CO2 hits record high: Antarctic temperatures do nothing

The terrifying effect of CO2

Feel the panic.

South Pole CO2 levels cross 400 ppm first time in 4 million years!

WASHINGTON: The Earth passed another unfortunate milestone when carbon dioxide levels surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) at the South Pole for the first time in 4 million years, according to US scientists.The South Pole has shown the same, relentless upward trend in carbon dioxide (CO2) as the rest of world, but its remote location means it is the last to register the impacts of increasing emissions from fossil fuel consumption, the primary driver of greenhouse gas pollution, researchers said.

In response, the South pole temperatures “pause”

Satellites show the real warming effect of CO2 on the air over Antarctica (thanks Ken Stewart)

SP monthly

For thousands of years temperatures in West Antarctica have been higher than now.

Graph via WattsUP

Antarctic Temperatures, Holocene.

Temperatures (orange) peaked around 4,000 years ago (top graph). Graph: T.J. Fudge | University of Washington

 

Notice how CO2 controls the temperature in Vostok – Not.

The wild swings at the South Pole over the last 12,000 years probably peaked (on average amongst the noise) 4000 to 5000 years ago.

The only thing constant is “change”. Ancient Antarctic witchdoctors would have spent each alternate century prophesizing warming doom followed the next century by cooling doom. Eight thousand years ago temperatures briefly may have hit the magical two-degrees-warmer than “preindustrial” levels. Somehow the West Antarctic ice sheet didn’t melt and the Great Barrier Reef survived.

Vostok Antarctica, last 12,000 years.

Vostok Antarctica, last 12,000 years of Interglacial temperature.

___________

REFERENCES

Michelle R. Koutnik, T. J. Fudge, Howard Conway, Edwin D. Waddington, Thomas A. Neumann, Kurt M. Cuffey, Christo Buizert, Kendrick C. Taylor (2016)  Holocene accumulation and ice flow near the West Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide ice core site, Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface.

Fudge, T.J. et al  (2016) Variable relationship between accumulation and temperature in West Antarctica for the past 31,000 years, GRL, DOI: 10.1002/2016GL068356

9.5 out of 10 based on 69 ratings

183 comments to CO2 hits record high: Antarctic temperatures do nothing

  • #
    el gordo

    As you know cool dry air will warm under CO2 forcing, but not in Antarctica, apparently.

    ‘New ANU-led research has explained why Antarctica is not warming as much as other continents, and why southern Australia is recording more droughts.

    ‘Researchers have found rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are strengthening the stormy Southern Ocean winds which deliver rain to southern Australia, but pushing them further south towards Antarctica.

    ‘Lead researcher Nerilie Abram, from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences, said the findings explained the mystery over why Antarctica was not warming as much as the Arctic, and why Australia faces more droughts.

    “With greenhouse warming, Antarctica is actually stealing more of Australia’s rainfall. It’s not good news – as greenhouse gases continue to rise we’ll get fewer storms chased up into Australia,” Dr Abram said.

    “As the westerly winds are getting tighter they’re actually trapping more of the cold air over Antarctica,” Abram said. “This is why Antarctica has bucked the trend. Every other continent is warming, and the Arctic is warming fastest of anywhere on earth.”

    ANU 2015

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    • #
      Alan

      Ghee silly me.Last time I heard this story it was because it was so cold down there that the little storm thingos puckered up a bit tighter, as you would, moved south and stole the moisture from southern Australia.
      But then the bunch of clowns at ANU (tempting to add an ‘S’) know better and believe that Anarctica is warming. Ah well

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      • #
        Alan

        Well thinking of that ‘S’ and I lost me ‘t’

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      • #
        el gordo

        They are leaning on the intensification of the Subtropical Ridge to explain the anomaly.

        ‘Here we show that the STR is projected to strengthen and move pole ward under global warming, contributing to reduced rainfall in the cool season in south-east Australia. This result is largely consistent among 35 models examined …’

        Grose et al 2015

        At the moment its not happening and I reckon its a global cooling signal.

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      • #
        climateskeptic

        Silly me but I thought Antarctica was more than just the south pole.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          You do know there has been a cooling trend for the Antarctic over the whole satellite record.

          And that even the southern ex-tropics show no warming for 20 years.

          ….. but, but…. the CO2 is now over 400ppm over the Antarctic.

          Where’s the warming? CO2 doesn’t appear to be doing much down there, does it.

          Oh dear.

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          • #
          • #
            climateskeptic

            and
            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica_cooling_controversy#/media/File:Antarctic_surface_trends.jpg

            Its only those of you with your heads stuck in the clouds that dont see any warming

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            • #
              • #
                climateskeptic

                At least mine has a source. All the references are listed. You just pluck it out of thin air, completely unreferenced

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              • #
                AndyG55

                If you were capable of using any more than Wikipedia, you also might gains some real knowledge and understanding.

                The Mawson graph source was linked here only yesterday. Find it yourself.

                UAH data .. well find it yourself and confirm that everything I say is straight from that data.

                Or remain empty headed.

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              • #
                climateskeptic

                Oh dear are there tears yet?

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              • #
                AndyG55

                You do seem to be pretty close to tears.

                You are obviously very desperate, and close to a tantrum.

                105

              • #
                AndyG55

                Do you want me to provide your with a spoon and pusher?

                Or actually spoon=feed you?

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            • #
              M Conroy

              Sigh. A 10th of a degree isn’t warming if the error bars, averaging, smoothing and fiddling are +- more than a 10th.

              PLUS, also too, in the temps the Antarctic tends to reach, it’s still below freezing. Blinking COLD.

              Climatesceptic, I know you are trying, I really believe you are trying, to be a good human, but you need to take the blinders off and do some extensive reading – go back to the 1980s and start reading there. Read the reports, the media, the magazines. Yes, it’s a lot of reading – almost 40 years of it.

              And, as you read, watch the trends in your own little belief system change over time. Watch how the predictions failed to happen (ANY change does not make a prediction true – observed results must match predicted, and changing the goal line or the start line to “fit” the wanted results is cheating!!) Ask why is it good, in the name of saving the “planet”, to kill birds, bats, whales, dolphins, trees, etc.

              You can believe that CAGW exists, no sweat. You can believe in fairies and unicorns and vampires, too. I don’t care. But don’t expect me, or most people here, to go leaping into your belief system with you based on a few nasty remarks and a pretense if intelligence.

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          • #
            • #
              AndyG55

              And now that most adjusted and fabricated of data, GISS.

              The purveyors of all that ISN’T.

              ROFLMAO

              You are doing really well… NOT !!

              126

              • #
                climateskeptic

                Classic nonsense “they are all wrong and fabricated except those that agree with my memes” You are more self deluded than I thought.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Yawn ! even GISS admit they “adjust” the data.

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            • #
              climateskeptic

              so is the satellite data, its adjusted far more than the GISS data, didn’t you know that. The satellite data is the most adjusted of all the data set.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Again you show your scientific ignorance.

                GISS is adjusted on a “whim”.. as Tom Wigley’s texts admirable prove.

                The satellite data has been adjusted for KNOWN biases and errors in the satellite tracking.

                But you probably would not understand that difference.

                Science is very obviously NOT your strong point.

                125

              • #
                climateskeptic

                Yes Noddy spriuk the meme, it wont change reality

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              • #
                AndyG55

                The only person trying to change reality , is YOU !!

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          • #
            AndyG55

            Hint CS.

            If you get your pseudo data from Wiki….

            It does explain your almost total lack of any real knowledge.

