This extreme cold is just weather but all heat waves are climate change

There is a deep asymmetry in science. Don’t take it from me, take it from the former President of American Meteorological Society (AMS) and a current Director of the University of Georgia’s (UGA) Atmospheric Sciences Program. Marshall Sheppard would know, he has written over “80 peer reviewed papers” which gives him secret weather knowledge. It’s a kind of smarts that people who analyze MRI scans, design aerofoils or find minerals 3,000m underground can only aspire to.

He’s worried that people are mocking climate change, just because snap-frozen sharks are washing up on the beach, and it’s hitting minus 50C in Canada.  In the last twenty years mankind has put out more than a third of all the CO2 homo sapiens has ever made since Homo Erectus lit their last fire. Despite that whole extra blanket on the planet, the last time it was this cold was, like 1917.

So to help train believers Marshall Sheppard has written a handy retort to skeptical cynics:

Step One: It’s only cold where you are:

Girls and boys, global weather is hills and valleys. You are in a valley, but the crest of the wave is coming (or something like that).

Global Temperature graph, Map.

Near surface temperatures on December 28th as generated by the Climate Reanalyzer online software tool

The neat-o graph covers a whole 24 hour period.  Don’t look now, but according to Sheppard that’s meaningless weather. See Step Two, or not.

The global pause, on the other hand, lasted for years. It wasn’t supposed to be possible. Sheppard doesn’t seem to want to discuss that kind of climate right now. Next time there is a heatwave, lets send a graph of anomalies to Sheppard so he can tell the world why heatwaves don’t matter.

Step Two: Weather is not climate

This, we can all agree with (in a sort of vague “statisticky” way over an undefined period):

 Weekly or daily weather patterns tell you nothing about longer-term climate change (and that goes for the warm days too). Climate is defined as the statistical properties of the atmosphere: averages, extremes, frequency of occurrence, deviations from normal, and so forth.

What we are seeing right now in the United States is just,………well……wait for it……”winter”…..

And name one occasion Marshall Sheppard, when you said:

What we are seeing right now in the United States is just,………well……wait for it……”SUMMER…..

How many journalists and scientists have you corrected?

Likewise, if this is true:

The other thing to point out is that because one part of the world is cold (in that valley), there is likely another part of the world experiencing abnormally warm conditions (in the hill part of the wave pattern).

Tell us which heat wave you claimed the mirror converse for. Swap the warm for cold. Which heatwaves did you warn people were being used to distract us with “pesky climate communication” when the warm peaks were only the random bumps?

Hypocrites United?

Apparently some are even using the word “hypocrite” because Sheppard has done an update on Forbes, raising just that point:

A distracting narrative is emerging. There have certainly been some misinformed tweets, posts, and innuendo about the cold weather and the global warming narrative. One thing that I have observed is a narrative in certain circles that some people are being hypocrites by pointing out that cold weather doesn’t refute climate change but not making a similar point during the warm season.

I wonder who they could be talking about?

So what’s he got? Not much:

I make that point all of the time and as recently as my aforementioned article. I also cautioned during Hurricane Harvey and other 2017 hurricanes that there may be climate change DNA in those storms, but it is important to let peer-reviewed attribution studies confirm. Attribution studies are a generation of scientific analyses that investigate potential connections between current extreme events and climate change. I was one of several experts on an in-depth National Academy of Sciences study that provided the most robust understanding of where the science is on the topic.

Don’t cringe now, but these are not equal and symmetrical. Saying that a hot spell “may contain climate change DNA” is not the same as saying “cold spells are weather”. If a hot spell could contain DNA, (we molecular biologists don’t think so) then so can a cold one. If hot DNA can spell “manmade global warming”, then cold DNA can spell “the models are wrong”.

Sheppard creates a diversion: Don’t look here!

The question he can’t answer is apparently the wrong question to ask.

Sheppard says:

I pointed out this cliche dance that often plays out in social media,

Person X: “This event is clearly caused by climate change…..blah blah blah”…..Person Y: “See they say every extreme event is caused by climate change, but the climate changes naturally and there were always extreme events…..blah blah blah”

is important to discuss events from the proper perspective. “Was that event caused by climate change?” is an ill-posed question because natural variability almost always plays some role. However, this does not mean that an anthropogenic signal is not sitting on top of the natural variability.

An anthropogenic signal can be “sitting on top of natural variability”. And natural variability could equally be sitting on top of the anthropogenic signal and crushing it flat.

The question ” “Was that event caused by climate change?”” is not ill-posed, it is mindless, undefined agitprop with an ambiguous vocabulary, loaded meanings and no role in a scientific conversation.

Step Three: Pretend Models are Reality

Marshall goes on to claim that peer reviewed studies calculate the percentage of attribution:

MIT’s Professor Kerry Emanuel is one of the top climate scientists in our field. He recently published a study suggesting that Harvey-scale rain events have and will likely continue to increase in likelihood as climate warms. Another peer-reviewed study found that chances of the 2016 Louisiana flooding were likely increased 40% due to climate change. So while I do agree that consistency has to be applied when discussing each extreme event, the graphic below from the National Academy Attribution study summarizes some of the findings. It is clear that “lack of cold events” ranked high on confidence list based on physical understanding, data records, and climate model reproduction (three criteria the panel used).

Climate Models, dot graph of attribution, understanding.

So consistency “has to be applied” everywhere except for in situations where scientists can draw four-color graphs claiming otherwise.

Sheppards inconsistent use of cold and warm imply that cold is not just a lack of heat, it’s something fundamentally different. Heat, after all, can prove human attribution, but cold cannot prove the opposite.

 

 

 

 

Cold extremes don’t prove climate change wrong Marshall Sheppard

9.2 out of 10 based on 98 ratings

211 comments to This extreme cold is just weather but all heat waves are climate change

  • #
    Old44

    I am sick of this constant criticism of Global Warming when experts like Tim Flannery, Al Gore, Bill Nye the science guy and Michael Mann asure us it is true.
    If a bone collector a failed politician a mechanical engineer and a climate scientist who sues everone who disagrees with him and refuses to debate his position isn’t enough to convince you of the danger of Global Warming, what is?

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    • #
      Roy Hogue

      You left out Jerry Brown, governor of California who tells us that vast wild fires are the new normal and we better get used to it or do as he says and reduce our electricity, natural gas and water consumption along with buying all electric cars pronto.

      Jut thought you’d like to know. 😉

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      • #
        Geoff

        Its all about the money and who gets it. Always has been, always will be.

        It is cheaper to just pay these people to do nothing. That means they get to stare out of a window during work hours.

        Doing something involves pain for everyone.

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        • #
          PeterS

          Yes it’s all about money even for the global warming scientists who will say and do anything to continue the hoax for their financial benefit. It exposes such people for what they really are – hypocrites. They certainly do not want to research the truth. Take comfort in the fact they will eventually be exposed. The only question is what punishment should they receive? I leave that to others in the future to decide when the time comes.

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          • #
            Rereke Whakaaro

            The real money goes to those folks who get to consult, and advise, on the ways and means of mitigating or reducing the impacts of climate change.

            For an additional fee, they can actually share their ideas on how to use the concept of climate change for fame and profit. It is a form of pyramid selling.

            If you want to get involved, be aware, that your mileage may vary. But if you are interested, and want to go ahead, then I have some clever ideas for big batteries, that you may find interesting …

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            • #
              ROM

              As a battery consultant for a subtstantial fee I can provide you with some good sources of clean “Air” if you decide to go into production of Zinc / Air batteries.

              As you no doubt have studied battery perfomances you will know that Zinc /Air batteries on a kilogram for kilogram comaprison hold a theoretical five times the amount of energy to that of a Li-on battery

              They are also much cheaper to build using the common metal Zinc and some of my proprietary “Air.”

              So for a clean” Air “supply at a reasonable price for your new Zinc/ Air battery production facilities just contact ROM @ ?????

              Further information can be obtained from Sydney University ; Zinc Air batteries

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              • #
                Roy Hogue

                I was a “consultant” for years. It paid well but I was at the mercy of the ignorant who didn’t know as much about software engineering as I did. So before long everything I did seemed to be a little too complicated for everyone else to figure out, never mind that what I did actually met the specs I was given and worked without problems and — now this is the punch line folks — no one else knew how to do it at all, which is why I was asked to do it in the first place.

                To make a long story short, contractors were soon no longer needed, meaning me. Not everyone who says he can speak C++ can actually speak C++.

                I suspect that if our climate change mitigation consultants were doing the right job they too would be “no longer needed”. But they aren’t doing the right job. They keep it simple and follow the party line with simple minded claims that anyone can “understand” and bingo, permanent employment sucking on the public teat. If you make John Q. Public do even a little analysis of something he’ll be snowed under. So keep it simple, stupid, is the watchword.

                This, ya gotta go along to gettalong culture is killing us. How do we stop it?

                40

              • #
                Will Janoschka

                Roy Hogue January 3, 2018 at 3:38 am

                To make a long story short, contractors were soon no longer needed, meaning me. Not everyone who says he can speak C++ can actually speak C++.

                C# is easy! Try to discover any meaning in ancient FORTRAN IV hieroglyphics! This language is still used by NASA\NOAA to maliciously misinterpret the HiTran database for political\financial gain.
                This database still contains a wealth of information about discerning detail through some defined path through Earth’s atmosphere. OTOH that database was never constructed to indicate anything of possible near surface temperature regulation by any part of the atmosphere. It is only used for such to scam the US citizens!

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              • #
                Roy Hogue

                Will,

                Thankfully I was never asked to do any C#. I’ve learned too many programming languages over the years. FORTRAN is not only still around, there is now Structured FORTRAN. But even worse, Cobol is still around.

                I worked on a large project for about a year, all of it done in FORTRAN. This was long after FORTRAN was no longer the language of choice in my opinion. But I was just a contractor farmed out by my employer to help out so I had no decision making power at all. Keeping it all going was a monumental job, given FORTRAN’s totally inadequate, clumsy way of linking up various modules and their common/shared data. I was surprised that it worked when we finished it.

                When you have invested what by now must amount to huge sums of money, even for small corporations, you can’t afford to simply rewrite everything in a better language.

                I suspect that IBM is still selling 1401 Autocoder emulation on their latest mainframes. Now that’s a travesty until you realize what I said about the huge effort invested in building a system. You have nightmares about it but you can’t afford to rewrite it in C# or anything newer than what you started with.

                00

              • #
                sophocles

                C#? Just like Java. It’s just Microsoft’s copy or knock-off of Java. It has a few differences, the main one being that it only runs on Windows whereas Java runs on everything.

                01

              • #
                AndyG55

                “Try to discover any meaning in ancient FORTRAN IV hieroglyphics! “

                FORTRAN 95 is pretty easy to use.

                FORTRAN IV.. that is pretty ancient, for sure.. batch card stuff. !

                12

              • #
                Graeme No.3

                Chiefio (E.M. Smith) is working on the code and posts various items that may be of interest.
                He is not impressed by the coding ability among the Climate Change scammers.

                01

              • #
                Roy Hogue

                Graeme,

                I was not only not impressed with the small part of all that code I looked at, I was horrified. It was terrible stuff. I didn’t go any farther because I couldn’t follow it and make sense of it.

                Writing and modifying code doesn’t need to break good structure but it often does. And amateurs seldom even know what good practice is all about.

                00

              • #

                Roy Hogue January 4, 2018 at 5:08 am

                Will, Thankfully I was never asked to do any C#. I’ve learned too many programming languages over the years. FORTRAN is not only still around, there is now Structured FORTRAN. But even worse, Cobol is still around.

                Back in the 70s I only did the field verification\vilification of the output of the Air-Force HiTran code. An overnight run on a 360 cluster with 6 mounted tape drives for the data base.
                One 10 km path in a New Mexico box canyon had such little water vapor we could actually measure the CO2 attenuation at 14 microns. That was the place where the remote pick up truck with corner reflector was stolen during a measurement run. 🙁

                00

          • #
            R2Dtoo

            There is a sad reality to this destructive game. There will be no accounting when (if) it ends. Those who push the narrative will not pay a price. Those who work for the government are simply providing what their paymasters request, and they are protected by public service unions. That is why Trump is having trouble draining the swamp. University-based alarmists are heroes to their institutions for bringing in massive grants which the Unis can skim for “overhead”, prop up “institutes” with hundreds of soft-money researchers that the Unis can claim as scholars but pay nothing from “hard” money. If CAGW collapses some of these folks may lose their jobs until the next crisis hires them all back. More likely, however, they will continue to collect their pay cheques until retirement, and then their pensions.

            All one has to do is name the hundreds of scholars who crucified Wegener for decades over continental drift, or the hundred “world-renowned” physicists who called Einstein a hoax. You can’t name them because they were never held accountable. The system has evolved with built-in butt covers. I spent 40 years in academe and watched this evolution. The walls-of-fame at most Unis have photos of the best grant-seekers, not the best scientists (or teachers). No one cares if they produce anything of real scientific value. There still are a lot of good scientist out there – we need to create a new system that allows them to be recognized. Peanuts from Canada!

            40

        • #
          Leonard Lane

          Geoff. Nice comment. Of course it is about the money. But it is also about political power and socialistic world government.
          But socialism/communism has always been about money and power for the leaders and “let them eat cake for the rest”.

          20

      • #
        Ve2

        I had job descriptions for the others, how do you categorise Ol’ Moonbeam?

