Archive for the ‘Climate’ Category

“Not inconsistent with man-made global warming” !!

January 15, 2011

Climate Science – if there is such a thing – had long ago abandoned science to become a lobby for “global warming theory”. But the “scientists” are plumbing new depths.

It has not taken long for “climate scientists” to claim that all extreme weather events (heat wave in Russia, floods in Pakistan, coldest December in 100 years , droughts in Australia and now floods in Brazil and Australia)  are all “not inconsistent with global warming” implying by some strange, convoluted logic that all these weather events (which are also consistent with history repeating itself) somehow add to the body of “evidence” which “proves” that man-made global warming is happening. There have even been crack-pot scientists with such a vested interest in the “man-made global warming” ideology  who have found it possible to blame volcanic activity and even the earthquake in Haiti on “global warming”!!!

The current strength of the La Ninã conditions are perfectly consistent with other theories based on ocean variation and the frigid winters are quite consistent with the quiet Sun (which went spotless again yesterday). All current weather is also consistent with man-made effects being totally negligible and instead being dominated by the sun’s cycles and with the oceans as the primary vehicle for transporting heat around the globe. Weather is not climate and in fact none of the “extreme” weather events  are outside the range of weather variations that have been experienced over the last 1000 years.

The floods in Brazil have claimed over 500 lives and in Australia – which is far better prepared – the death toll will likely be between 20 – 30. In Australia where a higher flood occurred in 1974 in Brisbane voices are beginning to be raised that the “global warming” lobby have actually prevented the use of dams and implementation of proposed water management policies which could have been able to better manage these regular and recurring flood conditions.

The history of floods in Brisbane is telling:

Highest annual flood peaks for Brisbane

Highest annual flood peaks for Brisbane

The floods this year in Queensland are nothing new. Why would this flood be evidence of man-made global warming but not the floods of the 1800s? In fact the history of these weather conditions in Brisbane is not inconsistent with global cooling, the coming of an ice-age or an apocalyptic end to the earth in 2012!

thepunch.com.au

Any scientist who is concerned with science and not with religion, politics or defending his past conclusions would know that being “not inconsistent” with some theory carries no weight in a scientific proof – but it does sound so credible in a TV sound-bite.

But we can expect that over the next few years that every natural disaster or extreme weather event will be taken by the members of a dying religion as being “not inconsistent with” and therefore as proof of man-made global warming.

 

Current La Niña most intense in 50 years

January 14, 2011

La Niña is expected to continue well into the Northern Hemisphere spring 2011.

The latest report from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC) noted that “A moderate-to-strong La Niña continued during December 2010 as reflected by well below-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) across the equatorial Pacific Ocean.” The CPC report said that La Niña is expected to continue well into the Northern Hemisphere spring 2011.

Physorg reports:

New NASA satellite data indicate the current La Niña event in the eastern Pacific has remained strong during November and December 2010.

The La Niña is evident by the large pool cooler than normal (blue and purple) water stretching from the eastern to the central Pacific Ocean, reflecting lower than normal sea surface heights. "This La Niña has strengthened for the past seven months, and is one of the most intense events of the past half century," said Climatologist Bill Patzert of NASA JPL. Credit: NASA JPL/Bill Patzert

A new Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 satellite image of the Pacific Ocean that averaged 10 days of data was just released fromNASA. The image, centered on Dec. 26, 2010, was created at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif.

“The solid record of La Niña strength only goes back about 50 years and this latest event appears to be one of the strongest ones over this time period,” said Climatologist Bill Patzert of JPL. “It is already impacting weather and climate all around the planet.”

“Although exacerbated by precipitation from a tropical cyclone, rainfalls of historic proportion in eastern Queensland, Australia have led to levels of flooding usually only seen once in a century,” said David Adamec, Oceanographer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “The copious rainfall is a direct result of La Niña’s effect on the Pacific trade winds and has made tropical Australia particularly rainy this year.”

The new image depicts places where the Pacific sea surface height is near-normal, higher (warmer) than normal and lower (cooler) than normal. The cooler-than normal pool of water that stretches from the eastern to the central Pacific Ocean is a hallmark of a La Niña event.

