MH370: Official confusions and misinformation compound the mystery

March 12, 2014

UPDATE:

AFP: “Total Incompetence”

“It’s bad enough for a wide-body jet to go missing with 239 people on board, but then for the responsible country’s government and aviation agencies to handle the associated information with total incompetence is unforgivable,” said David Learmount from industry magazine Flightglobal.

There is more than a hint of incompetence in the air. Now the search area is being extended to the Andaman Sea and the vicinity of Japan! Japan and India have confirmed they are to join the search at the request of Malaysia.

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It is now Day 5 since the disappearance of MH370 and Malaysian authorities are not giving the impression that they know what they are doing. The plane that was “found” has been “unfound”. The Chief of the Air Force has “unsaid” what he is reported to have said yesterday. He now denies that he said that the plane had been tracked to the Straits of Malacca.

(Reuters) – Malaysia’s air force chief denied a media report that the military last tracked a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner over the Strait of Malacca, far from where it last made contact with civilian air traffic control when it disappeared four days ago.

“I wish to state that I did not make any such statements,” air force chief Rodzali Daud said in a statement on Wednesday.

Now searches are including land masses for the first time.

(Reuters) – China’s air force will add two planes to the search for a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner, the country’s civil aviation chief said on Wednesday, adding that search and rescue efforts would be broadened to include land areas.

High ranking Malaysian officials are distinguishing themselves by contradicting their earlier statements. The statement by the Chief of the Air Force is just the latest in a series of mis-statements.

Malaysian blog comments are scathing in their criticism of the incompetence of their authorities. Just a couple of examples from Malaysiakini:

these donkeys don’t even know whether the plane flew east or west from KLIA! The whole world is laughing at us.

Real stupid….DCA says five bagages were removed from plane and now Some idiot says four never check in…..?? Whose bagage that they checked then ?? 

It all started with the Home Minister who felt it necessary to protect himself by blaming immigration officials. There are suggestions of incompetence as Vietnam calls off part of its search because of lack of response and clarity from Malaysia.

The Guardian:

… this update on how the search progressed today:

The search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight was descending into confusion and acrimony on Wednesday as Vietnam called off part of its search pending further information from Malaysia.

As families spent a fifth day waiting for news of flight MH370, which vanished with 239 people on board, disagreements within the international search operation were surfacing and Malaysian officials failed to clarify the aircraft’s last known movement

Vietnam has also halted part of their search efforts:

Vietnam said it had halted its air search and scaled back a sea search while it waited for Malaysia to offer more detail.

…. One of the issues that stands out is the contradictions made by different Malaysian authorities involved in the investigation. As they write:

Only two are known to have been travelling on stolen passports. Both are thought to be Iranian, probably seeking asylum in Europe, Interpol’s secretary general has said.

There was confusion earlier because the Malaysian home minister had described them as appearing to be Asian but was then contradicted by the civil aviation chief, who appeared to suggest that one of the men looked like the black Italian footballer Mario Balotelli. Most journalists present took that to mean that he was black, although the Ministry of Transportation later clarified that the civil aviation chief, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, had been trying to emphasise that ethnicity did not indicate nationality.

And again:

On Monday, the civil aviation chief said five people checked in but did not board and their baggage was removed accordingly. On Tuesday, the inspector general of police said that everyone who was booked on to the flight had boarded – though he then contradicted himself by saying one person had missed the flight because they got the wrong day. Malaysia Airlines says that four people were booked but never checked in.

And once more (although this change is from Malaysia Airlines):

This is perhaps the most confusing aspect of all. Malaysia Airlines repeatedly said that Subang air traffic control – which covers Kuala Lumpur airport – lost contact with the aircraft at 2.40am, almost two hours after takeoff, but later revised its last known contact to 1.30am.

……  There’s been significant criticism of the handling of the search, particularly of the comments made by Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar. The official said on Tuesday that there were four scenarios they were likely looking at: “We are looking into four areas: one hijacking, two sabotage, three psychological problems of the passengers and crew and four personal problems among the passengers and crew.” Here’s how these comments have been received:

Steve Marks, a lawyer at the US firm Podhurst Orseck, which represented relatives of victims of a SilkAir crash in Asia in 1997 and the Air France crash in 2009, said he was suspicious of information being released by Malaysia.

On Tuesday Malaysian investigators said they were still looking at a range of theories including hijacking and possible sabotage by a passenger or crew member.

