The Kelp coped: ocean gets 5.5 degrees hotter but no effect on giant kelp

After human pumped out 90% of all the CO2 they’ve ever made, the oceans might be a whole fifth of a degree warmer, tops, in the last 60 years. So when water that was a whopping 5.5 degrees warmer rolled over some giant kelp, researchers got excited.  (This is like 1,650 years of climate change right?!)  But the kelp pretty much did nothing, and you might say that researchers were shocked the kelp coped:

Kelp beats the heat

 They expected forests of giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera), known to be sensitive to such increases as well as to the resulting low-nutrient conditions, to respond quite rapidly to a rise in water temperature.

However, to the scientists’ surprise, that was not the case. The kelp, they discovered, was all right. Their findings appear in the journal Nature Communications.

“The response that we saw in kelp was really no different than what we’d seen in our temporal record,” explained lead author Daniel Reed, deputy director of UCSB’s Marine Science Institute (MSI). “The values were low but not necessarily lower than what we’d seen during cool-water years.”

A lot of other underwater things were not bothered either:

The team also examined changes in understory algae, invertebrates and fishes of the giant kelp ecosystem and found that they didn’t show much of a response to the warming event either. Sea urchins and sea stars were the exception as they declined dramatically due to a disease that was linked to the warm-water event.

Could it be that natural variations of temperature are normal and have been going on for millions of years. Perhaps kelp has been hit with this sort of rapid shift many times? Have a look at this churning video below. The worlds oceans have streams of warmer water and colder water forming turbulent eddies.

I think this comes from the Scientific Visualization Studio NASA

The global oceans might be warming by 0.2C but marine life lives in water that isn’t average.

BAckground: They have 34 years of data about kelp off California:

The researchers used kelp records from a 34-year time series of data taken by Landsat satellites, which — among many other characteristics — measured kelp canopies. The investigators analyzed kelp biomass from Santa Barbara to San Diego through time and related it to sea surface temperatures at those sites.

The warming was unusual in the 34 year history:

The data showed some large positive temperature anomalies that were unprecedented. For example, in September 2015, the water in the Santa Barbara Channel averaged 4.5 degrees Celsius higher than normal for the entire month. Daily anomalies went as high as 5.5 degrees Celsius. Despite these high temperatures, the team saw no dramatic response by giant kelp whose biomass remained within the range observed during the decades-long time series when the water was cooler.

Naturally if temperatures change by 5 massive degrees, and nothing happens, we need to investigate that:

“Nobody knows how this warming event relates to climate change, other than we’ve not seen this before,” said co-author Libe Washburn, an oceanographer at the MSI and a professor in UCSB’s Department of Geography. “That’s somewhat alarming, but this work may provide some insight into how these kelp forests would respond to future climate warming.”

The money grab:

“The fact that we did not see drastic responses in the rest of the community tells us that we don’t know everything we think we know about this system and about its ecology,” Reed noted. “The results have caused us to pursue lines of research that try to understand how this happens. More importantly, the findings underscore the value of long-term data in terms of trying to tease apart these trends.”

REFERENCE

  1. Daniel Reed, Libe Washburn, Andrew Rassweiler, Robert Miller, Tom Bell, Shannon Harrer. (2016) Extreme warming challenges sentinel status of kelp forests as indicators of climate changeNature Communications, vo 7: 13757 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13757
9.7 out of 10 based on 47 ratings

159 comments to The Kelp coped: ocean gets 5.5 degrees hotter but no effect on giant kelp

  • #
    jorgekafkazar

    you might say that researchers were shocked the kelp coped

    That’s easy for you to say.

    Say “Hither, zither!” three times as fast as you can. It rhymes, so it should be easy.

    90

  • #
    Richard Ilfeld

    Kelp! I need somebody
    Kelp! Not just anybody
    Kelp! You know I need someone
    Kelp!

    Kelp me if you can, I’m feeling down
    And I do appreciate you being ’round
    Kelp me get my feet back on tKe ground
    Won’t you please, please Kelp me?

    (.please, please Kelp me?

    Kelp me, Kelp me
    OoH

    242

  • #
    grahamd

    Links courtesy of CO2 science
    http://www.co2science.org/cSearch.php?action=SEARCH&lan=&keyword=giant+kelp&limit=25&case=subject&extracts=1&perpage=10
    1. marineplants.php
    .. structure of giant kelp “forests” located near …. of the giant kelp that had historically …. subsided, the giant kelp were once again …. Although all giant kelp growing at 15 ..
    http://www.co2science.org:80/subject/m/summaries/marineplants.php – 65k – 27/05/2014

    2. acidmacroalgae.php
    .. of the giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera. Photosynthesis ..
    http://www.co2science.org:80/subject/o/summaries/acidmacroalgae.php – 70k – 17/11/2015

    51

  • #
    David S

    I find it fascinating that marine bio systems that have survived millions of years of different levels of CO2 and temperature changes will all of a sudden be threatened with extinction when temperatures move a degree or two over 100 years. When it comes to things like the Great Barrier Reef its ability to regenerate and grow has been evidenced by millions of years of survival.

    242

  • #
    David Maddison

    It seems that a lot of so-called “scientists” these days know nothing of the history of the earth.

    When did it start being taught that the conditions of the earth were invariant?

    132

  • #

    ‘Scientists’ are always amazed at such findings. Have they ever wondered how humans, animals and insects are able to cope with climatic extremes that go way beyond a mere 5C variation? This is not just through a gradual change, but on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis.