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      • #
        climateskeptic

        Maybe this is reality, https://manicbeancounter.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/052415_2144_baseorcadas1.jpg?w=600
        not the temperature of the clouds.

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        • #
          el gordo

          So just for the record, do you still believe CO2 causes global warming?

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          • #
            climateskeptic

            Unlike you, my climate change views are not based on beliefs or political dogma.

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          • #
            climateskeptic

            do you still believe CO2 causes global warming?

            You and Noddy must be among the last few people on Earth that believe the opposite. Have you mortgaged your house and put it all into the “Cool Futures Hedge Fund”. I notice that none of the well know so called skeptics want to put their money in.

            412

            • #
              AndyG55

              I’m still living rent-free in your empty, gullible, brain-washed-away skull, I see 🙂

              There is NO PROOF that CO2 causes warming in an open atmosphere.

              I defy you to produce some.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “I’ll post a photo for you Noddy”

                Selfie, No doubt 😉

                Its all you have..

                Did you get enough attention today ??????

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              • #
                AndyG55

                I’ll repeat that seeing you seem to have read it…

                There is NO PROOF that CO2 causes warming in an open atmosphere.

                I defy you to produce some.

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              • #
                Brin

                I have asked for the C02 mechanism in this, and only Prof Mike Merrifield attempted. There is still no viable explantation that C02 absorbing and re-emitting infra red energy slows the escape of heat to any discernible amount.

                Gravity also will slow heat escaping, but its also not significant.

                32

            • #
              el gordo

              ‘You and Noddy must be among the last few people on Earth that believe the opposite.’

              I’ll take that as a compliment, there must be at least a dozen more.

              West Antarctica is warm because of volcanic activity, so we should leave that out of the equation.

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              • #
                climateskeptic

                What a laugh, show me one shred of evidence that volcanic activity has increased

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Nice to see you think that one small part of the West Antarctic peninsula (that just happens to be over a major volcanic region) is the only part affect ted by “global” warming.

                Did you know that there are parts towards the tip of that peninsular where the water is actually warm enough to swim, because of volcanic activity.?

                No, you probably didn’t..

                Your arguments are becoming more and more nescient by the day.

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              • #
                climateskeptic

                So, no evidence again. Where is the evidence that this volcanism has increased? You just don’t get it do you?

                610

              • #
                AndyG55

                Another empty post from CS.

                The whole of the West Antarctic peninsula lies over a volcanic region.

                You just don’t get it do you. Poor child.

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              • #
                climateskeptic

                The whole of the West Antarctic peninsula lies over a volcanic region.

                No one is disputing that, but its been like that for millions of years.
                I’ll ask again, where is one shred of evidence that its changed recently to explain the ice melt. All you can come back with is filibuster and “It is because I say so” Pathetic reaally

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              • #
                el gordo

                ‘Where is the evidence that this volcanism has increased? You just don’t get it do you?’

                It hasn’t increased.

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              • #
                climateskeptic

                It hasn’t increased but all of a sudden it is making the ice melt faster than in the past.

                You cant be serious can you?

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              • #
                AndyG55

                Well done el gordo.

                He will wake up eventually. 😉 Maybe.

                Actually, we don’t know if it has or hasn’t increased,

                …just like we don’t know if the warming of the West Antarctic Peninsula from that KNOWN volcanic action has increased.

                All we really know is that is there, and active.

                115

              • #
                AndyG55

                “ice melt faster than in the past.”

                Roflmao.. And you know this? How?

                And if it is, then its a sure sign that the volcanic activity has increased, because there is no other mechanism that could melt just a relatively small part of Antarctica and leave the rest getting colder.

                CERTAINLY nothing “global” about it, even a drone like you would have to admit that.

                115

              • #
                climateskeptic

                Actually, we don’t know if it has or hasn’t increased

                Finally an admission, you dont have a clue what its doing….
                …. but you are sure its causing the melting.
                That is the most ridiculous thing you have so far written.

                510

              • #
                climateskeptic

                no other mechanism that could melt just a relatively small part of Antarctica and leave the rest getting colder.

                Try Google, the answer, its there.

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              • #
              • #
                AndyG55

                roflmao..

                DATA is really hard for you isn’t it.

                No warming of the southern ex-tropical atmosphere for 20 years,

                That will include all the southern ocean sea temps.

                Southern oceans down to 700m are cooling.

                I did say below that you would bring up a “mythical” warm current that exists only in models..

                Called you before you even went there.

                So hilariously predictable. !

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              • #
                AndyG55

                The fact that you seem to think we have any indication (apart from models designed to give that indication) ..

                …. that the West Antarctic Peninsular is melting or warming any faster than it has “EVAH”..

                is probably the most scientifically INEPT thought you have ever posted. !!!

                We just don’t have that information.. and any pretence that we do is PURE FANTASY.. ie and AGW fairy tale.

                105

              • #
                climateskeptic

                You are living in the past

                Until recently, scientists debated whether Antarctica was warming.

                But a January study in the journal Nature found that Antarctica’s average annual temperature has increased by about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1957, but is still 50 degrees below zero.

                The report also determined that autumn temperatures in east Antarctica were cooling over the long term.

                International Polar Year researchers found that the southern ocean around Antarctica has warmed about 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit in the past decade, double the average warming of the rest of the Earth’s oceans over the past 30 years.

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              • #
                el gordo

                ‘…researchers found that the southern ocean around Antarctica has warmed about 0.36 degrees Fahrenheit in the past decade…’

                Not on my watch comrade.

                https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/14-southern-ssta.png

                If this keeps up we can agree that basal slip caused by volcanic activity is a real option.

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              • #
                climateskeptic

                Central West Antarctica among the most rapidly warming regions on Earth

                http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v6/n2/abs/ngeo1671.html

                The record reveals a linear increase in annual temperature between 1958 and 2010 by 2.4±1.2 °C, establishing central West Antarctica as one of the fastest-warming regions globally. We confirm previous reports of West Antarctic warming, in annual average and in austral spring and winter, but find substantially larger temperature increases. In contrast to previous studies, we report statistically significant warming during austral summer, particularly in December–January, the peak of the melting season. A continued rise in summer temperatures could lead to more frequent and extensive episodes of surface melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. These results argue for a robust long-term meteorological observation network in the region.

                38

              • #
                climateskeptic

                Not on my watch comrade.

                Has Bob bought a research vessel now? What journal is that in, id like to read his paper
                volcanic activity is a real option.

                Well it would be if there was some evidence, but alas just another thought bubble

                48

              • #
                climateskeptic

                Unfortunately I have to bid you guys farewell. I have to get to bed, off to a conference in Germany tomorrow and then to the US to deliver a paper but I’ll be back in 4 weeks. Flying Business class of course. Its the the climate gravy train after all. Sorry I cant take you Noddies with me. My colleagues would have a good laugh.

                By for now

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              • #
                AndyG55

                CS has used up his dole payment fund.

                Next dole payday, bozo !!

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “but is still 50 degrees below zero.”

                Which of course causes all the melting !!;-)

                84

              • #
                AndyG55

                Flying business class.. YES of course.

                That’s the climate TROUGH SWILLER for you .

                ZERO real science, all CAGW funded rhetoric and propaganda

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              • #
                climateskeptic

                I’ll post a photo for you Noddy

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              • #
                AndyG55

                “Central West Antarctica among the most rapidly warming regions on Earth

                Total and utter BS !!!!

                NOTHING before 1979 is viable information.. SEVERELY TAINTED by the AGW agenda., and since then……

                COOLING !!