Marks said: “In my opinion terrorism and pilot suicide are very remote and farfetched. It can’t be ruled out 100% but it certainly shouldn’t be the focus. That kind of speculation without proof is very damaging and hurtful to the families.”

Marks said the complete lack of any information about what happened to the plane does tended to support the view of “a complete catastrophic failure at altitude.”

Malaysian officials have started blaming the media and are complaining about their “bullying”!

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Nils Horner RIP

March 11, 2014

I tend to listen a great deal to radio – mainly Swedish Radio and the BBC. One of the high points every morning was listening to Nils Horner’s reports on Swedish radio from South Asia. Just yesterday I listened to his report on Fukushima 3 years after the great earthquake and Tsunami. Swedish Radio cannot afford too many overseas correspondents and Nils Horner covered all of South Asia. And this he did with great insight while still maintaining an admirable objectivity. He never found the need or gave in to the temptation to sensationalise his reports  – and in this day and age that was quite remarkable.

Nils Georg Anthony Horner was of dual British and Swedish nationality and had been Swedish Radio’s Middle East and later South Asia correspondent since 2001. He was a radio journalist and reporter of the old school and while he did not have the reach that they had through the BBC, I would put him in the same league as Alistair Cooke and Mark Tully. Like them he had the uncanny ability to evoke the mood and colour and smell of his locations. I always felt I was learning something new when listening to his reports. He was a sympathetic interviewer with a wonderful knack of drawing out his subjects without having to interrupt or harangue or talk down to them. He tried always to get the story and not just to score cheap brownie points.

He was shot and killed in Afghanistan today. He was working on a report on the upcoming Afghan election and especially the views of women.He was talking to his translator outside a restaurant in an affluent and well guarded area of Kabul when approached by 2 men. He was shot in the head with a silenced weapon.

Nils Horner 1962 - 2014

Nils Horner 1962 – 2014 photo AP

He was just 51 and I shall miss his reports.

RIP

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MH370 “found” in Malacca Straits?

March 11, 2014

UPDATE!

Now it gets eerie! 

ZEE NEWS: “the cellphones of the passengers on the missing plane were ringing, but went unanswered …..  concerned families of the missing passengers managed to connect the calls successfully, but no one picked the call.” If this is correct and the plane is in water then it cannot be very deep down.

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According to a report on the Swedish radio web-site the aircraft has been “found” (tracked) by military radar in the Malacca Straits. It is not yet completely certain that this is MH370 but the searches to the east of Malaysia have been called off.

The Malacca Straits would fit with the aircraft trying to get back to Kuala Lumpur. But the lack of communication remains a mystery.

According to Dagens Nyheter it could have come down in an area which was a “radar blind spot”. That doesn’t explain the journey to the “blind spot” of course.

Pulau Perak

Reuters:

Malaysian authorities have previously said flight MH370 disappeared about an hour after it took off from Kuala Lumpur for the Chinese capital Beijing.

At the time it was roughly midway between Malaysia’s east coast town of Kota Bharu and the southern tip of Vietnam, flying at 35,000 ft (10,670 metres).

“It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. It made it into the Malacca Strait,” the military official, who has been briefed on investigations, told Reuters.  …. Earlier on Tuesday, Malaysia’s Berita Harian newspaper quoted air force chief Rodzali Daud as saying the Malaysia Airlines plane was last detected by military radar at 2:40 a.m. on Saturday, near the island of Pulau Perak at the northern end of the Strait of Malacca. It was flying at a height of about 9,000 metres (29,500 ft), he was quoted as saying. ….. If the reports from the military are verified, it would mean the plane was able to maintain a cruising altitude and flew for about 500 km (350 miles) with its transponder and other tracking systems apparently switched off.

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More stem cell fakery as a quick way to publication and fame?

March 11, 2014

Dr Haruko Obokata shot to fame with her stem cell papers photo BBC

Another young researcher, Dr Haruko Obokata has apparently made sensational claims about her stem cell research, shot to fame as lead author in two papers published in Nature and is now in the dock for dodgy images and irreproducible results (perhaps faked).

WSJ: Her co-author, Teruhiko Wakayama of Yamanashi University in Japan, called Monday for the retraction of the findings, published in late January in a pair of papers in the journal Nature.