    The wonders of the natural world, which ‘scientist’ seem to overlook.

    80

    • #

      you are right… scientist know nothing about animal adaptation, physiology behaviour etc. Dolts.

      47

      • #

        I did not say they ‘don’t know’, I said they ‘seem to overlook’. There’s quite a difference in meaning between the two.

        Much the same with the statement that CO2 and temperature rises move in ‘lock step’. They do, but there’s a subtle difference when you analyse ‘lock step’. 🙂

        71

  • #
    RobK

    Thanks Jo,
    No doubt this story won’t get much air time elsewhere yet it is consistent with numerous other reports of there being no unusually catastrophic effects on the oceans.
    As for tongue twisters: When harvested, the kelp that coped gets coppiced.

    80

  • #
    el gordo

    “The results have caused us to pursue lines of research that try to understand how this happens.”

    I feel a grant coming on.

    90

    • #
      David Maddison

      What is there to understand anyway? There is no mystery here!

      61

    • #
      bobl

      I really loved that bit. We don’t understand why the kelp failed to follow the leftist mantra, and we are hoping that with a lot of reeductation in socialist ideology and a half million smackaroos we might be able to find some skeric of evidence that the predominant socialist meme does apply to kelp so that we too may board the gravy train. Meantime please pay us more money so we can study a process in which “Nothing Unusual” is happening, the Kelp must be taught socialist values… Perhaps we should just fake the data …. Nah!

      How Lysenkoist is that article, “we don’t understand why the kelp denies climate change, it’s just got to, we must look harder for confirmation. Perhaps we aren’t communicating well enough to the kelp?”

      110

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        It seems the answer to useless socialism is…drum roll…more socialism…..

        Or put another way – to a fool, putting more people in a boat to keep it afloat is a reasonable idea but flies in the face of reality….

        40

  • #
    ianl8888

    The global oceans might be warming by 0.2C …

    Try as I may, I can’t find convincing empirical evidence of this.

    The Argo buoys do not show it. Sampling with ship buckets or engine inlets has no depth (bad pun, I know).

    So where does this 0.2C number come from ?

    81

    • #
      sophocles

      Could it be from the same bin as 97% of all climate scientists and other fictional numbers?

      (I was going to say imaginary numbers but these are mathematically useful whereas fictional numbers aren’t.)

      141

      • #
        toorightmate

        I have it on good authority that 0.2C came from an essential orifice. The orifice was located at the rear.

        61

    • #
      Mark D.

      So where does this 0.2C number come from ?

      Sounds like a question that Gee Aye would know the answer to!

      Que Gee Aye:………………….

      She is so bright and witty

      Que GEE AYE…………………………

      Hello?

      HELLLLOOOO?

      Maybe not.

      10

  • #
    Robert Rosicka

    Just exactly when did they start taking temps at this location and when did they come to this conclusion? Remember they never knew there was a hole in the ozone layer until they looked .

    70

  • #
    Bite Back

    Could it be that life is actually very resilient and a lot tougher than these scientists are willing to believe? I think so.

    To the devil with all this worrying. I give them a thumbs down rating.

    BB

    100

  • #
    Sean McHugh

    I am told there are people who live in the Northern and Queensland, where it’s far hotter than here in South Coast of NSW. Can someone confirm this?

    90

    • #
      AndyG55

      Yes. 🙂

      62

    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Climate scientists don’t know but give them a grant and they will investigate.

      61

      • #

        As it happens they used to come up here regularly to talk bs. It is the reason why I knew from the beginning that almost all of what they were claiming was bunk. They only came in what passes as winter of course. In summer it was reely hot&humid and there might be a cyclone so very scary.

        70

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Surely youre not suggesting “climate scientists” provide services to the highest bidder?

        Whats the first rule of Consulting again?

        Oh horror….

        41

    • #
      Rod Stuart

      It was chilly enough here early this morning to warrant lighting a fire.
      Global warming, my arse!
      I understand there are people that live on the Fourth Island; the one North of Tasmania, King and Flinders Islands.
      Struth! Imagine the survival techniques they most employ up there!
      Warm is a relative term.

      30

      • #
        gnome

        You’ll need to be more specific. Except for the rest of Antarctica, the whole world is north of those places you mention.

        30

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        It’s been chilly enough here for quite some time already to cause the furnace to light up in the morning. Smart thermostats are a marvellous invention. But somewhere south of here there may be someone so hot that they can’t even function well enough to summon help. Otherwise we might hear of their plight. It must be so. After all, the scientists have spoken and the ocean is warming. I suspect I’ll hear any day now that somewhere it’s begun to boil. Won’t that be a sight? And survival techniques? Aircraft to fly above it would seem to be the only answer. Endless employment for good aviation engineers. 😉

        20

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          Or maybe we should all laugh a little (or a lot) about the fear mongering and go back to bed until the house warms up to a comfortable point. Much more fun to be in bed in the morning than to be worrying about climate change killing the kelp. Struth! 😉

          30

    • #
      Oswald Thake

      It’s life, Sean, but not as we know it.

      10

  • #
    Peter C

    Sea Surface Currents and Temperature.

    This visualization was produced using model output from the joint MIT/JPL project entitled Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II (ECCO2). ECCO2 uses the MIT general circulation model (MITgcm) to synthesize satellite and in-situ data of the global ocean and sea-ice at resolutions that begin to resolve ocean eddies and other narrow current systems, which transport heat and carbon in the oceans. The ECCO2 model simulates ocean flows at all depths, but only surface flows are used in this visualization.

