Global warming slowdown probably due to natural cycles, study finds

Sorry folks [image credit: wikia]

The Guardian newspaper finally facing up to climate reality? Well, after a fashion. Their global warming can may have been kicked down the road for a while, that’s all.

The idea that natural variation could make temperatures go up as well as down is still not for discussion in their biased climate world.

H/T Lord Beaverbrook.

Guardian report: Manmade global warming over the past decade has probably been partly offset by the cooling effect of natural variability in the Earth’s climate system, a team of climate researchers have concluded.

The finding could help explain the slowdown in temperature rises this century that climate sceptics have seized on as evidence climate change has stopped, even though 14 of the 15 hottest years on record have happened since 2000.

The authors of the new paper describe the slowdown, sometimes called a global warming hiatus or pause, as a “false pause”. They warn that the natural cycles in the Pacific and Atlantic that they found are currently having an overall cooling effect on temperatures will reverse in the coming decades – at which point warming will accelerate again.

John Brignell: How we know they know they are lying

H/T to tweeter ‘ILuvCO2′ for reminding me about this essay from the excellent ‘numberwatch’ website, written by its owner John Brignell back in 2009. Still fresh and relevant.

That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright,
But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.
Tennyson – The Grandmother.

It is to some extent forgivable when people adopt extreme positions out of misapprehension or delusion. It is quite another matter if they mislead others by deliberate falsehood. Politicians, of course, treat the lie as part of their professional equipment. Indeed, in some circumstances they are obliged to use it (when, for example, telling the truth about the economy would cause a run on the currency). In science, up to recent times, there is no circumstance in which a deliberate falsehood is justifiable. It requires at a minimum being drummed out of one’s learned society.

All that has changed with the rise of authoritarian government. In Britain this took the form of nationalisation of the universities, begun under Thatcher and completed under Blair.  In the USA it took the form of new state-funded bureaucracies, such as the EPA, who maintained control by the monopoly of funding. The global warming religion changed everything.

Record Antarctic sea ice still ‘a mystery’

Tackling Antarctic sea ice [image credit: BBC / BAS]

There seems no end in sight to the long-term growth of seasonal Antarctic sea ice, reports RTCC (link below). This continues to ‘baffle scientists’, to quote the usual expression.

‘Conventional’ climate theories can’t account for this phenomenon except by stretching the existing logic to the limit and beyond.

Sea ice coverage in the Antarctic continues to increase, according to data released on Thursday by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The ocean’s sea ice levels were 44.6% higher than the 1981-2010 average, breaking a previous record set in 2008 by 220,000 square miles.

Oops! One wrong equation caused the #climate scare!

Reposted from the Climate Sceptic Party. H/T the Hockey Schtick

How did many usually sensible experts get “GLOBAL WARMING” so very wrong?

VERY SIMPLE…..

Oops! One wrong equation caused the climate scare!

RED FACES all around among the profiteers of doom. A wrong equation that falsely triples the tiny direct warming caused by doubling CO2 concentration has been discovered and exposed in a major peer-reviewed paper just published in the Science Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences  (LINK – pdf), one of the world’s top peer review science journals.

No rogue equation means no climate crisis.

Ole Humlum: Climate 4 You annual report 2014

Ole Humlum has produced a report of 2014 climate (pdf 2.1mb), download and enjoy. Ole’s use of a 1998-2006 baseline shows the current state of play against the peak years of ‘global warming’, hence the cool colours, indicating the climate’s gentle descent towards the expected minimum around 2035 as the predicted long slide in solar activity levels starts to take effect.

Celestial light and earthshine

This paper is about adding a further layer of correction to earthshine measurements and therefore albedo determination by terrestrial based observations.

Influence of celestial light on lunar surface brightness determinations: Application to earthshine studies
P. Thejll, H. Gleisner, C. Flynn
A&A 573 A131 (2015)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201424824
(open access with registration)

ABSTRACT

Aims. We consider the influence of celestial-sphere brightness on determinations of terrestrial albedo from earthshine intensity
measurements. In particular, the contributions from zodiacal light and starlight are considered.