                Admit the truth.. if you have the ethics to do so.. or head off to see your Glieke style mates, where you belong

                Zero ethics, Zero science… The AGW way.

                84

              • #
                climateskeptic

                Just one amusing meme after another.
                I detect a bit of envy there Noddy.

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              • #
                AndyG55

                How do you pass yourself off as a scientist of any sort?

                Or is it a social science conference of some sort?

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              • #
                AndyG55

                just for fun, I read the abstract of the first link of the Google scholar link CS provided.

                The following words stick out..

                “indicating a long-term trend from more frequently collapsed to more glaciated states,”

                DOH !.. seems CS hasn’t even read ANYTHING he links to.

                So hilariously FUNNY !!!

                Keep up the good work, CS. 🙂

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              • #
                el gordo

                Enjoy your junket CS.

                52

              • #
                AndyG55

                Junket that sort of like blancemange, isn’t it.. (although which colour mange does really matter)

                But flying, business class of course as will all his colleagues.

                Emit the most CO2 they can manage. The alarmista way 😉

                I wonder if the taxpayer funded trip is covering his carbon offsets, as well as the offsets of the other 97% of the passengers who choose not to.

                32

              • #
                el gordo

                ‘Well it would be if there was some evidence, but alas just another thought bubble.’

                Geothermal flux CS.

                http://www.pnas.org/content/111/25/9070.abstract

                32

              • #
                climateskeptic

                Quick stopover in Singapore on way to Potsdam. Sorry El G but it appears the thought bubble is yours. This paper dopes nothing to support your proposition, maybe you should read it first. You may not have full access to it like I do though, so its understandable.

                Where in the paper does it say anything about recent changes in geothermal flux. Ive read it twice and cant see it. You do know what the term “elevated and spatially variable” refers to don’t you? I’ll tell you what it doesn’t refer to, “Variability over time” so a self inflicted gunshot wound to the foot I’m afraid El G

                33

              • #
                AndyG55

                Absolute proof that parts of the West Antarctic Peninsula are melting from underneath

                ZERO proof of any other melting. (models are not proof)

                ZERO atmospheric warming. REAL DATA

                Seas getting colder. REAL DATA

                Your desperate evasion of FACTS and DATA continues.

                Potsdam… that explains everything

                Troughers
                extraordinaire. !!

                22

              • #
                climateskeptic

                …and Noddy doesnt even understand what hit him in the foot.

                Zero evidence of any change in geothermal flux therefore ZERO EVIDENCE that West Antarctic Peninsula melting is due to this.

                33

              • #
                AndyG55

                Poor CS.. FACTS get the better of him again.

                Probably didn’t read any papers from his “scholars” link

                ““indicating a long-term trend from more frequently collapsed to more glaciated states,””

                Now limp off to your nappy-wetting conference, little boy.

                23

          • #
            climateskeptic

            One of the first investments should be those beachfront houses in Collaroy. Half their land is below sea level now and they can probably be bought for a song. They will be worth a fortune again when global temperatures drop next year and sea levels drop with it. Eroded beach front property, thats where the money will be made. Make them an offer now I say, while they are at they weakest.

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            • #
              AndyG55

              “Make them an offer now I say, while they are at they weakest”

              Yep, a cool 2 to 3 million should do the trick.

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            • #
              el gordo

              ‘They will be worth a fortune again when global temperatures drop next year and sea levels drop with it.’

              There won’t be a drop, only a pause as a strong La Nina floods the whole continent. What happens after that is open to speculation.

              Which reminds me, the celestial kingdom has had their eye on Collaroy for over a year.

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              • #
                climateskeptic

                So you are not a “believer” in the “New Science”. no wonder you don’t want to put any of your cash in.

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              • #
                el gordo

                I’m not a lukewarmer, if that’s what you are implying.

                With global cooling approaching we can be sure East Coast Lows will continue to arrive in winter and arguably be more intense.

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            • #
              cloudbase

              What are you CS like 15 years old or something. I have just read though this thread and can’t even fathom where your head is at. Your Collaroy line tells me you have a very limited time line for your observance of the Sydney coast.
              Just to enlighten you….at Collaroy there were concrete pyramids exposed during that last major storm event that have been buried since 1969. They have been there since WW2….since when the land, and people have encroached into the marine environment. We have these occasional storms. 1974 was a doozy…..way bigger and more destructive.
              If you think this was the ocean going somewhere where it hasn’t on occasions in the last century or two go study the ‘damage’ on the western side of Palm Beach golf course. In one point you can see the old seagrass bed….buried under 1.5 mtrs of man place backfill. Chunks of sandstone concrete etc. In Collaroy the idiots built within the natural bounds of the ocean environment. That houses got damaged is no indication of climate change. Its more an indication of human stupidity….which it seems you are an expert.

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    • #
    • #
      Glen Michel

      I tried too communicate with Nerilie some time ago in order to gauge her rational science-or appeal to it.Unfortunately, she engaged her default settings, which indicated a continued belief that man-made CO2 is the primary agent for CC. Devoid of reason and a class 1 idealogue. In short : a brainwashed academic.

      42

    • #
      Peter Cynical of Sandy Bay

      While El Gordo’s quote from ANU is dated 2015, the postulation of the increasing wind speed in the range 40*S-75*S drawing moisture South and drying Southern Australia was I think, from the BOM some 3-5yrs ago, perhaps even further back. I believe it was also part of Prof Tim Flannery’s justification for saying “even if it does rain, there won’t be enough to fill the dams”. However, there has never been any follow up reports of an actual consistent increase in wind speeds. Not surprisingly, the BOM now reports that the broad spread recent rains across all of Southern Australia (Tasmanian floods, Sydney Waragamba Dam about to overflow etc) are a result of Indian Ocean moisture streams as a result of the change in the Indian Ocean Dipole variation: the crucial element that was missing in the long dry period not “wind.”

      20

    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      Isn’t it marvellous to see what a salary can produce?

      01

    • #
      delcon2

      I have ben trying to find out what happened to the Temps during the first and second world wars?Seem to me there would have been a lot more CO2 in the “Atmosphere”then,would there not?

      12

    • #

      Define “forcing.” Jim Hansen invented the term, but has never defined it. It is not in any of the references. The one paper he has written on the subject has no examples, models, explanations, equations or anything regarding the term “forcing.” If he is implying CO2 molecules tell other molecules what to do, as his expressions seem to indicate, then he is taking physical science back to pre-1832 and the Wohler Synthesis that killed Vitalism. Like “greenhouse gas” it appears to be more comity code asking other Ph.D.s to let him get away with this sham and he will return the favor.

      Google “Two Minute Conservative” for more.

      02

  • #
    LightningCamel

    Climate will cause us all to get wet,
    At least that is the farcical threat.
    But when the air it is warm,
    Then the ice it does form,
    Making Flim Flam look sillier yet.

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  • #

    I just cracked a can of soft drink and the CO2 that erupted from within warmed the room immediately. I wish it would do the same for the ‘climate’ outside.

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    • #
      King Geo

      Bemused you will need lots of cans when the LIA kicks in next decade. May I suggest opening cans of beer instead – coke? yuck!!!

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      • #

        It was actually a light beer, so close enough to a soft drink. 🙂

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      • #
        Dennis

        I have been amused how mention of Little Ice Age infuriates many commentators on social media, green type I assume.

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        • #
          King Geo

          Yes and just you wait how infuriated these greenie commentators will become mid/late next decade. Poor sods will be heading off for therapy because there will be “little warm comfort” from the cooling climate for them and only “cold comfort” from the skeptics who will say, with great pleasure, “we told you so”.