    I though initially that the video might represent actual surface sea movements and temperatures (from satellite images). Sadly that is not the case. It is just computer models again.

    70

  • #
    TdeF

    This is a wonderful contrast to the Great Barrier Reef mass bleaching event.

    This time the warming scientists did not start with an observed natural event and blame it on ‘Climate Change’. This time they started with a prediction and found it was false. This in turn raises the question of whether coral bleaching is a regular dieback phenomenon and part of a cycle of renewal and that perhaps we have just not been watching too closely before. No, it is far better and more rewarding to watch for a natural event and blame it on Climate Change and CO2.

    That way you start with your conclusion proven and not embarrassed by being wrong. Confirmation bias analysis at its best. If that doesn’t work, you can always homogenize the raw data to make it fit the theory, except that is hard to do with vast areas of kelp.

    111

    • #
      bobl

      Great point TDef, all of the research I’ve debunked does this, Mostly Antarctic melting guff in my case. I’ve written to the Authors and they have one thing in common. They take some measurement or other that they think is significant and they THEN say the magic words “Climate Change” and the mysterious cheque book opens before their eyes. Invariably these so-called scientists that I’ve responded to don’t even attempt to check causality. Let me give a case study.

      One researcher claimed that so many thousands of square km of Antarctic sea ice was being melted and redeposited on land now not only was area the wrong metric (It should have been cubic metres) and therefore unquantifiable, any reasonable assumption of volume (say 1m thick on average) results in an Energy cost that far exceeds the available so-called back radiation energy change. (Don’t annoy me on back radiation, yes I know it’s a pointless concept, but I use their assumptions).

      I did a calculation and sent a note to the researcher that said that the effect he was attributing to climate change was energetically impossible (non causal) and had he bothered to check the energy balance to understand whether indeed “back radiation” was sufficient to cause such an effect. He just said “that’s what we measured”, so no there was no check on energy conservation. I responded that then it is a lie to attribute that to climate change when the energy available is insufficient to cause the effect, he didn’t care. This has been repeated 3 times with various researchers, that they make attributions without the coarsest checks on causality. So it goes like this

      *Find some observation you like
      *Quantify it
      *Form some wild unquantified speculation about mechanism linked to climate change.
      *Claim it

      (Oh make sure you don’t EVER check the energy requirements of the effect for adherence to energy conservation)

      This isn’t even confirmation bias, this is just a wild link to the socialist meme of the day – Classic Lysenkoism.

      90

      • #
        bobl

        Uggg! In Moderation…. Sometimes I wonder about that moderation filter, when you feel inclined mods!

        40

      • #
        TdeF

        One of my favorite books “The Riddle of the Pyramids” was by a famous physicist Kurt Mendelsson significant in the quest for absolute zero. He was a lover of Egyptian Pharaonic history and the pyramids in particular. One pyramid at Meidum about 20km south of Giza was half built and the one next to, the Red Pyramid changed angle suddenly. When you go to Giza, look in the distance to the South and you will see it. The first one was supposed by historians to be robbed of stone to build the walls of Cairo, but he calculated that the walls would have been built many times over. No one else did the calculations.

        His theory was that two were being built at once, one collapsed in plastic flow which he simulated and the second one suddenly changed angle and all new pyramids were built at this new angle. Of course this was historic heresy but it fitted the facts perfectly. His conclusion then was that Pyramid building had become an industry and that industry galvanised society and became an essential industry employing vast numbers in specialist jobs, fundamentally pointless though it was. So my second point is that building useless windmills is now an industry, like Easter Island Statues. So is climate change. How many people work for Climate departments world wide? Millions?

        If we stop building windmills or pushing climate change, you will hear the screams from the windmills industry and councils and public service about loss of jobs and they have a point. 350 CSIRO jobs alone. It seems building useless things like the F35 strike fighter and Australian submarines are an end in themselves, if you have the public money. In war the lifetime of a $500 million Australian frigate which took five years to build is about 2 minutes, but it provided thousands of jobs.

        So in another thousand years, expect historians to rationalize the building of endless windmills as a worship of earth based Gods of the late 20th century. Pointless extravagance, socio economic engineering and not science at all. The climate may have changed slightly by then, as it did in the Roman times or Medieval times. When pushing their beliefs, a lot of the commentators do not bother to check the calculations and to be fair, many cannot. For essayists like Tim Flannery and Al Gore, the calculator is a total mystery and an object of terror.

        122

  • #
    Ruairi

    Should scientists be so amazed,
    Astonished, dumbfounded and dazed,
    That seaweeds survive,
    Cope with heat range and thrive,
    Through great climate changes,unfazed?

    130

  • #
    Rod Stuart

    The religion is settled!
    We need to sacrifice more chickens!

    100

    • #
      PeterS

      The Greens’ agenda is not interested in sacrificing chickens. They are more interested in sacrificing mankind for supposedly causing the mythical runaway global warming.

      61

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Correct.

        The extreme greens view humans as we would view a garden weed….but then they are off the reserve, so in their warped little world, unspeakable horrors are a preferred method of managing human “weeds”….

        60

      • #
        gnome

        Be fair – mankind, chickens, they see little or no difference.
        The only chicken they like is Chicken Little.

        40

  • #
    john

    Off Topic but breaking:

    UPDATE: Legal woes for SUNE and former First Wind executives.

    https://cases.primeclerk.com/sunedison/Home-DownloadPDF?id1=NTAyODkx&id2=0

    http://cases.primeclerk.com/sunedison/Home-DownloadPDF?id1=NTAyODkx&id2=0

    SunEdison Shareholders Made Stunning Accusations In Court

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/4030452-sunedison-shareholders-made-stunning-accusations-court

    Summary

    Shareholders have submitted 60 letters to Honorable Judge Bernstein, the U.S. Trustee, and the Wall Street Journal.

