Warming Bias and Hot-Town Thermometers

27 Monday May 2019

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AIRS, Albedo, Axial Tilt, Diurnal Temperature Range, Eccentricity, global warming, Insolation, Interglacial, Javier, Jim Steele, NASA, Obliquity, Paleoclimatolog, Roy Spencer, Satellite Temperatures, Urban Heat Islands

A few little-recognized facts about global warming are summarized nicely by climate researcher Javier in a comment on this post by Dr. Roy Spencer:

“It is mainly over land and not over sea. It is mainly in the Northern Hemisphere and not in the Southern Hemisphere. It is mainly during winter and not during summer. And it affects mainly minimal (night) temperature and not maximal (day) temperature.”

I added the hyperlinks to Javier’s comment. The last two items on his list emphasize a benign aspect of the warming we’ve experienced since the late 1970s. After all, cold temperatures are far deadlier than warm temperatures.

Here is a disclaimer: my use of the term “global warming” refers to the fact that averages of measured temperatures have risen in a few fits and starts over the past four decades. I do not use the term to mean a permanent trend induced by human activity, since that time span is very short in climatological terms, and the observed increase is well within the historical range of natural variation.

Few seem aware that the surface temperature record is plagued by an obvious issue: the siting of most weather stations in urban environments. In fact, urban weather stations account for 82% of total stations in the U.S., as Jim Steele writes of “Our Urban ‘Climate Crisis’“. Temperatures run hot in cities due to the heat-absorbing characteristics of building materials and the high proportion of impervious ground cover. And some stations well outside of metropolitan areas are also situated near concrete and pavement. There is little doubt that urbanization and thoughtless siting decisions for weather stations have corrupted temperature measurements and exaggerated surface warming trends.

Hot summer days always arouse expressions of climate alarm. However, increases in summer temperatures, and daytime temperatures, have been relatively modest compared to increases in winter and nighttime temperatures. In Roy Spencer’s post, (also linked above), he reports that 80% of the U.S. warming observed by a NASA satellite system (AIRS) from September 2002 to March 2019 occurred at night.

Of course, climate alarmists also claim that global warming makes temperatures more volatile. So, they argue, there are now more very hot days even if the change in the average summer temperature is modest. The facts do not support that claim, however. Indeed, the world has experienced less temperature volatility as global temperatures have risen. And less extreme weather, as it happens, is contrary to another theme in the warmest narrative.

There is some reason to believe that the relative increase in nighttime temperature is connected to the urban heat island effect. Pavement, concrete, and other materials retain heat overnight. Thus, increasing urbanization leads to nighttime temperatures that do not fall from their daily highs as much as they did a few decades back. The magnification of daytime heating is not as pronounced as the effect of retained heat overnight, which causes the diurnal temperature range to decrease. But I should note that some rural farmers insist that nighttime lows have increased relative to daytime highs there as well, and Roy Spencer himself is not confident that the satellite temperature data on which his finding was based reflects a strong urban heat island effect.

For perspective, it’s good to remember that we live in the midst of an interglacial period. These are relatively brief, temperate intervals between lengthier glacial periods (see here, and more from Javier here). The current interglacial is well advanced, having begun about 11,700 years ago, but Javier estimates that it could last for another 1,500 years. That would be longer than the historical average. At the peak of the last interglacial period, temperatures were about 2C higher than today and sea levels were 5 meters higher. The last interglacial ended about 120,000 years ago, but the historical average time between interglacials is only about 41,000 years. These low frequency changes in the global climate are generally driven by the Earth’s axial tilt (obliquity), recurring cycles in the shape of our eliptical orbit around the Sun (eccentricity), and the Earth’s solar exposure (insolation) and albedo.

Biased surface temperature records have both inspired and reinforced the sense of panic surrounding global warming. Few observers seem to understand the existence of a strong bias, let alone its source: the urban heat island effect. And few seem to realize that most of the warming we’ve experienced since the 1970s has occurred at night, not during the day, and that these changes are well within the range of natural variation. Dramatic climate change happens at both long and short time scales for reasons that are largely astronomical. The lengthy historical record accumulated by paleoclimatologists shows that current concerns over global warming are exaggerated. I’m quite confident that mankind will find ways to adapt to climate change in either direction, but some global warming might be beneficial once the next glacial period begins.

