IPCC and Sceptics Agree: Climate Change Is Not Causing Extreme Weather

Climate theory used to hold that there was a link between the amount of extreme weather and the equator-pole temperature gradient, meaning that warming poles should mean less of it, not more. But nowadays almost anything unusual can be labelled extreme weather by alarmists, creating headlines but no understanding of the climate.
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A new Global Warming Policy Foundation report from retired physicist Ralph Alexander, Ph.D. (Oxford University) supports the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s conclusion there is limited scientific evidence linking human-caused climate change to increases in extreme weather, says H.Sterling Burnett.

Alexander’s conclusions are also confirmed by recent documents produced by Heartland Institute Senior Fellow and meteorologist Anthony Watts on the Climate at a Glance website.

Alexander’s paper begins by remarking, “The purported link between extreme weather and global warming has captured the public imagination and attention of the mainstream media far more than any of the other claims made by the narrative of human-caused climate change.”

This is odd because data and analyses from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the U.N. body that climate alarmists in academic, political, and media circles continually cite as the authoritative source of information on climate change, confirm that “if there is any trend at all in extreme weather, it’s downward rather than upward.

Our most extreme weather, be it heat wave, drought, flood, hurricane or tornado, occurred many years ago, long before the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere began to climb at its present rate,” writes Alexander.

“Recent atmospheric heat waves in western Europe,” writes Alexander, “pale in comparison with the soaring temperatures of the 1930s, a period when three of the seven continents and 32 of the 50 US states set all-time high temperature records, which still stand today.”

Nor has the IPCC discerned or identified any long-term trend in drought patterns, either in the United States or globally.

And even though rainfall has modestly increased in recent years, there is no evidence floods are becoming more frequent or severe.

Many recent flood events can be traced almost entirely to land-use changes such as channelization, deforestation, the destruction of wetlands, and the building of dams, Alexander notes.

Continued here.

Beast from the East blamed for Scotland missing climate change target

Closed due to snow
Image credit: BBC

You couldn’t make this stuff up. An artificial so-called climate target was defeated by one of nature’s cold snaps. The mind boggles at the idiotic pretentiousness of their climate obsession, helpless in the face of weather.
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The Beast from the East, which shut down much of the country in 2018, has been blamed for Scotland missing a climate target, says The Scotsman.

Unseasonably cold temperatures and heavy snowfall brought transport to a halt and closed schools in late February and early March two years ago.

High snow levels indicate very weak Nordic power prices this summer

Was it like this?

This story may not make headline news, so let’s give it an airing here. Nordic countries are well used to winter snow, so when they talk of a ‘snow-rich’ winter they mean exactly that.
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Electricity prices in the Nordic countries are likely to be unusually low this summer amid high inflows to hydropower plants, caused by a combination of a very snow-rich winter and late snowmelt, says Phys.org.

Electricity prices in the Nordic countries are likely to be unusually low this summer amid high inflows to hydropower plants, caused by a combination of a very snow-rich winter and late snowmelt.

“May was cooler than normal in Scandinavia and June has also started on the cool side. This has led to snowpack melting a bit later than it usually does,” Nathalie Schaller, a senior researcher at CICERO Center for International Climate Research, said during a webinar organised on 8 June as part of the S2S4E project.

BBC: Can computers solve UK weird weather puzzle?

Credit: BBC

What weird weather puzzle? Static high or low pressure systems (blocking patterns) are not that uncommon or unusual, but are likely to be pounced on by headline-seeking climate alarmists. And statistics for calendar months (‘wettest February’) are to some extent just arbitrary period selection. Better theories might be at least as useful as fancier computers.
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A top climate scientist has called for more investment in climate computing to explain the UK’s recent topsy turvy weather, reports BBC News.

Prof Tim Palmer from Oxford University said there were still too many unknowns in climate forecasting.

And in the month the SpaceX launch grabbed headlines, he said just one of the firm’s billions could transform climate modelling.