          21

          • #
            Glenn999

            KingGeo
            I’m sorry, but I can’t explain…

            Just wait how infuriated these greenie commentators will be
            mid/late next decade
            Poor sods will be heading off for therapy because there will be
            “little warm comfort”
            From the cooling climate for them and only
            “cold comfort”
            From the skeptics who will say, with great pleasure,
            “we told you so”.

            00

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Keep doing that and in 4 million years you’ll be stuffed, this is rooly serious mate and how people end up killing themselves to deaf.

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      • #
        Yonniestone

        Darn auto correct was set to Bogan.

        Interestingly I had a chance to show Jo’s post to three uni students (neighbours relatives) as they had mentioned the climate before, they were stunned to see data going back so far but wanted to verify the information which is fair enough, a couple confessed to some CAGW scepticism but in their words “had to be careful what they said on and off campus” bloody hell what a disgraceful situation for a so called developed democratic society to be in.

        Told them to read 1984 as they barely knew about it, they need all the help they can get.

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        • #
          StefanL

          Good advice to read “1984”.
          Also Animal Farm.

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        • #
          Ian Hill

          I spoke to a young man today as I was arranging to get the NBN connected and he brought up the topic of climate change, saying he was really worried about the next 50 years. I let him talk and then said “don’t get me started on that”, but to his credit he said he wanted to hear the views of “my generation”. There’s hope yet!

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          • #
            M Conroy

            I just get told off by those “who know better” and “are working to improve all our lives” and treated with the care an elderly and confused relative might get by a 10 yr old with ADD.

            Then my niece pipes up with “I get warming every summer – I have to go to Texas to see dad, and then I get cooling when I come home!” She’s old enough that that isn’t a cutesy thing, but a dismissal of the CAGW fears.

            12

        • #

          Universities seem to be regressing at an incredible speed to total Leftist group think and socialist order. I suspect that there are many students that hold opposing views, but there is the very real danger of expressing such and being severely penalised.

          I wonder how today’s students would cope with the universities of the very early 70s that I went through. The Leftist mindset was there already, but you could still have a genuine go at their beliefs (which I did all too often) and not fear that you’d be given your marching orders.

          There were no trigger warnings, safe places and whatnot.

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          • #
            Glen Michel

            Brainwashed to the last I fear. Nonetheless they respect my age, wisdom and my supreme intellect.Given time I open their minds and will prevail!

            31

          • #
            PeterPetrum

            The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) has taken on board a couple of young students who are heading up a Youth Group to provide support to like minded students in Universites around the country. It appears to be doing well and, along with the IPAs new video studio and production facility, seems to be getting some traction.

            42

  • #
    toorightmate

    “… according to US scientists.”
    Can someone please roll in some Chilean or Venezuelan or Ethiopian or German or Russian or Mongolian or Sri Lankan or Kenyan scientists.
    They would all be better than this particular bunch of “US scientist”.

    Why insult US scientists with an absurd statement such as this?

    54

  • #

    Say, I’m just a little curious here.

    The headline text mentions that this is the first time that Antarctica has been above 400PPM CO2 in,umm, 4 Million years.

    Antarctica has been ice covered for 100, 200 million years, (or whatever) and hasn’t melted at any previous time.

    If CO2 is now above 400PPM, why might they even suspect that this time will be any different.

    And I also wonder what might have caused it to be above 400PPM four million years ago, if coal fired power is supposedly the biggest culprit in all this ….. now.

    It would seem that those original homer sapiens might not have ‘walked out of Africa‘ after all. It would seem that they drove out in their SUV’s. (That’s a joke Joyce!)

    Who would have thought, eh!

    And surely, if the temperature NEVER gets above zero C on the land covered mass, then how is the ice ever supposed to melt anyway.

    Tony.

    Yeah, I know. I intentionally mis-spelled it.

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    • #
      diogenese2

      Tony, O/T but California is to abandon 9& of its generating capacity and all of it emission free.

      https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/06/21/environmentalists-manage-to-kill-the-last-nuclear-power-station-in-california/

      I recall that you posted that this unit delivered 95% of nameplate for 45 years and, from the text, could do so another 35.
      Its only adverse fallout appears to have been to stimulate the creation of Friends of the Earth – a serious mutation.

      In other news a new study has addressed the neglected (but not by you) issue of renewable provision for transport and space heating. It evaluates the logistics for Germany which are not good.

      “However, if all cars and all heaters operating in Germany are only to run on renewable energy, much more green kilowatt hours are needed, of course. According to the study, German electricity consumption would increase five-fold, from around 600 terawatt hours today to 3120 TWh in 2040. That’s a number that requires a certain ability to rethink even among converted Energy Transition protagonists”

      and;

      “study admits that “a demand of 3,000 terawatt hours supplied by renewable energy by 2040 is considered to be a futile exercise.” No wonder: Today, green energy producers supply only 200 terawatt-hours per year.”

      To whom are we indebted for this devastating analysis – why GREENPEACE!

      http://www.thegwpf.com/the-energy-absurdity-of-the-paris-climate-agreement/

      But do they accept abandoning an impossible task? No – they demand the Germans jolly well get onto it pronto.

      it seems that they have a definition of “futile” not imagined by Samuel Johnson.

      100

      • #
        Ted O'Brien.

        Still on track.

        The opposition to nuclear power was never founded in science. It was whipped up from the 1960s on, or perhaps even earlier, by the friends of Communism, for the purpose of hindering the Western nations in the cold war arms race.

        Seems the Cold War is still on. Only the borders have shifted.

        10

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Tony:
      scientists (real ones) are debating when permanent ice formed in Antarctica, with estimates between 25 and 38 million years ago. That is formation when the CO2 level was 550 or 1000-1100 ppm. and the earth’s temperature (whatever that means) was 2.5℃ or merely 1℃ above present.
      This is distinct from the seasonal ice and snow projected during the latter Jurassic period when the CO2 level was above 2600ppm. which local dinosaurs (and other species) had to cope with.
      THE SCIENCE is settled unless you actually know something about science.

      72

  • #
    Peter C

    This article reminded me that I was recently fact checking a BBC book called Frozen Planet, based on a David Attenborough series. The book contained this remarkable statement; “….intense atmospheric warming of 2.8C within the past 50 years, making the Antarctic peninsula the most rapidly warming region in the southern hemisphere”.

    I am not sure how or where they were making their measurements. However I though I would see if any similar warming had occurred at the Australian bases. Mawson and Casey have temperature records starting in 1956.

    The temperature records are available on the BOM website, and it will even draw the graph of the data. This graph, assuming that the link works, shows the mean maximum temperatures at Mawson base for the last 60 years.
    http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dataGraph&p_stn_num=300001&p_nccObsCode=36&p_month=13

    There is some annual variability but to my eye the graph shows no change in the temperatures at Mawson base over the last 60 years. Similar results are obtained when plotting the average minimums for both Mawson and Casey.

    As discussed on previous JoNOva posts the Antarctic peninsula might be a very special place. The BOM data however indicates that nothing is happening to Antarctic temperatures.

    I have wondered if I should take a screen shot of the page before the BOM homogenises the data any more.

    173

    • #
      Peter C

      Link works. 🙂

      Correction; data starts in 1954.

      50

    • #
      AndyG55

      “I have wondered if I should take a screen shot of the page before the BOM homogenises the data any more.”

      Done 🙂

      163

    • #

      I tend to agree pretty flat and no sign of catastrophic warming. However, if one cannot see any significant relationship between levels of CO2 and global temperatures here and anywhere on the planet for that matter what will the political imperative of carbon abatement achieve?