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        • #
          czechlist

          Krazy Kommunist Kakocratic Klepto Kupidic Kommissar of Kalifornia

          In short = Psyacramento psycho

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        • #
          Dave in the States

          He’s an old hippie that never had to grow up or confront reality. He’s still living the 60s fantasies and delusions of his generation. He sees things through that lens.

          10

      • #
        Graeme#4

        You also missed the railway engineer, who had to resign because of other misdemeanors.

        80

        • #
          TedM

          “You also missed the railway engineer, who had to resign because of other misdemeanors.”

          And who’s greatest achievement was writing a book about his sexual exploits. Perhaps global warming caused the hot and steamy bits.

          20

      • #
        yarpos

        Its “the new normal” apparently

        It used to be that people said Oz was abot 15-20 years behind the US, but it seems to me they are just replaying eveything we did wrong and all the stupid alarmist words that were said in the drought period leading up the devasting bushfires in 2009. No lessons learnt, same stupid greenie anti fuel reduction nonsense and similar results. Happily for them less loss of life.

        Brown should be in jail.

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        • #
          Rereke Whakaaro

          Let us not forget, that Australia was used by the British, as a penal colony. Perhaps ripping people off, is in the cultural DNA? Just musing …

          20

          • #
            ROM

            In Europe Farmers are almost revered;

            That is where we Europeans came from, the peasant stock of a past European age.
            .
            In America the farmers and ranchers are treated with great respect for it it is ingrained in american culture that the farmers and ranchers opened up the American West of legend which has since been the basis for much of Americai’s cultural history background beliefs and its self styled “individual’s independence.”

            .

            In Australia the first farmers were ex-convicts and “Ticket of Leave” men and women [ those convicts who could be trusted and therfore were fairly free and given a ticket that said so. ]

            Therefore Australian farmers whose background historically is that of a lowest social strata convicts and Ticket of leave men and women occupy the lower strata of Australian society’s social rankings with little respect or regard paid to them by the elites in politics, much of science , academically elitist inner city, high earning, goat cheese circle dwellers and etc.

            And percieved as being of the lower strata of society, there has never been the same pressures to insulate [ subsidise ] Australian famers from hardship compared to farmers in Europe and the USA.

            30

          • #
            Roy Hogue

            Let us not forget, that Australia was used by the British, as a penal colony. Perhaps ripping people off, is in the cultural DNA? Just musing …

            As I began to get familiar with some aussies through this blog I began to study a little of the history of Australia. I can’t say I’m an expert on the subject but if I was an aussie I’d be so proud of what was built from that penal colony I’d stand up and shout it from the rooftops. Ripping people off is no longer what the word Australia means.

            Australia may be off the rails today but so is my country. Both are worth saving. Both should be proud of what they accomplished out of the wilderness of an area nearly the same size and certainly equally inhospitable to anyone but those willing to do what it takes. It was done with blood, sweat and tears. No one gave either of us anything. It was bare hands, tools I wouldn’t try to use for anything today, and brute force determination.

            10

            • #
              Rereke Whakaaro

              Roy,

              I do believe that you are becoming “ozified”!

              20

              • #
                Roy Hogue

                When I compare the two, they are quite different places. Yet they have so much in common that it’s amazing. I’ve become friends with a few aussies and we communicate now and then outside this blog and there is so much in common we could be one nation on many tings. At least that’s true for those who bother to read and comment. I can’t speak for the younger generation, the so called millenials. But they’re a breed of their own in both places suspect.

                Anyway, I’ll take your comment as a complement, Rereke.

                10

            • #
              Will Janoschka

              Both should be proud of what they accomplished out of the wilderness of an area nearly the same size and certainly equally inhospitable to anyone but those willing to do what it takes. It was done with blood, sweat and tears. No one gave either of us anything. It was bare hands, tools I wouldn’t try to use for anything today, and brute force determination.

              When left with only ‘shoulder to the wheel’ and ‘nose to the grindstone’; ’tis hard to get anything done in that position. OTOH none need put up with this ‘politically correct BS’. We lucky USuns are still ‘armed’! Perhaps a difference in ‘attitude’! I still offer ‘finely honed pitchfork’, excellent prices in large lots!
              All the best!-will-

              10

    • #

      You forgot the pope.

      Now there is a man of science!

      20

  • #

    It’s been kind of odd weather our way, one day of high heat and then rather cool again. If this keeps up, those windmills might be able to keep us going through Summer afterall.

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  • #
    Rod Stuart

    Even though the world is warming (it must be; everybody says so) I am accumulating enough firewood for another long cold Tasmanian winter. Last year the wife said we had too much and there were only a few sticks left come November.

    191

    • #
      Annie

      My husband judges the summer by how much beer is drunk! The heavy beer use summer was Jan/Feb 2014. Large stocks were left over after the later summers! We still have stocks left after Christmas with our Crown lager/VB loving sons here to stay. We’ll judge this year by the leftovers, if any, in March.
      We too had a large wood pile which was much diminished by our long cold winter. It’s hard work to prepare such an amount.

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      • #
        rollo

        Yes Annie 2014 was a good year! At the time Dr Gavin Schmidt said there was a 38% chance that 2014 was the hottest year evah by exactly 0.02 degrees plus or minus 0.1 of a degree.

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    • #
      ROM

      Rod Stuart @ #3

      Ok its an oldie but it seems somewhat appropriate today ;

      ———————–

      Fall was upon a remote reservation when the Indian tribe asked their new Chief what the coming winter was going to be like.
      The modern day Chief had never been taught the secrets of the ancients.
      When he looked at the sky he couldn’t tell what the winter was going to be like.
      Better safe than sorry, he said to himself and told his tribe that the winter was indeed expected to be cold and that the members of the village should stock up on firewood to be prepared.

      After several days, our modern Chief got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, “Is the coming winter going to be cold?”
      “It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold,” the meteorologist at the weather service responded.

      So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more firewood in order to be prepared. A week later he called the National Weather Service again. “Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?”
      “Yes,” the man at National Weather Service again replied, “It’s going to be a very cold winter.”

      The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find.

      Two weeks later the Chief called the National Weather Service again. “Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?”
      “Absolutely,” the man replied. “It’s looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters ever.”

      “How can you be so sure?” the Chief asked?

      The weatherman replied, “The Indians are collecting firewood like crazy.”

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      • #
        Lionell Griffith

        Must be one of those positive feedback loops the climastrologists talk about so much.

        Where I was grew up (Southern Indiana, US), the myth was the caterpillars we called “wooly worms” predicted the winter weather. Light brown was mild and black was cold. An all black wooly worm predicted a very cold winter. I didn’t track its accuracy but everyone seemed to believe it. It is likely the wooly worms were at least as as correct as the government climate predictions.

        I woke up this morning (Northern Illinois, US) to 62 F inside and -9 F outside with a wind chill nearly -30 F with frostbite likely in 30 minutes or less. As I recall, I didn’t see any wooly worms last fall – very very cold for sure. As predicted, the cold here IS “unprecedented” and is almost a month early. I would welcome some 90 F sunny days about now.

        40

  • #
    ivan

    he has written over “80 peer reviewed papers”

    It would appear that his ego requires all his palls to massage it to keep him going. That only works in the church of climatology NOT in the real world where engineers work with facts not unvalidated mathematical models designed to stoke the gimme the money scam.

    I asked on another blog what are these people going to do as it gets colder, scrabble to find the odd places where the temperature is 0.001C higher that everywhere else – always assuming the measuring device can differentiate to that degree every second.

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    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      If it gets colder, even if only by proving their figures are fiddled, they will claim it’s because we closed Hazelwood power station.

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    • #
      John in Oz

      Why is it that these people are always ‘a leading international expert in weather and climate’ (see his bio at http://www.drmarshallshepherd.com/bio.html)?

      Google scholar has him cited 4089 times whereas the likes of Judith Curry has 17,180 citations which makes her the leader of this leader but we rarely see her described this way by the CAGW-obsessed crowd.

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    • #
      Will Janoschka

      It would appear that his ego requires all his palls to massage it to keep him going. That only works in the church of climatology NOT in the real world where engineers work with facts not unvalidated mathematical models designed to stoke the gimme the money scam.

      Skilled engineers work with both fingers and toesies crossed. They also often get some ‘other’ to measure that! When involved but have eyebrows and hair singed off. They then ‘Pray to Mamma not GOD’ to save them!
      Survivors get to ask themselves, “Why would Mamma want to save me?” Do not insult Mamma!

      01

  • #
    Ted O'Brien.

    Let’sstart at the beginning.

    Weather and climate are exactly the same thing, viewed in different time frames.

    If you want climate data, you must assemble a year’s worth, 365 consecutive days’ worth of weather data. The more detailed the better.

    People who claim weather and climate are not the same are working to promote confusion.

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    • #
      robert rosicka

      Ted I see Climate as being long term and weather as being short term but both are tied to each other .

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      • #
        Ted O’Brien.

        Exactly!

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      • #

        Actually, if there is really a global warming trend,
        there should be an unusual number
        of unusually warm weather periods.

        Local weather will always have some
        unusually cold and unusually warm periods.

        But with global warming, most of us should
        be experiencing more unusually warm periods.

        Here in Michigan, USA, that is not the case
        in the past 17 years — there have been more
        unusually cold periods and more
        unusually mild summers.

        The winter of 2013 / 2014
        set a new snow record
        for the metro Detroit area
        and extreme cold in early
        February 2014 actually
        froze and cracked my
        water meter in the garage
        for the first time
        since we moved in (1987).

        Here in Michigan USA,
        we are now in the third
        consecutive unusually cold week,
        with a few days ahead
        predicted to have highs less
        than 10 degrees F., which in
        Centigrade would be … damn cold.

        I’ve been living in the same house
        for 30 years so can recognize
        unusually cold weather when I feel it.

        Don’t let the leftists tell you
        weather doesn’t matter.

        I have a free climate blog with
        no ads, and no money for me,
        for people who want
        to enjoy climate change.

        Not as good as Jo Nova , of course.

        Over 1,000 pageviews in the past month:

        http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com

        I don’t have my picture on the home page,
        because I’m not attractive like Ms. Nova —
        I look more like Rodney Dangerfield,
        but that shouldn’t stop you from looking,
        I even have another blog
        featuring Climate Centerfold
        every month — no other climate blog
        does that … or would want to.

        00

    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      The official IPCC’s definition of climate is an average of 30 years of weather. Detail within a year at this scale makes zero difference.

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      • #
        el gordo

        There is this 60 year cycle, well documented in ice cores and shallow sea cores, so it sort of fits in.

        I like 20 years of weather equals climate, its the length of the hiatus.

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      • #
        Ted O'Brien.

        One full year’s weather data is valid climate data. Anything more builds on that.

        20

      • #
        Mall

        Natural climate cycles last about 30yrs.

        20

      • #
        Richard S Courtney

        Greg Cavanagh:

        No! The official IPCC’s definition of climate is NOT an average of 30 years of weather: you are confusing the definition of climate with the ‘classical period’ for defining climate normal against which climate data (e.g. global temperature data) are compared as anomalies.

        The IPCC provides its definition of “Climate” in its Glossary that can be read at
        https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srex/SREX-Annex_Glossary.pdf
        where it says

        Climate
        Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the average weather, or more rigorously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years. The classical period for averaging these variables is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. The relevant quantities are most often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation, and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system. In various chapters in this report different averaging periods, such as a period of 20 years, are also used.

        So, the IPCC defines “climate” as average weather over any “period of time ranging from months to thousands or millions of years” and uses “different averaging periods, such as a period of 20 years”. Any period can be – and is – used but must be stated for any climate datum. Similarly, any geographical region can be – and is – used but must be stated for any climate datum.

        Indeed, a datum of annual global temperature is average weather temperature data over the global surface averaged for a single year. Were that not so then we would only have three global temperature data for the last century. But annual global temperature data are cited as anomalies which are differences from an average global temperature datum obtained from average global temperature over a classical period of 30 years.

        The classical period was defined in the Geophysical Year of 1958 because it was then thought that only 30 years of reliable global climate data then existed and additional climate data should be compared to the existing reliable data. The choice of 30 years is unfortunate because it is not a multiple of the 11-year solar cycle, or the 22-year Hale cycle, or etc.

        Weather is not climate because climate is the average of weather over any time period. Choose your time periods to compare and you choose your amount of climate change to observe.

        Richard

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        • #
          DMA

          RC
          Your concise discussion of climate is appreciated. I have tried to use parts of that information to respond to those who declare they can see the climate changing. In my opinion , it is virtually impossible for humans to experience climate. We can not feel averages. It is very difficult to observe anomalies. We can notice that “things seem to be different now” but that is not the same as observing climate change in the sense of being able to attribute the “difference” to some causal change.
          With that in mind I would ask the author if he can state that the DNA of climate change is not in any recent period of “normal” weather. Does CO2 really only cause extremes to be more extreme? Why can’t it cause an increase in pleasantly warm, days with light breezes?

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            Richard S Courtney

            DMA:

            You say to me,

            In my opinion , it is virtually impossible for humans to experience climate. We can not feel averages. It is very difficult to observe anomalies. We can notice that “things seem to be different now” but that is not the same as observing climate change in the sense of being able to attribute the “difference” to some causal change.

            Whatever the truth of that, it is undeniably true that
            (a) Global climate always has varied naturally
            and
            (b) Global climate always will vary naturally
            and
            (c) to date it has proven to be impossible to discern any affect of human activities on global climate change.