…

Results. We find that celestial-sphere surface brightness can be so large that a considerable and unacceptable error level would have
an impact on half of typical earthshine-based albedo-determinations if left unaccounted for. Considering the empirical uncertainty on
ZL, we show that almost all our earthshine data can be used if a sky correction is made. In real observations we find up to a 1% effect
on albedo results of correcting for the celestial brightness.
…

Tom Harris: We need wise men and women to defang the climate debate

Reblog from BD live

MANY of the world’s leaders in science, engineering and other relevant disciplines will no longer comment publicly about climate change. They fear being labelled scaremongers, or deniers, or funded by special interest groups, or not caring about the poor.

This must change this year or what promises to be the largest global warming agreement in history will be signed at the United Nations climate conference in December with little or no input from many of the brightest minds in the field.

Taming the noxious and illogical climate change debate will not be easy. We will need strong public leadership from philosophers and other scholars who study rational argumentation to help us overcome the errors in thinking that are sabotaging the discussion. At stake are billions of dollars, countless jobs and, if activists are right, the fate of the global environment itself. Intellectuals have a moral duty to tackle this problem.

Ed Hoskins: Temperature reduction outcomes from de-carbonisation

Third in a trilogy of guest posts from Ed Hoskins. This one looks at how much temperature would be reduced if we committed economic suicide.

Temperature reduction outcomes from de-carbonisation
Ed Hoskins MAarch (Cantab)  BDS (Lond).

To quantify what might be achieved by any political action for de-carbonization by Western economies, the comparative tables below show the remaining effectiveness of each 100ppm^v tranche up to 1000ppmv, with the total global warming in each of the five diminution assessments.  These estimates depend on the calculations set out in the following associated essay:

https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/2014/09/13/the-diminishing-influence-of-increasing-carbon-dioxide-co2-on-temperature/

The table below shows the likely range of warming arising from these divergent (sceptical and IPCC) views, (without feedbacks, which are questionably either negative or positive: but probably not massively positive as assumed by CAGW alarmists), that would be averted with an increase of CO2 for the full increase from 400 ppm^v  up to 1000 ppm^v.The results above for countries and country groups show a range for whichever scenario of only a matter of a few thousandths to a few hundredths of a degree Centigrade.

Ed Hoskins: The diminishing influence of increasing Carbon Dioxide CO2 on temperature

Here’s another guest post from Ed Hoskins. This one deals with the IPCC’s own figures fro the effect of CO2 on global tamperature, demonstrating that due to the logarithmic limitation as this trace gas increases, future warming will be limited to within beneficial limits.

The diminishing influence of increasing Carbon Dioxide CO2 on temperature
Ed Hoskins MAarch (Cantab)  BDS (Lond).

The temperature increasing capacity of atmospheric CO2 is theoretically plausible, but its influence is known and widely accepted to diminish as its concentration increases. It diminishes logarithmically with increasing concentration.

Global Warming advocates and Climate Change sceptics both agree on this. IPCC Published reports, (TAR), acknowledge that the effective temperature increase caused by growing concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere radically diminishes with increasing concentrations. This information has been presented in the IPCC reports. It is well disguised for any lay reader, (Chapter 6. Radiative Forcing of Climate Change: section 6.3.4 Total Well-Mixed Greenhouse Gas Forcing Estimate) [i].

Ole Humlum: Climate Indices November Analysis

Ole Humlum, one of the PRP contributors, has emailed me the climate4you November roundup of global temperature records and other climate metrics from the various providers. Clear analysis with informed commentary, the full document is available here.

BBC News – Arctic sea ice volume holds up in 2014

On tour in the Arctic
[credit: US Navy]

Now that the so-called ‘climate summit’ is out of the way, the BBC finds itself forced to admit that reports of the impending death of Arctic sea ice were greatly exaggerated. There’s even talk of ‘modest growth’ – shock horror!