      So CO2 levels in Antarctica have reached 400 ppm along with Cape Grim and Hawaii, it really only shows that this gas is distributed equally around the planet by the winds.

      73

      • #
        Peter C

        what will the political imperative of carbon abatement achieve?

        Sadly Robert it will achieve their objective. Since the world is not warming any and all initiatives to prevent said warming will be successful. It stands to reason. Alarmist will claim victory, even if carbon abatement is modest or does not happen at all.

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      • #
        Ken Stewart

        I have a post coming at kenskingdom on Cape Grim CO2 vs Mauna Loa. You may find some surprises. Check out this link

        https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=co2sc/orthographic=-3.39,63.67,277

        for how “evenly” CO2 is distributed by winds.

        Ken S

        12

        • #
          Peter C

          Thanks Ken,

          That is a new one for me. Where does the data come from? NASA OCO sat has released very little information so far. According to earth.nullschool the regions with the highest CO2 are the arboreal forests of the Northern hemisphere and the Amazon rainforest, which is not what I was expecting for this time of year.

          11

          • #
            Ken Stewart

            No just the opposite- those are the areas of lowest CO2. Highest is a little plume just off southern California.
            KS

            10

    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      See at the bottom.

      Note: Data may not have completed quality control.

      Better check again tomorrow, next week, year, century?

      01

  • #
    Geoff

    The main thing to note is that the big driver of GW alarm, an El Nino, does effect cool air from our poles indirectly. What happens if I microwave a block of ice? Not much. What happens if I microwave the top of the Pacific Ocean at the equator? It heats up. How much microwave (bandwidth 1.2cm) hits the ocean from the Sun? Does the Sun’s microwave emissions vary? Do these emission peaks match El Nino peaks?

    22

    • #
      RoHa

      “What happens if I microwave a block of ice? Not much. What happens if I microwave the top of the Pacific Ocean at the equator? It heats up.”

      Have to pass those boring Sunday afternoons somehow, I suppose. But how did you get the top of the Pacific into your microwave?

      80

      • #
        toorightmate

        Could you make a set of teeth for the Great Australian Bight?

        60

      • #
        Sceptical Sam

        But how did you get the top of the Pacific into your microwave?

        I always find it works best by turning it on its side (like getting a couch through a doorway) and making sure you have the setting on Instant Cook.

        The alternative, that also works, is to fold it in half and double the cook time.

        111

  • #
    TdeF

    NASA’s Climate for Kids

    Average (mean) temperature
    North Pole South Pole
    Summer 0° C −28.2° C
    Winter −40° C −60° C

    Spot the difference. Now how does that ‘global’ temperature work again?

    According to NASA’s site for children “The Antarctic’s climate is also warming, but not as fast, because it is less affected by the warming ocean.” Simple.

    “Both the Arctic and the Antarctic are doing pretty much what climate scientists have predicted. We need to listen to them about other things they predict.”

    Really! Even Dr. Turkey thought Antarctica was the same as the Arctic it cost the country millions for this ‘expert’ to be completely wrong, wrecked the short restocking season and real research programs for many countries and nearly trapped a number of boats in ice while he and his family and friends escaped thanks only to a multinational rescue missions. Words fail.

    Also note that because the Arctic has an average of 0 in summer, ice extent is extremely sensitive to a fraction of a degree. So measuring ice extent can be dramatic but it means very little. It has varied greatly since record began. Natural variation. However in Antarctica ice reached historic highs in the last few years. That is a real measure of temperature of the bottom 1/3 of the planet.

    Now what we need is a model which explains the massive Antarctic ice growth. However NASA tells children that Climate Scientists predicted it all. That is a fib. Start with the children. You can tell them anything and they will believe you.

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  • #
    Richard111

    When testing for CO2 in the ice are any tests done for carbon 14 CO2 ?
    Just curious as the present quiet sun is allowing increased cosmic rays into the upper atmosphere creating more 14CO2.
    Also it doesn’t seem to take long for that high level 14CO2 to sink to the surface and be absorbed by plant and animal life.
    This change in 14CO2 levels shows up geological tests of fossils.

    61

    • #
      Peter C

      I thought that the C12/C14 ratio was supposed to be a constant.

      30

      • #
        TdeF

        Yes, if not for atmospheric bomb blasts around 1965 which put a pulse of C14 in the atmosphere, doubling it in only two years. It is rapidly returning to historic levels, not 33% below as warmists would argue.

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      • #
        Graeme No.3

        No. “John Allen “Jack” Eddy (March 25, 1931—June 10, 2009) was an American astronomer who published professionally under the name John A. Eddy but much of the content referencing him can be found under his nickname Jack which he preferred to use. In 1976 Dr. Eddy published a landmark paper in Science titled “The Maunder Minimum”[2] where, using the Nineteenth Century works of Edward W. Maunder and Gustav Spörer, he identified a 70-year period from 1645 to 1715 as a time when solar activity all but stopped.”
        This led to the discovery that the C14 level was not constant and that it increased during periods of lower solar activity. Thus Carbon dating had to be re-dated for various times. This variation has been also shown by the beryllium 10 concentration fluctuations. Be10 is preferred for dating purposes because of its much longer half life.

        81

        • #
          Peter C

          Thanks.

          20

        • #
          TdeF

          With a half life of 1.6 million years, Be10 produced from Oxygen must be used for much older surfaces, not human habitation. Homo Sapiens’ time is only 100,000 years and 20,000 is getting to the limit of C14 dating but I expect it is the most useful for the last 10,000 years since the invention of the burnt stick, agriculture and the wheel. It should be particularly sensitive in this critical period where people actually made things with tools. Also given that we actually know the exact age of some objects to the day, it should be quite simple to calibrate exactly instead of just assuming a constant.

          51

          • #
            TdeF

            Interesting, Be10’s main use appears to be as a direct measure of solar activity rather than dating. It leaches away in water, providing a relatively constant level varying quite dramatically with solar activity.

            31

        • #
          Richard 111

          More thanks.

          20

    • #
      TdeF

      As the half life of C14 is 5400 years, the equilibrium level has been established over millenia. That means it is created at exactly the same rate as it is vanishing. Half of it is created from N14 by cosmic rays every 2700 years. So if you even doubled solar activity for 50 years, that would only add 1% to the historic C14 levels.

      That is why the sudden doubling of C14 after the atmospheric tests gave a unique chance to study how quickly CO2 was absorbed. The CO2 has a half life of only 14 years in the atmosphere. The C14 cannot be destroyed, so half vanished into the oceans. That means man cannot change CO2 levels as atmospheric CO2 levels are set entirely by the ocean.

      72

  • #
    TdeF

    You have to love the glib way ‘scientists’ explain the delay in CO2 levels “its remote location means it is the last to register the impacts of increasing emissions from fossil fuel consumption”

    Now who proved this? The C14 bomb blast curve showed 2 years for doubled C14 levels to pass the equator, a direct measure of CO2 travel speed and the equator is a real barrier to both gas and water. So the idea that the Southern Hemisphere is far behind in CO2 levels is just made up science.

    Also the freezing point of CO2 is -78C. With average antarctic winter temperatures of -60C, it is quite possible that CO2 precipitates out of the air in Antarctica, as WW2 flyers experienced at high altitude. So you would expect Antarctica to be a massive CO2 sink, not the last to see the effects of ‘fossil fuel’.

    It is a new world where anyone who calls himself a scientist is always right. Even our very own kangaroo scientist has a ready and instantly correct answer for every question.