Calls to add ‘climate change’ to Australian death certificates

Tasmanian bush fire, 2013 [image credit: Chuq @ Wikipedia]

Climate alarmists yet again strain credulity to the limit, no doubt hoping to stir up guilt in the populace about energy use.
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Heat-related deaths have been “substantially underreported” on Australia’s national records, according to experts from The Australian National University (ANU).  

Researchers say the amount of deaths attributed to excessive natural heat is at least 50 times more than recorded on death certificates.  

Published in The Lancet Planetary Health, figures show over the past 11 years 340 deaths in Australia were recorded as being due to excessive heat but statistical analysis found 36,765 deaths could have been attributed to heat.

“Climate change is a killer, but we don’t acknowledge it on death certificates,” co-author Dr Arnagretta Hunter, from the ANU Medical School, said.

Patagonian dust streamers resemble those on Mars

Image credit: NASA-ISS

Dust storms are common in the region, and sometimes bear resemblance to weather events on Mars, according to NASA.
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A surging dust storm and trailing dust cloud captured an astronaut’s attention as the International Space Station (ISS) was passing over South America, says NASA’s Earth Observatory.

Dust storms are common in Patagonia and familiar for people in Comodoro Rivadavia, a coastal city in southern Argentina.

The primary source of dust is Lago Colhué Huapí, a shallow lake adjacent to the much deeper Lago Musters.

Cold air rises—what that means for Earth’s climate

Tropical beach

Are these researchers proposing a kind of reverse greenhouse effect in the tropics?

Conventional knowledge has it that warm air rises while cold air sinks, says Phys.org.

But a study from the University of California, Davis, found that in the tropical atmosphere, cold air rises due to an overlooked effect—the lightness of water vapor.

This effect helps to stabilize tropical climates and buffer some of the impacts of a warming climate.

The study, published today in the journal Science Advances, is among the first to show the profound implications water vapor buoyancy has on Earth’s climate and energy balance.

Solar power plants get help from satellites to predict cloud cover

Image credit: MIT

At least they don’t need any help predicting hours of darkness.
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The output of solar energy systems is highly dependent on cloud cover, says Science Daily.

While weather forecasting can be used to predict the amount of sunlight reaching ground-based solar collectors, cloud cover is often characterized in simple terms, such as cloudy, partly cloudy or clear.

This does not provide accurate information for estimating the amount of sunlight available for solar power plants.

In this week’s Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, from AIP Publishing, a new method is reported for estimating cloud optical properties using data from recently launched satellites.

Self-isolation proves a boon to rainfall project

OCR software isn’t up to the job apparently. Let’s hope they don’t resort to data ‘adjustments’ after all the public’s efforts. Rain is a popular topic in the UK.

Scientists have been amazed at the public’s response to help digitise the UK’s old rainfall records, reports BBC News.

Handwritten numbers on documents dating back 200 years are being transferred to a spreadsheet format so that computers can analyse past weather patterns.

The volunteers blitzed their way through rain gauge data from the 1950s, 40s and 30s in just four days.

Project leader Prof Ed Hawkins had suggested the work might be a good way for people to use self-isolation time.

“It’s been incredible. I thought we might get this far after three or four weeks, not three or four days,” he told BBC News.

England’s water resource muddle

Mixed messages ahead. Can anyone explain the apparent discrepancies?

The UK Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs has issued a warning: large areas of England will face significant risk of drought due to climate change, and water companies need to find billions of extra liters per day by 2050 to keep up, reports New Atlas.

But days earlier we had this from the Met Office Press Office:
Climate change to bring heavier rainfall events.

Flashback to 2009: Researchers Say Sun Cycle Alters Earth’s Climate

Variation in solar activity during a recent sunspot cycle [credit: Wikipedia]

This seems worth another airing in the face of today’s insistent, but evidence-light, claims from climate obsessives that the world’s present and future weather is going to be largely determined by human activities.

If the energy from the sun varies by only 0.1 percent during the 11-year solar cycle, could such a small variation drive major changes in weather patterns on Earth? – asks Universe Today.