            In 1996 Ben Santer and a host of co-authors claimed to have found the imprint of human influence in observations of upper troposphere temperatures as recorded by sonde balloons; they matched these observations with what their model would predict under similar conditions and found the very match they were `searching’ for. This result inspired the much quoted claim that there was “… a discernible human influence on global climate”, a remark made in the notorious Chapter 8 of the 1995 IPCC Report (one of several remarks added later to the report after the meeting of drafting scientists in Madrid).
            (ref. Santer B, et al. “A Search For Human Influences On The Thermal Structure Of The Atmosphere”. Nature, vol.382, 4 July 1996, p.39-46)

            But only 5 months later Nature published two papers that completely refuted the so-called “findings” of Santer et al..

            Those so-called “findings” were an artefact of improper data selection
            (ref. Michaels P & Knappenburger P, Nature, vol.384, 12 Dec 1996)
            and the asserted ‘human imprint’which the improper data selection had isolated was explicable by observed natural climate variation.
            (ref. Weber GR, Nature, vol.384, 12 Dec 1996)

            Michaels and Knappenburger’s paper says.

            When we examine the period of record used by Santer et al. in the context of the longer period available from ref.5 we find that in the region with the most significant warming (30-600 S. 850-300 hPa), the increase is largely an artefact of the time period chosen

            Weber’s paper says,

            Regarding the role of natural factors, the early years of the period 1963-87 were substantially influenced by tropospheric cooling (and stratospheric warming) following the eruption of Mount Agung, whereas the end of that period was influenced by several strong El Nino events, which have led to some tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling, particularly in the southern subtropics of the lower latitudes. Therefore the general tropospheric warming and stratospheric cooling trend between 1963 and 1987 has been accentuated by widely known natural factors and could at least partially be explained by them.

            So, in 1996 Santer et al, claimed to have fund evidence of human influence on global climate but their claim was either incompetence or worse. Since then a search for some evidence that human activities are affecting global climate has been conducted around the world at a cost of more than US$2.5 billion each and every year. But, to date, no evidence for a discernible human influence on global climate has been found; n.b. no evidence, none, zilch, nada.

            Richard

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              Richard S Courtney

              Whomever gave a ‘thumbs down’ to my post that explained

              in 1996 Santer et al, claimed to have found evidence of human influence on global climate but their claim was either incompetence or worse. Since then a search for some evidence that human activities are affecting global climate has been conducted around the world at a cost of more than US$2.5 billion each and every year. But, to date, no evidence for a discernible human influence on global climate has been found; n.b. no evidence, none, zilch, nada.

              I (and I suspect others) would be grateful if you were to cite whatever evidence you think has been found for a discernible human influence on global climate.

              Richard

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                Harry Twinotter

                “cite whatever evidence you think has been found for a discernible human influence on global climate.”

                Yeah and while you are at it cite evidence for:

                The theory of evolution.
                Quantum Mechanics.
                The theory of universal gravitation.
                The theory of special relativity.
                The theory of general relativity.

                No amount of evidence is ever good enough for some 🙂

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                AndyG55

                STILL waiting for a paper that proves empirically that CO2 causes warming of our convective atmosphere.

                You are failing badly as always, twotter.

                Your attempts at evasion are hilarious. 🙂

                There is NO evidence of any CO2 warming in the whole of the satellite data.

                No evidence anywhere.

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                Richard S Courtney

                Harry Twinotter:

                I explained that there is no evidence for discernible anthropogenic global warming; none, zilch, nada.

                You only need to provide one single piece of evidence to prove my explanation is completely wrong.

                Your irrelevant assertion that “No amount of evidence is ever good enough for some” demonstrates that you don’t have any evidence to refute my true and accurate explanation.

                Richard

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                AndyG55

                “I explained that there is no evidence for discernible anthropogenic global warming; “

                Its so funny watching them duck and weave and generally run around like a chook without a head when you ask for evidence of the very basis of the AGW scam/religion/agenda….. (whatever you want to call it.)

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                sophocles

                Richard, with all due respect, I suspect young Master Twinotter’s request is directed at your Red Thumber, rather than you. After all, he requests “while you’re at at … following your request for citations.

                Now, Harry’s IQ (the lack of it) is legendary on this blog. He doesn’t seem to have realised that his requests for evidence, following on from yours are rather too far `Off Topic’ to be reasonably satisfied.

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                Harry Twinotter

                “I explained that there is no evidence for discernible anthropogenic global warming; none, zilch, nada.”

                Play it again, Sam. Where have I heard all this before? Oh yes, demanding evidence from others but not providing any evidence yourself. It might fool the dim-witted, but it does not fool me.

                Look up “Argument from Personal Incredulity”. It is a logical fallacy for good reason.

                Anyway you lot bore me. All you can can up with is “All the climate scientists are wrong, so says I”. I want some GOOD arguments, not rhetoric.

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                Harry Twinotter

                sophocles.

                No scientific arguments worth a damn, just more rhetoric and ad hominems. Yawn.

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                el gordo

                ‘I want some GOOD arguments, not rhetoric.’

                Good point Harry, it would be best to analyse severe and unusual weather to see if there is a precedent or not.

                Do you think this cold air outbreak in North America unique?

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                Richard S Courtney

                Harry Twinotter:

                You assert of my post at 5.2.4.1.1

                “I explained that there is no evidence for discernible anthropogenic global warming; none, zilch, nada.”

                Play it again, Sam. Where have I heard all this before? Oh yes, demanding evidence from others but not providing any evidence yourself. It might fool the dim-witted, but it does not fool me.

                SAY WHAT!?
                My post provides full references to scientific papers, explains the contents of those papers, and provides quotations from those papers which justify my explanations.

                Your response to that referenced information was irrelevant twaddle to which I replied

                I explained that there is no evidence for discernible anthropogenic global warming; none, zilch, nada.

                You only need to provide one single piece of evidence to prove my explanation is completely wrong.

                Your irrelevant assertion that “No amount of evidence is ever good enough for some” demonstrates that you don’t have any evidence to refute my true and accurate explanation.

                You have again failed to provide any evidence for discernible anthropogenic global warming – none, zilch, nada – but have made the irrelevant claim that you are not “dim-witted”.

                Clearly, your posts in this thread demonstrate beyond any possibility of doubt that you are a dim-witted fool who is incapable of reading information provided.

                Richard

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                AndyG55

                “No scientific arguments worth a damn”

                Yes twotter, we all KNOW you have NO scientific arguments

                STILL waiting for a paper that proves empirically that CO2 causes warming of our convective atmosphere.

                You are failing badly as always, twotter.

                There is NO evidence of any CO2 warming in the whole of the satellite data.

                No evidence anywhere.

                and YOU certainly have NEVER produced any.

                Just your continued mindless brain-washed rhetoric.

                Remain EMPTY… Its your life. Its who you are.

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                Harry Twinotter

                “Do you think this cold air outbreak in North America unique?”

                No.

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            Rod Stuart

            In 1597 King James VI of Scotland published his work “Daemonology”. Within a few decades, Europeans discussed endlessly various methods of killing demons of all description. As time passed and people became “enlightened”, it became obvious that all this discussion about ‘fighting dangerous demons’ was nothing but make-believe intended to enhance the power and wealth of the elite.
            We really haven’t learned anything, since in the 21st century we discuss endlessly the make-believe of ‘global warming’, ‘dangerous climate change’, the ways in which human activities affect the weather, etc.
            Discussions about the imaginary “Global Climate” are as much nonsense as discussions four centuries ago about werewolves, vampires, and witches. In order to determine whether or not some parameter has changed, it is necessary to have some sort of metric that can be examined over time to discover the extent and nature of the change.
            “Climate” indeed has such a metric, in the form of classification systems, for the most part Koppen-Geiger and Trewartha. Both have six basic classifications, which are further subdivided into approximately ten sub classifications each. In examining the geographical changes over a century or so, it is clear that areas of each classification can expand or contract slightly in tune with the cyclical nature of the solar system. Indeed, over the breadth of the twentieth century one can argue that there has effectively been no NET change, other than the remarkable greening of vegetation over the past three or four decades which is reflected in the Trewartha classification.
            If there were such a parameter as the imaginary “global climate”, what would it be? Would it fall into the classification A, B, C, D, E, or F? Would that mean that the climate of the Scott base is of the same classification as Honolulu?
            As homo sapiens did three or four centuries ago, today we insist on the discussion of pure nonsense, but instead of it being how to identify and torture witches, we insist on discussing nonsense such as ‘global warming’, ‘ocean acidification’, and ‘decarbonisation’. We experienced four centuries with little or no advancement in common sense. It might be worth mentioning that King James VI (King Henry of France called him the wisest fool in Christendom) became James I of England and created the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

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              Richard S Courtney

              Rod Stuart:

              You say

              We really haven’t learned anything, since in the 21st century we discuss endlessly the make-believe of ‘global warming’, ‘dangerous climate change’, the ways in which human activities affect the weather, etc.
              Discussions about the imaginary “Global Climate” are as much nonsense as discussions four centuries ago about werewolves, vampires, and witches.

              Yes, and your point has often been made. For example, I made it in my speech to the debate at St Andrews University in 2009 when Morner Monckton and me defeated the motion “This House Believes Global Warming is a Global Crisis”.

              The conclusion of my speech in that debate said of the anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming hypothesis (AGW),

              … So, the normal rules of science say the AGW-hypothesis is completely refuted.
              Nothing the hypothesis predicts is observed, and the opposite of some of its predictions are observed.

              But some people promote the hypothesis. They’ve several reasons (personal financial gain, protection of their career histories and futures, political opportunism, and…). But support of science cannot be one such motive because science denies the hypothesis. So, additional scientific information cannot displace the AGW-hypothesis and cannot silence its advocates. And those advocates are not scientists despite some of them claiming they are.

              Advocates promote AGW using three kinds of pseudo-science.

              They use ‘argument from ignorance’. This isn’t new. In the Middle Ages experts said, “We don’t know what causes crops to fail: it must be witches: we must eliminate them.” Now, experts say, “We don’t know what causes global climate change: it must be emissions from human activity: we must eliminate them.” Of course, they phrase it differently saying they can’t match historical climate change with known climate mechanisms unless an anthropogenic effect is included. But evidence for this “anthropogenic effect” is no more than the evidence for witches.

              Advocates rely on not-validated computer models.
              No model’s predictions should be trusted unless the model has demonstrated forecasting skill. But climate models have not existed for 20, 50 or 100 years, so they cannot have demonstrated forecasting skill.

              Simply, the climate models’ predictions of the future have the same demonstrated reliability as the casting of chicken bones to predict the future.

              Advocates use the Precutionary Principle saying we should stop greenhouse gas emissions in case the AGW hypothesis is right. But that turns the Principle on its head.

              Stopping the emissions would reduce fossil fuel usage with resulting economic damage. This would be worse than the ‘oil crisis’ of the 1970s because the reduction would be greater, would be permanent, and energy use has increased since then. The economic disruption would be world-wide. Major effects would be in the developed world because it has the largest economies. Worst effects would be on the world’s poorest peoples: people near starvation are starved by it.

              The precautionary principle says we should not accept the risks of certain economic disruption in attempt to control the world’s climate on the basis of assumptions that have no supporting evidence and merely because they’ve been described using computer games.

              So, global warming is not a global crisis but the unfounded fear of global warming is. It threatens a constraint of fossil fuel use that would kill millions – probably billions – of people.

              Prior to the debate we opponents of the motion had expected to lose the vote because the students have been exposed to a lifetime (i.e. their short lifetime) of pro-AGW propaganda. We consoled ourselves with the certainty that we would win the arguments because opponents of AGW have all the facts on our side. But in the event we won both. The motion was defeated when put to the vote.

              I provide a more full report of that debate at LINK

              Richard

              (Link fixed) CTS

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                Richard S Courtney

                Hmmm! That link doesn’t seem to work. I’ll try this http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=2938
                Richard

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                Rod Stuart

                Thanks for that link, Richard.
                It would have been a real treat to be there when you and Lord Monckton were speaking.
                I marvel at the parallel that can be drawn concerning the witch trials and CAGW.
                I have no doubt that most people, even King James himself, actually believed the insidious occult nonsense.
                I regard all of it; global warming, climate change, sea level rise, the “greenhouse effect”, “greenhouse gases”, downwelling IR, etc. to be no more than childish fantasy not worthy of even a Walt Disney movie.
                Somehow the sophistry of “daemonolgy” was overcome with time. I suppose we can only hope.

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                Rod Stuart

                Advocates promote AGW using three kinds of pseudo-science

                In a similar vane, I suggest that there are three kinds of ‘advocates’ for the AGW consensus.
                a) Those who are perfectly well aware that it is a scam; a hoax. In fact, folks in this category buy into the reason for the scam; being the destruction of capitalism and the economies of the free world. All in this category are victims of the evil Maurice Strong. In this category are villains such as Christiana Figueres and Ottmar Edenhofer, who freely admit that the objective is to transfer wealth from the poor in rich countries to the rich in poor countries. Some in this category are more concerned with personal gain than Marxist ideology. Examples are Al Gore and our Tim Flannery.
                b) Those who should know better but are coerced to follow the consensus ‘party line’ through threats that are essentially blackmail or extortion. Often these people are academics who fear reprisal if they speak out until they retire. The people in this category are well aware that the entire AGW meme is pure fiction, but in order to earn a living and retain the expect of peer groups take on the pretence of believing in ‘the science’. Sadly, this group includes past and present Australian “chief Scientists” including Penney Sacket, Ian Chubb, and Alan Finkel.
                c) Those who are the product of a severely dumbed down education system which is nothing more than a disinformation and propaganda racket whose modus operandi is indoctrination. This includes the vast majority of those poor souls in the “meja”, and most of the political class. Sadly, there are people in this category such as our Harry who have no idea of the process called “science” and consider empirical evidence to be some nonsense written by John Cook or Dana Nuccetili. These poor blighters can never understand, since they have been hoodwinked by a religion in the same way that victims of Scientology or Jonestown.