    Much of what we are told is just made up, guesswork or even random noise. All pushing the same story without any evidence that fossil fuel is the sole cause of CO2 increase. No other physical process is involved, even Henry’s law. Faux scientists, snake oil salesmen. For them Antarctica is an embarassment and the same experts know the temperature of Antartica to an accuracy of 0.1C in 1910, before anyone even made it to the South pole.

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  • #

    I once had a really good link to Antarctica and all the facts figures and data, but it changed and all I could find was the old 404 Not Found message. I felt sure it hadn’t just died, but for the life of me I couldn’t find that old site.

    Every so often I go looking for it, and now, i finally did find it back somewhere on a search engine on page three, and sometimes it pays to persevere.

    They changed the name and the makeup of the site, but the information is still basically the same. It’s now called ….. Cool Antarctica. (Hmm! That’s original)

    Here’s the link. (Home Page)

    Great stuff there, almost wherever you care to look. Try the fast facts for the quick info, at this link. Look at the Ice thickness figures there. That’s not going to melt any time soon. The thickest point is 4.7 Kilometres thick

    Knock yourselves out.

    Tony.

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    • #
      TdeF

      Thanks. How though do you explain the pictures of polar bears?

      50

    • #
      Peter C

      Thanks Tony,

      I had a look at your site. One of the first things I found was this, in relation to krill:
      <blockquote …great upwellings of deep waters at the Antarctic convergence.

      Now I agree that it is almost a self evident statement but it made me think again because I had come to think that cold Antarctic waters sank to the bottom and did not come up again until they reached the coasts of South America after about 1000 years.

      32

      • #
        Mike Flynn

        It’s special climatological water. It rises upwards through less dense water (unlike normal water , not only propelled by hidden heat which obviously can’t be detected because it has no effect on density or temperature, but also by the maniacal chanting of the sacred Manntra.

        I’d share it with you, but then I’d have to Warm you to death.

        Cheers.

        85

      • #
        TdeF

        I wonder if it is a bit like air, giant circulations from the spinning of the planet but trapped by the continents and forced upward by momentum, like air hitting mountains. Air and water are not glued to the planet which spins at 1,000km/hr at the equator. This mechanical mixing is quite different to rising and falling in static waters with temperature and density. It does explain those big currents up the West of continents like the Humboldt up the West of South America. Also the amount of CO2 in those deep cold high pressure waters is great and released when they surface in warmer climes. It would be interesting to plot CO2 concentrations and map against currents and surface temperatures, even during seasons.

        30

  • #
    Retired Now

    Hmmm, on my birthday call from my daughter she got very angry with me for denying the rising temperatures – average temperatures around the world have risen every month for the last 15 months, she claims. When I disagreed I got shouted at and told 97% of climate scientists…

    Sigh. And that coming from a scientist! Not her field though. She just believes everything the climate warmists put out. Also claimed that the bleached corals may not recover and the great barrier reef might well disappear forever. And she said she wasn’t interested in anything I might say as her mind cannot be changed! I hadn’t realised the MSM in New Zealand was so negative.

    152

    • #
      Yonniestone

      My condolences RN, but I hope you had a good birthday! 🙂

      80

      • #
        Peter C

        It is in the nature of scientists of all sorts to maintain faith with their climate scientist brethren. The alternative is unthinkable (scientists lie).

        Unfortunately the rot is not confined to climate scientists, although they might be the worst. But a lot of scientists, perhaps still the majority, still believe that scientists are honest and truthful and objective.

        41

    • #
      Ross

      RN
      The MSM in NZ are exactly the same as the MSM elsewhere. Also the main print media are Australian owned ( Fairfax and APN ) but that will change soon as they are offloading their NZ owned business –can see the writing on the wall, maybe.

      40

    • #
      PeterPetrum

      Gee, Retired Now, I could have written that comment myself! My daughter is a Professor of Astrophysics (clue – “climate change” mentioned in every submisdion for funding) and she now refuses to talk to me about this issue. The look she gave me when I asked her to give me just one scientific paper that PROVED that anthropogenic CO2 was the prime cause of “global warming” was an absolute picture! The best she could manage after about 5 seconds was “Dad, it’s a GREENHOUSE GAS”. End of conversation!

      42

  • #
    manalive

    Greater warming towards the poles and least warming towards the equator is supposed to be an important fingerprint of enhanced greenhouse effect at the surface surface because “… atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) has its greatest absorption of infrared radiation (IR) at sub-zero temperatures … “ and “… in the Polar Regions , the air is dry due to prevailing low temperatures, allowing CO2 to exert a much greater influence than would be possible in warmer and moister air masses at lower latitudes. Here water vapour saturates the absorption wavebands to the point where changes in CO2 have little effect …” (Climate4you).

    81

    • #
      Peter C

      TRUE, manalive.

      Hence the constant, or possibly slightly cooling, temperatures at the Antarctic are another failure of the models and of the greenhouse theory.

      73

  • #
    handjive

    Risky South Pole mission: retrieve sick scientists from Amundsen-Scott research station

    “But evacuation efforts like this are exceedingly uncommon – only two have been undertaken in the 60 years since the South Pole research station opened.

    The brutal cold and total darkness that blankets Antarctica during the austral winter make flight in and out of the station all but impossible.

    “We were stuck in a place that’s harder to get to than the International Space Station,” said Ron Shemenski, a former physician for the station who in 2001 became the first person to be evacuated during the dark winter months.

    At the pole’s low temperatures, petrol freezes into an unusable jelly. So does the grease in a plane’s hinges and gears.

    The journey back to Rothera was unlike anything Shemenski had experienced.

    “During the initial part when you’re in the darkness it’s hardly a sensation of moving at all because you can’t see anything,” he recalled. “Everything’s black.”

    But then a thin line of pink appeared – sunlight on the horizon.”

    41

  • #
    ROM

    To put this latest award winning entry into “The Most Stupid Alarmist Prediction” stakes into  a context.

    And these 15 predictions from Earth day 1970 are only just skimming the surface of the deeper and deeper stinking morass that consists of the “expert’s predictions” over a few decades past.

    A history and pattern of “Expert’s predictions” which has become just another stinking morass of half truths and lies which so far has managed to stay just beneath a very thin skin of purported respectability.

    From the blog” I hate the Media

    15 spectacularly stupid predictions from the first Earth Day

    [quoted ]
    —————–

    Here are some of the hilarious, spectacularly wrong predictions made on the occasion of Earth Day 1970.
    .

    “We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”

    • Kenneth Watt, ecologist
    .

    “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”

    • George Wald, Harvard Biologist
    .

    “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation.”

    • Barry Commoner, Washington University biologist
    .

    “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”

    • New York Times editorial, the day after the first Earth Day
    .

    “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”

    • Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
    .

    “By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”

    • Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
    .

    “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”

    • Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day
    .

    “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”

    • Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University
    .

    “Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”

    • Life Magazine, January 1970
    .

    “At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”

    • Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
    .

    Stanford’s Paul Ehrlich announces that the sky is falling
    “Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”

    • Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
    .

    “We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.”
    • Martin Litton, Sierra Club director
    .

    “By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”

    • Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
    .

    “Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”

    • Sen. Gaylord Nelson
    .