    The letters implicate at least five high-ranking businessmen and politicians of wide spread collusion, corruption, and fraud.

    SunEdison was ordered to answer allegations that its value has increased since it filed for bankruptcy.

    Since my last article covering SunEdison Inc (OTCMKTS: OTCPK:SUNEQ), there have been several developments in the bankruptcy proceedings. October’s Monthly Operating Report was released, Homer Parkhill gave a statement for the first time since early summer, and SunEdison formally objected to the Unsecured Creditors’ motion to claw back Terraform Global (NASDAQ: GLBL) and Terraform Power (NASDAQ: TERP). In addition, a number of shareholders have inundated the court’s inbox with letters and emails (60 as of this writing) in a mad attempt to reopen the case for an Equity Committee….

    =====

    Re: all of the above: Paul Gaynor founded this company shortly after SUNE failed.

    http://www.longroadenergy.com/investors/

    New Zealand would be wise to re-think its investment with Longroad….

    60

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    OT but not sort of…..

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-15/file-sharing-websites-future-in-australia-under-consideration/8120274

    “First they came for the Socialists….”

    Thin end of the wedge….web censorship….Australia taking a China approach.
    This needs ot be publicised….how long before sceptic sites suffer the same approach?
    I suspect once this gets going, anyone with an axe to grind can use this is precedent ( the law loves precedent…)

    40

  • #
    el gordo

    On the question of ‘sensitivity’, CO2 has no case to answer.

    http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01b7c8bb7a00970b-pi

    40

  • #
    Stan

    In other words: “we have no idea what’s happening, but it’s gotta be really bad, so send us more money.”

    40

  • #

    A few decades from now there will be a global flowering of moso bamboo, just like the late 1980s. Much of it will try to die, all over the world, and at the very same time, irrespective of season. Somebody knowing nothing about the species would consider this a disaster, and maybe point to an anthro cause. In fact, extremes and freaks are meant to be. The only impossible is stability.

    People who talk of “tackling” climate change end up polluting, wasting and damaging on a huge scale. That’s because their climate “solutions” are the expression and outcome of a neurosis.

    Some warmie please down-vote me now.

    80

    • #

      Not at all. Most known chemical ‘miracles’ are result of ‘rapid response to the unusual. Perhaps we may suggest vast expenditure of government funds, to truly understand how this planet does protect itself in spite of vast earthling ‘nest fouling’! -will-

      30

  • #
    Dennis

    Did you known that according to the MSM Sydney had its hottest night and day ever this week, some claimed since the late 1800s, but I was told this morning that at least one weather man scoffed when asked about it and pointed out there was a hotter period this time last year.

    70

    • #

      Maybe a combo of heat and cloud cover kept the minimum up before a hot day and that’s what they’re talking about. In other words, it was a cloud thing.

      It seems the 27.1C on Wed at the Observatory managed to pip the previous high minimum for December: 26.3C recorded with less UHI back on the 25th December…1868! As for the hottest day+night claim, if you are adding up the min+max of a single calendar day, Dec 25 1868 was actually HOTTER by .6 of a degree. But maybe our experts and spokespeople are meaning something else. Or just not mentioning something. Or phoning a friend.

      Looking at other old coastal stations, Nobbys had its highest December minimum as recently as a night in 2000. Yamba, however, had its “warmest December night ever” back in 1918.

      The minimum I’ll never forget was that January night in 1960 when the BoM recorded a min of 26.1 before a high of 41.1. It was part of a four day heatwave that remains the most severe experienced in Sydney, which usually gets relief pretty promptly after extreme heat. But that was 1960…so it’s been stuffed pretty hard down that memory hole.

      All of which proves that the climate is warming…no, cooling…no, it’s warming…or maybe cooling…

      70

  • #
    pat

    a 2014 Trump tweet that I like:

    “Resilience is part of the survival of the fittest formula–make sure you remain adaptable.”

    btw can u believe MSM is saying emissions intensity scheme appears to be back, no thanks to another Liberal, NSW Energy Minister Anthony Roberts!!!

    15 Dec: Australian: Tony Abbott’s call for affordable energy
    by Rick Wallace & Graham Lloyd Additional reporting: Kylar Loussikian
    As a meeting of state and federal ministers ended with more bickering over renewables policy, the former prime minister ­entered the debate saying Australia should concentrate on its gas and coal exports and on reducing power prices.
    “Let us be the affordable ­energy superpower of the world and let us have the lowest possible power prices here in Australia,’’ Mr Abbott said.
    “(Mr Turnbull’s) the Prime Minister and he is leading a ­centre-right government that is absolutely committed to never having a carbon tax or anything that looks remotely like a carbon tax. Because a carbon tax, it’s a pain in your pocket, and … we have enough pains in the pocket and we don’t need any more.”…
    Amid debate over energy ­security, the Australian Energy Market Operator found measures taken to change the trip settings on some wind farms that shut down in a storm, crashing the South Australian electricity grid in September, would not stop the same thing happening again. A group of wind farms with a combined capacity of 507 megawatts would still be unable to ride out a repeat of the multiple grid disturbances caused by the loss of transmission lines, according to a third report into the state’s blackout…
    NSW Energy Minister Anthony Roberts backed the commonwealth’s position, warning: “The ideologically and politically motivated policies of some jurisdictions are not only hurting their own citizens, they are negatively impacting households and residents right across the country.”
    ***In an interview on Sky News after the meeting, Mr Roberts appeared to reopen the debate within the Coalition on the emissions intensity scheme by saying everything should be on the table in discussions on how to meet the nation’s Paris climate commitments…READ ALL
    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/tony-abbotts-call-for-affordable-energy/news-story/2e91b92c4a3f7a5df35cd655b701bf71

    21

  • #
    KinkyKeith

    Perhaps the Kelp developed some useful adaptations over its 64 million year lifespan?