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      Bruce J

      Ted, by definition climate is derived from weather, i.e is long term weather trends, so how does climate affect that from which it is entirely derived? Is there some feedback?

      Slightly o/t, but many years ago I attended a training course which covered the credibility of various sources. It was pointed out that, at the time, anything produced by a computer was held to be almost infallible purely because it came from a computer, with most people ignoring that people generated the programme, the input data and interpreted the output, resulting in at least 3 levels where the information could be corrupted. We should all keep this in mind – computers are just another tool for people to (mis)use.

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      sophocles

      Ben Santer said the trend has to be 15 years long before it could be called climate.
      The Pause is over 18 years long, and it’s still being argued by the tossers … ah …warmists. 64 plus excuses for the Pause? What is it up to now?

      2016 was the end of AGW. 2017 is the start of the cold times. Even NASA says the sun is dimming. For them to notice something like that … it must be of “unprecedented proportions.”

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        AndyG55

        Zero trend between El Ninos.. that is for 33 of the 39 years of the satellite record. 🙂

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        Harry Twinotter

        sophocles.

        “Ben Santer said the trend has to be 15 years long before it could be called climate.”

        Really? Care to provide a reference? And a reference to the original source, not some blog.

        The never was a pause. Even Dr Spencer says so http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_December_2017_v6.jpg

        “Even NASA says the sun is dimming. For them to notice something like that … it must be of “unprecedented proportions.””

        I’ll bite. Interesting. Please provide me a reference to NASA saying this. And how it relates to AGW.

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          AndyG55

          Poor twotter. Your utter desperation is showing

          You KNOW that the satellite record shows ONLY El Nino warming

          You KNOW that the linear trend is basically meaningless when it contains those events.

          Oh actually, no, you don’t have the intelligence to KNOW anything, do you.

          Just brainless regurgitation.

          Lets try to educate you once again

          There is NO WARMIING from 1980 – 1997

          There is NO WARMING from 2001 – 2015

          That is 33 years out of 39 with NO WARMING

          The only warming has come from EL Nino events, which are in NO WAY associated with CO2 or any other human intervention.

          That means that there is NO CO2 based warming in the whole of the satellite data

          Now, let’s see if you can do a very simple task, twotter

          Provide a paper that empirically proves that CO2 causes warming in a convective atmosphere.

          So far you have been a MONUMENTAL FAILURE. !!

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    Michael Reed

    Whenever an expert in climate change begins this routine it’s like “eye rolling “time
    for me ,here we go more BS.These people don’t seem to get that they are appear
    to be obviously snake oil salesmen,apologists,liars ,[snip]sters and crazy defenders of
    “the faith”and amidst these ravings everyone is meant to keep a straight face and not
    crack up with huge amounts of belly laughing.This stuff would ordinarily be unbelievable
    in almost any other context of explanation (of anything) yet people are expected to stay
    straight faced .The real proof of this huge non problem of climate change is the gullabiliy
    of politicians developing energy policies that destroy economies and in NO WAY performing
    any due diligence or cost benefit analysis.At the same time the compliant MSM totally uncritical
    of this obvious “lying through the teeth “ syndrome that we are being served up.The deeper
    this stupidity becomes is inversely proportionate to what we are told we must believe in ie,
    the biggest existential threat to human kind CAGW — ha,ha,ha and so on and so forth Cheers
    Mike Reed

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    Roy Hogue

    If I just wanted to be sarcastic I could say, “What’s new in the zoo?”

    But instead of being sarcastic let me speak the truth. It’s all a made up story, boys and girls and it’s intended to gain control over your every movement and thought, your every decision, every detail of your life.

    Hypocrites, models, Al Gore, the Flannerys and the John Cooks, Naomi Oreskes and more are all out to enslave you and in the process, get their hands on every last penny of your hard earned wealth they can beg, borrow, steal or tax away from you.

    I con’t know how to say it anymore plainly than that. They don’t approve of you, your lifestyle, your freedom or anything else about you. And they want to destroy everything you and your predecessors have built. All in the name of just one dishonest cause, their own self aggrandizement and enrichment.

    Shun them like the plague they are. Fight them at every opportunity. They are an enemy as surely as if they were an invading army.

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      Roy Hogue

      I suspect 2018 will look a lot like 2017.

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        I disagree. 2017 was a prime year. 2018 is not even a leap year.

        Sorry, nice try, but no cigar.

        I do, however agree with the sentiment of your comment #7. We need to point out all of the fallacies in whatever that motley crew spew forth. and make it very clear that their delusions are not our delusions, and they are actually incapable of making their delusions align with the reality of any known, or conceivable, universe.

        That is the message. Plain and simple. The inmates have taken over the running of the asylum, but that does not suddenly make them any more sane.

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          Roy Hogue

          I disagree. 2017 was a prime year. 2018 is not even a leap year.

          I will say this about that — I hope you’re correct and I’m up the creek without a paddle. So forgive my cynicism because I came by it honestly through watching climate change become an accepted fact in U.S. culture. It’s now in our schools, in our daily entertainment, whether TV or the big screen and it has arrived with an undeniable status as truth. Only two TV networks will speak the truth and they are the two least watched networks in the world. And one of them is still a devout coward about confronting it head on.

          I have no idea how to fight it because I’m outnumbered tens of thousands to one.

          Nice pun though. But I hope you investigated 2017 and know the number is a prime. My prime number test program has become inoperable for some reason, no doubt my neglect to see it kept up with Windows updates. It was written in Ada and the compiler no longer works. So I can’t put you to the test. 😉

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              Roy Hogue

              Well there you go then. But knowing you, I figured you had looked it up to be sure. I just had to pull your leg a little.

              🙂

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                Roy Hogue

                I wish I could think of a use for Fibonacci numbers. What does anyone do with them? They must have some use or they wouldn’t be around. The best thing I can think of for them is to be a mathematics curiosity, a teaser for those interested in a challenge with numbers.

                Or maybe I’m out to lunch because I wasn’t a math major? Don’t know.

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                Roy Hogue January 4, 2018 at 5:20 am

                I wish I could think of a use for Fibonacci numbers. What does anyone do with them? They must have some use or they wouldn’t be around. The best thing I can think of for them is to be a mathematics curiosity, a teaser for those interested in a challenge with numbers.

                After several ‘three fingers’ single malt adult refreshment; try to observe the ‘pattern’ in the prime factors of the Fibonacci! Any logarithmic (power) series is similar with (N) being some power of (x). Mostly considered as series ‘integer (N)’ over any (x)! The Fibs are with the (x) rounded to integer!
                …1/13,1/8,1/5,1/3,1/2,1/1,(1),1,2,3,5,8,13…
                This is what both plants and rocks do.
                The Virial Theorem of Rudy Clausius only works for integer (countable) mathematics. The massive bodies of the Solar system are countable. These bodies arrange themselves; under the limits of gravitational force and angular momentum, to become almost ‘stable’.The result is climate!
                All the best!-will-

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                Rereke Whakaaro

                Thanks for the reference.

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      Greg Cavanagh

      The thing that the hypocrites you listed have in common with one another, is that they accept the “Appeal of Authority”.

      Al Gore, a politician, demonstrates that he believes this.
      John Cook is just a “me too” with zero skill. What he believes doesn’t matter, he just wants in on the action.
      Naomi should know better, she is a historian, but she’s been captured by the “appeal of authority”.
      Mr Mann does know better, but he became famous and won a Nobel Prize for his work. He can’t back down now.
      James Hansen is an oddity, he seems to believe the CAGW but he’s also an engineer and knows the solution being promoted will do zip.

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        James Hansen is an oddity, he seems to believe the CAGW but he’s also an engineer and knows the solution being promoted will do zip.

        Have you ever met James Hanson, an AlGore buddy and ex administrator of NYC-NASA Goddard! Was A–hole in 73 and staunchly\stench-ly remains so!

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      NB

      ‘intended to gain control over your every movement and thought, your every decision, every detail of your life’
      Yep. Which is why left politicians like it so much, and those least likely to have bought in are also those whose politics lean most libertarian.

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      Mall

      Forget about ISIS. The real terrorists who threaten western civilization are the adherents to the climate change religion/cult.

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        Rereke Whakaaro

        I would not go that far. ISIS is, and continues to be, an existential threat of a secular nature, for a variety of reasons.

        The cult of anthropocentric climate change, on the other hand, is far more rabid, than any secular force could hope to be.

        The enlightened ones, are marching for Gaia. And they march under the banners of a new-age religion.

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          OriginalSteve

          Agreed. This is a religious war…. The occult-centered green pagan religion vs the christian West.

          From my conservative Christian viewpoint, i would see the greenist religion as just another front Satan uses to attack Christianity, as it also attempts to replace a christian/ judeo morality with a pagan one of “the end justifies the means”, which is also the modus operandii of Communism, which us also rabidly anti- Christian. Marx said he wanted to dethrone God ( which is one of the dumbest things i have ever heard ) but also demonstrates how much he clearly rabidly hated Christianity.

          I think one thought is that the greenist religion seems to see Christianity as a threat to its existance, which is possibly why UN-loving CAGW promoting govts around the world have also passed laws allowing for other anti-christian matters to recently become law….

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      ROM

      .

      Ryan Maue’s; [ Unofficial ] Record breaking temperatures across the globe
      ——————————
      .
      Last updated at Tue Jan 2 10:32:02 UTC 2018 using 2209 observations from 10UTC
      .

      Unofficially, there is currently 1 station that has broken their daily high record, 7 that are tying it, and 33 that are near it.
      .

      Unofficially, there are currently 127 stations that have broken their daily low record, 27 that are tying it, and 72 that are near it.

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    It is obvious that if global warming is real then, over time, it should gradually become harder to match long past cold records. There may well be periodic cold spells amongst the warm spells but matching records of 100 years previously should be close to impossible.

    In this case the USA is producing records that go back to around the turn of the last century just as did the UK in December 2010.

    The sun was less active then than it was in the late 20th century so a return to such levels of cold should not be easily dismissed.

    More likely, we are seeing the first signs of a lengthy downturn following the recent ‘pause’.

    The other issue that is being underplayed is that if natural variability can offset the anticipated warming today then how can one be sure that natural variability did not cause the warming yesterday.

    The general public is likely to see through those logical problems for the AGW theory.

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      AZ1971

      if natural variability can offset the anticipated warming today then how can one be sure that natural variability did not cause the warming yesterday

      That’s PRECISELY the position ignored by NOAA regarding the 1910-1940 warming period—they describe it as “natural variation” but the post-1970 warming is “definitely” evidence of human-caused climate change.

      Again, the question to simply ask is, Why? Why was the former not, but the latter is?

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        NB

        That’s easy. Because NOAA rhymes with Noah, who was approved of by God. God is always right,and therefore NOAA is too. NOAA’s infallibility is just a scientific fact. I don’t know why you ask.

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      el gordo

      Your belief that a wayward jet stream causes blocking highs is a very important part of the puzzle now solved.

      In late July 2017 the subtropical ridge lost its intensity and blocking began, can we point to a quiet sun as the cause?

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      Lionell Griffith

      The general public is likely to see through those logical problems for the AGW theory.

      Considering that I was “educated” prior to the collapse of public education and received no explicit training in logic or critical thinking, the general public today will have extreme difficulty with seeing through logical problems. That is unless they, as I, learned it on their own. Possible but unlikely considering the go along to get along indoctrination that has been called “public education” for the past half century.

      The individual is taught to be incompetent unless working in a team. Which, if made up of incompetent individuals is itself incompetent. It is feelings over rational thought; cooperation over independent search for the truth; and participation over achievement. You get a trophy for just showing up. Sometimes even showing up is not a requirement. You get the trophy anyway for just being part of the team. Results? No longer an expectation. Good intentions are all that is necessary. Actual results are seen as counter productive.

      Thank goodness for the very few who did not buy into this mind killing garbage. If mankind does not go extinct, it will be because those few did not give up. It has always been that way. The engineer who discovered how to use fire was likely burned at the stake for being a witch.

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      OriginalSteve

      If we had a true crisis, those companies holding hydrogen tech patents would be forced to hand them over to govt.

      We dont see that though – too hard to tax hydrogen, and CAGW is mythical anyway….

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  • #
    AZ1971

    It’s the hypocrisy and absolute arrogance by self-assured climate ‘scientists’ that annoys me the most about the entire AGW propaganda campaign. Joanne pretty much destroys the argument for climate change by pointing out the inconsistencies and equally plausible opposite effects.

    It’s the obvious lies and hypocrisy by AGW protagonists that undermines their very message of doom and gloom, and why skepticism is the only position to hold.

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    TdeF

    My question has always been, how is anyone sure the CO2 increase is not natural, say caused by a slightly warming ocean surface? 98% of all CO2, highly soluble and highly compressive is free in the world’s oceans.