Arctic sea ice may be more resilient than many observers recognise.

While global warming seems to have set the polar north on a path to floe-free summers, the latest data from Europe’s Cryosat mission suggests it may take a while yet to reach those conditions.

[Straw-clutching going on there?]

Ferenc Miskolczi: The Greenhouse Effect and the Infrared Radiative Structure of the Earth’s Atmosphere

Ferenc Miskolczi

Well here’s a nice surprise. Out of the blue, Dr Ferenc Miskolczi has dropped a link onto Tim Channon’s thread, which goes to his major new paper, published by the SEI. So we are privileged to be among the first to read it and start a discussion. It challenges the entire basis of the IPCC AGW theory by deriving a theoretical atmosphere which fits observations and demonstrates stability of the Earth’s radiative balance. Thanks Ferenc!

Ferenc Mikolczi 2014 Abstract

Geo-Engineering rent-seekers press on despite own models predicting huge downsides

Without comment, an extract from a Guardian piece:

Prof Piers Forster, at the University of Leeds, led a project using in-computer models to assess six types of SRM (Solar Radiation Management). All reduced temperatures but all also worsened floods or droughts for 25%-65% of the global population, compared to the expected impact of climate change:

• mimicking a volcano by spraying sulphate particles high into the atmosphere to block sunlight adversely affected 2.8bn people
• spraying salt water above the oceans to whiten low clouds and reflect sunlight adversely affected 3bn people
• thinning high cirrus clouds to allow more heat to escape Earth adversely affected 2.4bn people
• generating microbubbles on the ocean surface to whiten it and reflect more sunlight adversely affected 2bn people
• covering all deserts in shiny material adversely affected 4.1bn people
• growing shinier crops adversely affected 1.4bn people

Royal Soc Report Blames Somerset Floods on Climate Change – Ignores Env Agency Failings

The BBC’s Roger Harrabin reports on a Royal Society report into the Somerset flooding (with a straight face). We covered this extensively as it happened last winter

The authors of a Royal Society report on resilience to extreme weather have told BBC News that they believe the campaign to protect the Levels prompted politics to override science.

They say those resident on the Levels may have to get used to living with floods, and they question whether investment to protect farmland is the best use of public money.

“These so-called experts haven’t got a clue what they are talking about. We are used to being flooded – but we don’t expect to get ignored for so long”

James WinsladeSomerset farmer

Rupert Darwall: Energy policy and the return of the State

Reposted from Reform.co.uk

Energy policy and the return of the State
Rupert Darwall

Energy policy represents the biggest expansion of state power since the nationalisations of the 1940s and 1950s and is on course to becoming the most costly domestic policy disaster in modern British history. By committing the nation to high cost, unreliable renewable energy, its consequences will be felt for decades to come. Energy is an iceberg policy: its implications for the demise of a competitive market in electricity – the final achievement of the Thatcher years – are poorly understood and tend to be consigned to footnotes and annexes of policy documents.

Like its predecessor, the Coalition Government has three policy objectives:

Keeping the lights on;
Keeping energy bills affordable; and
Decarbonising energy generation.

These do not require the policies the Government is implementing. Indeed, energy policy militates against having cheap, reliable energy. Worries about the lights going out have intensified as the country becomes more dependent on the weather for its electricity. The market is the best way of providing reliable and affordable electricity. Converting the electricity system to wind and solar power does neither. Even on favourable assumptions, these are inefficient ways of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Jarl Ahlbeck: A link between Low solar activity, Easterly QBO, negative AO and cold NH winters

Future low solar activity periods may cause cold winters in North America, Europe and Russia.
Jarl Ahlbeck – Abo Akademi University, Finland

Historically, low solar activity periods like the Dalton and Maunder Minima have been connected to cold winters in Europe. It seems very possible that the low solar activity forced areas of low pressures into a southern route or caused a negative Arctic Oscillation, AO, which in turn allowed cold air from the North Pole to flow across Europe. But can we obtain from real measurements that low solar activity really is able to do that?

