Extinction Rebellion prosecutions ‘beggar belief’, says lawyer

Oxford Circus climate demo [image credit: London Evening Standard]

So does the manufactured climate alarm due to a minor trace gas in the atmosphere, but this is the world we find ourselves in.

A lawyer representing hundreds of Extinction Rebellion protesters said it “beggars belief” so many of them are being prosecuted, reports the Evening Standard. 

It comes as two courtrooms are being set aside for a day each week at Westminster Magistrates’ Court for 19 weeks, to deal with Extinction Rebellion protesters arrested in mass demonstrations across the capital.

Around 35 protesters are due to appear at City of London magistrates’ court on Friday, while it is thought more than 50 will be summonsed every Friday in August.

Rare snowfall blankets parts of Australia for first time in years

Queensland, Australia

Sub-tropical snow – some folk may have to manage without electricity from their solar panels until it goes 😎

Icy conditions are sweeping across eastern Australia, bringing snow to areas as far north as sub-tropical Queensland in what is believed to be the heaviest snowfall in years, reports the Evening Standard.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology described the weather as “rare” adding that Queensland had not experienced significant snowfall since 2015.

June marks the beginning of winter in Australia but the extreme weather is highly unusual, especially so early on in some areas of Tasmania, Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales.

Many took to social media to express their amazement at finding snow in their hometowns as well as sharing photos of Kangaroos and Tasmanian devils playing in the cold conditions.

The Blue Mountains west of Sydney woke on Tuesday to a blanket of snow, while there have been falls in Queensland’s Granite Belt region, west of Brisbane, although snow was not expected to settle.

Travellers are also being warned to expect delays on roads, rail, waterways and in the skies amid a day of wild weather and icy winds.

Full report here.

Mighty Greenland glacier slams on brakes

Jakobshavn glacier, West Greenland [image credit: Wikipedia]

Even the climate alarm oriented BBC has finally had to admit the inconvenient truth about Greenland’s largest glacier. Instead of dropping in height by 20m. a year, it’s now thickening by 20m. a year. This isn’t supposed to happen when one of the stock phrases of the fearmongering media is ‘the rapidly melting Arctic’. Of course logic says that since glaciers can grow naturally they can also retreat naturally, despite attempts to blame humans.

European satellites have detailed the abrupt change in behaviour of one of Greenland’s most important glaciers, says BBC News.

In the 2000s, Jakobshavn Isbrae was the fastest flowing ice stream on the island, travelling at 17km a year.

As it sped to the ocean, its front end also retreated and thinned, dropping in height by as much as 20m year.

But now it’s all change. Jakobshavn is travelling much more slowly, and its trunk has even begun to thicken and lengthen.

Summer extremes of 2018 linked to stalled giant waves in jet stream

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

Atmospheric blocking is a well-known weather phenomenon. The report below says ‘In recent years, the scientists observed a clear increase of these patterns’. But scientists have also reported a 20 year decline in solar magnetic fields and solar wind micro-turbulence levels. Coincidence, or possibly not?

Record breaking heatwaves and droughts in North America and Western Europe, torrential rainfalls and floods in South-East Europe and Japan – the summer of 2018 brought a series of extreme weather events that occurred almost simultaneously around the Northern Hemisphere in June and July, says IOP Publishing.

These extremes had something in common, a new study published today in Environmental Research Letters by an international team of climate researchers now finds.

The events were connected by a newly-identified pattern of the jet stream encircling the Earth. The jet stream formed a stalled wave pattern in the atmosphere, which made weather conditions more persistent and thus extreme in the affected regions.

The same pattern also occurred during European heat waves in 2015, 2006 and 2003, which rank among the most extreme heatwaves ever recorded. In recent years, the scientists observed a clear increase of these patterns.

Carbon Is Not A Synonym For Carbon Dioxide

.
.
As the author says: Deceit is the name of the game. To further the aims of propagandists with a political agenda, the harmless trace gas carbon dioxide gets branded as ‘pollution’ despite being essential and beneficial to plants, trees etc.