    Maybe in that time it experienced more extremes of hot and cold than those who have been watching it closely for the last 30 years could imagine.

    Any current puny fluctuations are small dramas in the life of Kelp.
    KK

    20

    • #
      Will Janoschka

      Was your grandmother a Kelp, or a Klimate?

      20

      • #
        KinkyKeith

        Will,

        It is a well known fact that the Kelps migrated from the North West of France to the West coast of Britain a long time ago.

        Maybe they were trying to escape the Romans but went the wrong way, who knows.

        Whatever, it’s time for a Merry Christmas.

        KK

        30

    • #
      R2Dtoo

      Or maybe the temperature change simply didn’t exceed the range of variation that kelp can tolerate. I haven’t seen any mention of the “ecologic valency” of kelp. Do they even know?

      00

  • #
    Dennis

    Clean Green Batteries

    By Viv Forbes

    Greens and technically challenged scribes apparently believe that battery-powered cars and planes are exciting new clean “zero-emissions” vehicles.

    There is little new about batteries – battery powered cars were running on British roads over a century ago – they were pushed out of the market by petrol power.

    Batteries just store energy made elsewhere and all have a finite life. Every battery needs primary energy and resources for production, recharging, replacing and recycling, and every step produces its own emissions.

    Batteries require lots of expensive raw materials – lead, calcium, nickel, cadmium, lithium, hydrogen, plus ancillary copper, steel, zinc, aluminium and plastic. All need primary energy like coal or gas for mining, manufacture, construction, recharging and recycling plus coking coal for smelting metals. Even wind and solar are not emissions-free once construction, maintenance, and life cycle replacement are fully accounted for.

    All cars, even Green ones, need road maintenance using bitumen, concrete and diesel-powered machinery, all costing money and producing emissions. Green cars also need recharging stations, demanding more metals.

    Batteries have an important place in our lives. But they are not “emissions free”.

    110

    • #
      KinkyKeith

      Well put Dennis.

      The point you have made is that energy used to do work via batteries is always much more, and probably double, the energy requirements of the “normal” method.

      To add insult to injury, batteries are a “poisonous” legacy for the environment.

      It would be almost impossible to think up such a devious misrepresentation of a situation than the label: ” efficient, environmentally friendly Batteries”.

      KK

      60

      • #

        KK,
        Get invited to a telco ‘switch’ and look! Many huge glass crocks containing two forms of Pb and much weak H2SO4. Meticulously maintained in ‘pearfict’ condition to do one job only! This is the wonderful earthling discovery of word ‘battery’!

        30

  • #
    pat

    reminder that the pollies could care less about CAGW:

    14 Dec: CarbonPulse: Washington governor floats new carbon tax proposal
    Washington state Governor Jay Inslee has proposed introducing a state-wide carbon tax from 2018 to help raise $4 billion in education funding, just a month after voters rejected a similar proposal…

    losing interest!

    14 Dec: CarbonPulse: EU Parliament’s ETS vote not a certainty as partial compromise leaves room for doubt
    Observers expect the European Parliament’s environment committee (ENVI) to vote through a more ambitious post-2020 EU ETS package early on Thursday but are warning of a small risk that the whole deal could be rejected.

    13 Dec: EnvironmentalFinance: Carbon markets face fresh uncertainty
    Political changes in the UK and US have reversed recent progress towards greater clarity in the world’s largest carbon markets, says Graham Cooper.
    What a difference a year makes! This time last year, politicians and environmentalists, along with many businesses and investors, were celebrating the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change and the increased certainty it provided about global and national targets for curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
    12 months on, and the same people are bemoaning fresh uncertainties arising from the UK’s vote to leave the European Union and the victory of a climate change sceptic in the US presidential election…
    EU Allowance (EUA) prices stood at about 8 in December 2015 but, a year later, they are languishing around €5, representing a fall of almost 40%…
    A year later, however, both the CPP and the California market are beset by legal challenges, while the Brexit decision, low EUA prices, and a lack of clarity over forthcoming market reforms, have cast a cloud of uncertainty over the EU market…

    Few market insiders expect any dramatic recovery in prices next year…
    “All the signs are for lower prices next year.”
    Further bad news for the embattled EU market, is the threatened mandatory closure of coal-fired power stations in several European states. “Such intervention is undermining the carbon market,” Redshaw says…
    Baker & McKenzie, which held on to its title of Best ***Law Firm in the EU ETS, for the eighth year in succession, is also seeing more interest from airlines. “We see an increasing of level of activity here,” says Martijn Wilder, head of the firm’s global environmental markets and climate change practice…
    https://www.environmental-finance.com/content/analysis/carbon-markets-face-fresh-uncertainty.html

    ***13 Dec: CarbonPulse: EXCLUSIVE: Is China backtracking on UN aviation carbon market deal?
    China wants assurances including that its airlines can use domestic carbon offsets to meet obligations under the UN’s global aviation carbon market, a senior government official said Monday, revealing that his country was not yet fully in support of the ICAO deal despite having signed it two months ago…