The Non-Trend In Hurricane Activity

18 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by pnuetz in Global Warming, Hurricanes

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David Middleton, El Nino, global warming, Hurricane Michael, Media Bias, Natural Disasters, Roy Spencer, Ryan Maue, Selection Bias, Tropical Cyclone Energy, Warren Meyer

People are unaccountably convinced that there is an upward trend in severe weather events due to global warming. But there is no upward trend in the data on either the frequency or severity of those events. Forget, for the moment, the ongoing debate about the true extent of climate warming. In fact, I’ll stipulate that warming has occurred over the past 40 years, though most of it was confined to the jump roughly coincident with two El Ninos in the 1990s; there’s been little if any discernible trend since. But what about the trend in severe weather? I’ve heard people insist that it is true, but a few strong hurricanes do not constitute a trend.

The two charts at the top of this post were created by hurricane expert Ryan N. Maue. I took them from an article by David Middleton., but visit Maue’s web site on tropical cyclone activity for more. The last month plotted is September 2018, so the charts do not account for Hurricane Michael and the 2018 totals are for a partial year. The first nine months of each year typically accounts for about 3/4 of annual tropical cyclones, so 2018 will be a fairly strong year. Nevertheless, the charts refute the contention that there has been an upward trend in tropical cyclone activity. In fact, in the lower chart, the years following the 1990s increase in global temperatures is shown to have been a time a lower cyclone energy. Roy Spencer weighs in on the negative trend in major landfalling hurricanes in the U.S. and Florida stretching over many decades.

Warren Meyer blames ‘”media selection bias” for the mistaken impression of dangerous trends that do not exist. That is, the news media are very likely to report extreme events, as they should, but they are very unlikely to report a paucity of extreme events, no matter how lengthy or unusual the dearth:

“Does anyone doubt that if we were having a record-heavy tornado season, this would be leading every newscast? [But] if a record-heavy year is newsworthy, shouldn’t a record-light year be newsworthy as well? Apparently not.”

It so happens that 2018, thus far, has seen very close to a record low number of tornadoes in the U.S.

Meyer also highlights the frequent use of misleading statistics on the real value of damage from natural disasters. That aggregate value has almost certainly grown over the years, but it had nothing to do with the number or severity of natural disasters. Meyer explains:

“Think about places where there are large natural disasters in the US — two places that come to mind are California fires and coastal hurricanes. Do you really think that the total property value in California or on the US coastline has grown only at inflation? You not only have real estate price increases, but you have the value of new construction. The combination of these two is WAY over the 2-3% inflation rate.”

Recent experiences are always the most vivid in our minds. The same is true of broad impressions drawn from reports on the most recent natural disasters. The drama and tragedy of these events should never be minimized, and the fact that there is no upward trend in cyclone activity is no consolation to victims of those disasters. Still, the media can’t seem to resist the narrative that the threat of such events is increasing, even if it can’t be proven. Indeed, even if it’s not remotely correct. Reporters are human and generally not good at science, and they are not immune to the tendency to exaggerate the significance of events upon which they report. A dangerous, prospective trend is at once scary, exciting, and possibly career-enhancing. As for the public, sheer repetition is enough to convince most people that such a threat is undeniable… that everybody knows it… that the trend is already underway. The fact is that the upward trend in hurricane activity (and other kinds of severe weather) is speculative, not real.

Deceits of the Climate Claimants

23 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by pnuetz in Global Warming

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Al Gore, Alpine Tree Lines, Armadillos, Desertification, Global Greening, global warming, Ocean Acidification, Polar Bears, Social Cost of Carbon, Steven Hayward

Well-meaning souls innocently parrot the global warming narrative but generally know little of the controversies surrounding its validation, or lack thereof. That includes much of the mainstream media. Every warm day is evidence of global warming. Every cold day is evidence of extreme volatility brought on by climate change. Every big storm, every forest fire, and every endangered species is attributed to warming. The poles are melting, the sea is rising, the sky is falling, and it is mostly bullshit. But in the meantime, the mythology of global warming has become an all-purpose cudgel for state oversight and “redistributive justice”, primarily to the benefit of the “climate change industrial complex. The myths are repeated so frequently that many accept them as facts. Here, I list a few of these myths along with information that should give pause to anyone tempted to take them too seriously.

The science is settled: There are a number of great scientists who dispute the global warming narrative (and see here). But a few studies have claimed incredibly widespread consensus (97%) among scientists that mankind drives climate change. These studies are generally plagued by biased samples of scientists (sometimes including non-scientists), faulty selection and classification of paper abstracts, and direct involvement of climate activists in the research process. These studies tend to present the “consensus” as one side of a stark dichotomy, with no nuance or middle ground for those subscribing to anything less than the inevitability of a warming catastrophe.

Record high temperatures: The temperatures that are almost always reported are surface temperatures that are subject to extreme bias. The most drastic bias is caused by increasing urbanization. Urban weather instruments are often sited in areas with an increasing amount of impervious ground cover, which absorbs sunlight and heat, leading to the so-called “urban heat-island effect”. This has imparted an upward trend in urban temperature readings. Moreover, urban temperature readings tend to be over-sampled in estimates of global surface temperatures, reinforcing the distortions in measured warming.