    “The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years.
    If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”

    • Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

    ———-

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    • #
      ROM

      By the way and in reference to my above post where overpopulation and famine and resource scarcity is a recurring theme in those predictions from those 1970 experts

      Todays “experts” on the evidence, if anything are a good deal worse at forecasting and predicting the future than those 1970 experts if such a thing is at all possible.
      ———-

      Year – Total world population
      (mid-year figures) Ten-year growth rate (%)

      1950 – 2,556,000,053 18.9%

      1960 – 3,039,451,023 22.0

      1970 – 3,706,618,163 20.2

      1980 – 4,453,831,714 18.5

      1990 – 5,278,639,789 15.2

      2000 – 6,082,966,429 12.6

      2010 – 6,848,932,929 10.7

      2020 – 7,584,821,144 8.7

      63

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      ROM:

      No need to be so polite. How about the one that “by 1975 cannibals would be roaming the mid-west of the USA”, and the oldy but goody ” the oil will run out soon”.

      50

    • #
      tom0mason

      ROM
      The main problem is Western nations have passed peak individual imagination, and are now wholly relying on collectivized state sponsored consensus imagination.

      🙂

      30

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      Yep, I think a bit of ‘faux science slaying’ is in order.

      01

    • #
      M Conroy

      I read “The Population Bomb” by Ehrlich and found him, well, wrong – and I was a barely 20-something when I did so. He made a good case, I suppose, or honestly, so I was told, but even then I smelled something off about the dire predictions. Now, Rachel Carson scared me into not using any insecticide – not even mosquito repellents! – for oh, 2, 3 years. Then I got tired of itching. And the rivers and lakes around me cleared up enough to produce clouds of black-flies, which give sweet little nibbles that really -hurt- and now the more DEET the better. I still don’t approve of killing everything that crawls, flies or wriggles because, well, BUGS!!! as quite a few of those creatures help my garden produce food for me to eat, but I found much (most) of her book was also hand waving and hype – from the heart, sure, maybe, but still, utter bollocks.

      Anyhow, a lot of us were stupid in the ’70s for a variety of reasons about a variety of things (some stupidity may have been chemically induced). It just amazes me that some of these “scientists” are still being that stupid now, and teaching new generations how to be just as stupid. I mean, did they ever open a window and look outside?

      Predictions. Trends. I used to do astrology, for kicks, and practice at maths (I suck at maths). I’d work up a birth chart, make a few general comments about personality, strengths, etc., and tell whoever I did the chart for it was simply a picture of the sky at the birth of who-ever. But people took, and take, it seriously.

      CAGW reminds me too much of astrology.

      11

  • #
    Analitik

    OT – PG&E agree to close Diablo Canyon nuclear plant (eventually)

    PG&E will agree to withdraw its 20-year license extension application at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Instead, it will aim to retire the two-unit site when its current licenses expire in 2024 and 2025

    The Joint Proposal
    and NRDC Announces PG&E Has Agreed To Kill Diablo Canyon

    I wonder if in 8 years time, they will look back at this agreement and say
    “WTF were we thinking? Keep ’em going for another 20 years”

    The other strong possibility is that PG&E agreed to this just to get Friends of the Earth, Environment California, and the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility off their backs for 8 years so they could get out of the courtrooms and back to running power plants until the California comes to its senses.

    50

  • #
    Graeme No.3

    O/T BUT:

    Supposedly this blog is monitored by political parties.
    The telephone had been out of action (following storms) for 24 hours when it suddenly rang. “Hello, I’m Julie Bishop and I would like…” Well, I would like the listeners to know that I haven’t made up my mind how to vote, but if I get one more recorded call starting “Hello, I’m Malcolm Turnbull or Julie Bishop etc.” then I know who I will not be voting for.

    40

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Whom I will not be voting for. Gross invasion of privacy doesn’t justify poor grammar.

      Since I am O/T let me recall the chap who went down the receiving line at a socially important function in London murmuring “Sorry, I’m late, I had to strangle my mother in law”. He got a series of responses along the lines “so glad you could get here” until the last handshaker was Prince Phillip who said “I quite understand why”.

      60

  • #
    Egor TheOne

    CAGW = BS

    62

  • #
    Ruairi

    The warmists place their trust in CO2,
    But doesn’t make their warming dream come true.

    71

  • #
    Glenn999

    Perhaps all that new ice creation is affecting the temps.

    31

  • #
    Craig Thomas

    I just searched through the comments here for mention of the “barrier reef”.

    For a community of supposed “sceptics”, it is baffling that nobody thought to say, “Hang on a minute…” to Joanne’s assertion that a 7,000-year-old structure (the Great Barrier Reef) survived something that happened 8,000 years ago…

    45

    • #

      It is true but a problematic argument to make. There is a very large region including areas North, NE, South (a bit) and a long way East where reefs have formed and receded, reformed, depleted etc over a long period prior to the accepted origin of the GBR. The claim could be made (without a strong evidence base) that substantial reefs in the vicinity lived through that period, or at least one could claim that there is nothing to say they didn’t.

      My conclusion was who can be bothered arguing (by arguing, I mean receiving random abuse and obfuscating comment) with this lot about it.

      31

      • #
        handjive

        “My conclusion was who can be bothered arguing (by arguing, I mean receiving random abuse and obfuscating comment) with this lot about it.”
        . . .
        Heheh, not one of those “lot”, Gee Aye, as you agree with Craig’s ‘gotcha’!?

        Craig asks: “nobody thought to say, “Hang on a minute…” to Joanne’s assertion that a 7,000-year-old structure (the Great Barrier Reef) survived something that happened 8,000 years ago…”

        Hmmm …
        Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Information

        “Although coral reefs have been around for over 500 million years, the Great Barrier Reef is relatively young at 500,000 years, and this most modern form is only 8,000 years old, having developed after the last ice age.”

        Hope I wasn’t too abusive, or obfuscating.

        You’re welcome.

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        el gordo

        What we know for sure is that at the last glacial maximum the East Australian Current probably didn’t get further than Mackay, with SST off Cairns about 4-5 degrees cooler. The corals were at the lower limit of survival, but further north the Australian and New Guinea corals were interbreeding until the Holocene intervened.

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    Hi everyone – if you’d like to hear more from WA CDP Senate candidate, Mark Imisides, then he’s written a guest post on climate change here:

    https://themarcusreview.com/2016/06/23/guest-post-cdp-senate-candidate-dr-mark-imisides/

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    LightningCamel

    This from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
    on the geologic history of the reef. The quote is a bit long but I thought it worth a read. There is much more in the reference on reefs in general. The take home message is that coral reefs have been forming and surviving off Queensland for far longer than 7,000 years. The main drivers of success have been available space, turbidity and changes in water level due to tectonics and ice ages. Temperature and CO2 not so much. Some people need to get over the idea that things their grandfather saw are some sort of ideal state which should be preserved, seemingly at all cost.