Walter Starck: The Climate Scam’s Meltdown

HT to the Hockeyschtick for spotting this essay from Marine Biologist Walter Starck at Quadrant Online. More scientists are coming out to call the alarmist position for what it is.

Walter Starck: The Climate Scam’s Meltdown

The rent-seekers, opportunists, third-rate academics, carbon-market scam artists and peddlers of catastrophic prophecy can see the alarmist bubble deflating, so they’re trying harder than ever to sustain the scare. Problem is, Mother Nature isn’t cooperating.

This doesn’t mean the climate change “debate” will stop, the news media will cease reporting weather as a dire threat, or that the true believers will no longer be obsessed by it. However, the ultimate arbiter, climate itself, has made clear its decision by ceasing to warm for over 18 years. Despite the ongoing use of fossil fuels, a proclaimed 95% certainty of 97% of scientists and the high-powered projections of the world’s most advanced climate models, the climate has refused to pay the slightest heed.

Contrary to all the confidence and predictions of alleged experts, storms are no more intense nor frequent, while droughts, floods and sea levels have declined to confirm alarmists’ barely concealed hopes of disasters. The simple fact is that the alleged experts and their high-powered models were wrong. The climate has ceased to warm and, with little or no [enhanced] greenhouse warming, the entire theory of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW), aka Climate Change (CC), aka Global Warming, aka Extreme Weather, is left with no basis.

Donohoe et al: The missing piece of the climate puzzle

This article caught my eye because Isaac Held stuck his oar in. Talkshop readers will have a field day with this I think.

Researchers show that a canonical view of global warming tells only half the story.
Genevieve Wanucha | Program in Atmospheres Oceans and Climate
November 10, 2014

In classrooms and everyday conversation, explanations of global warming hinge on the greenhouse gas effect. In short, climate depends on the balance between two different kinds of radiation: The Earth absorbs incoming visible light from the sun, called “shortwave radiation,” and emits infrared light, or “longwave radiation,” into space.

Upsetting that energy balance are rising levels of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO₂), that increasingly absorb some of the outgoing longwave radiation and trap it in the atmosphere. Energy accumulates in the climate system, and warming occurs. But in a paper out this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, MIT researchers show that this canonical view of global warming is only half the story.

IPCC: Definition of the greenhouse effect

From http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/518.htm

Greenhouse effect
Greenhouse gases effectively absorb infrared radiation, emitted by the Earth’s surface, by the atmosphere itself due to the same gases, and by clouds. Atmospheric radiation is emitted to all sides, including downward to the Earth’s surface. Thus greenhouse gases trap heat within the surface-troposphere system. This is called the natural greenhouse effect.
Atmospheric radiation is strongly coupled to the temperature of the level at which it is emitted. In the troposphere the temperature generally decreases with height. Effectively, infrared radiation emitted to space originates from an altitude with a temperature of, on average, -19°C, in balance with the net incoming solar radiation, whereas the Earth’s surface is kept at a much higher temperature of, on average, +14°C.

Germany to Abandon Strict ‘2020’ Climate Change Targets

Coal: back to the future
[image credit: BBC]

The penny has finally dropped at the top political level in Germany that abandoning nuclear power and setting stiff carbon dioxide reduction targets is impossible, without severely damaging the economy and risking mass power shortages.

Of course the usual fanatics continue to insist that such a price has to be paid, seemingly oblivious to the long-term standstill in global temperatures that suggests so-called climate policy is largely irrelevant anyway.

Breitbart London reports: Germany’s Vice Chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, has indicated that the country will abandon its commitment to reducing CO2 emissions by 40 percent by 2020, from a 1990 base level.