Melting poles: Arctic sea ice extent has been in modest retreat since 1980, when satellite measurement began to allow more accurate readings. The Antarctic, however, has shown a trend in the other direction, as shown in this piece by Judith Curry. In the same article, Curry shows that specific Arctic locations had less sea ice 6,000 to 8,000 years ago than today. For more complete information on satellite-era trends in sea ice extent, see this informative reference page (scroll way down for Antarctic information). Looks like Al Gore’s dire prediction that the poles would melt by 2007 was just a little off target.

Polar bear extinction: We are constantly seeing warnings of polar bear extinction on social media. Memes feature desperate-looking bears stranded on ice floes, drifting away from their cubs. Perhaps you aren’t supposed to know that polar bears are extremely strong swimmers. Or that the polar bear population is been thriving, increasing by an estimated 10-20% since 2001. So whether or not the past few decades have seen a decline in sea ice, the bears seem be doing just fine.

Rising sea levels: The rate of increase in sea levels over the past 8,000 years has been vey slow relative to the 10,000 years prior to that, when they rose at rates of up to 5.5 meters per century. That compares to recent rates of about one foot per century. Predictions that islands in the Pacific would be swallowed by the seas have not come to pass. In fact, satellite images show that more of the world’s sandy shorelines accreted than receded between 1984 and 2016, This does not appear to be a crisis by any means.

Increasing storms: No, the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclone activity has decreased since 1900, a trend that has continued unabated over the past 20 years. I know of at least one study suggesting otherwise, but it is based purely on modeled relationships, not hard data, and not tested against data. The frequency and intensity of droughts and floods has been flat to declining as well. And while more weak tornadoes are detected today than in the past, the frequency of moderate to strong tornadoes has decreased over the past 45 years.

Desertification: Increases in carbon concentration have not been associated with desertification, as the media seem to have concluded. As noted above, the frequency of drought has been steady to declining. In fact, precipitation data suggests that patterns of variability in rainfall do not square with the predictions of climate models. In fact, the world has seen an increase in green vegetation since 1985, even in arid regions.

Ocean acidification: The reported declines in ocean pH levels over the past few centuries are actually smaller than the normal seasonal variation in pH levels. The presumed negative impact on sea life appears, after all, to be minimal to nonexistent (see the same link).

Higher alpine tree lines: We’ve been waiting. It hasn’t happened, but that hasn’t stopped some activists from stating it as established fact.

Armadillo northward migration: I’ve heard this cited as “proof” of global warming. The range of armadillos extended as far north as southern Missouri and Kansas in the early 1970s, so this isn’t new. In fact, armadillos began their migration northward into the U.S. before the mid-1800s. Some biologists have attributed the migration to warming but acknowledge many other reasons, including more forested habitat in the north and factors such as movement of cattle by rail. Armadillos burrow and are able to keep warm underground in the winter. Of course, a series of warm winters can bring them further north along with other species, but a few cold winters can take a toll on the population and push them south again.

U.S. carbon criminality: U.S. CO2 emissions have been in almost steady decline on a per capita basis for at least seven decades, long before the carbon freak-out began. The declines have resulted largely from the normal market process of competitive efficiency in production. China leads the world in total annual CO2 emissions by a wide margin, about 80% ahead of the U.S. in 2017. Total U.S. emissions actually declined in 2017 for the third straight year, while emissions in China, the EU, and for the world all increased. In fact, China was actually in compliance with its pledge under the Paris Accord despite the increase, so the pledge was not especially ambitious.

High social cost of carbon: The estimates used by the Environmental Protection Agency are plagued by poor methodology and are subject to great uncertainty. Some studies rely on a series of tenuous causal links, such as CO2 emissions to global temperatures to ice melt to sea level to real dollars of coastal damage many years hence, all without considering variances at each stage, and assuming zero effort to adapt or mitigate damages over long time frames. A shortcut approach relies on historical correlations between temperatures and such measures as heat-related deaths, labor productivity and real output. These estimates extrapolate old relationships to the distant future and ignore the very real human tendency to adapt. The underlying assumptions are undercut by such basic facts as ongoing migration to warmer regions. The estimates also fail to account for the likelihood that warmer weather will improve agricultural productivity.