    So why has it been that people argue that man released CO2 stays in the air and is warming oceans somehow? Isn’t a warming ocean surface releasing CO2 more obvious? Warm beer goes flat. Of course you can check the origin of CO2 and you can prove the CO2 increase is not caused by fossil fuels which have no C14, but who cares about real science?

    Perhaps the greatest revelation of 2017 was that Adolph Hitler was anti coal and wanted a move to wind and waves. As a vegetarian madman his extreme views seem to have lived on in Germany, perhaps the world’s leading wind propagandist. The other passion Hitler had was to get masses of slave workers to do the heavy lifting. Some ideas have a life of their own after they have failed tests of logic.

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    Peter C

    Don’t just rely on Marshall Shepherd (author of over 80 peer reviewed papers).

    Just ask any 5th grader!

    ” Washington Post National Political Correspondent Karen Tumulty reacted to President Trump’s tweet about global warming by stating the president is poking his critics and “every fifth grader could tell you that climate change refers to unpredictable weather patterns.”

    http://www.breitbart.com/video/2017/12/29/wapos-tumulty-every-fifth-grader-could-tell-you-that-climate-change-refers-to-unpredictable-weather-patterns/

    When I did 5th grade they neglected to teach us such things.

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    • #
      AndyG55

      “unpredictable weather patterns” ???

      Are these “unpredictable weather patterns” somehow something “new”

      I think they mean like have existed since Earth existed.

      They just happen to have been somewhat more benign recently..

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Peter, these days my 5th grader *was* just last year taught CAGW propaganda at school. Its a private school.

      I have since openly mocked CAGW in my house, with the point that it cant be scientifically proven to exist, that the teachers at school should be respected, but the govt is forcing the teachers through the official syllabus to teach lies about CAGW.

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  • #
    manalive

    The IPCC Summary for Policymakers writers have a feeling that anthropogenic forcing has possibly caused at least 0.35C of the maybe 0.7C rise in the global average temperature since the middle of last century.
    Assuming that, any possible anthropogenic factor in an individual weather event, hot or cold, is vanishing small.
    Implied in all this is the value judgement, you never hear the climate change™ enthusiasts point out how much colder it could be without the benefit of supposed anthropogenic forcing.

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  • #
    Zigmaster

    The MSM so slavishly present articles that if looked at with even minor scrutiny would never see the light of day. Last week someone from the climate authority was quoted in calling for more action on climate change in Australia that some place in West Queensland had the hottest temperature in the world at 46 degrees on Xmas day.
    Why would you bother even reporting such a stupid comment. Firstly its global warming. So whilst Queensland was hot , in Canada we had record lows. Secondly there wasn’t much competition for hottest temperature when it’s only summer in half the world.
    The only reason that MSM should report such ridiculous comments is to put them up for ridicule to show how crazy and insane the warmists are. Unfortunately they don’t have the proper perspective to see how wrong such comments are.

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    • #
      James Murphy

      (South) West Queensland – as I have said before on here, locals say that only crazy people stay in the area in Summer… hence my familiarity with the place.

      Various thermometers, whilst not in approved Stevenson screens (but not in direct sunlight) always sat at mid to high 40s. Thankfully it cooled down to somewhere in the high 30s at night.

      In order to have anything resembling a reasonable shower, the (electric storage) hot water heaters in our accommodation were used to insulate “cold” water (thanks to some bush engineering in our food freezer unit performed by our mechanic and electrician). The water out of the “cold” tap was too hot to use by itself. Potable water was kept in an above ground metal storage tank, which, although sort of shaded in a haphazard way, was the cause of the problems, though our accommodation moved frequently, so “above ground” it had to stay…

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      • #

        Mad dogs and Englishmen
        Go out in the midday sun.
        The toughest Burmese bandit
        Can never understand it
        In Rangoon the heat of noon
        Is just what the natives shun
        They put their Scotch or Rye down
        And lie down in a jungle town

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  • #
    Ruairi

    The warmists, pretending to save,
    The planet, on climate still rave,
    That a month long ice cap,
    Is just a cold snap,
    And one sunny day a heatwave.

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  • #
    Graeme No.3

    This ‘paper’ by Marshall Sheppard is just another one in a list of “how to fight skeptical cynics” and is another script for the gullible when they redouble their efforts to convince us that they are right.
    NOTE the emphasis on ‘peer review’, ‘reduction in cold days**’, and ‘natural variation’ (to explain failures in the theory). We can look forward to this script appearing in 2-3 days (when this post has dropped down the list) by the usual suspects Harry, Craig and the unusual ones like Julian.

    One question: The number of trolls here is a small minority of those making comments, do they add up to 3%? It would be nice to point out to them that 97% don’t believe them.

    **Tell that to the Canadiens and those in the NE of the USA.

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  • #
    Rosco

    IF global warming is caused by additional heat trapping caused by an increase in CO2 from ~320 ppm in 1965 to ~380 ppm in 2005 (https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-the-world-passed-a-carbon-threshold-400ppm-and-why-it-matters) why does this graph (https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Nimbus/nimbus2.php) celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Nimbus satellite program from 1965 to 2005 show a POSITIVE anomaly for the majority of the period from 1979 to 2005 ??

    Surely “heat trapping” means less radiation to space NOT more ?

    Surely this graph represents an increase in radiation to space consistent with an increase in temperature but entirely inconsistent with any “heat trapping” ?

    And why does a site celebrating 40 years of satellite monitoring exclude data from the first 14 years of the program ??

    More than 1/3 of the data is simply ignored – why ?

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    • #

      A whole New Science methodology, climate theory inoculation by fiat,
      not falsification… ‘Some weather events are more equal than other
      weather event.’

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  • #
    mikewaite

    There is an interesting Anglo-french study on a Greenland glacier recently published by Nature :

    “Paradoxical cold conditions during the medieval climate anomaly in the Western Arctic”

    https://www.nature.com/articles/srep32984?WT.feed_name=subjects_physical-sciences

    Abstract:
    -“In the Northern Hemisphere, most mountain glaciers experienced their largest extent in the last millennium during the Little Ice Age (1450 to 1850 CE, LIA), a period marked by colder hemispheric temperatures than the Medieval Climate Anomaly (950 to 1250 CE, MCA), a period which coincided with glacier retreat. Here, we present a new moraine chronology based on 36Cl surface exposure dating from Lyngmarksbræen glacier, West Greenland. Consistent with other glaciers in the western Arctic, Lyngmarksbræen glacier experienced several advances during the last millennium, the first one at the end of the MCA, in ~1200 CE, was of similar amplitude to two other advances during the LIA. In the absence of any significant changes in accumulation records from South Greenland ice cores, we attribute this expansion to multi-decadal summer cooling likely driven by volcanic and/or solar forcing, and associated regional sea-ice feedbacks. Such regional multi-decadal cold conditions at the end of the MCA are neither resolved in temperature reconstructions from other parts of the Northern Hemisphere, nor captured in last millennium climate simulations.”-

    Even during a period of anomalous warmth , by late standards , one can experience long periods of significant localised cooling which
    may not appear on the global record, but locally could have had the effect of eg hastening the decline of the Norse settlements in Greenland during the MCA/MWP.

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    • #
      TdeF

      “Even during a period of anomalous warmth.. one can experience long periods of significant localised cooling which may not appear on the global record”

      Really? So long periods of cold presumably over large areas may not indicate global cooling. Presumably long periods of warming over large areas may not indicate global warming?

      Firstly I did not know we had global records? Considering 3/4 of the planet is covered by water, I am surprised that even Michael Man could find a hoop pine tree in the mid Atlantic or Antarctica or that thermometers accurate to 0.1C existed in places like the Andes.

      Secondly, I remain skeptical that there is such a thing as a Global Temperature for this rotating planet, covering areas of -80C to +50C and where water moderates all temperatures so severely and clouds block the sun. Even if you create such an measure despite the elliptical orbit, seasons, nutation and solar variation, what it would mean is not necessarily able to be interpreted. Or conversely that what you will see are these gross variations.

      What is clear is that our weather is driven by the sun and water, in all its forms. As Professor Weiss proved simply, without any input from CO2 at all, you can explain the major variations in the temperature entirely from a single cycle of the solar wind (the DeVries cycle) and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Quelle suprise.

      So there is no need for CO2 to explain anything. In he also concludes there is no need for CO2 variation to explain what is observed. Thus CO2 is in fact irrelevant, an effect not a cause.

      Consider that CO2 variation has been obviously disconnected from temperature for 20 years even in this Global temperature. Still CO2 is called a fearsome pollutant and now we are now and without explanation facing the unbelievable closure of the “most polluting” Yallourn, cutting steady, cheap, reliable electrical power in Victoria in half in just five years. Why? What benefit came from closing fully functional Hazelwood?

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  • #
    pat

    “This extreme cold is just weather”!

    ultimate insider, Michael Oppenheimer & PBS tell us it’s only “A COLD SNAP” five times on this page:

    VIDEO: 4mins40secs: 29 Dec: PBS Newshour: Fact-checking Trump’s tweet about cold weather and climate change
    As much of the country braces during the cold snap, President Trump weighed in on Twitter, seeming to dismiss yet again the effects of climate change and conflate the the latest weather with the broader issues around climate. What are the differences? What are the facts? John Yang learns more from Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University.

    Michael Oppenheimer: It’s impossible to say what was in the president’s mind, but he probably was trying to confuse other people about the reality of climate change.
    This cold snap is weather. Weather is what you experience day to day. Climate is the long-term average of weather over periods of years, decades, centuries or even longer.

    Let me give you an analogy from the stock market. It’s perfectly possible for the stock market to be rising due to understood factors like favorable economic forecasts, and yet to decrease significantly for one day, several days, a month or even several months. That happens all the time, even though the long-term trend might be continuing thereafter.

    It’s the same thing with climate change. The Earth’s temperature is going up. It’s been going up for about a century. That increase is due to the buildup of the greenhouse gases caused by — by and large, by the burning of coal oil and natural gas.

    And yet climate has certain unpredictable factors about it which can cause variations like the current cold snap, which can cause temperatures to drop below normal, especially for relatively small areas. After all, what we’re talking about here is the northern half of the United States.

    So there’s a long-term trend of warming. This cold snap says nothing really about that long-term trend. And that trend will continue until we make a radical reduction in the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases…

    John Yang (PBS): So, given that distinction, do scientists see a connection between climate change and episodes of extreme weather?

    Michael Oppenheimer: Yes, some episodes of extreme weather can be tied directly to the buildup of the greenhouse gases caused by human activity.
    For instance, the incidents of extreme heat has increased and episodes of heat waves are increasing faster these days than they would without the buildup of greenhouse gases. And that connection has been made clearly. Similarly, incidents of very high water at the coasts, which is related to flooding, for instance, when a storm comes along, has been tied in some cases to the buildup of the greenhouse gases through its effect on sea level rise.

    So, overall, there are some episodes of extreme weather that are directly related to the human buildup of greenhouse gases…
    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/fact-checking-trumps-tweet-about-cold-weather-and-climate-change

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    • #
      pat

      all the CAGW names that count!

      ClimateNexus: Superstorm Sandy
      Climate Nexus distributed background information on the hurricane and its relationship to climate change to hundreds of environmental reporters, editorial writers, op-ed page editors and meteorologists. During the storm and its aftermath, we put journalists in contact with our expert partners Dr. Kerry Emanuel, Dr. Kevin Trenberth, Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd, Dr. Anthony Lesierowitz, Dr. Jenifer Francis and Dr. Jeff Masters. Our efforts helped secured dozens of interviews for these experts on the storm and climate change, which generated hundreds of stories in the mainstream media…
      https://climatenexus.org/climate-news-archive/extreme-weather/superstorm-sandy/

      Michael Oppenheimer is Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is the Director of the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School. He joined the Princeton faculty in 2002 after more than two decades with the Environmental Defense Fund, where he served as chief scientist and manager of the Climate and Air Program. Previously, he held the position of Atomic and Molecular Astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics…

      He is co-editor of the journal Climatic Change and editor of the journal’s Letters section. He is a long-time participant in the IPCC, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. He was a coordinating lead author on IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report and was on the Core Writing Team for the Fifth Assessment’s Synthesis Report.
      Michael serves on the U.S. National Academies Board on Energy and Environmental Systems and the New York City Climate Change Panel, and is a science advisor to the Environmental Defense Fund…
      https://www.climatecommunication.org/who-we-are/advisors/michael-oppenheimer/
      ClimateCommunication:

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  • #
    toorightmate

    How many papers of da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, etc were peer reviewed?

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      But 97% of sceintists know the earth is flat!

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    • #
      James Murphy

      Peer review is great in theory, and maybe it was even more useful back when experiments could be replicated, and/or results verified relatively easily / cheaply. There are instances where such a review process has been shown to be useful (the famous ‘it looks like neutrinos might travel faster than light, what do you think?’ experiment from a few years ago, for example).

      Now though, as someone who works with individuals who “peer review” papers, act as journal editors, and conference committee members, it is quite clear that they are incapable of levels of objectivity required to assess the merit of work set before them, and I have never ever known any of them to request the original data. Basic proof-reading is also beneath them. They just look to see if they have had any of their own papers cited, if they had a good time with tone or more of the authors at a conference, and to see if it has “enough pretty pictures” or similar… and then they add it to the list of papers they reviewed, so they can use ‘quantity over quality’ as leverage for promotion. It disgusts me, but I have little to no idea how it can be rectified.