The papers drew international attention because they held out a safer, easier and more ethical technique for creating master stem cells. These cells, which can be turned into all other body tissues, promise one day to transform the treatment of various ailments, from heart disease to Alzheimer’s. 

But shortly after the papers appeared, Japan’s Riken Center for Developmental Biology, where the work took place, began to investigate alleged irregularities in images used in the papers. Separately, many labs said they couldn’t replicate the results.

A spokesman for Riken said Tuesday that the institution was considering a retraction and that the article’s authors were discussing what to do.

Dr. Wakayama said he has asked the lead author, Haruko Obokata, to retract the studies. “There is no more credibility when there are such crucial mistakes,” he said in an email to The Wall Street Journal.

Dr. Wakayama said he learned Sunday that an image used in Dr. Obokata’s 2011 doctoral thesis had also been used in the Nature papers. “It’s unlikely that it was a careless mistake since it’s from a different experiment from a different time,” he said.

Like several other researchers, Dr. Wakayama said he hasn’t yet been able to reproduce the results. “There is no value in it if the technique cannot be replicated,” he said. 

But another co-author of the papers, Charles Vacanti, a tissue engineer at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, defended the work. “Some mistakes were made, but they don’t affect the conclusions,” he said in an interview Monday. “Based on the information I have, I see no reason why these papers should be retracted.”

Dr. Vacanti—whose early work some 15 years ago spurred the novel experiments—said he was surprised to hear that one of his co-authors asked for the retraction.

Dr. Vacanti said he had spoken to Dr. Obokata on Monday and that she also stood by the research. “It would be very sad to have such an important paper retracted as a result of peer pressure, when indeed the data and conclusions are honest and valid,” said Dr. Vacanti. …..

The papers created a stir because they reported a process by which mouse cells could be returned to an embryonic-like state simply by dipping them in a mild acid solution, creating what they called STAP cells, for stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency. ….

There seems to be a hint of some “academic rivalry” here as well.

Retraction Watch has more:

Nature told the WSJ that it was still investigating the matter. As Nature‘s news section reported last month, lead author

…biologist Haruko Obokata, who is based at the institution…shot to fame as the lead author of two papers1, 2 published in Nature last month that demonstrated a way to reprogram mature mouse cells into an embryonic state by simply applying stress, such as exposure to acid conditions or physical pressure on cell membranes.

But the studies, published online on January 29, soon came under fire. Paul Knoepfler has had a number of detailed posts on the matter, as hasPubPeer.

Stem cell research seems to have more than its fair share of dodgy papers – presumably because sensational results are easier to come by and very much easier to get published.

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MH370: Updates

March 10, 2014

This story is compelling enough as a human tragedy and a mystery. My upcoming trip to Malaysia and KL keeps it uppermost in my mind. I shall update as news unfolds.

It has been over 72 hours and the plane is still missing. That a Boeing 777 could vanish without trace for 3 days would be considered fanciful in a work of fiction.

UPDATE 5:

  • The two on fake passports are said to have been Iranians seeking asylum in Europe.
  • Could the plane have crashed into the jungles of Indonesia and not at sea?

Strait of Malacca

UPDATE 4: The BBC is reporting that the search area now includes the Straits of Malacca, west of Malaysia based on the theory that the plane turned back and crossed Malaysia flying westwards.

UPDATE 3: It is now Day 4 since the disappearance.

  • The search area is being increased but there are no further sightings of suspected wreckage.
  • Malaysian Airlines: “The B777-200 aircraft that operated MH370 underwent maintenance on 23 February 2014, 12 days before this particular flight on 8 March 2014. The next check is due on 19 June 2014. The maintenance was conducted at the KLIA hangar and there were no issues on the health of the aircraft.The aircraft was delivered to Malaysia Airlines in 2002 and have since recorded 53,465.21 hours with a total of 7525 cycles. All Malaysia Airlines aircraft are equipped with continuous data monitoring system called the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) which transmits data automatically. Nevertheless, there were no distress calls and no information was relayed”.
  • The hunt for “Mr. Ali” has intensified. “Mr. Ali booked the tickets on the men’s behalf, Police Lt. Col. Ratchthapong Tia-sood said. “We have to look further into this Mr. Ali’s identity because it’s almost a tradition to use an alias when doing business around here,” he said. A second man Iranian man — “Asay” — bought the tickets with cash. Police questioned Asay Monday, Phuikaewkhum said.”