The public’s interest in climate change has waned, and no wonder: sensible people do not buy hype and demands for sacrifice in the face of contradictory evidence. Revelations of statistical fraud have led to even more skepticism. And when your “proof” is founded on model extrapolation, often theoretically-based rather than empirically-based, you’re skating on thin scientific ice. At this link, Steven Hayward has an interesting take on the public’s increasingly jaundiced view of global warming activism:

“Scientists who are genuinely worried about the potential for catastrophic climate change ought to be the most outraged at how the left politicized the issue and how the international policy community narrowed the range of acceptable responses. Treating climate change as a planet-scale problem that could be solved only by an international regulatory scheme transformed the issue into a political creed for committed believers. Causes that live by politics, die by politics.”

Climate Change, Hurricanes and Noisy Statistics

22 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by pnuetz in Global Warming

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AGW, Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation, Climate Change, Cool the Past, East Anglia University, El Nino, Fabius Maximus, global warming, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Maria, Michael Mann, NOAA, Roger Pielke Sr, Roy Spencer, Ryan Maue, Sea Surface Temperatures, Signal-to-Noise, Statistical Noise, Storm Intensity, Watt's Up With That?

The nasty spate of hurricanes this year has been a catch-up of sorts following a decade of subdued activity. In fact, global hurricane activity has been flat to declining in frequency since 1970. Until the recent increase, hurricane activity had been trending down in terms of 24-month cumulative energy since the 1990s, as the chart above shows. The historical data on the number of U.S. landfalls extends back to 1900, and it has had a negative trend as well. Nevertheless, we hear from climate alarmists that Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which ended a drought of record length in U.S hurricane landfalls, and now presumably Maria, were a consequence of anthropomorphic global warming (AGW), er… climate change.

The implication is that increases in the atmospheric concentration of CO2 led to these hurricanes or their high intensity. Apparently, the paucity of hurricane activity over the previous ten years can be waved off as a fluke. A further implication of the alarmist view is that the longer negative trends in hurricane frequency and energy can be ignored in the context of any relation to CO2 concentration. But how so? One confounding factor I’ve seen mentioned blames El Nino warming in the Pacific, and a consequent increase in Atlantic wind shear, for the long lull in activity after 2005. That has a ring of plausibility, but a closer look reveals that actual El Nino activity during those years was hardly impressive, with the exception of 2015-16.

More historical data can be seen in the charts on the tropical cyclone page on the Watts Up With That? blog. (The charts in question start about two-thirds of the way down the page.) Hurricane expert Ryan Maue compiled a number of these charts, including the one above. He authored an editorial in the Wall Street Journal this week bemoaning the climate-change hype surrounding Harvey and Irma (if the link doesn’t work, it is available at the WSJ’s Opinion page on Facebook, posted on 9/17). Maue believes that both the climate science community and the media share in the blame for that hype. But he also says the following:

“Although a clear scientific consensus has emerged over the past decade that climate change influences hurricanes in the long run, its effect upon any individual storm is unclear.“

Maue provides a link to this NOAA web site offering cautious support for the proposition that there is a link between global warming and hurricane intensity, though the data it cites ends about ten years ago, so it does not capture the recent lull. Also, some of the information it provides is based on modeled global temperatures and hurricane activity through 2100. As is well-known by now, or should be, long-term climate forecasts based on carbon forcings are notoriously inaccurate, and NOAA admits that the association between those predicted temperatures and future hurricanes is tenuous:

“It is premature to conclude that human activities–and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming–have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity.“

Perhaps the idea that there is consensus regarding the relationship between climate change and hurricanes is more of a stretch than Maue and NOAA let on. Here is a summary of 30 peer-reviewed studies showing no connection to either hurricane frequency or intensity. Most of these studies are more recent than the end of the data record cited by NOAA. And in fact, many of these studies find support for a negative link between global temperatures and hurricane activity.

One of the prominent alarmists in the climate research community is Penn State’s Michael Mann, who has famously claimed that hurricanes are more frequent now than at any time in the past 1,000 years. He based his conclusions on highly speculative hurricane “proxies” identified in layers of sediment. Mann’s claims and research technique have been called into questioned by other climate scientists, who have arrived at contrary results in their own research. Lest anyone forget, Mann was implicated in a data manipulation fraud related to the East Anglia climate scandal. Though cleared by a group of tenured professors at his own university, there are a number of climate scientists who believe Mann violated scientific standards.

The claim that global warming will cause hurricanes to become increasingly intense relies on elevated sea surface temperatures. This year, temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico are elevated and are said to have had a role in strengthening Harvey as it approached the Gulf Coast. Texas, however, has experienced as many landfalls of major hurricanes with cooler Gulf waters as with warmer waters. And Irma strengthened in a part of the Atlantic without such warm temperatures. Instead, minimal wind shear was implicated as a factor contributing to Irma’s strength.

