea is not the most appropriate one.
“The EU has already given billions to Poland under the carbon market, that’s enough,” objected Yannick Jadot, a French MEP who is part of the European Parliament’s delegation at COP24…
“We are very disappointed by the Polish government’s position, which is an obstacle to the Paris Agreement,” said Professor Zbigniew Karaczun, an expert of the Polish Climate Coalition. “Since the beginning of COP, the government has been discussing adaptation and CO2 capture and storage, but not decarbonisation. Whereas that’s what it’s all about!”
The EU unblinkingly supports this attitude, which is hardly compatible with the Paris Agreement and which the 28 EU member states are supposed to support in the negotiations…
The Polish presidency of the COP attempted to move the boundaries by proposing new texts on Wednesday (12 December) in order to reach a result at the end of the week. This is because the country is not willing to carry the political burden of a failed conference.
Moreover, the Polish ministry of energy is aware of the need to turn the page, if only on economic grounds. Given the price increase for a tonne of CO2 to around €20 per tonne, even burning domestic coal is expensive, and it affects business competitiveness.
In the autumn, Poland therefore committed to reducing its energy dependence on coal, which is currently at 78%, to 50% in 2040. However, it has also committed to removing all onshore wind energy by this date.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/climate-environment/news/cop24-return-of-king-coal
10
So I chose Elec Eng and now mostly write programs.
I’m not worth a pinch of…anything in a world that expects their machinery to keep working forever based on work I did 20 years ago.
If I’d chosen more physics and woven a few Stefan-Boltzmans though it all… coulda been like a rock star.
Luck of the draw I suppose
10
not only are FakeNewsMSM totally ignoring Nitin Sethi’s Bill Hare/Climate Analytics’ blockbuster expose, as expected, they are still quoting them!
and they couldn’t be more out of line with COP24! lol.
14 Dec: Guardian: Pacific nations under climate threat urge Australia to abandon coal within 12 years
Frustrated leaders appeal to ‘all OECD countries’ to phase out use as Australia signals support for new plants
by Ben Doherty in Katowice
Leaders warned Australia’s relations in the Pacific were being eroded by a perceived intransigence in Canberra over coalmining…
The Fijian prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, the outgoing president of COP23, said: “We call on all OECD countries to quickly phase out their use of coal by 2030 and for all other countries to phase out their use of coal by 2040. There must be no expansion of existing coal mines or the creation of new mines.”
Australia and the US have both this week said publicly they have no plans to begin phasing out coal-generated power…
***Bill Hare, director of climate analytics and former Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report lead author, said the Pacific states were right to be concerned about coal.
“Their call for an end to coal by 2030 – including new mines – is highly relevant to Australia – their regional neighbour,” Hare said. “The timing is important, just as the government announces plans to underwrite a new coal-fired power station. I hope Australians will listen, even if their government won’t.”…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/14/pacific-nations-under-climate-threat-urge-australia-to-abandon-coal-within-12-years
South China Morning Post is carrying the above!
14 Dec: SouthChinaMorningPost: from The Guardian: Frustrated Pacific nations threatened by climate change urge Australia to abandon coal within 12 years
•More than a dozen island countries have warned that Australia’s relations in the region were being eroded by its continued use and expansion of coal power plants
AFR is even funnier. we’re “weird”, the “butt” of jokes, “worse than Italy”, a “basket case”, and
Climate Analytics has found more criticism in an ACF report!
14 Dec: AFR: Pressure builds for Australia to adopt carbon policies to achieve Paris targets
By Ben Potter
Australia’s weird political hunger games are the butt of many a good natured joke at any international gathering and this week’s COP24 United Nations climate change talks in Poland are no exception…
A lot of international delegates were shaking their heads at how Australia is now “worse than Italy”, and consternation from Japanese delegates about how Australian energy prices have soared in recent years…
Similar to the recent meeting of leaders of the Group of 20 top economies in Buenos Aires, there’s a sense that we are a bit of a basket case when it comes to climate policy and the general instability of our politics, along with a hope we will pull out of it, Australian Industry Group policy director Tennant Reid said from Katowice.
But the substantive discussions reveal a momentum towards more ambitious climate targets that increasingly leave countries like Australia that have back pedalled in recent years out of step. Australia is represented at COP24 (COP stands for conference of the parties) by Woodside Petroleum, BHP, environment minister Melissa Price and climate ambassador Patrick Suckling…
***Climate Analytics found in a report for the Australian Conservation Foundation that Australia’s manufacturing sector is effectively standing still on improving energy efficiency and falling ***behind global leaders Germany, italy, Japan, France and the US….
https://www.afr.com/news/pressure-builds-for-australia-to-adopt-carbon-policies-to-achieve-paris-targets-20181214-h1947f
10
If there is less ice coverage at high latitudes, there would also be more evaporation which would cool the surface waters, but very slightly. There would be more fog and cloud formation as well, therefore increasing albedo. Condensation causes some warming, but reflection of incoming solar energy counters that effect.
Ironically, over the satellite record, sea ice extent in the Antarctic has increased during many of the years when Arctic sea ice extent declined.
Typically, the ICCP ignores negative feedbacks while focusing exclusively on relatively insignificant positive feedbacks. It’s much more complicated.
10
Two Points Antarctica drifted South then the climate changed then it began to Ice-up. This caused the land mass to buckle and this caused Vulcanism. How much of the CO2 in the Vostok ice cores is local and not global?
We have just one CO2 measurement station and the last I heard there is a very active Volcano near by!
And IPCC and politicians decide to act with information from just one measurement station!?!?!
00