UPDATE 2: 

View image on Twitter

The red circle shows the last known location of the missing Malaysia Airlines plane. @DailyMirror on Twitter

  • Taiwan says it received a warning about potential terrorist attacks in China, the South China Morning Post has reported. The newspaper said that there were plans for atrocities at Beijing Airport and the city’s subway system. The warning on March 4 followed a knife attack at a railway station in China that killed 29 people.
  • Xinhua: China has adjusted the operations of orbiting satellites to help in the search of the missing flight MH370.

  • SCMP: Malaysia Airlines was convicted two years ago for boarding a passenger against the wishes of a foreign government by falsifying passport identity records, it has emerged, and was also prosecuted for a similar incident in 2007. A New Zealand court fined the Malaysian national carrier NZ$5,500 (HK$36,052) in 2012 for allowing a passenger to board its aircraft despite orders not to from immigration authorities in Wellington. It is unclear why the Malaysian national had been deemed unsuitable to board the flight. During the breach, which occurred in January 2012, a check-in attendant enabled a Malaysian national to board the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Auckland by entering an altered passport number into the check-in computer, allowing security systems to be circumvented.

UPDATE 1:

  • It is now reported that the two fake passport holders “were of non-Asian appearance”. The two passengers were supposed to fly from Beijing to Amsterdam on Saturday. The passenger travelling as “Luigi Maraldi” was to fly on to Copenhagen and “Christian Kozel” to Frankfurt.
  • Mirror: FBI fears four passengers on missing Malaysian jet used stolen passports as ‘mid-air disintegration’ theory investigated

 

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Armed David

March 10, 2014

 

David holding an AR-50A1 rifle Photo via The Guardian -: Franco Visintainer/ANSA

David holding an AR-50A1 rifle Photo via The Guardian -: Franco Visintainer/ANSA

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/09/michelangelo-david-statue-holding-rifle-american-advert

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MH370: Illegal immigrants to Europe or something much more sinister?

March 10, 2014

The aircraft is still missing and even the oil slicks sighted have turned out to be from a ship and not from an aircraft. For the aircraft to vanish without a trace is what is so perplexing and ominous.

Were the fake passport holders illegal immigrants or something much more sinister??

The “Iranian” connection, the mysterious Mr. Ali is of less significance, I think, than the cash payment for the tickets by a friend of Mr. Ali on behalf of the two passengers.

The Chinese – I am convinced –  are still not telling everything they know.

The Guardian reports on an FT report (pay-walled).

The Guardian:

A Thai travel agent who booked the men with stolen passports onto the missing plane, has told the FT that the tickets were arranged with an “Iranian contact” on behalf of clients looking for cheap tickets to Europe. 

Benjaporn Krutnait, owner of the Grand Horizon travel agency in Pattaya, Thailand, said the Iranian, a long-term business contact who she knew only as “Mr Ali”, first asked her to book cheap tickets to Europe for the two men on March 1. Ms Benjaporn initially reserved one of the men on a Qatar Airways flight and the other on Etihad. 
But the tickets expired when Ms Benjaporn did not hear back from Mr Ali. When he contacted her again on Thursday, she rebooked the men on the Malaysia Airlines flight through Beijing because it was the cheapest available. Ms Benjaporn booked the tickets through China Southern Airlines via a code share arrangement.

A friend of Mr Ali paid Ms Benjaporn cash for the tickets, she said, adding that it was quite common for people to book tickets in Pattaya through middle men such as Mr Ali, who then take a commission.

 

 

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MH370: Chinese media blame Malaysia but were they expecting an attack?

March 10, 2014

The blame game has started but it has started much too early.

For the Chinese media, blame is already clear. It is either Malaysia (if terrorism) or Malaysia Airlines (if aircraft fault) to blame. For the Malaysian Home Minister it is incompetence among his passport control staff. (Note that this is passport control for passengers leaving the country). Malaysia Airlines is also being criticised for not even knowing where and when the aircraft disappeared.

The rush to judgement by the Chinese does make me wonder whether they were expecting something. The recent knife attack by terrorists at Kunming Railway station where 29 died may not be irrelevant. The Chinese media were not pleased then, when the Western media were divided in calling the knife-wielding attackers “dissidents” or “terrorists”. I have the distinct perception – from their response and their allocation of blame – that the Chinese know much more about MH370 than they are letting on.