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    • #
      ROM

      toorightmate @ # 22
      .
      How many papers of da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, etc were peer reviewed?

      None!
      ———–

      Einstein who had 300 papers published had one paper reviewed and objected like hell when he found out that the Editor had got somebody else to check the paper before publication.

      As it turned out Einstein’s paper was later shown to be wrong.

      ——————-

      Three myths about scientific peer review

      by Michael Nielsen on January 8, 2009

      [ Michael Nielsen as one of the pioneers in quantumn computing ]

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  • #
    OriginalSteve

    Thoughts welcome on this and apparent “cost competetiveness” for solar tower power gereation ….

    http://reneweconomy.com.au/aurora-what-you-should-know-about-port-augustas-solar-power-tower-86715/

    “The full energy output of the Aurora facility is contracted to the South Australian Government under a ‘Generation Project Agreement’ (GPA) designed by Danny Price of Frontier Economics, and will provide a benefit in favour of the SA government. (More on that here)

    The SA Government’s peak loads are typically during off peak periods for the market, thus allowing it to benefit from lower spot prices, however Aurora’s energy storage will allow it to generate during peak market periods and help bring peak prices down with more competition and supply.

    One quarter of the renewable energy certificates (LGCs) created will be bundled with the energy, which will be voluntarily surrendered by the SA Government, ensuring that 25% of the Government’s power is carbon neutral, which will go towards the state’s Carbon Neutral Adelaide targets. The remaining 75% of certificates will stay with SolarReserve, who will presumably market them as they please.

    The SA government expects to pay a $75/MWh levelised cost for the 20 year duration of contract, but not more than $78/MWh.

    For the South Australian government this is a good price — it’s significantly cheaper than the average wholesale price of $108.66/MWh in SA in FY2017 and also below SA 2020 baseload futures price of about $85/MW. The contract also has the benefit of protecting the Government from price rises over the next 20 years and providing the opportunity for price reductions.

    Given that SolarReserve will be holding on to 75% of the LGCs, it’s difficult to state with certainty the full project levelised cost of energy (LCoE). By the time the project comes online in 2020 there will be only 10 years of the current RET remaining. Most experienced hands in the sector predict that, in the absence of new policy, LGC spot prices will tank well before 2025.

    Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis has stated that he is “advised that LGCs were not a significant factor in SolarReserve’s ability to offer a capped price of $78/MWh.”

    My back-of-the-envelope calculation is total LGC revenue might add no more than $9.50/MWh over all energy generated in the first 20 years. As such the ‘all-in’ value of the contract would be less than $87.50/MWh. Note that the Finkel review, handed down just two months ago, estimated $172/MWh in 2020 and didn’t expect the median price of solar thermal to reach $87 until 2050.)

    (Ed: We probably need to factor in the federal government’s “equity” contribution, which would lower the LCOE).

    Given that alternative sources of long term electricity in South Australia almost certainly cost more than the combined value of the GPA and future value of LGCs, it is clear that the net subsidy (value of subsidy under the Commonwealth RET minus the value of savings to South Australia) is effectively zero — a far cry from the hysterical claims by the anti-renewables media that renewable energy is costly.”

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    • #
      Chad

      Steve, this was all chewed over a few months back when this scheme was made public.
      Its just another money farm for the SA Gov abd the operatots.
      Its capacity is tiny in comparison to its costs, and is designed to just game the market peaks for profits rather than add any useful capacity to the state supply…..and it is still non continous and unpredictable.
      Solar thermal systems are known to be some f the most expensive generation systems.
      The $75 figure is just a “bid” contract price to the SA gov to spruke to the public.

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        All good…..i missed that somehow, i blame going flat out upto xmas eve 🙂

        Yep i wondred whether they were trying to game the market and create something a bit iffy, by creating a local false floor price for power while madly trying to put a pisitive spin on an ongoing dead dog of the SA power situation…..

        30

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          …positive spin…..

          Sorry…on holidays…brain still not fully online despite it being almost 2pm….. I only woke up at 10am….

          Nice when you have to decide whether to go to local swimming hole, open another beer on the couch( pity last test was a draw), or give the CAGW flat earthers a well deserved earful…. 🙂

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    • #

      I know that this off topic, but if I let something like this pass without comment, some might get the impression that this knocks holes in what I think, and nothing could be further from the truth.

      There are a couple of important things about the article linked to, so here. I’ll just use the figures they quote ….. from that article.

      Firstly, this has a Nameplate of 150MW, and for it to actually operate, they derate that to 135MW.

      So, a Nameplate of 150MW derated to 135MW

      Next, they quote a yearly power generation total of 495GWH, and that’s not using any of the generated power during the heating cycle during the day, but maximising the heat storage capability and then delivering the power after hours. (to capitalise on the time when power is at its most costly, making this ….. seem like cheap power) In utilising that EIGHT hours of heat storage, they say they can deliver around 1100MWH in total, or a tick over eight hours at 135MW maximum. (Nameplate) That effectively gives this plant a ‘quoted’ Capacity Factor of just under the 42% mark.

      Okay, that’s the claims out of the way.

      There are currently ….. NO plants of this Nameplate size on Planet Earth which can deliver 135MW from heat storage for eight hours, in fact none which even claim to have eight hours of storage at maximum generation. There are no plants of this size which can deliver 495GWH of power per year, in any manner, with or without heat storage or any mix of both. There are no plants on Earth of this size which can claim a Capacity factor of 42%.

      Tim Kotsantonis actually said this:

      A shiver has just gone up the coal generation industry’s spine.

      Really!

      Okay then let’s use their own figures.

      495GWH per year from a Nameplate of 135MW, and a total cost of $650Million.

      Bayswater 17,000GWH per year from a Nameplate of 2640MW

      So, just to replace Bayswater, not with Nameplate, but the ACTUAL power delivered, that means we need 35 of them, (rounded up to a full number) so that’s …..

      $22.75 BILLION.

      Bayswater currently runs at a CF of around 74%, and that includes ramping up and down during Peak/Non Peak and down time for maintenance, because as recently as, well, most of yesterday afternoon and evening, all four Units were running at 650MW, so 2600MW of 2640MW Nameplate.

      Please don’t ever even attempt to tell me a new tech HELE USC plant of similar Nameplate to Bayswater would cost anywhere even within binocular vision of that total.

      So, contrary to having a shiver running up my spine, the only back damage I might do is if I hit my back on something as I was rolling around the floor in paroxysms of uncontrollable laughter.

      Tony.

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    • #

      Comment 23.2 (the real one, not this one) is in moderation, and I can’t see why really, as I avoided all the immoderate words I know of.

      Tony.

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  • #
    Timo Soren

    The silly 4 color graph at the end show that the HIGHEST confidence in understanding the capability to attribute extreme cold events to a HIGH understanding of why (from AGW) and this is beyond AGW cause extreme warm events!

    So you should be telling EVERY warmist that we SEE! real cold is caused by AGW!

    Humbling to understand the depth of their “knowledge.” /sarc

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  • #
    Extreme Hiatus

    George Orwell must be nodding in his grave.

    This Marshall Sheppard has the right name for his mission of herding gullible sheeple. Supposedly protecting them and THE CHILDREN!!! from the Extreme CAGW Wolf. But this Gang has apparently missed the fable about ‘crying wolf’ and its inevitable result.

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    • #
      GreatAuntJanet

      I understand some of ‘the children’ are suing the US government for damaging their futures by not taking evil global warming seriously.

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      • #

        AJ, in a way I didn’t want to give yr comment an uptick.
        How do u respond to this kind of insanity? 🙁 Like China’s
        Red Brigade students in the Cultural Revolution … so symptomatic
        of School of Resentment conditioning. How do we restore a once robust
        can-do-get-on-with-it-society? How to turn a sick /sic society around?

        40

  • #
    Cynic of Ayr

    The problem here, and in many other publications of papers, is “Peer Reviewed”
    “Peer Reviewed” is always put up as proof of authenticity or correctness.
    It is absolutely nothing of the sort!
    A Peer is one who is supposedly as smart as you, as knowledgeable as you, and who is of like mind as you! This is why they are called “Peers”.
    A paper is not put out there for anyone to review. Reviews can be by invitation only.
    Sheppard et al, do not offer their opinions or papers for review by opponents, they only offer them for review by similar minded academics. Their Peers.

    Now, let’s imagine that Sheppard et all, actually do offer a paper or opinion for review by Peers and the Peers reject the paper.
    The paper is still “reviewed.” The fact that it was rejected doesn’t come into it. “Reviewed” doesn’t mean “accepted as factual.”
    “Peer Reviewed” also, does not mean, “Reviewed by a significant number of Peers.” A Peer Review can be by one reviewer.
    So, there you have it! A “Peer Review” can mean a review by one Peer, who rejected the paper.
    Sheppard heavily emphasises the wording “Peer Reviewed” in his articles, as “proof” of his ideas. It is nothing of the sort.
    He’s bluffing!

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    • #
      PeterS

      Peer review today just means it has to fit the current worldview. It is extremely slow at best at allowing opposing views no matter how much evidence is put forward to support that view, and no matter how much evidence is presented to disprove the current worldview. It really makes a mockery of modern science in general. Much of what passes as science today is actually a mixture of mysticism, pseudoscience, contradictions and unfounded speculation.

      40

    • #
      TdeF

      It does not say much for his peers. What is says is that I agree with my peers who agree with me and we form a group who agree with each other and if someone dares disagree, they are not our friends and will receive no papers.

      So here peer review means review by like minded people who are all making money from the same idea.

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      • #
        TdeF

        It also implies that if enough people agree with each other, they are right. This is once again just consensus science. The very idea that Tim Flannery actually knows any science beyond secondary school is at question. A degree in Science these days does not make you a scientist any more than a degree in Arts makes you an artist. Then again it might.

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        • #
          PeterS

          In reality it’s much worse than that. If a Western scientist dares to question openly the current consensus of global warming, that scientist is likely to lose his/her job, or at least have any research funding cut off. This is one reason why it’s far more likely that China will be the first nation to land a man on Mars. NASA is too busy concentrating on climate science propaganda.

          50

    • #
      Mall

      In climate change world, peer review means pal review to support my point of view.

      40

  • #
    pat

    another of the CAGW names that count, as per ClimateNexus above:

    Tweet: Anthony Leiserowitz (Yale): Great article by @Joannawalters13 on Trump’s latest #climatechange tweet
    (LINK) Guardian: Trump calls for some ‘good old global warming’ as US winter bites
    2 Retweets 4 Likes (read the few replies)
    https://twitter.com/ecotone2/status/946831874751631360

    headline got changed to the following… also note ***cold snaps meme:

    30 Dec: Guardian: Trump’s call for some ‘good old global warming’ ridiculed by climate experts
    US president again conflates weather with climate to mock climate change
    Experts call comments ‘scientifically ridiculous and demonstrably false’
    by Michael McGowan and Joanna Walters
    On Friday, Anthony Leiserowitz, director of Yale University’s project on climate change communication, said Trump’s tweet was “scientifically ridiculous and demonstrably false”.
    “There is a fundamental difference in scale between what weather is and what climate is,” he said. “What’s going on in one small corner of the world at a given moment does not reflect what’s going on with the planet.”…
    The extreme ***cold snap in the eastern US is a rare example of a place experiencing below-average winter temperatures, he said, a point that was neatly illustrated by a map tweeted out by the Weather Channel on Friday…

    TWEET: WeatherChannel: 1) There is a difference between #weather and #climate.
    2) Short-term ***#cold snaps will continue to occur in a warming climate…ETC

    Elsewhere, Matthew England, a climate scientist from the University of New South Wales, called Trump’s comment “an ignorant misconception of the way the earth’s climate works”.
    “Nobody ever said winter would go away under global warming, but winter has become much milder and the record cold days are being far outnumbered by record warm days and heat extremes,” he said. “Climate change is not overturned by a few unusually cold days in the US.”

    David Karoly, a climate scientist from the University of Melbourne, put it even more bluntly: “It’s winter in the US. Cold temperatures are common in winter.”…
    Climate modelling showed ***cold snaps like the one in the US were actually becoming less common as a result of global warming, Karoly said, adding that rapid attribution analysis means scientists are now able to look more closely at “classes of events”.
    That type of modelling for the north-east of the US, he said, showed that although there was a great deal of year-to-year variability, the average coldest temperature in December in the region has increased in the past 50 years…

    Experts also know climate change is linked to a dangerous pattern of major weather events…
    There had been 15 such events by the end of September, compared with 15 for the whole of 2016 and 16 in the record year of 2011.
    Adam Smith, a climatologist at NOAA, said: “Climate change is playing a role, amplifying the frequency and intensity of some types of extreme weather that lead to billion-dollar disasters.”…

    Leiserowitz, meanwhile, criticised the president’s use of social media. “It’s meant to be red meat for his base,” he said. “They’re the ones most likely to be dismissive of climate change and the most likely to vote in the 2018 Republican primaries – so it’s a warning shot for the GOP members in Congress.”
    The global warming tweet, he said, was another attempt by Trump to distract from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

    He added that the idea a ***cold snap disproves global warming is a “zombie argument”, because though “it’s killed over and over by the science” it “keeps coming back for more brains”.
    Trump’s tweet was “troll-like”, the scientist said, showing the president “delighting in sparking outrage among [his] opponents”.
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/29/donald-trump-good-old-global-warming-us-winter

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    • #
      pat

      from the Guardian piece:

      The global warming tweet, he (Leiserowitz) said, was another attempt by Trump to distract from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation

      1 Jan: Newsbusters: P.J. Gladnick: London Review of Books Mocks MSM Embrace of Trump-Russia Collusion
      Despite cracks beginning to emerge in the mainstream media such as the CNN legal analyst declaring last week that Trump is right about the FBI, they continue to cling for the most part to their beloved orthodoxy that there was collusion between Russia and the Donald Trump presidential campaign. It is this near religious belief that was mocked in the January 4 London Review of the Books.