Related: https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/la-nina-driving-severe-rains-and-floods-in-brazil-and-australia/

 

And yet another irreproducible, irrefutable result!!

January 10, 2011

From EurekAlert:

New paper in Nature Geoscience examines inertia of carbon dioxide emissions

New research indicates the impact of rising CO2 levels in the Earth’s atmosphere will cause unstoppable effects to the climate for at least the next 1000 years, causing researchers to estimate a collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet by the year 3000, and an eventual rise in the global sea level of at least four metres.

The study, to be published in the Jan. 9 Advanced Online Publication of the journal Nature Geoscience, is the first full climate model simulation to make predictions out to 1000 years from now. It is based on best-case, ‘zero-emissions’ scenarios constructed by a team of researchers from the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis (an Environment Canada research lab at the University of Victoria) and the University of Calgary.

The Daily Mail headline proclaims

(and perhaps – following Nostradamus – we should only use quatrains !)

Sea levels will rise by at least 13ft in next 1,000 years, claim scientists

Global sea levels will rise

By at least 13ft in the next 1,000 years

As a result of carbon dioxide emissions,

Scientists have warned.

 

The ‘unstoppable’ impact of global warming

Will cause a catastrophic collapse

Of the West Antarctic ice sheet

By the year 3000.

 

“Ongoing climate change following a complete cessation of carbon dioxide emissions” by Nathan P. Gillett, Vivek K. Arora, Kirsten Zickfeld, Shawn J. Marshall and William J. Merryfield will be available online at http://www.nature.com/ngeo/index.html

Or perhaps it should have been published here:

The Journal of Irreproducible Results


Ozone layer hits record thickness in Sweden: Was there ever an ozone hole problem?

January 9, 2011

Lately there has been an increasing view that some of the catastrophe scenarios about the ozone hole which led to the Montreal Protocol of 1989 were exagerrated and based on poor science. The effects of humans on ozone variations as opposed to natural variations may have been exaggerated. In fact there are now some suggestions that the actions taken were not only unnecessary but that they have not had much to do with the natural increase of ozone layer thickness observed in recent times.

The Local reports:

Sweden’s government weather agency reported on Friday that the ozone layer over southern Sweden reached its thickest levels at the end of last year, surpassing the previous record set in 1991.

Sweden’s Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (Sveriges Meteorologiska och Hydrologiska Institut, SMHI) explained that the weather was particularly favourable at the end of 2010 and it explain why the ozone layer was especially thick at the time. “It is a step in the right direction, but it is still too early to say that the ozone layer has recovered. The favourable weather situation over the last few months has contributed to a record high,” said Weine Josefsson, a meteorologist at SMHI, in a statement on Friday.
The annual value of the ozone layer’s thickness over Norrköping in 2010 stood at a new high of 351.7 Dobson units (DU). The previous record was set in 1991 at 341.8 DU. The November and December values in particular set new records among the measurements regularly made at SMHI since 1988. ……….  Even in Norrland in the country’s north, the values have been positive in the last year. The ozone layer has been measured regularly in Vindeln northwest of Umeå in northern Sweden since 1991 and the latest results were also positive in this area.
However, it is not possible to record complete ozone measurements in the winter, so it is uncertain whether a record was set there as well at the end of last year. In November and December, air flows were affected by a special weather situation over western Europe, resulting in an extra thick ozone layer over this part of the world in these two months.
It is possible that the restrictions on ozone-depleting substances proposed in the Montreal Protocol in 1987 have also contributed to the thickening of the ozone layer. However, this type of measure is effective over a long period of time and it is difficult to distinguish the effect of natural variations in this case.

Frigid December 2010 was no local phenomenon

January 6, 2011

The frigid December of 2010 was widespread across the Northern Hemisphere and cannot be dismissed as just a local phenomenon.