Yes, say researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) who used more than a century of weather observations and three powerful computer models in their study.

They found subtle connections between solar cycle, the stratosphere, and the tropical Pacific Ocean that work in sync to generate periodic weather patterns that affect much of the globe.

Scientists say this will help in predicting the intensity of certain climate phenomena, such as the Indian monsoon and tropical Pacific rainfall, years in advance.

Germany’s weather service starts ten-year forecast ‘to improve climate adaptation’

Credit: geologycafe.com [click on image to enlarge]

That’s the idea anyway. They expect warmer weather to lead to drier conditions upto 2025. Perhaps a bit odd on the face of it, as the steamy tropics have rainforests whereas icy Antarctica is the driest continent on Earth.
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A new decade-long weather forecast made by Germany’s Meteorological Service (DWD) is supposed to improve the country’s climate change adaptation capabilities, says Clean Energy Wire.

“Our new forecast for the next ten years fills the gap between existing climate forecasts for the next months and long-term climate projections until the end of the century,” said DWD climatology head Tobias Fuchs.

The forecast project, supported by Germany’s research ministry, could be used by policymakers, business leaders and others to adapt their investment decisions to climate change, he added.

Get Ready for Sprite Season

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Includes a beginner’s guide to the various types of sprite now known to occur.

Spaceweather.com

March 7, 2020: Sprite season is coming. Spring thunderstorms often produce the year’s first big bursts of upward-directed lightning. To get ready, Puerto Rican sprite chaser Frankie Lucena has prepared a chart to identify the different forms, including a newly-discovered type of sprite called “the Ghost.”

“This chart provides just a glimpse of what can be seen and photographed above very strong thunderstorms,” says Lucena. “I used actual images, enhanced and slightly modified to better show what they actually look like.”

“This is the first chart to show the Ghost and a Negative Sprite event,” he continues. “The Ghost is a green colored shadow that appears above some sprites. The green color is caused by electrons exciting oxygen molecules in the mesosphere, approximately 80 km high. A Negative Sprite is triggered by a -CG lightning discharge as opposed to a regular sprite which is triggered by a +CG lightning discharge.”…

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ARCTIC SEA ICE –Icebreaker Trapped Resupplying MOSAiC–

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The MOSAiC crowd ignored the fact they would be in the Arctic at solar minimum, and a deeper than usual one at that. Here’s the result.

Sunrise's Swansong

In my last post I mentioned that the Russian icebreaker  Kapitan Dranitsyn had to battle thick sea-ice to resupply the Polarstern at the MOSAiC site. Contact was successful, and cranes began to  unload and load supplies that were hauled by tractor between the two ships.

A fresh crew of scientists relieved the crew that has been working there.

With temperatures down around -30ºC, the open water in the wake of the Kapitan Dranitsyn froze over swiftly. Men could walk on the new ice within 24 hours.

By the time the transfer of men and supplies was complete the ship was frozen so fast it could not extract itself. The news is now that the Russians are sending a second icebreaker, the Admiral Makarov, to help the first icebreaker free itself. (Note the twilight in the above picture. The are located close enough to the Pole to see a very swift…

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Storm Dennis: Minister says climate change means government can’t protect everyone from flooding

Image credit: Newsyworld

Not sure where the 90 mph winds were supposed to be (the report says ‘parts of the UK’), but it has been blustery on and off for a few days. Enough for politicians to raise the spectre of ‘climate change’ once again, anyway. The video of an A380 Airbus making a hairy ‘crab’ landing at Heathrow, ending on the grass off the main runway, gives some indication of wind strength.

One reporter jokingly suggested watching the massive plane struggling to get on the ground could help climate campaigners, by putting people off flying altogether.
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Storm Dennis battered the UK with flooding, heavy rain and 90mph winds at the weekend.

A minister has said climate change means the government cannot protect every household from flooding, reports Yahoo News.

New environment minister George Eustice claimed the government had not been caught off-guard by the floods caused by Storm Dennis.