      That leftist periodical is certainly no fan of Trump as a quick perusal of its pages would confirm but they are honest enough to admit that the MSM is absurd for swallowing the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy theory hook, line, and sinker as you can see in this article by Jackson Lears, What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk about Russian Hacking (LINK):
      https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/pj-gladnick/2018/01/01/london-review-books-mocks-msm-embrace-trump-russia-collusion

      lengthy, but worth reading in full, (recommended reading for their ABC, which breathlessly reports almost every fake allegation, and never seems to retract anything):

      4 Jan Issue: London Review of Books: What We Don’t Talk about When We Talk about Russian Hacking
      by Jackson Lears
      The centrepiece of the faith, based on the hacking charge, is the belief that Vladimir Putin orchestrated an attack on American democracy by ordering his minions to interfere in the election on behalf of Trump. The story became gospel with breathtaking suddenness and completeness. Doubters are perceived as heretics and as apologists for Trump and Putin, the evil twins and co-conspirators behind this attack on American democracy. Responsibility for the absence of debate lies in large part with the major media outlets. Their uncritical embrace and endless repetition of the Russian hack story have made it seem a fait accompli in the public mind. It is hard to estimate popular belief in this new orthodoxy, but it does not seem to be merely a creed of Washington insiders. If you question the received narrative in casual conversations, you run the risk of provoking blank stares or overt hostility – even from old friends. This has all been baffling and troubling to me; there have been moments when pop-culture fantasies (body snatchers, Kool-Aid) have come to mind.

      ***Like any orthodoxy worth its salt, the religion of the Russian hack depends not on evidence but on ex cathedra pronouncements on the part of authoritative institutions and their overlords…

      So far, after months of ‘bombshells’ that turn out to be duds, there is still no actual evidence for the claim that the Kremlin ordered interference in the American election. Meanwhile serious doubts have surfaced about the technical basis for the hacking claims. Independent observers have argued it is more likely that the emails were leaked from inside, not hacked from outside…

      The consequence is a spreading confusion that envelops everything. Epistemological nihilism looms, but some people and institutions have more power than others to define what constitutes an agreed-on reality…
      https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n01/jackson-lears/what-we-dont-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-russian-hacking

      the writer:

      Wikpedia: T. J. Jackson Lears
      T. J. Jackson Lears is an American cultural and intellectual historian with interests in comparative religious history, literature and the visual arts, folklore and folk beliefs. Lears was educated at the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina, and Yale University, where he received a Ph.D. in American Studies. He has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Winterthur Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Shelby Cullom Davis Center at Princeton University.

      In October 2003 he received the Public Humanities Award from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities. He has been a regular contributor to The New Republic, The Nation, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, among other publications. He has taught at Yale University, the University of Missouri, and New York University.
      Lears is the Board of Governors Professor of History at Rutgers University and Editor in Chief of the Raritan Quarterly Review

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  • #
    Harry Twinotter

    Straw man.

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    John in Oz

    I think Mr Sheppard’s bias is showing with this comment:

    there may be climate change DNA in those storms, but it is important to let peer-reviewed attribution studies confirm.

    Peer reviewed attribution studies should confirm or refute.

    It seems he is only looking for confirmation of his preconceived ideas.

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  • #
    pat

    all we need to know about CAGW meme-makers, Climate Nexus:

    at bottom of their website pages:

    ClimateNexus: Climate Nexus is dedicated to changing the conversation on climate change and clean energy.
    Climate Nexus is a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, a 501(c)3 organization.

    Jef Nesbitt: About me
    I’m the executive director of Climate Nexus, a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors in New York funded by a number of foundations including the Skoll Global Threats Fund, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Energy Foundation and others to focus on national climate and energy communications…
    Prior to that, I was the director of legislative and public affairs at the National Science Foundation from 2006 to 2011, where I helped create the America Competes Act in Congress that reauthorized NSF and put its budget on a doubling path. In public affairs, I formed several national media partnerships with NBC News, CBS News, U.S. News & World Report, the Discovery Science Channel, Discover magazine and others. The Science of Sports partnership with NBC Learn and NBC Sports won a 2011 Sports Emmy. We also created the popular Science360 daily news service, Science 360 Radio network, and Science360.gov, a popular iPad app and news portal that just crossed the one million download mark…

    Earlier in my career, I was director of public affairs for the Food and Drug Administration – where I helped develop initiatives to regulate the tobacco industry and require truthful information on food labels – and a senior communications official at the White House. I was also a national journalist with Knight-Ridder, ABC News’ Satellite News Channels and others. I’ve written 19 novels, and I write a weekly science and technology blog for U.S. News & World Report called “At the Edge”.
    http://jeffnesbit.net/aboutme/

    another of Climate Nexus’s CAGW names that counts – Kevin Trenberth:

    29 Dec: InsideClimateNews: Wildfires to Hurricanes, 2017’s Year of Disasters Carried Climate Warnings
    Exceptionally high ocean temperatures fueled devastating Atlantic hurricanes, while a wet spring and hot summer set the stage for a deadly fire season in the West.
    By Georgina Gustin
    Nobody could have foretold the ferocity of the fires that would close out 2017 in California.
    In the Atlantic, ocean temperature maps were already colored in glaring hues by midsummer when hurricane forecasters heightened their alerts about a season that seemed likely to send more intense storms toward the Caribbean and the U.S. coast.
    But no one imagined the record-shattering season that ensued, inundating Houston, dealing the Caribbean islands one devastating blow after another, letting Florida off with a narrow escape from a statewide calamity, and plunging Puerto Rico into darkness for months while it struggled to tally its dead.
    The year’s disasters, in human terms and also measured in dollars, put 2017 in the United States’ record books…

    “A common feature of the hurricanes and the wildfires is that there have been many warnings from scientists and others,” explained Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “With climate change, one slows or stops the problem (mitigation) or adapts to the problem (builds resilience) or suffers the consequences. In Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, and Santa Rosa, it is clear that the people have chosen the last option.”…
    “The three storms—Harvey, Irma and Maria—were all enhanced,” Trenberth said. “Bigger, stronger and longer lasting because of climate change as manifested through exceptionally high ocean temperatures.”…

    Scientists are getting better at linking individual extreme weather events to longer-term global warming. And they are issuing their verdicts more quickly than in the past…
    https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29122017/hurricanes-fires-drought-2017-year-review-climate-change-disasters-new-normal

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  • #
    pat

    a New Year…same old story:

    1 Jan: WashingtonExaminer: Earth becoming a desert without climate deal, scientists warn
    by John Siciliano
    The findings published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change show that more than 25 percent of the world’s population will live in a perpetual state of drought and growing desertification if the Earth’s temperature rises by 2 degrees Celsius by 2050.

    The report says the solution is to prevent global warming from rising above 1.5 degrees C, which the researchers say would significantly reduce the number of regions of the world affected by “aridification,” or the drying of the planet…

    “Our research predicts that aridification would emerge over about 20-30 percent of the world’s land surface by the time the global mean temperature change reaches 2ºC,” said Manoj Joshi, lead researcher from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom. “But two-thirds of the affected regions could avoid significant aridification if warming is limited to 1.5ºC.”…
    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/earth-becoming-a-desert-without-climate-deal-scientists-warn/article/2644599

    1 Jan: Nature Climate Change: Keeping global warming within 1.5 °C constrains emergence of aridification
    Authors: Chang-Eui Park, Su-Jong Jeong, Manoj Joshi, Timothy J. Osborn, Chang-Hoi Ho, Shilong Piao, Deliang Chen, Junguo Liu, Hong Yang, Hoonyoung Park, Baek-Min Kim & Song Feng
    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-017-0034-4

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  • #
    pat

    the Reuters’ headline:

    Reuters: Record-shattering U.S. cold reaches into Florida

    Fairfax/AFR adopts the CAGW “cold snap” meme:

    2 Jan: AFR: Reuters: Record-breaking US ***cold snap reaches into Florida
    Record-shattering arctic cold reached as far south as Florida on Monday with freeze warnings in place from Texas to the Atlantic Coast and the northeastern United States facing another cold wave at the end of the week, forecasters said.
    Temperatures were from 20 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit (11 to 17 degrees Celsius) below normal across the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, with only southern Florida untouched by the arctic blast.

    “That degree of cold will be with us until tomorrow,” said Brian Hurley, a National Weather Service meteorologist at College Park, Maryland. “Tuesday morning, we’re looking at temperatures with very high probability of record lows.”
    Along Alabama’s Gulf Coast, the temperature in the city of Mobile could hit a low of 16F (minus 9C) overnight…

    Omaha posted a low of minus 20F (minus 29C), breaking a 130-year-old record, and Aberdeen, South Dakota, shattered a record set in 1919 with a temperature of minus 32F (minus 36C).
    The cold will be unrelenting across the Middle Atlantic and northeastern United States, with up to two dozen low temperature records expected in those regions over the next day or two, Hurley said…
    The private AccuWeather forecaster said the cold snap could combine with a storm brewing off the Bahamas to bring snow and high winds to much of the Eastern Seaboard as it heads north on Wednesday and Thursday.

    The only part of the United States spared the deep freeze is the Southwest, with above-normal temperatures and dry weather expected to continue there, the weather service said.
    http://www.afr.com/news/world/recordbreaking-us-cold-snap-reaches-into-florida-20180102-h0cbtt

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    pat

    first, everyone was headlining “deep freeze” until the “cold snap” meme was manufactured by the CAGW mob. there are hundreds of examples, e.g.

    Deep freeze: 2018 begins with record cold in parts of the Midwest
    The Denver Post-7 hours ago

    A brief break before deep freeze returns to Albany area
    Albany Times Union-8 hours ago

    Few inches of snow possible this week as deep freeze continues
    NJ.com-5 hours ago

    New York City in deep freeze with probable record lows
    New York’s PIX11 / WPIX-TV-1 hour ago

    Record cold puts much of country in a deep freeze
    SanFranciscoChronicle-6 hours ago

    New Year’s Eve deep freeze keeps most revellers at home
    Calgary Herald-22 hours ago

    Could New Orleans see snow during this deep freeze?
    NOLA.com-13 hours ago

    but naturally, CBC has the ***cold snap meme:

    1 Jan: CBC: ‘White walkers’: Edmontonians survive ***cold snap like true northerners
    Hardy city dwellers braved the icy temperatures like true northerners
    Temperatures have hovered around the –30 C mark since Christmas Day as an Arctic cold air mass moves across western Canada.
    On Monday, Edmonton remained colder than both the North Pole and the South Pole, with bone-chilling winds that made it feel closer to –40 C…

    It was so cold that people from other countries started seeking advice from Edmontonians on how to endure winter…
    The extreme temperatures forced the cancellation of the city’s outdoor New Year’s Eve celebrations on Sunday. The fireworks show went on outside, but the rest of the festivities moved indoors…
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/cold-weather-edmonton-cold-snap-1.4469238

    RTE, Ireland’s National Public Service Broadcaster, has the “cold snap” meme; original AFP article headline is “Canada’s bitter weather has even penguins coming out of the cold”. RTE doesn’t include AFP attribution:

    1 Jan: RTE Ireland: Canadian ***cold snap sends penguins indoors
    But with a cold snap pushing temperatures below minus 30 degrees Celsius (-22F) on New Year’s Eve – and feeling more like -40C in the wind – and with one five-month-old penguin chick still maturing, zoo officials decided to draw a line in the snow on Sunday, setting -25C as the birds’ limit.
    They brought the ten kings into their heated enclosure, where they can still be viewed by humans brave enough to be out.
    Across Canada, planned New Year’s Eve festivities in several cities were moved indoors amid a particularly brutal ***cold snap…

    At midday today, the country’s coldest temperature was registered in Eureka, in northern Nunavut territory, at -40.5C…
    But Environment Canada promised “a gradual warming trend… (and) more seasonable temperatures by Tuesday.”
    It suggested dressing in warm layers “that you can remove if you get too warm” – a luxury penguins don’t have.
    https://www.rte.ie/news/world/2018/0101/930519-canada-weather/

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Hmmm….just wondering if someone had actually calculated the energy removed (?) from the local atmosphere by the extreme cold in places like the USA currently.

      Where i’m going with this is a bit like calculating the area under the curve, a short sharp deep pulse can transmit as much power as a more shallow longer pulse etc etc…..

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      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Adding the bit i should have previously…my brain got bored due to my slow typing:

        If CAGW is supposed to inject significant exothermic energy into the atmosphere, can the current extreme cold ” rebalance the scales” , in that if i am assuming that ( probably wrongly ) that CAGW is a net injection of energy into the atmosphere….and yes, in theory according to the flawed CAGW models it should create a runaway feed forward scenario, but for this purpose lets just apply a small amount of indulgence….then an extreme cold event should bring things back to zero.