China does not also seem entirely satisfied with the search efforts for the missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 and are stepping up their own efforts to locate it:

Xinhua: China creates search plan for Malaysia Airlines jet

Chief of China’s Maritime Search and Rescue Center He Jianzhong said Monday the country has created a plan for the search and rescue of a missing Malaysia Airlines jet. The search and rescue plan involves four patrol and rescue vessels and two naval warships. The search range of the six ships has also been clarified, said He, who is also vice minister of transport.

Chinese warship Mianyang and a marine police vessel with hull number 3411 have begun searching the sea where the Beijing-bound MH370 flight from Kuala Lumpur might have lost contact, he said. He said that three more patrol and rescue vessels under the command of the transport ministry are expected to arrive in the area on Monday and Tuesday. Their hull numbers are 115, 31 and 101.

Most of the passengers on MH370 were from China and there is an assumption in the Chinese media that a terrorist act must have taken place and there is a growing criticism of Malaysian security arrangements and their speed of response. The Malaysian Home Minister is rattled – see previous post- and is looking for scapegoats. The acting Malaysian Transport Minister does not know very much. For the Chinese media, if it was an aircraft problem then it was clearly the fault of Malaysian Airlines and if it was a terrorist act then it was equally clearly the fault of Malaysian security. (But I think the Chinese are protesting too loudly and much too quickly. They were – perhaps –  expecting some kind of an attack).

BBC: A commentary in the Beijing Times notes that Premier Li Keqiang said he was “very worried” over the missing plane and added that his government will continue to be a “strong shield” for people who are overseas.

“When the citizens are out of the country, their dignity is closely linked to the dignity of the country. When the country is strong and prosperous, especially if it respects the citizens and protects them, citizens will feel confident and proud when they are abroad,” it says.

Criticising Malaysia for not responding swiftly during the initial stages of the problem, the Global Times Chinese edition says the incident shows there were “obvious loopholes in security checks” in Malaysia. The daily calls for better security for Chinese holidaymakers.

“The Chinese society is no longer in the era of poverty, life is no longer cheap. We demand safety of food, air, water as well as transportation. So we pay great attention to the safety situation in holiday destinations in other countries which are popular among the Chinese,” it says.

ChannelNewsAsia:

China’s state-run media on Monday lashed out at Malaysia and its national carrier over their handling of the missing passenger jet, calling for a swifter response effort and tightened airport security.

Nearly two-thirds of the 239 people aboard Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 were from China, and if the loss of the aircraft is confirmed, it would be China’s second-worst air disaster in history. 

“The Malaysian side cannot shirk its responsibilities,” the Global Times newspaper, which is close to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, wrote in a scathing editorial. “The initial response from Malaysia was not swift enough.

“There are loopholes in the work of Malaysia Airlines and security authorities,” it said.

“If it is due to a deadly mechanical breakdown or pilot error, then Malaysia Airlines should take the blame. If this is a terrorist attack, then the security check at the Kuala Lumpur airport and on the flight is questionable.”

The China Daily newspaper wrote in an editorial that “terrorism cannot be ruled out”, with Malaysian and international authorities still at a loss to explain how at least two passengers were able to board with stolen Italian and Austrian passports.

“Who were they and why were they using false passports?” the paper asked.

“The fact that some of the passengers on board were travelling with false passports should serve as a reminder to the whole world that security can never be too tight, at airports in particular, since terrorism, the evil of the world, is still trying to stain human civilisation with the blood of innocent lives,” it added.

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“Asians” were travelling on two of the stolen European passports on MH370

March 10, 2014

The Malaysian Home Minister is embarrassed.

But in good politician style he will find others to pass the buck on to. In this case he is passing responsibility on to his immigration staff. He “slammed Immigration officials for not conducting proper passport checks, and identified the two passengers who were travelling on stolen passports as “Asians”. He clearly believes in racial profiling and probably has not heard about how many Europeans today are of “Asian” origin.  A special investigation – or will it be a witch-hunt? – is under-way. There is little doubt that a scapegoat within the immigration department will be found. And I would venture to predict that the staff found to be blamed will be of Chinese or Indian ethnicity.

Malaysian Insider: The Home Minister slammed Immigration officials for not conducting proper passport checks, and identified the two passengers who were travelling on stolen passports as “Asians”. Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid  Hamidi  hit out at the Immigration officers allowing two “Asian” men with European identities to board the missing Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370. 