PA Pundits - International

By Dr. Jay Lehr ~

From the very day that Al Gore signed his name to the well known book, An Inconvenient Truth, the general population was told that carbon emissions were going to destroy our planet. Gore, more or less, coined the term “carbon footprint” (while always hiding the enormity of his own footprint). Gore and his cohorts were never actually talking about carbon. They were talking about carbon dioxide.

Initially they understood that most people recognize that they exhale carbon dioxide and plants absorb it in order to live. Not a dark thought. So in a universally evil desire to scare the populace, they seized on using the term carbon as a synonym for carbon dioxide knowing it would conjure up visions of soot, lamp black and coal dust none of which were warm and fuzzy. Carbon is a solid. Carbon dioxide is a colorless, odorless gas…

View original post 361 more words

Why Attenborough’s Walrus Claims Are Fake

.
.

Days to go before his climate propaganda show on BBC TV and already his penchant for suspect alarmist stories has been exposed. Maybe he should stick to what he knows best.

Update – see: ‘Our Planet’ film crew is still lying about walrus cliff deaths: here’s how we know – by Dr. Susan Crockford (posted 14th April 2019)

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

Our Planet has showcased hundreds of walruses falling off a 260ft cliff to a slow, agonising death in heartbreaking scenes

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/8800576/netflix-david-attenborough-our-planet-walrus-heartbreaking/

Last week, the new Netflix series, Our Planet, was launched with great fanfare. Narrated by David Attenborough, however, one segment made headlines around the world, showcasing hundreds of walruses falling off a 260ft cliff to a slow, agonising death in heartbreaking scenes.

Narrating the disturbing scene in the second episode, Attenborough began:

But the story quickly began to unravel.

View original post 1,371 more words

Large volcanic eruptions can alter hurricane strength and frequency

Intertropical Convergence Zone [image credit: University of New Mexico]

Another aspect of natural variability in weather and climate patterns emerges.

A new study led by Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory researcher Suzana Camargo and Université du Québec à Montréal’s Francesco Pausata provides deeper insight into how large volcanic eruptions affect hurricane activity, says Phys.org.

Previous studies could not clearly determine the effects of volcanic eruptions on hurricanes, because the few large volcanic eruptions in the last century coincided with El Niño-Southern Oscillation events, which also influence hurricane activity.

Natural climate processes overshadow recent human-induced Walker circulation trends

Credit: PAR @ Wikipedia

If you think you saw something about this a few days ago, you’re right. This article is a sort of follow-up that has appeared in Nature Climate Change on 1st April [sic] – abstract here. The ‘recent human-induced Walker circulation trends’ in the headline seem to be an artefact of some of the climate models, judging by the report. The authors make a telling point: ‘In contrast to the observed strengthening, the majority of climate computer models simulate a gradual weakening of the Walker Circulation when forced by increasing greenhouse gas concentrations’. So they got it exactly backwards? How unfortunate.

A new study, published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows that the recent intensification of the equatorial Pacific wind system, known as Walker Circulation, is unrelated to human influences and can be explained by natural processes, reports Phys.org.

This result ends a longstanding debate on the drivers of an unprecedented atmospheric trend, which contributed to a three-fold acceleration of sea level rise in the western tropical Pacific, as well as to the global warming hiatus.

Solar variability weakens the Walker cell

Credit: PAR @ Wikipedia

This looks significant, pointing directly at solar influences on climate patterns. The researchers found evidence that atmosphere-ocean coupling can amplify the solar signal, having detected that wind anomalies could not be explained by radiative considerations alone.

An international team of researchers from United Kingdom, Denmark, and Germany has found robust evidence for signatures of the 11-year sunspot cycle in the tropical Pacific, reports Phys.org.

They analyzed historical time series of pressure, surface winds and precipitation with specific focus on the Walker Circulation—a vast system of atmospheric flow in the tropical Pacific region that affects patterns of tropical rainfall.

They have revealed that during periods of increased solar irradiance, the trade winds weaken and the Walker circulation shifts eastward.

