Wednesday, August 17, 2016



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You Ought to Have a Look: Natural Climate Variability

We want to highlight two new papers that both suggest that attributing heavy precipitation events in the United States to human-caused climate change is a fool's errand (not that there aren't plenty of fools running around out there). This is a timely topic to explore with the big rains in Louisiana over the weekend leading the news coverage.

One paper by a research team from the University of Iowa found that "the stronger storms are not getting stronger" and that there has not been any change in the seasonality of heavy rainfall events by examining trends in the magnitude, frequency, and seasonality of heavy rainfall events in the United States. They did report that the frequency of heavy rain events was increasing across much of the United States, with the exception of the Northwest. As to the reason behind the observed patterns, the authors write "[o]ur findings indicate that the climate variability of both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans can exert a large control on the precipitation frequency and magnitude over the contiguous USA."

The other paper, from a research team led by NOAA/GFDL's Karin van der Wiel, examined climate model projections and observed trends in heavy precipitation events across the United States and concludes:


Pretty emphatic and straightforward summary. So, the next time you read that such and such extreme precipitation event was made worse by global warming, you'll know that there is precious little actual science to back that up.

We'll note that the more astute science writers are actually familiar with findings like these but rather than fess-up about them, they prefer to further the climate change narrative through the use of weasel words like "is consistent with" expectations from climate change. This particularly useful phrase encompasses virtually all possibilities and allows every weather event to be linked to the nefarious burning of fossil fuels. And we do mean every-bad or good. But in practice, it is reserved by the media to be applied only to bad events or trends. For good-seeming goings-on, "dumb luck" is the preferred descriptor, despite plenty of science that could be used to show that good things, too, "are consistent with climate change expectations." Go figure.


Chemtrails are just contrails

They are believed by many to be a sign of a secret, large-scale atmospheric spraying program used to change everything from the environment to human health.

However, scientists have finally poured cold water on the conspiracy theorists - and claim chemtrails are just normal condensation.

'Well-understood physical and chemical processes can easily explain the alleged evidence of a secret, large-scale atmospheric spraying program, commonly referred to as 'chemtrails' or 'covert geoengineering,'' concludes a new study from Carnegie Science, University of California Irvine, and the nonprofit organization Near Zero.

Conspiracy theorists have claimed the long-lasting condensation trails, or contrails, left behind aircraft are evidence of a secret large-scale spraying program. They call these imagined features 'chemtrails.'

The authors of this study, including Carnegie's Ken Caldeira, conducted a survey of the world's leading atmospheric scientists, who categorically rejected the existence of a secret spraying program.

The team's findings, published by Environmental Research Letters, are based on a survey of two groups of experts: atmospheric chemists who specialize in condensation trails and geochemists working on atmospheric deposition of dust and pollution.

The survey results show that 76 of the 77 participating scientists said they had not encountered evidence of a secret spraying program, and agree that the alleged evidence cited by the individuals who believe that atmospheric spraying is occurring could be explained through other factors, such as typical airplane contrail formation and poor data sampling.

The research team undertook their study in response to the large number of people who claim to believe in a secret spraying program.


And in recent years a number of websites have arisen claiming to show evidence of widespread secret chemical spraying, which they say is linked to negative impacts on human health and the environment.

'We wanted to establish a scientific record on the topic of secret atmospheric spraying programs for the benefit of those in the public who haven't made up their minds,' said Davis.


The research team says they do not hope to sway those already convinced that there is a secret spraying program - as these individuals usually only reject counter-evidence as further proof of their theories - but rather to establish a source of objective science that can inform public discourse.

'Despite the persistence of erroneous theories about atmospheric chemical spraying programs, until now there were no peer-reviewed academic studies showing that what some people think are 'chemtrails' are just ordinary contrails, which are becoming more abundant as air travel expands.

'Also, it is possible that climate change is causing contrails to persist for longer periods than they used to,' Caldeira said.




Green Energy Harms the Poor

Wind and solar power have soaked up billions of dollars in public subsidies, but this hasn't made much of a dent in most households' energy budgets. In fact, the push for renewable energy has made electricity less affordable, not more. That's because it comes with more regulatory "sticks" as well as taxpayer-funded "carrots."