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    pat

    losing their religion:

    14 Dec: CarbonPulse: Final 2016 UK carbon auction fails on lack of interest
    The UK’s final EUA auction of the year was cancelled due to insufficient interest from bidders, the sale’s host ICE Futures Europe said Wednesday…

    14 Dec: ClimateChangeNews: Brazil set for ‘environmental civil war’, warns minister
    Brazil’s government is divided on a bill to tear up federal environmental regulations and hand responsibility to states.
    Promoted by the rural lobby, the proposal would exempt farming and forestry – responsible for nearly 70% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions – from current licensing laws…

    That could undermine the country’s climate commitments, which depend on halting deforestation…
    As the country grapples with a prolonged economic recession, Brasilia is under pressure to ease restrictions on investment…
    The finance committee is set to decide on 21 December whether to send the bill for consideration by the whole of Congress.
    Sources close to the environment minister say he will resign if it becomes law, further deepening a political crisis in Latin America’s largest economy
    http://www.climatechangenews.com/2016/12/14/brazil-set-for-environmental-civil-war-warns-minister/

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      Here again is where The Donald could do so very much. SA has everything that NA lacks, including gobs of folk willing to bust their ass to get a bit ahead. No “illegal immigrants”, no foreign fundamental, mercenary invaders. Those that like where they they are located. Just Folk that will admire the new baby, then give it back to mama ’cause it is wet and stinks!
      All the best! -will-

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    Rick Will

    Not quite on topic but I will post here and maybe elsewhere later. I have prepared a brief paper on how I believe the temperature on earth is stabilised. The paper is a pdf file that can be found here:
    https://1drv.ms/b/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNgVOeXlrE414VMkVF
    I have referenced a number of diagrams readily available on the web with source noted below or already on the diagram. The modelling is primarily based on a simple vertical air column with a single absorption cross section for outgoing transmission and commonly used values for albedo and atmospheric absorption.

    I would be interested in constructive feedback and particularly major flaws in what I have determined. As I went through the process I deduced certain outcomes and was able to find examples of the outcome that I was unaware of prior to deducing what I should find. A model that leads to conclusion that can be tested by observation has to be of some benefit. I believe I am working from first principles more than the parameterisation that is so embedded in coupled circulation models. So I use a simple atmospheric model but closer to first principles. My objective was to identify the key factors affecting climate rather than adapting complex weather models to predict climate.

    This paper makes no specific conclusions about the influence of CO2 on climate other than the unstated conclusion that there is no current indication that it influences temperature trends because there is no significant trend where it matters.

    I have not found any other reference that come to the same finding on thermostatic control. If there is I would like to review it.

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        Rick Will

        Either link leads to the paper – just takes a while to load.

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        AndyG55

        Rick, your figures should be properly numbers\, so others can reference them.

        That being said, your “solar flux absorbed” graph is incorrect.

        When the solar incidence is less than about 10 degrees, “total external reflection” occurs over water.

        That means that the zero point should be around 80 degrees at equinox.

        Also when there is sea ice, very little is absorbed.

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          AndyG55 December 15, 2016 at 8:21 pm
          Rick, your figures should be properly numbers\, so others can reference them.

          “That being said, your “solar flux absorbed” graph is incorrect. When the solar incidence is less than about 10 degrees, “total external reflection” occurs over water.”

          That is the theoretical ‘snell’ angle for a air water interface. Measurement indicates anything over 55 degrees from normal reflects\scatters like hell at most all wavelengths.
          Sorry; we still do not know whether to ‘scratch watch’ or ‘wind ass’ ’bout that!

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          Rick Will

          AndyG
          The figures will be numbered if I make a more formal version. I need to tidy up the layout and figure sizes so it is better set out.

          Referring to flux absorbed is from the top of the atmospheric column down. That avoids any consideration of SSR scattering. As far as what happens at or near the poles it has no consequence for climate unless all the sea ice disappears. The heat balance at those locations only concerns the weather at those locations.

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      el gordo

      Rick your paper illustrates sea ice stability over time, but what are we to make of this?

      https://sunshinehours.net/category/arctic-sea-ice/#jp-carousel-11599

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        AndyG55

        An extreme El Nino WEATHER event.. helped by the NE Pacific blob.

        Whatever caused that blob, it sure wasn’t atmospheric CO2 !!

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        Rick Will

        The sea ice data I have used is from the NSIDC data base. THe difference with the way I present it is to show a zero line. The scare mongering the underpins AGW hype is to show anomalies with hugely expanded scale to exaggerate t minuscule differences. If the sea ice extent halved overall then there would be cause for some concern.

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      Rick Will December 15, 2016 at 3:14 pm

      “Not quite on topic but I will post here and maybe elsewhere later. I have prepared a brief paper on how I believe the temperature on earth is stabilised. The paper is a pdf file that can be found here:”

      Rick,
      The whole thing is not stabilized! Earth and its locus is but a grand example of ‘what if’! The over yonder have all the cards. They will play with Earthlings while profitable. The else (us) have pitchforks and torches. Perhaps the ‘they’ do not recognize pitchforks and torches. Wadja think?

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        Rick Will

        Will
        The money goes into ever more complex weather models that have additional parameters that are tuned to hind cast better than previous versions. No one understands the models and they are useless for forecasting. My aim is to get the fundamental understanding closer to reality.