In general, Atlantic temperatures have been relatively warm since the late 1990s, a fact that most scientists would at least partially attribute to the “Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation“, a regular cycle in water temperatures that repeats with a period of multiple decades. Potentially adding to that temperature increase is a controversial change in NOAA’s calibration of sea surface temperatures, as an increasing share of those readings are taken from buoys rather than ship-board measurement. There is some suspicion that NOAA’s adjustments “cool the past” more than is justified, a suspicion that was heightened by allegations from one whistle-blowing NOAA scientist early this year. Then, there is the contention that the sea surface temperature makes little difference if it is matched by an increase in air temperature.

Overall, NOAA says the combination of frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones will increase by 2%-11% over the rest of this century. As Roy Spencer notes, that is not a terribly alarming figure given the risks people have always willingly accepted by living in coastal areas. In any case, the range is based on models of climate behavior that are of questionable reliability. And like past temperature predictions produced by carbon-forcing climate models, it is likely to be a gross overestimate. Here is Roger Pielke, Sr., who is quoted in this wide-ranging post on hurricanes and climate at the Fabius Maximus web site:

“Model projections of hurricane frequency and intensity are based on climate models. However, none have shown skill at predicting past (as hindcasts) variations in hurricane activity (or long term change in their behavior) over years, decades, and longer periods. Thus, their claim of how they will change in the future remains, at most, a hypothesis (i.e. speculation). When NOAA, IPCC and others communicate to the media and public, to be scientifically honest, they should mention this.”

Despite the spike in activity this year, strong hurricanes are intermittent and fairly rare. Establishing reliable statistical connections with other forces is difficult with emergent events like hurricanes. Moreover, the degree of error in measuring global or regional temperature itself is much larger than is generally acknowledged, and the global warming “signal” is very weak. As we say in the statistical analysis business, noisy data are compatible with diverse hypotheses. The relationship between hurricanes and climate change is a prime example.

The Greening-Carbon Nexus

17 Saturday Dec 2016

Posted by pnuetz in Environment, Global Warming

≈ 2 Comments

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Atmospheric Carbon Concentration, Climate Change, Climate Consensus, David Henderson, Global Greening, global warming, Harrison H. Schmitt, Matt Ridley, Pollution, Rand Paul, Rodney W. Nichols, Roy Spencer, Thomas Malthus

Satellite records show that our world is experiencing a remarkable “greening” in the 21st century, to the seeming chagrin of the environmental left. There is now more vegetation than two decades ago, and greener vegetation, across as much as 50% of the Earth’s vegetated surface area. That area is expanding as well, and the creeping greenery has improved soil moisture levels in some drylands. This bodes well for agricultural productivity, putting another nail in Malthus’ coffin. The satellite studies have concluded that most of the enhanced vegetation is attributable to greater concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, as opposed to warming or other possible causes. An interesting feedback is that the enhanced vegetation increases natural absorption of CO2, providing an enhanced carbon sink. This, in turn, has caused a pause in the growth of atmospheric carbon cencentration.

The environmental left knows these developments tend to undermine their preferred narrative that human emissions of CO2 must be reduced — at any cost. In fact, already there are warnings that global greening will “outgrow its benefit” as the greater volume of plants begins to decay, releasing carbon. You just can’t make some people happy! But not all of the carbon release from plant decay adds to atmospheric carbon — some is soil-bound — so the greening should provide a fairly durable carbon sink.

Global greening was one of the major motifs in Matt Ridley’s 2016 Global Warming Policy Foundation Lecture. Ridley covered various evidence of greening, but he also discussed the failure of a large contingent of climate researchers to follow a legitimate scientific approach to the study of climate change. Instead, they have politicized their field of study, committing a few noteworthy frauds along the way:

“It is irresponsible not to challenge the evidence properly, especially if the policies pursued in its name are causing suffering. Increasingly, many people would like to outlaw, suppress, prosecute and censor all discussion of what they call ‘the science’ rather than engage in debate. …

No wonder that I talk frequently to scientists who are skeptical, but dare not say so openly. That is a ridiculous state of affairs. We’re told that it’s impertinent to question “the science” and that we must think as we are told. But arguments from authority are the refuge of priests. Thomas Henry Huxley put it this way: ‘The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin’.

What keeps science honest, what stops it from succumbing entirely to confirmation bias, is that it is decentralized, allowing one lab to challenge another.“

It is all too true that policies advanced in the interests of curbing a slight warming trend cause real suffering, and the pain is heavily concentrated on the most impoverished. The presumed benefits of activist climate-change policies are speculative, at best. They have little chance of reversing atmospheric carbon concentration on their own.

Ridley makes note of the substantial evidence that sensitivity of the climate to airborne carbon concentration is low. This has become increasingly evident with the unfolding of a consistent record of over-forecasts of global temperatures by climate forcing models. Roy Spencer provides insights about these models in a recent discussion of global warming and “dodgy science” on his blog.