Sweden: Coldest December in Sweden in 110 years: http://www.thelocal.se/31072/20101226/

UK: 2010 UK’s coldest December since records began: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12122497

Ireland: Met Eireann – coldest December on record: http://www.tv3.ie/article.php?article_id=50973&locID=1.2.&pagename=news

Germany: German Unemployment Unexpectedly Climbs in Coldest December for 40 Years: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-04/german-unemployment-unexpectedly-climbs-during-coldest-december-since-1969.html

USA

Illinois’ December was colder and had more snow than average: http://www.bnd.com/2011/01/05/1539495/december-was-colder-and-had-more.html

Virginia: Explaining the weather: December was a bitter one: http://www2.newsadvance.com/weather/2011/jan/04/explaining-weather-december-was-bitter-one-ar-752921/

Florida:

  1. December coldest on record: http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/east-volusia/2011/01/05/december-coldest-on-record.html
  2. Tallahassee marks coldest December on record: http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20110103/NEWS01/101030308/NWS-Tallahassee-marks-coldest-December-on-record
  3. N. Carolina: Asheville’s December was 2nd coldest: http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20110104/NEWS/301040038

Korea: Seoul Has Coldest December in 30 Years, Says Weather Bureau: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-27/seoul-has-coldest-december-in-30-years-says-weather-bureau.html

China:

Mass evacuations as China’s south battles ‘big freeze”: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12117729

Heavy snow grips northern China: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8228676/Heavy-snow-grips-northern-China.html

India:

Cold wave continues to grip North India: http://www.sify.com/news/cold-wave-continues-to-grip-north-india-news-national-lbfmEdjjaig.html

Bangalore is cold but the outskirts are getting colder: http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/report_bangalore-is-cold-but-the-outskirts-are-getting-colder_1483567

Chill in Calcutta: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110105/jsp/calcutta/story_13392877.jsp

Australia:

NSW had its wettest year in half a century: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/nsw-had-its-wettest-year-in-50-years-20110105-19fr7.html

AUSTRALIA has just experienced its wettest year since 1974 and its coolest year of the 21st century: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/last-year-australias-wettest-in-36-years-coldest-in-10/story-e6frg6nf-1225979674792

 

UK Met Office fears ridicule from public more than from their paymasters!

January 5, 2011

The UK Met Office is busy spinning the story that it actually did forecast the coldest December in the UK in a 100 years but secretly informed only the cabinet of the UK government about this in October 2010. Secret forecasts for fear of being wrong! After all kings of old also had their own private soothsayers to study the entrails but they were usually executed if they could not spin their way out of wrong forecasts. But the Met Office story does not stand up and their credibility is in tatters.

The UK Met office (as an institution) is one of the most ardent supporters of Global Warming dogma which is concerned with climate not weather. This can only be a “political” choice or an act of faith since climate trends are of little significance for their main task of weather forecasting. While weather is only a subset of climate I find it difficult to believe that poor weather forecasting can be a sound bottom-up basis for forecasting climate.

I say that climate trends are of little significance for detailed weather forecasting because climate change considers temperature changes of about one degree per century or less whereas the daily variation at any particular location is typically 10 to 15 degrees, seasonal variations at any location are around 40 – 50°C over a year and geographical variation around the globe is also upto 50 °C at any moment in time. Any climate trends of the order of 1°C per century are then immaterial for the immediate weather forecast.

At a cost of some £200 million per year they do forecast the weather with some accuracy for upto about 5 days ahead but are notoriously poor with their long range forecasts (but I note that even their short term forecasts are not more accurate – statistically – than the simple statement that “the weather tomorrow will be the same as today”). As recently as October 2010 the Met Office published weather maps showing warm expectations for November, December and January – but they insist they did not make any long range forecasts. We are told by Harrabin of the BBC that this was because of their sensitivity to the ridicule poured on them after their forecasts of a “barbecue summer” in 2009 and a mild 2009/2010 winter proved spectacularly wrong. But , we are assured by Harrabin, they actually did forecast – correctly – a cold and snowy winter but only informed the UK cabinet secretly.

Presumably any future ridicule or budget cuts by the cabinet of the UK Government for being wrong would be preferable to any public ridicule!!

In any event the cabinet did not do very much with this confidential information (perhaps it was anonymous) and all the counties were woefully unprepared.

Sources:

Why Munich Re’s report on natural catastrophes in 2010 is alarmist and self-serving

January 4, 2011

Munich Re – like all insurance companies – is in the business of alarmism. The insurance business relies on the total risk perceived by all the buyers of insurance products being significantly higher than the actual risk that materialises. The bigger this difference the greater the insurance company’s profits.