        In doing this exercise I was surprised how little water (vapour, liquid or ice) was needed to reduce transmittance from the surface. That led me to look for the means of actually releasing the heat. I had no idea that the land around the dead sea was 400m below sea level until I deduced that could happen. I have not seen that connection before from any climate model. Also I have not seen any connection that links the ice line to thermostatic control of the earth’s climate. The other surprise is that the ice line moves quite a lot for small changes in the heat balance meaning it is a sensitive control variable with a limited range. It would not take much reduction in heat input before the southern ocean circulation is impeded through ice bridge to Cape Horn. In fact once a realised this I looked for references for Cape Horn and ice age. Did not find an exact connection but did find this reference on fresh water injection from South America affecting the ocean circulation:
        https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160212102431.htm

        I appreciate your taking the time to review and comment. Hopefully more will follow. I would like to find out if others have made the same connections as I cannot find any references that make the linkage to the ice line regulating the heat balance. It may be implicit in coupled models and simply not stated because it is so obvious.

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          el gordo

          ‘It would not take much reduction in heat input before the southern ocean circulation is impeded through ice bridge to Cape Horn.’

          Might have happened at the LGA around 18,000 BP, but not during the LIA.

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          Rick Will December 15, 2016 at 8:01 pm

          “Will, The money goes into ever more complex weather models that have additional parameters that are tuned to hind cast better than previous versions. No one understands the models and they are useless for forecasting. My aim is to get the fundamental understanding closer to reality.”
          of GOD
          Rick, I agree, but have problem with your ‘reality’. To me ‘reality’ is all, including fantasy purple unicorns, and the Catweasel ‘giant intergalactic Goat” that swallows such as Earth whole, yum!
          OTOH this physical is strictly limited to what can be repeatably measured. Do you wish to discuss ‘reality’, or the physical (a small subset of the GOD awful)? The measurable can somehow describe all of what is observed, no fantasy is needed!
          Do you wish to learn of thermal EMR, what such is, and what can do? I think!! ?
          All the best! -will-

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            Rick Will

            Will
            My climate model is not my reality but is it closer to reality than coupled circulation models? I have not seen any reference to other climate models that connect the significance of the sea ice line to the global thermal balance. Also have not found any reference to the precise temperature of sea ice forming or melting as being the fundamental thermostatic control for earth.

            I am interested to learn if others have made these connections and, specifically, if they are inherent physical phenomena in the coupled models or simply another set of parameters.

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              Rick Will December 16, 2016 at 8:03 am · Reply

              “Will My climate model is not my reality but is it closer to reality than coupled circulation models? I have not seen any reference to other climate models that connect the significance of the sea ice line to the global thermal balance. Also have not found any reference to the precise temperature of sea ice forming or melting as being the fundamental thermostatic control for earth”

              Such could be a significant player in your ‘thermostatic’! I like the term also. The thermodynamic truly does need some semi-static that it can deviate from. I have not studied your ‘ice line’ in particular, but this is a water world. Until the water part is well studied and repeatably measured there can be no progress in what is known of how this atmosphere may possibly operate.

              It takes 335 Joules of energy to melt each gram of ice to liquid. It takes 2400 Joules of energy to convert one gram of liquid to the gas state.
              This atmosphere has airborne an average of just under 3 cm of water. Daily precipitation is but 3 mm, so the atmosphere is carrying around 10 days of precipitation all the time. Not all of that H2O can be in the form of water vapor (WV) as most if the atmosphere is not of sufficient temperature for that amount of partial pressure. What is the state of most of the airborne H2O? has anyone looked\checked? NO! I have only conjecture. What is the mass of the atmosphere? Meteorology claims 5.16 x 10^18 kg, based on surface pressure. I claim approximately one third that, including all water condensate (colloid), bugs, bats, birds, bees, and earthling aircraft! that three to one difference in mass, and its corresponding momentum makes a huge difference in just what the compressible fluid dynamics and continuum mechanics may allow for Earth’s atmosphere. Have the ‘meteorologists’ or ‘atmospheric physicists’ ever considered such? NO! They seem to be only interested in playing games on their Playstation-64, or generating colorful UCAR\NCAR cartoons!
              All the best! -will-

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    RoHa

    “The response that we saw in kelp was really no different than what we’d seen in our temporal record,” explained lead author Daniel Reed.

    Of course, he should have said “…no different from …”

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    RoHa

    “Sea urchins and sea stars were the exception as they declined dramatically due to a disease that was linked to the warm-water event.”

    Save the sea urchins! Save the sea stars!

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    TdeF

    I just realised.

    “Extreme warming challenges sentinel status of kelp forests as indicators of climate change”

    No it doesn’t. It simply confirms that according to the kelp, the change is insignificant.

    It is wild and convenient hypothesis that coral bleaching is a direct consequence of slightly warmer water. Coral thrives elsewhere in much warmer waters and colder. Besides, if that were true, why is it so patchy? Blaming bleaching on warm water and warm water on Climate Change and Climate Change on warming and warming on CO2 appears to be bias confirmation, not science. There is real funding in climate change and everyone needs money and so the damage done to world opinion of Australia, tourism and good government is worth it. Send those tourists home. Close those power stations. Climate Scientists have mortgages too.

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    That video makes Earth look like Jupiter – which is not surprising, really. The difference is that Earth’s gases are invisible, more or less.

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    Robert Rosicka

    What’s the average for doom and gloom stories ,predictions etc from fossil fuel use ? Not real good is it .