There is a widespread myth that 97 percent of climate scientists believe human activity is the main cause of global warming. In fact, that claim was based on a paper counting citations, not scientists; the methods used in the study and the citations themselves were also questionable. I have reviewed that evidence here on Sacred Cow Chips. David Henderson reviewed it here. A large number of studies find fault with so-called “consensus” pronouncements. They should always be viewed with suspicion.

There is also a lively debate underway over whether CO2 should be considered a pollutant! I exhale, therefore I pollute? To the extent that fecal matter is considered a pollutant, is it fair that to say that CO2 is, too? After all, both are anthropogenic. No, they are not even close in terms of an immediate threat to human health. As a philosophical matter, the idea that anything done by man is “unnatural” denies the fact that we are a very part of nature. Obviously, CO2 is not in the same class as pollutants like sulfur dioxide, ammonia, carbon monoxide or toxic metals. Today, these pollutants are very common in many parts of the world, and they are very threatening to human life. Effective mitigation technologies are available, but instead, in the developed West, we fixate on an increase in CO2 concentration of 100 parts per million over many decades, the climate implications of which are de minimis.

Rand Paul’s Facebook page has an ungated link to a WSJ.com commentary by Rodney W. Nichols and Harrison H. Schmitt on “The Phony War Against CO2”. Their commentary provokes questions as to the motives of the environmental left, and certain members of the research community, in shilling for the cause. That we would fight the greening of the globe, and the potential agricultural benefit it could bring, is bizarre. To devote enormous resources to an endeavor that is largely futile is a waste and a tragedy.

Climate Summit Success? Let’s Talk In Five Years

02 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by pnuetz in Global Warming, Human Welfare

≈ 1 Comment

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AGW, Benny Peisner, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Verification, Climate Alarmism, Climate and Terrorism, Climate Hysteria, Climate Summit, COP 21, global warming, IPCC, Joel Kotkin, Matt Ridley, Regressive Climate Policy

Misplaced priorities are on full display in Paris for the next ten days at the climate conference known as COP-21 (“Conference of the Parties”). Joel Kotkin makes note of the hysteria in evidence among climate activists fostered by political opportunists, economic illiteracy and fraudulent climate research. Of course, climate alarmism offers handsome rewards for politician-cronyists and rent-seeking corporatists. With that seemingly in mind, President Barack Obama is playing the role of opportunist-in-chief, claiming that climate change is the biggest threat to U.S. security while blithely asserting that the climate is responsible for the growing danger from terrorism. Here is Kotkin on such tenuous claims:

“… this reflects the growing tendency among climate change activists to promote their cause with sometimes questionable assertions. Generally level-headed accounts, such as in the Economist and in harder-edge publications like the Daily Telegraph, have demonstrated that many claims of climate change activists have already been disproven or are somewhat exaggerated.“

“Somewhat exaggerated” is an understatement, given the scandals that have erupted in the climate research community, the miserable predictive record of carbon forcing models, and the questionable practices employed by NASA and NOAA researchers in adjusting surface temperature data (see below for links). When it comes to climate activism, the Orwellian aspect of Groupthink is palpable:

“Rather than address possible shortcomings in their models, climate change activists increasingly tend to discredit critics as dishonest and tools of the oil companies. There is even a move to subject skeptics to criminal prosecution for deceiving the public.“

This is thoroughly contrary to the spirit of scientific inquiry, to say nothing of free speech. As if to parody their questionable approach to an issue of science, climate-change devotees have come out in full force to attack the excellent Matt Ridley, a sure sign that they find his message threatening to the power of their mantra. Ridley and Benny Peiser have an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this week entitled “Your Complete Guide to the Climate Debate” (should be ungated for now). The authors discuss the weakness of the scientific case for anthropomorphic global warming (AGW); the fact that they use findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to make this critique must be particularly galling to the alarmists. Ridley and Peisner cover the correspondingly flimsy case for draconian environmental policies to deal with the perceived threat of AGW. Also, they emphasize the regressive nature of the demands made by the environmental left, who are either ignorant or unfazed by the following truths:

“… there are a billion people with no grid electricity whose lives could be radically improved—and whose ability to cope with the effects of weather and climate change could be greatly enhanced—with the access to the concentrated power of coal, gas or oil that the rich world enjoys. Aid for such projects has already been constrained by Western institutions in the interest of not putting the climate at risk. So climate policy is hurting the poor.“

Finally, Ridley and Peisner explain the economic incentives that are likely to undermine any meaningful international agreement in Paris. Less developed countries have been asked to reduce their carbon emissions, which they can ill afford, and to agree to a verification framework. Those parties might agree if they view the framework as sufficiently easy to game (and it will be), and if they are compensated handsomely by the developed world. The latter will represent an insurmountable political challenge for the U.S. and other developed countries, who are already attempting to promulgate costly new restrictions on carbon emissions.