In a new press release Munich Re presents its overall picture of natural catastrophes in 2010.

Several major catastrophes in 2010 resulted in substantial losses and an exceptionally high number of fatalities. The overall picture last year was dominated by an accumulation of severe earthquakes to an extent seldom experienced in recent decades.

The facts are not in doubt but Munich Re’s opinionated conclusion and the introduction of global warming into the same breath as earthquakes and extreme weather is intellectually bankrupt and blatantly self-serving:

The high number of weather-related natural catastrophes and record temperatures both globally and in different regions of the world provide further indications of advancing climate change.

Munich Re’s business is best served if the perception of risk is very high, the actual risk is much lower than than that perceived and more and more people take to insuring these exaggerated risks. Munich Re – as other insurance companies – have become expert at taking real data, blending it with unjustified opinions and then applying a totally bogus “pondus” to exaggerating the perceived risk.

(more…)

Time Magazine and its unwavering view of climate change

January 1, 2011

From Watts Up with that: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/01/time-magazine-and-global-warming/#more-30704

Unwavering !

 

Manatees threatened by cold Florida waters – must be global warming

December 30, 2010

Manatees clearly are not too impressed by the effects of global warming and are swimming out of the chilly Gulf of Mexico waters and into warmer springs and power plant discharge canals. On Tuesday, more than 300 manatees floated into the outflow of Tampa Electric’s Big Bend Power Station reports Physorg.com:

Manatees paddle to warm water to escape Fla. chill (AP)

Manatees congregate in a canal where discharge from a nearby Florida Power & Light plant warms the water in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2010.

“It’s like a warm bathtub for them,” said Wendy Anastasiou, an environmental specialist at the power station’s manatee viewing center. “They come in here and hang out and loll around.”

Cold weather can weaken manatees’ immune systems and eventually kill them. State officials said 2010 has been a deadly year for the beloved animals: between Jan. 1 and Dec. 17, 246 manatees died from so-called “cold stress.” During the same time period in 2009, only 55 manatees died from the cold. In 2008, only 22 manatees succumbed to chilly temperatures.

Manatee deaths documented from Jan. 1 through Dec. 5 are nearly double the five-year average for that time period, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission statistics.

“Obviously we’re very concerned as an agency about the unusually high number of manatee deaths this year,” said Wendy Quigley, a spokeswoman with the state-run Fish and Wildlife Research Institute in St. Petersburg.

A total of 699 manatees were found dead between Jan. 1 and Dec. 5; state officials say it’s likely the cold temperatures also contributed to many of the 203 deaths in the “undetermined” category and the 68 deaths of manatees whose bodies could not be recovered.

Quigley noted that the statistics don’t even include this week’s cold snap, which sent temperatures plummeting into the 30s in parts of South Florida overnight and into the teens in the central part of the state.

Tampa Bay and Gulf water temperatures are hovering around 50 degrees, said Anastasiou. When the water dips below 68, manatees seek warmer waters – usually springs or the power plant discharge canals. The water temperature in the power plant’s Big Bend canal ranges from about 65-75 degrees, Anastasiou said. Even though they’re huge animals, manatees are very cold sensitive……… During last year’s cold snap, some 329 manatees congregated at the Tampa Electric power station. In Broward County on Tuesday, some 50 manatees gathered in the outfall of a Florida Power and Light plant.

Weather may not be climate but weather is a subset of climate !

December 27, 2010

The cold wave in India led to 4 deaths on 26th December 2010: image ndtv.com

This winter’s extremes are all due to Global Warming I hear!!

My incredulity at the arrogance of global warming dogma and its high priests is getting rather strained. But gullibility and greed remain inherent in the human condition.

First white Christmas in Atlanta since 1882, NCDC gets new snow record in their own backyard

Europe hit with coldest December in 100 years

Sweden in ‘coldest December in 100 years’

Coldest December since records began as temperatures plummet to minus 10C  bringing travel chaos across Britain

NSW hit by snow, wind, floods – and locusts

Wintry weather brings snow to Australia in midsummer

Icy highway causes traffic jam in Guangdong

Cold snap drops Beijing’s temperature to 10-year low

(Korea) Lowest temperatures in 30 years

Cold wave kills 4 in north India

North India reels under severe cold wave