“I am puzzled how come (immigration officers) cannot think, Italian and Austrian (passengers) but with Asian facial features,” he was quoted saying by national news agency Bernama, adding that an internal investigation of the Immigration Department has commenced.  

“The investigation would give special attention to the department’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) branch. “We will conduct an internal probe, particularly of the officers who were on duty at the KLIA Immigration counter during flight MH370.”
 
Ahmad Zahid said the investigation was being conducted by a special team led by Immigration Department director-general Datuk Aloyah Mamat.

It is now thought that “only” two passengers were using false passports and not four. Small comfort!

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Little Ice Age was due to low solar irradiance

March 10, 2014

The Sun is the only real source of energy available at the surface of the earth (and any heat from nuclear reactions at the earth’s core is extremely small if not completely negligible). That the oceans have a much higher heat capacity than the atmosphere at the surface of the earth is obvious. It seems also fairly clear to me that it is the dynamics of ocean – atmosphere interactions which control climate and weather. And it is the oceans and long time scales which dominate climate while it is the atmospheric variations and short time scales which determine weather.

But the driver is always the Sun.

A new paper in Nature GeoScience “used seafloor sediments taken from south of Iceland to study changes in the warm surface ocean current. This was done by analysing the chemical composition of fossilised microorganisms that had once lived in the surface of the ocean. These measurements were then used to reconstruct the seawater temperature and the salinity of this key ocean current over the past 1000 years.”

The researchers found that ” low solar irradiance promotes the development of frequent and persistent atmospheric blocking events, in which a quasi-stationary high-pressure system in the eastern North Atlantic modifies the flow of the westerly winds. We conclude that this process could have contributed to the consecutive cold winters documented in Europe during the Little Ice Age.”

Paola Moffa-Sánchez, Andreas Born, Ian R. Hall, David J. R. Thornalley, Stephen Barker. Solar forcing of North Atlantic surface temperature and salinity over the past millennium. Nature Geoscience, 2014; DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2094

Abstract: There were several centennial-scale fluctuations in the climate and oceanography of the North Atlantic region over the past 1,000 years, including a period of relative cooling from about AD 1450 to 1850 known as the Little Ice Age. These variations may be linked to changes in solar irradiance, amplified through feedbacks including the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation. Changes in the return limb of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation are reflected in water properties at the base of the mixed layer south of Iceland. Here we reconstruct thermocline temperature and salinity in this region from AD 818 to 1780 using paired δ18O and Mg/Ca ratio measurements of foraminifer shells from a subdecadally resolved marine sediment core. The reconstructed centennial-scale variations in hydrography correlate with variability in total solar irradiance. We find a similar correlation in a simulation of climate over the past 1,000 years. We infer that the hydrographic changes probably reflect variability in the strength of the subpolar gyre associated with changes in atmospheric circulation. Specifically, in the simulation, low solar irradiance promotes the development of frequent and persistent atmospheric blocking events, in which a quasi-stationary high-pressure system in the eastern North Atlantic modifies the flow of the westerly winds. We conclude that this process could have contributed to the consecutive cold winters documented in Europe during the Little Ice Age.

Cardiff University Press Release:

Changes in the sun’s energy output may have led to marked natural climate change in Europe over the last 1000 years, according to researchers at Cardiff University. The study found that changes in the Sun’s activity can have a considerable impact on the ocean-atmospheric dynamics in the North Atlantic, with potential effects on regional climate.

Scientists studied seafloor sediments to determine how the temperature of the North Atlantic and its localised atmospheric circulation had altered. Warm surface waters flowing across the North Atlantic, an extension of the Gulf Stream, and warm westerly winds are responsible for the relatively mild climate of Europe, especially in winter. Slight changes in the transport of heat associated with these systems can lead to regional climate variability, and the study findings matched historic accounts of climate change, including the notoriously severe winters of the 16th and 18th centuries which pre-date global industrialisation.

The study found that changes in the Sun’s activity can have a considerable impact on the ocean-atmospheric dynamics in the North Atlantic, with potential effects on regional climate.

Predictions suggest a prolonged period of low sun activity over the next few decades ……..

Though their study has nothing whatever to do with global warming and any man-made effects they still feel it necessary to add this caveat (presumably because the reviewers, and the Journal, or both, insisted).

Predictions suggest a prolonged period of low sun activity over the next few decades, but any associated natural temperature changes will be much smaller than those created by human carbon dioxide emissions, say researchers.

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