“Concerned about the loss of industrial competitiveness, the Obama administration is demanding an international transparency-and-review mechanism that can verify whether voluntary pledges are met by all countries. Developing countries, however, oppose any outside body reviewing their energy and industrial activities and carbon-dioxide emissions on the grounds that such efforts would violate their sovereignty.

… China, India and the ‘Like-Minded Developing Countries’ group are countering Western pressure by demanding a legally binding compensation package of $100 billion a year of dedicated climate funds, as promised by President Obama at the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen in 2009.

However, developing nations are only too aware that the $100 billion per annum funding pledge is never going to materialize, not least because the U.S. Congress would never agree to such an astronomical wealth transfer. This failure to deliver is inevitable, but it will give developing nations the perfect excuse not to comply with their own national pledges.“

These conflicting positions may mean that the strongest point of accord at the Paris conference will be to meet again down the road.

“Expect an agreement that is sufficiently vague and noncommittal for all countries to sign and claim victory. Such an agreement will also have to camouflage deep and unbridgeable divisions while ensuring that all countries are liberated from legally binding targets a la Kyoto.“

This morning, an apparently sleepy and deluded President Obama spoke at the Paris conference before heading back to the U.S. He insisted again that the agreement he expects to come out of Paris will be a “powerful rebuke” to terrorists. Yeah, that’ll show ’em! Even a feeble agreement will be trumpeted as a great victory by the conference parties; Obama and the Left will attempt to wield it as a political cudgel, a brave accomplishment if it succeeds in any way, and a vehicle for blame if it is blocked by the principled opponents of climate alarmism. The media will play along without considering scientific evidence running contrary to the hysterical global warming narrative. Meanwhile, the frailty of the agreement will represent something of a win for humanity.

Here are some links to previous posts on this topic from Sacred Cow Chips:

Climate Negotiators To Discuss Economic Cannibalism

A Cooked Up Climate Consensus

Fitting Data To Models At NOAA

Carbon Farce Meets Negative Forcings

Subsidized Waste: The Renewable Irony

Manipulating Temperatures, People & Policy

Record Hot Baloney

Alluring Apocalypse Keeps Failing To Materialize

The Stench of Green Desperation

Cut CO2, But What About the Environment?

Live Long and Prosper With Fossil Fuels

Divesting of Human Well-Being

Manipulating Temperatures, People & Policy

21 Friday Aug 2015

Posted by pnuetz in Global Warming, Tyranny

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Bob Tisdale, Climate fraud, crony capitalism, global warming, Matt Ridley, NASA, NOAA, Robert Brown, Ronald Bailey, Satellite Temperatures, Surface Temperatures, Temperature adjustments, UK Met Office, Werner Brozek

The heavily-manipulated global surface temperatures quoted by NOAA and NASA point to another “hottest month on record” in July, but the satellite temperature measurements do not agree. Nor do several other widely-followed global temperature series maintained elsewhere, such as the UK Meteorological Office (UK Met Office). I wrote about the manipulation of surface temperatures by NOAA and NASA in January in “Record Hot Baloney“, and in “Fitting Data To Models At NOAA” in June:

“If the facts don’t suit your agenda, change them! The 18-year “hiatus” in global warming, which has made a shambles of climate model predictions, is now said to have been based on “incorrect data”, according to researchers at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Translation: they have created new data “adjustments” that tell a story more consistent with their preferred narrative, namely, that man-made carbon emissions are forcing global temperatures upward, more or less steadily.“

The last link provides detail on the nature of the manipulations. Perhaps surprisingly, rather large downward adjustments have been made to historical temperature data, reinforcing any upward trend in the late 20th century and hiding the current 18-year pause in that trend. Suffice it to say that the “adjustments” made by these agencies are at fairly detailed levels; some of the before-and-after comparisons shown by gifs at this link are rather astonishing. Some climate researchers have started to refer to the temperature series as “reconstructions” instead of “data”, out of respect for the legitimacy of actual data.

In the meantime, the “warmist” propaganda keeps flowing from NOAA and NASA, and it is hungrily swallowed and then regurgitated by media alarmists. The media love a good scare story. They are so complicit in reinforcing the warmist narrative they will ignore the revelation of a faulty temperature sensor at National Airport in Washington, D.C. (another hat tip to John Crawford). It has been recording temperatures averaging 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit too warm for the past 19 months. Now that the sensor has been changed, NOAA states that it will not make any adjustments to the past 19 months of recorded temperatures from the National weather station, despite the fact that they have routinely made many other changes, often without any real explanation.