Energy giants spent $1bn on climate lobbying, PR since Paris: watchdog

Oil extraction [image credit: ewg.org]

It would be optimistic to expect any business to willingly cave in to pressure to become less successful, or let attempts to demonize it go unchallenged, especially for the sake of shaky climate theories. As long as the demand for their products is there, so will they be. World demand for oil is on the rise, regardless of those who wish otherwise.

The five largest publicly listed oil and gas majors have spent $1 billion since the 2015 Paris climate deal on public relations or lobbying that is “overwhelmingly in conflict” with the landmark accord’s goals, a watchdog said Friday.

Despite outwardly committing to support the Paris agreement and its aim to limit global temperature rises, ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP and Total spend a total of $200 million a year on efforts “to operate and expand fossil fuel operations,” according to InfluenceMap, a pro-transparency monitor.

Two of the companies—Shell and Chevron—said they rejected the watchdog’s findings, reports Phys.org.

Henrik Svensmark: FORCE MAJEURE The Sun’s Role in Climate Change

.
.
The author writes in his 40-page document: ‘This report is not meant to be an exhaustive representation of all the published papers related to a solar influence on Earth’s climate, but aims to give a clear presentation of the current knowledge on the link between solar activity and climate.’

Where does cosmic ray variation fit into the ‘big picture’ of solar influences on the Earth?

The Next Grand Minimum

I am still studying this paper but wanted to share and get your feedback

Executive Summary

Over the last twenty years there has been good progress in understanding the solar influ- ence on climate. In particular, many scientific studies have shown that changes in solar activ- ity have impacted climate over the whole Holocene period (approximately the last 10,000 years). A well-known example is the existence of high solar activity during the Medieval Warm Period, around the year 1000 AD, and the subsequent low levels of solar activity during the cold period, now called The Little Ice Age (1300–1850 AD). An important scientific task has been to quantify the solar impact on climate, and it has been found that over the eleven- year solar cycle the energy that enters the Earth’s system is of the order of 1.0–1.5 W/m2. This is nearly an order of magnitude larger than what would be…

View original post 218 more words

Climate Crisis? Four Major Metrics That Say Otherwise

Credit: planetsave.com

Joe Bastardi argues that loud claims of a climate about to spin out of control are out of tune with various actual observations.

I have long advocated that climatologists take a course on long-range forecasting so they can better understand the inherent errors in trying to predict the weather or climate, says Joe Bastardi at Patriot Post.

In the debate over the fate of the planet, where one side is always pushing hysteria, the weather is plainly not cooperating with the missive.

Forecasters take climatology classes and are now being taught the one-sided climate narrative, but in general, climatologists do not have to learn how to forecast.

Leading climate researcher calls for ban on domestic flights in Germany to save emissions

Image credit: emeraldmedia.co.uk

How about a ban on endless international climate conferences that lead to hundreds of flights – including many long-haul – but produce little of value, ‘to save emissions’? In fact the ’20 flights in a lifetime’ proposed here would probably have that effect anyway. The report ends with an apparent claim that particulates in the air are a ‘climate problem’.

Leading German climate scientist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber has called for a substantial shift in strategy for the tourism industry to make sure that its carbon footprint does not contribute to the sector’s possible demise.

“Tourism bites the hand that feeds it if it contributes to climate change,” the former director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) said at the ITB international tourism fair in Berlin.

If beaches around the world are flooded due to a global rise in temperature of 4 or 5 degrees Celsius, “there will be no more beach tourism,” Schellnhuber said.

Perspective Needed in Climate Debate

.
.
Unfortunately the IPCC shows little interest in perspective, preferring to trumpet absurd 8.5°C warming scenarios.

PA Pundits - International

Joe Bastardi  ~   

 

I went to school with a lot of great forecasters. One of them was Scott Chesner, who is an on-air meteorologist in Tyler, Texas. Scott tweeted something this week that I thought was quite profound regarding the current generation’s “consensus” on climate:

“One problem with global warming hysteria is ‘perspective.’ The warmer global temps of recent yrs. are relatively meaningless as we only have detailed records for~200 yrs. out of the Earth’s age of 4.5 billion yrs. That=30 sec. out of a person’s 80 yr. life!”