Met Office forecasters set for ‘billion pound’ supercomputer

A beefier computer is still just a computer. The report says ‘Around half of the processing work – the research devoted to climate change – could be located in countries blessed with easy sources of clean energy. Iceland with its geothermal sources and Norway with its hydropower are both possibilities’.

Ever wondered why your village was suddenly flooded by a thunderstorm the weather forecasters hadn’t mentioned? Or why they failed to warn you about the dense fog shrouding your home in the morning?

The fact is that predicting the “big picture” of future conditions has got a lot better – Storm Dennis was spotted six days before it arrived, says BBC News.

But getting local forecasts right – street by street and hour by hour – is still a massive challenge.

And that might now change as the Met Office secures the help of a supercomputer project costing £1.2bn.

On Cue — After Droughts And Fires, Then Come The Floods

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Once again old-fashioned weather has blown up in the faces of know-it-all climate alarm propagandists.

PA Pundits - International

From the team at CFACT ~

By Joanne Nova~

So much for the “hotter drier” Australian future they were warning us about 3 weeks ago.

As predicted, droughts in Australia often end in floods. It is the way it has always been. Today people are already being rescued from the rising water and possibly another 200 -300mm of rain may fall before Sunday warns the BOM. Many fires have been extinguished.

Climate change has made no difference to the drought trends in Australia in the last 178 years and climate models are totally skilless at rainfall. When will the climate modelers admit that these are natural cycles?

‘We’re only half way through’: East coast smashed by flashflooding and heavy winds

Forecasters become increasingly concerned that even more rain could fall even faster than expected as five people have been rescued from floods.

The NSW State Emergency Service issued a…

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Venice canals almost run dry just two months after flooding

Low tide in Venice

This so-called man-made climate change thing must be a versatile beast, if it exists outside of myths. Wednesday’s rare super blue blood moon gets some of the blame here, but recent low rainfall also played a part.

Although the water levels in the city’s famous canals rise and fall with the tide, exceptionally low tides have left canals bare, reports Sky News.

Two months ago the high tide in Venice peaked at 187cm (6.14ft), leaving around 70% of the lagoon city centre under salt water.

Australian Bushfires Much Worse In 1974/5

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Note to climate doomers: weather can, and does, vary without assistance from humans.

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

An important and, as usual, forensic contribution from Roy Spencer:

Summary Points

1) Global wildfire activity has decreased in recent decades, making any localized increase (or decrease) in wildfire activity difficult to attribute to ‘global climate change’.

2) Like California, Australia is prone to bushfires every year during the dry season. Ample fuel and dry weather exists for devastating fires each year, even without excessive heat or drought, as illustrated by the record number of hectares burned (over 100 million) during 1974-75 when above-average precipitation and below-average temperatures existed.

3) Australian average temperatures in 2019 were well above what global warming theory can explain, illustrating the importance of natural year-to-year variability in weather patterns (e.g. drought and excessively high temperatures).

4) Australia precipitation was at a record low in 2019, but climate models predict no long-term trend in Australia precipitation, while the observed trend has been upward…

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Claim: newly identified jet-stream pattern could imperil global food supplies

Omega blocking highs can remain in place for several days or even weeks [image credit: UK Met Office]

Another day, another attempt at a climate scare story. That’s a well-identified pattern too. But is this jet-stream pattern really ‘newly’ identified, or was it described by NASA nine years ago? Meteorology uses the term omega block. Which side of the block a region is on determines whether it’s warmer or colder than normal for the duration.

Scientists have identified systematic meanders in the globe-circling northern jet stream that have caused simultaneous crop-damaging heat waves in widely separated breadbasket regions-a previously unquantified threat to global food production that, they say, could worsen with global warming.

The research shows that certain kinds of waves in the atmospheric circulation can become amplified and then lock in place for extended periods, triggering the concurrent heat waves, reports Phys.org.

Affected parts of North America, Europe and Asia together produce a quarter of the world food supply. The study appears this week in the journal Nature Climate Change.