Here is a recent opinion from Duke University Professor Robert Brown on the divergence of satellite and NASA/NOAA surface temperatures and the adjustments to the latter:

“The two data sets should not be diverging, period, unless everything we understand about atmospheric thermal dynamics is wrong. That is, I will add my “opinion” to Werner’s and point out that it is based on simple atmospheric physics taught in any relevant textbook. …

This does not mean that they cannot and are not systematically differing; it just means that the growing difference is strong evidence of bias in the computation of the surface record.“

Every new report issued by NOAA/NASA on record warm temperatures should be severely discounted. They are toiling in the service of a policy agenda; it will cost you dearly, and it will severely punish the less fortunate here and especially in less developed parts of the world; and it will reward the statist elite, bureaucrats and Green crony capitalists. Ronald Bailey in Reason recently weighed in on the consequences of this “apocalyptic anti-progress ideology“. Or read the wise words of Matt Ridley on “The recurrent problem of green scares that don’t live up to the hype“. Hey greens, relax! And don’t waste our resources and our well being on precautions against exaggerated risks.

Record Hot Baloney

18 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by pnuetz in Global Warming

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Bob Tisdale, Cartoons By Josh, Climate fraud, El Nino, global warming, NASA, NOAA, Temperature Adjustment, Temperature records, Wall Street Journal, Watt's Up With That?

It’s easy to make big headlines that serve a policy agenda when you can control the process generating “scientific” data. Here’s the latest in an ongoing fraud perpetrated by NASA, NOAA and a few other organizations. The disinformation is happily scooped up and reported by the unsuspecting news media, in this case The Wall Street Journal. The headline says that 2014 was the warmest year on record back to 1980, but there are several important respects in which the report from NASA and NOAA is misleading.

The surface temperature records maintained by NASA and NOAA (and others) utilize the same source data (despite NASA’s claim that the two series are “independent”), but they are heavily adjusted by the respective agencies. We can all probably agree that more recent temperature measurements (the raw data) are more reliable due to the availability of better and more numerous instruments (particularly for ocean surface temperatures). However, combining recent measurements with older data in a way that assures comparability is difficult over more than a few decades. Weather stations come, go, and relocate, environmental conditions around stations change with urbanization and airport expansions, and new measurement techniques are introduced.

Constructing a consistent temperature series over 130+ years at the world or regional level is therefore subject to much controversy. Here is a page with links to several good posts of the problems inherent in these efforts. Data is “infilled” and sometimes deleted, and statistical techniques are often applied in an effort to achieve consistency over time. However, it is curious that the NASA and NOAA adjustments over time seem to pivot around the levels of the 1950s and 1960s, as if to suggest that the temperatures measured in those decades are the most reliable part of the series. Take a look at the “gifs”in this post, which show temperatures before and after adjustments. An apparent consequence of the NASA / NOAA statistical techniques, which may seem even more curious to the casual observer, is that new observations can influence the entire temperature series. That is, adding 2014 temperatures to the series may lead to fresh downward adjustments to 1936 temperatures, if it suits the agencies. By the way, 1936 was a very warm year, but according to these agencies, it’s been getting less warm.

Another fascinating aspect of the report on 2014 temperatures is the obvious attempt to propagandize. This Bob Tisdale post sheds light on three serious omissions in the report and the related effort to “spin” the findings for the press:

1) The range of uncertainty cited by NOAA in background documents indicates that the small margin (0.04 deg C for NOAA, 0.02 deg C by NASA) by which the reported 2014 global temperature exceeds the previous high is within the confidence interval around the previous high. By their own standard, it was “more unlikely than likely”that the 2014 temperature was the warmest on record, but that is not what the agencies report in their “Highlights.”

2) The report states that “This is the first time since 1990 the high temperature record was broken in the absence of El Niño conditions at any time during the year in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean….” Yet there were El Nino conditions elsewhere in the Pacific in 2014.

3) “NOAA failed to discuss the actual causes of the elevated global sea surface temperatures in 2014, while making it appear that there was a general warming of the surfaces of the global oceans.”

Tisdale notes elsewhere that the tiny margins of “record warmth” reported by NASA and NOAA contribute to a growing disparity between reported “actual temperatures” and those projected by climate warming models. The “Warmist” community will view the NASA / NOAA findings favorably, as the new “record high” supports their narrative,” providing new fodder for the agenda to end the use of fossil fuels and to regulate activities deemed “unsustainable.” Unfortunately, the misleading reports are likely to seem credible to the general public, which is largely ignorant of the agencies’ rampant manipulation of temperature data.

Hat Tip: Watts Up With That? and cartoonist Josh!