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    Mark M

    Could it be the missing heat?
    Pretty sure the 97% missing heat was possibly spotted in the Indian ocean.
    Wait.
    The Atlantic. Try looking in the Atlantic ocean.

    Hmmmm.
    The Pacific? Looked there:

    Climate change: The case of the missing heat
    Sixteen years into the mysterious ‘global-warming hiatus’, scientists are piecing together an explanation.
    http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-missing-heat-1.14525
    . . .
    Reports of the missing heat’s death are greatly exaggerated it appears, as it un-terrorises innocent kelp forests.

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    pat

    ABC considers this deserves to be reported!

    Celebrities call on Electoral College to dump Trump in upcoming vote
    ABC online – Posted 4 minutes ago
    A group of celebrities are urging Republican members of the US Electoral College to ditch President-elect Donald Trump and put forward another candidate when they vote next Monday.
    Americans including Martin Sheen, Debra Messing, James Cromwell, Moby, and Loretta Swit released a video calling on electors to “change the course of history”…

    ABC never misses an opportunity to promote the obsessions of CAGW-infested NGOs &, in this beat-up, includes a big, unrelated, pic of half a dozen protesters, protesting a highway extension? no protest is too small for ABC – as long as it fits their one of their agendas:

    15 Dec: ABC: EPA rejects accusation climate change omitted as key in new project assessment guidelines
    By Tom Wildie
    Posted about an hour ago | Updated 46 minutes ago
    Almost a decade after WA’s peak environmental watchdog listed climate change as a fundamental issue facing the state, it has been criticised by a conservation group for omitting it when considering environmental impact on major projects.
    The Conservation Council of WA has criticised the Environmental Protection Authority’s new policies and guidelines statement, saying it makes no mention of climate change or carbon pollution…
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-15/epa-criticised-for-watering-down-project-guidelines/8124970

    yet the CAGW-infested-invested Reuters is moaning about lack of MSM interest in CAGW around the world!

    14 Dec: TheConversation: Huffington Post, BuzzFeed and Vice are blazing a new trail on climate change coverage
    by James Painter, Head of the Journalism Fellowship Programme, University of Oxford
    (Disclosure: James Painter receives funding from Google and the Digital News Initiative, the European Climate Foundation, and the Energy Foundation)
    The deafening silence around climate change in the US presidential campaign has left leading climate scientists baffled by the absence of debate about the “greatest issue of our time”…
    But it is not just in the US where climate change and environmental issues have been virtually ignored. In the UK, a study by Loughborough University found that during the Brexit referendum, television news bulletins in the six-week period in May and June dedicated no time at all to environmental issues…Print media did little better…
    New kids on the climate beat
    The gap is partly being filled by “digital-born” players such as Huffington Post, BuzzFeed and Vice, who are the subject of our new book Something Old, Something New. In its 2016 Digital News Report, the Reuters Institute for the first time asked online users what media sources were most consulted for environment news…
    https://theconversation.com/huffington-post-buzzfeed-and-vice-are-blazing-a-new-trail-on-climate-change-coverage-70357

    basically, theirABC, with their billion+ dollars of taxpayer money annually, are on a par with out-and-out leftwing youth-market outfits like HuffPo, Buzzfeed & Vice. wonder what their annual budgets are? of course, they are not funded by taxpayers.

    shut down ABC.

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      Graeme No.3

      pat:
      I must be getting old, I can remember a time when the ABC didn’t broadcast an environmental protest unless it has at least 7 participants, not counting the professional spokesperson.
      Could it be that the environmental protest lot are losing support?

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    pat

    what is going on?

    15 Dec: ABC: Planned union strike at Victoria’s Loy Yang power station called off
    By Kellie Lazaro and Patrick Wright
    A planned 24-hour strike at Victoria’s Loy Yang A power station over the Christmas and New Year period has been called off by the union.
    The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) had notified AGL, the station’s owner, it planned to hold protected industrial action on December 28.
    The union had said the strike could force the shutdown of four generating units at the power station for 24 hours.
    The brown-coal-fired power plant provides about a third of Victoria’s energy needs.
    AGL countered the union by threatening to lock out workers at the power station and the mine, which also supplies coal to the nearby Loy Yang B station…
    The dispute over wages and conditions of more than 500 workers at Loy Yang A has dragged on for the past 18 months.
    A CFMEU spokesman said the most recent offer put to workers was rejected because it reduced staff numbers at the station, especially on weekends.
    AGL said union members working at Loy Yang A had “twice rejected generous pay rises of more than 20 per cent, preservation of generous work benefits and job security in the form of no forced redundancies”.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-12-15/planned-strike-loy-yang-called-off/8122784

    read all (some earlier reporting?):

    15 Dec: AFR: David Marin-Guzman: AGL, CFMEU row triggers energy price rises and intervention
    AGL Energy will indefinitely shut down its coal-fired Loy Yang power station, which supplies half of Victoria’s energy, in response to a 24-hour strike by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union.
    The industrial action will impact energy supplies from next week and has sent power prices higher for the December 2016 and March 2017 quarters in the few hours since the union’s stoppage notice.
    Victorian industrial relations minister Natalie Hutchins has responded by intervening to terminate the dispute based on its threat to cause significant damage to the state economy and to the welfare of the population…
    A shut-down of the site will require generators to be wound down six days before the date for safety reasons and AGL has informed the Australian Energy Market Operator of an outage of 2,140 megawatts from December 22 to 28…
    http://www.afr.com/news/policy/industrial-relations/agl-cfmeu-row-triggers-energy-price-rises-20161214-gtbish

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