"The clean energy mantra is so loud that it often drowns out the feeble cry of energy poverty," Shughart and co-author Michael Jensen, a researcher at Utah State University's Institute for Political Economy, write in a recent op-ed. "Maintaining, or even lowering, energy costs must be as important a consideration in U.S. energy policy as any efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions." Unfortunately, federal bureaucrats and many politicians seem more eager to fight against cheap energy than for it.


Obama to roll out new climate change measures

President Obama's administration has unfinished business fighting climate change, which the president called "one of the most urgent challenges for our time."

"We know that 2015 surpassed the hottest year on record - and 2016 is on pace to be even hotter," Obama said in his weekly address. "There's still so much more to do.


Obama said he plans on debuting new tools for combating climate change before he leaves office.


Obama added he remains proud of his achievements battling climate change, namely the international Paris agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"We've multiplied wind power threefold. We've multiplied solar power more than thirtyfold," Obama said.

"And carbon pollution from our energy sector is at its lowest level in 25 years, even as we're continuing to grow our economy. We've invested in energy efficiency, and we're slashing carbon emissions from appliances, homes and businesses - saving families money on their energy bills."

Obama's potential successors diverge wildly on the threat climate change poses worldwide.

GOP nominee Donald Trump on Thursday downplayed the influence climate change has on mankind. He has previously called climate change a "hoax" pushed by China.

"I don't believe it's a devastating impact," he told The Miami Herald. "[I'm] not a big believer in manmade climate change."

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, in contrast, said late last month she wholly believes scientists urging for immediate action.

"I believe climate change is real and that we could save our planet while creating millions of good-paying clean energy jobs," she said at the Democratic convention in July.


Australia: The Warmist answer to climate skeptic Senator Roberts

The Warmist just misrepresented what was at issue.  Showing that there was a slight temperature rise in the last century is not in dispute.  Nor is it in dispute that CO2 levels rose in the last century. What is in dispute is that the two are correlated.  They are not.  During a major period of CO2 rise - 1945-1975, the temperatures were static. So one did not cause the other.  There has been a similar disjunction in the 21st century. 

And the graphs were presented as great leaping lines -- but that is pure chartmansip:  Exaggerating tiny differences.

The report below is presented as a defeat for Senator Roberts but that is just the usual media bias.  Fortunately, people can listen for themselves and may conclude that the Warmist failed.  See here

The celebrity physicist Brian Cox came prepared to the ABC's Q&A on Monday night with graphs, ready to counter claims by his co-panellist, the climate denier and Australian senator-elect Malcolm Roberts.

Roberts, one of four senators elected from Pauline Hanson's One Nation party, took the first opportunity to espouse long-refuted climate-denialist claims, including that warming stopped more than 20 years ago, starting the so-called "hiatus" or "pause".

But Cox produced a graph of global surface temperatures of the past century and immediately debunked the myth, pointing out it is a misunderstanding caused by looking at a small sample, starting from an unusually warm year two decades ago.

Cox didn't stop there. "Also, secondly, I've brought another graph. It is correlated with that, which is the graph that shows the CO2 emissions parts per million in."

Viewers on Twitter joined in. When Roberts argued that sea level rises had been "entirely natural and normal", a number of people posted graphs showing the steep rises.

Roberts repeatedly said he wanted to see "the empirical data". But when the data appeared to refute what he said, he argued that scientists had conspired to manipulate it.

"The data has been corrupted," he said at one point, arguing that Nasa and the Australian Bureau of Meteorology had manipulated data to make warming look unusual. That led to questioning about whether he was sceptical that Nasa landed people on the moon, which Roberts denied.

Greg Hunt, the former environment minister and current minister for industry, innovation and science was also on the panel and was asked about the CSIRO's move to climate research cutbacks.

Hunt said the CSIRO had made that decision but that he had reversed it: "I made the decision that under our watch it would be given priority."

But the host, Tony Jones, pushed Hunt on how many climate scientists would be lost from the CSIRO after the changes were complete: "Very briefly, give us some numbers. How many were sacked, climate scientists and how much did you re-employ?"

Hunt refused to answer, saying: "I'll let others go over the history of that."

As the Guardian has previously reported, the CSIRO will sack 35 climate scientists but there will be 15 new hires. The organisation will therefore lose 20 of its roughly 110 climate scientists.






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