    The Great Barrier Reef
    The history of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) spans multiple episodes of global environmental change,
    yet it is a relatively ‘young’ geological structure that did not respond to favourable environmental
    conditions early on. In fact, the central Queensland continental shelf has enjoyed warm tropical
    waters that could well have supported coral reef growth for the past 15 million years33. However,
    it is now generally recognised that the initiation of the GBR did not occur until approximately 600
    thousand years ago, and the GBR reefs as we know them probably didn’t occur until around 365 to
    452 thousand years ago134. This is coincident with Marine Isotope Stage 11, perhaps the warmest
    interglacial of the past 450 thousand years60, and one with climatic conditions most similar to those we are now experiencing77. Larcombe and Carter75 believe that the ‘switching-on’ of the GBR was not
    only related to the ‘mid-Pleistocene transition’ from 41 to 100 thousand year-long climatic cycles14,
    but also to the development during Marine Isotope Stage 11 of a marked high stand that enabled
    sustenance of both a cyclone corridor and a reef tract along a relatively wide and deeper water
    continental shelf.
    Webster and Davies134 showed remarkable consistency in community composition throughout many
    intervals of Pleistocene reef development on the GBR at Milankovitch time scales. Recent cores drilled
    through Ribbon Reef 5 have shown that the GBR has been able to re-establish itself repeatedly despite
    major environmental fluctuations in sea level, temperature and CO2 over the past several hundred
    thousand years134. Moreover, Webster and Davies134 showed that the reefs have maintained a similar
    coral and algal species composition during their repeated formation. Species abundance data were
    derived from 55 coral species from 20 genera and coralline algal associations were derived from an
    analysis by Braga and Aguirre23.
    Growth of the GBR’s fringing and nearshore reefs during the past 10 thousand years (the Holocene)
    has been upon Pleistocene topographic highs123. Holocene fringing reef growth on the GBR varies
    naturally through time and appears to be episodic, responding closely to sea level and climate
    change123. The most significant period of active reef growth occurred between 7500 and 5500
    years before present as the post-glacial marine transgression (sea level rise) progressed. Smithers
    et al.123 attribute the turn-off of these reefs at the end of this period to the exhaustion of available
    accommodation space (the water depth of the shallowest growing reef) over suitable substrates,
    stresses associated with sea level stabilisation and slight fall near the end of this time, and climate
    changes associated with changes in the intensity and frequency of El Niño-Southern Oscillation
    conditions. They also noted other periods of moribundity since the mid-Holocene that are related
    to the filling of accommodation space, reduced flushing since the optimal Holocene high-energy
    window (7500 to 5500 years before present) and reduced calcification and increased disturbance
    associated with climate changes. These moribund reefs were characterised by healthy but non reef-
    building coral communities. The authors note that many living fringing nearshore coral reefs are built
    upon reef structures that were constructed in the distant past. The main point from these findings
    is that interruptions in reef growth, even climatically induced, are part and parcel of the Holocene
    nearshore record, but the living biophysical structure of the coral reef remained in the face of episodic
    moribundity, much of which can be correlated with climatic changes.

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    • #
      LightningCamel

      Or have a look at Windjana Gorge through the Napier Range in the Kimberly. The range was built by precursors of coral in the Devonian, 380 Myr ago. These little guys beavered away for tens of millions of years, through all sorts of environmental upheavals,building a huge reef system. They were finally done in by a major uplift event which left them high and dry, turning their reef into a mountain chain.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “The most significant period of active reef growth occurred between 7500 and 5500
      years before present “

      Which just HAPPENED to be part of the WARMEST period of the current interglacial.

      Significantly warmer than current.

      Go figure, hey 🙂

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    theRealUniverse

    Theres NO green house effect..so of course there isnt any warming or cooling or what ever to do with any CO2 whatsoever its irrelevant.
    Also Vostok just recorded the COLDEST temp they have on record..-80C! http://iceagenow.info/record-cold-antarctica/
    http://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?ind=89606&ano=2016&mes=6&day=14&hora=7&min=0&ndays=30
    yes thats below dry ice temp! so lets find the solid CO2 in that!.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_ice yep CO2 freezes at −78.5 °C. Take that.

    Just for the record heres another one for the warmists! Paris 2016 vs 1910 flood yep 1910 was bigger..OH wasnt that BEFORE the AGW theory was born hmm not many cars then either. http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/julien-knez-paris-flooding-then-now, brilliant site great photos, pics worth a million words.

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    If anything the temperature should have gone down if the Le Chatelier Principle prevailed, but in any case the facts are simple:

    CO2 is a “trace gas” in air and is insignificant by definition. It absorbs 1/7th as much IR, heat energy, from sunlight per molecule as water vapor which has 188 times as many molecules capturing 1200 times as much heat producing 99.8% of all “global warming.” CO2 does only 0.2% of it. For this we should destroy our economy, starve the world, cause hunger, riots and wars?

    There is no “greenhouse effect” in an atmosphere. A greenhouse has a solid, clear cover trapping heat. The atmosphere does not trap heat as gas molecules cannot form surfaces to work as greenhouses that admit and reflect energy depending on sun angle. Gases do not form surfaces as their molecules are not in contact.

    The Medieval Warming from 800 AD to 1300 AD Micheal Mann erased for his “hockey stick” was several Fahrenheit degrees warmer than anything “global warmers” fear. It was 500 years of world peace and abundance, longest ever.

    Vostock Ice Core data analysis show CO2 rises followed temperature by 800 years 19 times in 450,000 years. Therefore temperature change is cause and CO2 change is effect. This alone refutes the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis.

    Methane is called “a greenhouse gas 20 to 500 times more potent than CO2,” by Heidi Cullen and Jim Hansen, but it is not per the energy absorption chart at the American Meteorological Society. It has an absorption profile very similar to nitrogen which is classified “transparent” to IR, heat waves and is only present to 18 ppm. “Vegans” blame methane in cow flatulence for global warming in their war against meat consumption.

    Carbon combustion generates 80% of our energy. Control and taxing of carbon would give the elected ruling class more power and money than anything since the Magna Carta of 1215 AD.

    Most scientists and science educators work for tax supported institutions. They are eager to help government raise more money for them and they love being seen as “saving the planet.”

    Read the whole story in “Vapor Tiger” at Amazon.com, Kindle $2.99 including a free Kindle reading program for your computer.

    Google “Two Minute Conservative” for clarity.

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    Anubis

    Sorry mate but the drought in southern Australia ended years ago! Now we are getting floods!

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    Harry Twinotter

    What the 400ppm result from Antarctica shows is CO2 is a well-mixed gas.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      And that well mixed gas has given

      1. No warming in the southern polar region for the whole 38 years of the satellite record.

      2. No global warming in the UAH satellite record before the 1998 El Nino

      3. No warming between the end of that El Nino in 2001 and the start of the current El Nino at the beginning of 2015.

      4. No warming in the southern ex-tropicals for 20 years

      5. No warming in Australia for 20 years, cooling since 2002

      6. No warming in Japan surface data for 20 years

      7. No warming in the USA since 2005 when a non-corrupted system was installed, until the beginning of the current El Nino.

      8. UAH Global Land shows no warming from 1979 1997, the no warming from 2001 – 2015

      9. Iceland essentially the same temperature as in the late 1930s as now, maybe slightly lower

      10. Southern Sea temperatures not warming from 1982 2005, then cooling … (is this a CO2 thing as well?)

      11. Even UAH NoPol shows no warming this century until the large spike in January 2016.

      That is DESPITE a large climb in CO2 levels over those periods.

      There IS NO CO2 WARMING effect.

      The ONLY warming has come from ElNino and ocean circulation effects.

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      • #
        Graeme No.3

        Andy:

        Do you always use a sledgehammer to crack a nut?

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        • #
          Harry Twinotter

          Graeme No.3.

          That is an understatement! 🙂 Look up the definition of a Gish Gallop.

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            A Gish Gallop is a verbal debating technique that delivers examples so quickly that the other participant cannot possibly remember them all, let alone answer them.

            Obviously, that does not apply to the written word.

            Andy has simply presented a body of evidence to you, that you can counter in your own time, should you wish.

            We don’t mind waiting, while you do.

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          • #
            AndyG55

            Mirror, Mirror..

            Poor Harry Twin-Pothead.

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          I always use a sledge hammer to crack a coconut.

          Short of using a steam press, it is the most efficient tool for the job, that I have found.

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        • #
          AndyG55

          I’m not sure Harry has any nuts. !

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