As you know, I am a big satellite-era proponent as far as temperatures are concerned. We have simply seen too much adjustment to older temperature records, and that has to at least raise questions. In almost every single case, temperatures are adjusted down in years before the satellite era.

This has some merit, given most errors on thermometers…

View original post 953 more words

China and ‘The Pause’

The pause seems to fit nicely into the gap between two major El Niños.
– – –
Chinese climate scientists: The so-called hiatus in global temperature is illuminating, significant and real.

Chinese climate scientists are clearly off-message, says Dr David Whitehouse, GWPF Science Editor.

They keep referring to the global warming hiatus which so many scientists and activists – those who shout on twitter and prowl the comment sections of off-colour articles on the subject – know has been trounced and discredited again and again. They clearly ought to have a word with the emerging science powerhouse that is China.

The coming revolution in LED lighting

LED street lighting

There’s more to LED lighting than meets the eye, for example in durability and reduced energy use, as Phys.org reports. But claims they can help the climate seem somewhat starry-eyed.

A revolution in energy-efficient, environmentally-sound, and powerfully-flexible lighting is coming to businesses and homes, according to a paper in latest special energy issue of Optics Express, the Optical Society’s (OSA) open-access journal.

The paper envisions the future of lighting—a future with widespread use of light emitting diodes (LEDs), which offer a number of obvious and subtle advantages over traditional light bulbs.

Where’s winter? Western Europe basks in record temperatures – but there’s a catch

Credit: planetsave.com

This report more or less answers its own question, possibly without noticing that the answer given virtually rules out the presence of any particular trace gases in the atmosphere as a likely cause. ‘Hottest on record’ does not go back all that far anyway.

As western Europe enjoys record highs for winter temperatures, southern parts of the continent are being hit with snow flurries, reports Phys.org.

What is going on with the weather, and how closely are the topsy-turvy temperatures linked to climate change?

Scientist finds an influence of solar activity on European rainfall

Credit: BBC

Interesting result here, although they do admit: ‘The exact mechanism by which the solar signal influences precipitation is still largely unclear and requires further research.’ But the observations have been made.

Source: The GWPF

A balanced level of precipitation provides the basis for a wide range of economic and social activities in Europe. Particularly agriculture, drinking water supply and inland waterway transport are directly affected.

However, the amount of rain fluctuates strongly from year to year. While it may pour torrentially in one year, rain may remain absent for weeks in another year. The population is used to this variability and knows how to deal with it.

The chance discovery by an agricultural scientist from Münster, Germany, now suggests that in certain months rain over Germany and other parts of Europe follows a pattern that up to now has remained undetected.

Extreme rainfall events are connected across the world

We’re told there are patterns which ‘appear to be created by Rossby waves – wiggles in fast-flowing currents of air high in the atmosphere, known as the jet streams.’

An analysis of satellite data has revealed global patterns of extreme rainfall, which could lead to better forecasts and more accurate climate models, reports Phys.org.

Extreme rainfall—defined as the top five percent of rainy days—often forms a pattern at the local level, for example tracking across Europe.

But new research, published today in Nature, reveals that there are also larger-scale global patterns to extreme rainfall events.

Irish carbon tax rise in doubt following Yellow Vest revolt in France

Photosynthesis: nature requires carbon dioxide

It’s Ireland’s turn to find ways of sucking the life out of its economy to appease the climate alarm lobby.
H/T The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

Irish MPs and senators are split over plans for a fourfold increase in carbon tax to put Ireland on course to meet its 2030 climate change targets, following the yellow vest protests in France, says The Times.

Fine Gael and Green Party members of the Oireachtas climate action committee want a report next month to recommend a carbon tax of at least €80 a ton over the next decade, which would add €12 to the cost of filling a car with diesel or petrol and €7.20 to a bag of coal.