        Ok , yes ive made a huge number of assumptions including that the earth is a closed environment etc but it seems to me that the CAGW models are simplistic too……

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        • #
          rollo

          You may think its cold but don’t forget that four Hiroshima sized atom bombs worth of energy are being squirrelled away by the planet every second!

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          • #
            Graeme No.3

            Swiss bank accounts?

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          • #
            Bobl

            You mean out of the quadrillion odd Hiroshima bombs worth of energy that swims around our planet every second?

            Are you aware for example that the kinetic energy of the earth is 200 billion times the annual solar energy received by the earth from the sun making AGWs 0.6 watts per square meter just .06% of solar input meaning your 4 Hiroshima bombs are a mere 1/333,000,000,000,000 th of just the kinetic energy of the earth alone.

            What you miss is scale, the 4 Hiroshima bomb Cook propaganda amounts to a led Christmas light in a freely cooling column of air of 10,000 cubic metres. 1m x 1m x 10 km.

            It isn’t even a rounding error in the energy embodied in our planet and it makes no difference to the temperature.

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        • #
          Kinky Keith

          The CAGW models are not only simplistic,
          they are dysfunctional.

          KK

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      • #
        tom0mason

        The significant fact of the current cold North Americas is that this is a good indicator of the planet radiating away to space excess heat energy.

        🙂

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    • #
      Another Ian

      A comment from an “It was so cold that” thread at WUWT

      “It was so cold that climate scientists had their hands in their own pockets”

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  • #
    yarpos

    Nice story on American Thinker about NASA’s climate model flexibility and adjustments on adjustements

    40

  • #
    yarpos

    Been enjoying the hyperbole for a forecast single hot day on Saturday when it will get to 39 as a system goes through. So far its a sweltering,scorcher thats going to roast us, and unexpected as well apparently. Unexpected??? its summer, if you dont expect hot days in summer when do you expect them?

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  • #
    Nick Werner

    I’m not surprised that climate scientists are finding genetic material (DNA) every time there’s a storm, heat wave, or cold snap, considering how much they’ve been screwing around with their historical data and models.

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  • #
    Mark M

    97% certain Weather is Climate is Weather:

    2011 and Weather is now climate in Australia‘s “Angry Summer”:

    “A few years ago, talking about weather and climate change in the same breath was a cardinal sin for scientists.

    Now it has become impossible to have a conversation about the weather without discussing wider climate trends, according to researchers who prepared the Australian Climate Commission’s latest report.

    Previously, ”weather is not climate” was the mantra, but now the additional boost from greenhouse gases was influencing every event.”

    http://www.theage.com.au/national/climate-change-a-key-factor-in-extreme-weather-experts-say-20130303-2fefv.html

    2009 and climate is weather in America:

    “Climate change is making itself felt in terms of day-to-day weather in the United States,” says Gerald Meehl, the lead author and a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).”

    https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/news/1036/record-high-temperatures-far-outpace-record-lows-across-us

    2017 & “U.N. chief hopes storms will sway climate skeptics like Trump”

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-un-usa-climatechange/u-n-chief-hopes-storms-will-sway-climate-skeptics-like-trump-idUSKBN1C92HO

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  • #

    Snap frozen sharks washing up on US beaches were mentioned at the beginning of this post and it reminded me of watching that story a couple of nights ago on Al Jazeera. I’m still laughing.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoCpGGrsB2o

    Worth a look, in my opinion, just to see how the media turns frozen sharks into evidence of climate change due to Arctic sea ice thawing and disturbing Atlantic currents so the survival of sharks, turtles, most marine animals and species around the world including humans are threatened by our warming planet – all because of three snap frozen sharks.

    The last decade in the contiguous United States was cooler than the previous decade, according to NOAA temps, so the current cold snap shouldn’t be all that surprising in a US climate that’s been cooling since the 1998 ENSO shift.

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Sharks have been around in one form or another since well before the dinosaurs, about 200 million years before. They have survived the end Carboniferous ice age, the end Permian ice age, and various cold periods for the last 35 million years since the Antarctic ice cap formed. I have would have thought that they aren’t as sensitive as shown, unless the cold was “unprecedented”.
      I also note that the commentator UNDER estimated the latest census of polar bear numbers by 30%.

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  • #
    el gordo

    ‘CO2 in 1918 was 303ppm, CO2 today is 405ppm, a full 33% higher. The result? Temperatures in the US are making 100-year record LOWS!!! What kind of “science” would rely on a model where the independent variable can change by 33% and have no impact on the dependent variable? That isn’t science, that is Witchcraft.’

    CO2 is Life

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    • #
      tom0mason

      Yep, el gordo, all that (well mixed?) CO2 keeping the heat in, insulating us from effective radiative cooling — like the evidence of North America currently.

      Oh look! pig-shaped clouds in the sky…

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  • #
    pat

    smug as ever:

    29 Dec: ThinkProgress: Joe Romm: Trump says cold weather disproves global warming. His own White House disagrees.
    Trump can’t quit climate denial.
    It’s also called “climate” change for a reason — the short-term weather fluctuations will always be much larger than the slow rise in average annual mobile temperatures. Indeed, Climate Nexus (LINK) had just put together this chart showing that in the past 365 days the United States saw 3.03 times as many high temperature records as low temperature ones, whereas if the climate weren’t warming, we’d expect a 1 to 1 ratio…

    ThinkProgress has debunked Trump’s “winter disproves warming” nonsense countless times.
    The main difference now is that the president is repeating his claims even after his own White House approved a massive climate report that debunked everything Trump wrote on Thursday…

    Finally, the report explains the growing scientific evidence that even as the world warms, we will still see extended regional cold spells: “Associated with persistent, slow-moving high pressure systems that obstruct the prevailing westerly winds in the middle and high latitudes and the normal eastward progress of extratropical transient storm systems. It is an important component of the intraseasonal climate variability in the extratropics and can cause long-lived weather conditions such as cold spells in winter and heat waves in summer.”…
    https://thinkprogress.org/trump-cold-weather-global-warming-a7491a26723a/

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  • #
    pat

    2 Jan: UK Dorset Echo: Heart attacks following cold weather account for two in five winter excess deaths, NHS says
    NHS England has warned that heart attacks increase almost immediately after a cold snap and that accounts for two in five winter excess deaths, as well as the same proportion of NHS excess winter admissions.
    Hospitals also see a rise in the admission of stroke patients five days after the cold weather begins and peak respiratory admissions go up 12 days after the temperature drops.
    People with respiratory illnesses also suffer during the cold weather.

    For every one degree that the temperature drops below 5 degrees, there is a 10% rise in elderly people presenting with breathing problems and almost a 1% increase in emergency admissions. Therefore if the temperature drops 5 degrees there will be a 4-5% increase in people being admitted to A&E.
    The number of admissions is also linked to colder weather circulating viral infections, one of which is flu. Older people who may be frail, or who have existing health conditions, are particularly at risk.

    Last winter there were 400,000 additional A&E attendances, bringing the total to more than 7.5million. That was an increase of 5.6 per cent on the previous year…
    http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/15800588.Heart_attacks_following_cold_weather_account_for_two_in_five_winter_excess_deaths__NHS_says/

    2 Jan: Daily Mail: John Naish: Could we face a mini ice age in the next 30 years? Scientists make extraordinary prediction based on the sun’s natural cycles… and it would even reverse global warming!
    Between the 17th and early 19th centuries, average temperatures dropped by two degrees centigrade and our winters became so vicious the Thames froze utterly on seven occasions.
    With its major river blocked, London’s commerce stalled. In the city and surrounding countryside, thousands of people died. Farm animals were wiped out. The wind was even cold enough to crack tree trunks…

    …a professor of mathematics at Northumbria University is warning that history is in imminent danger of repeating itself.
    And Valentina Zharkova is not alone in that startling view. She is part of an international collaboration of academics in the UK and Russia who have sparked controversy by warning that the world could be plunged into another ‘mini ice age’ in a little over a decade.
    The thesis is that this could go some way to replicating a phenomenon known as the ‘Maunder Minimum’, after the British husband and wife astronomers, Walter and Annie Maunder, who worked at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich…

    She claims that her team’s results are ‘97 per cent accurate’. She describes the research as ‘the first serious prediction of a reduction of solar activity that might affect human lives’…

    Gavin Schmidt, the director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is particularly forthright. ‘It’s complete garbage,’ he told reporters.
    Many critics argue that, while the Maunder Minimum may have had an effect on past climate, it was far from solely responsible for the Little Ice Age of the 17th and 18th centuries.
    Michael Brown, an associate professor of astronomy at Monash University in Australia, points out that ‘The Little Ice Age began before the Maunder Minimum and may have had multiple causes, including volcanism [volcanic activity].’…

    Professor Brown adds that numerous scientists have investigated exactly how much the Maunder Minimum actually reduced the levels of solar energy hitting Earth.
    He argues that even the lowest estimated levels would not significantly reverse the effects of modern climate change.
    ‘There is 40 per cent more of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the air now than during the 17th century, and global temperature records are being smashed,’ he claims. ‘A new Maunder Minimum would slow climate change, but it is not enough to stop it.’
    Professor Zharkova is unimpressed by such arguments…

    Who to believe? Given that we can’t even trust our highest-paid forecasters to get tomorrow’s weather right, we might be best flipping a coin to decide.

    But here is a much safer prediction. The Thames won’t freeze over in London again. This is because controversies such as sunspots and global warming won’t have the casting vote. It all comes down to engineering. And that means no more ice fairs…READ ON
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5227073/Could-face-mini-ice-age-30-years.html

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    pat

    updates, but quite confusing trying to pick out new data:

    1 Jan: WeatherChannel: Arctic Outbreak Setting Record Lows as Dangerously Cold Wind Chills Infiltrate Plains, Midwest and East
    By Jonathan Erdman, Chris Dolce and Brian Donegan
    There’s a chance a pattern change may allow milder – relative to average, or at least less cold – temperatures to return in January’s second week, but the details remain highly uncertain…

    New York City has not seen a high temperature above 32 degrees since Christmas Day. This cold outbreak could rank among the top five on record in the Big Apple for the most number of days in a row 32 degrees or lower…

    In Boston, Wednesday could mark the record-tying seventh day in a row with temperatures remaining below 20 degrees. The current record consecutive days the city has seen temperatures stay below 20 degrees was set Dec. 29, 1917-Jan. 4, 1918…

    New Year’s Day morning daily record lows include: Watertown, New York (minus 31 degrees), Des Moines, Iowa (minus 19 degrees), Moline, Illinois (minus 19 degrees), Syracuse, New York (minus 15 degrees), Buffalo, New York (minus 4 degrees) and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (minus 2 degrees)…

    Numerous cities saw record-cold high temperatures (current standing record-cold high for Jan. 1 and the year it was set is shown):
    •New York City: 19 degrees (Old record: 24 in 1940)
    •Chicago: 1 degree (Old record: 5 degrees 1969)
    •Charleston, South Carolina: 34 degrees (Old record: 45 degrees 2001) – Also broke a record low
    •Portland, Maine: 10 degrees (Old record: 13 degrees 1967) – Also broke a record low…

    The temperature for the ball drop at Times Square in New York City was nine degrees. That’s the second coldest temperature on record for the event.
    https://weather.com/storms/winter/news/2018-01-01-arctic-record-cold-outbreak-forecast-midwest-east-south-early-january

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  • #
    TdeF

    As for Climate Change DNA, that is just sophistry. It gets around the how do you tell Climate Change hurricanes from normal hurricanes absurdity. So a sniff, a hint, a strong smell of Climate Change is enough. Perhaps the ‘vibe’?

    Then you would have to have a particularly sensitive Climate Change detector to pick up the impact from 0.8C in a century and how it has dramatically affected the climates around the world, if not the weather. As said, sophistry.

    sophistry: “the use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving.”

    I am still waiting at the beach every day for that Climate Change sea rise. It’s been 30 years.

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    Tom O

    I was positively amazed by that first graphic. I wonder how he worked the numbers to create that? But what amazes me most is the depiction of temperatures over the oceans, not those over the land. I have never seen a graphic where the oceans are depicted more neutral to negative than showing some overall warming. He concentrated so hard on making it look like only North America was experiencing cold that he somehow ended up showing that the store of heat in the ocean was diminishing instead. It is hard to believe the southern oceans are so cool in the heart of summer.

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    Will Janoschka

    DAMN! ma beer froze! Gotz to warm up outside beer in refrigerator before opening! In dis USA we gots ‘lo-brids’ instead of hybrids! How many well paid FBI ‘agents’ dat mostly only keep on Strzoking der Peter?? One actually rose to become the Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division. DC is truly the epitome of ‘Counterintelligence’. 🙁

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    […] Australian science writer Joanne Nova quipped, for the radical climate crowd, “extreme cold is just weather but all heat waves are […]

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    Will Janoschka

    Perhaps Mueller too is a political agent; regardless, he knows what we know; and we know that he knows what we know.

    BUT, does he know that we know what he knows?

    KNOW! 🙂

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    eclecticmn

    I recall reading Ayn Rand long ago. She said something like “Sience is dogma. Engineering is truth.” I was very offended.

    Years later I switched from chemistry to chemical engineering. I understood what she meant. Engineers don’t have holy wars. Roman engineers didn’t have or care much about theory. They cared about what worked.

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    Strnj1

    …so what caused it,again, in 1917.

    The population was a fraction, motor cars were still a novelty for the rich…

    …peddle it somewhere else.

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