CO2 causes baby fish to get lost on their way home. Save Nemo, change a lightglobe!!

Just when you think headlines can’t be that stupid:

Baby fish may not find their way home as the level of CO2 in the ocean rises, study finds

— ABC  Isabel Dayman

Baby fish may lose their ability to find their way home in the future due to rising CO2 levels in the ocean, a marine ecology expert has found.

What the study found was that fish larvae were not paying attention to the right noises.

The researchers put the larvae in a tank and bubbled CO2 through it constantly. They appear to forget that CO2 changes naturally every night on reefs all over the world. Fish are not just used to having a daily shift, they prefer it. 

In shallow water, ocean acidification happens at 7pm daily, and after 400 million years, somehow, fish have adapted.

One previous study declared fish might become reckless in a high CO2 world, but later discovered that it was the laboratory setting that was the problem, not the CO2. When they added the daily pH swing back to their tanks, the fish behaved better and coped with the extra CO2. The real message is that laboratories are bad for fish.

As far as adapting to long term climate change, fish carry around hundreds of millions of years of assorted junk genes in the gene-pool, which help them cope when things change. (Remember the fish that adapted from salt-water to fresh-water in just fifty years?) Tools from past disasters may well linger on in a small proportion of the population. Natural selection can find that and amplify.

Barramundi have 32 million babies to lose at a time:

It’s gloom and doom on the ABC:

“When we raised these larvae under elevated CO2, we saw that those larvae were no longer attracted — and worse, they were deterred by — the natural sounds of their natural habitat,” he said.

And that will have devastating consequences because there will be no “recruitment”, or returning larvae, Professor Nagelkerken explained.

“The question is, what proportion of species will show this response — is it 10 of the fish species? Is it 50 per cent or 80 per cent?” he said.

Since one big Barramundi mother seriously does have 32 million eggs at a time, it might not be the end of the world if only 27% find their way home instead of 65%.

If it half the babies are wiped out, Barramundi numbers will drop temporarily — then five or six years later the new generation will be better adapted to higher CO2. One hundred years allows 20 generations of adaption. Like the  salt-water fish stuck in a fresh-water pool, natural selection is crushingly brutal but effective.  Spread over a century, fish will make it…

What’s next: CO2 causes bald kittens, and confused dogs?

REFERENCE

Rossi et al, (2017)  On the wrong track: ocean acidification attracts larval fish to irrelevant environmental cues, Nature journal, Scientific Reports. You can read the whole paper. (Lucky you)

Previous studies:

Michael D. Jarrold, Craig Humphrey, Mark I. McCormick, Philip L. Munday. (2017) Diel CO2 cycles reduce severity of behavioural abnormalities in coral reef fish under ocean acidificationScientific Reports; 7 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-10378-y (Freely available).

Kayanne et al (1995) Diurnal changes in the partial pressure of carbon dioxide in coral reef waterScience. 1995 Jul 14;269(5221):214-6. (Available at Researchgate.)

9.6 out of 10 based on 63 ratings

236 comments to CO2 causes baby fish to get lost on their way home. Save Nemo, change a lightglobe!!

  • #

    (…) a big mother Barramundi has 32 million eggs at a time (…) !!!

    Knowing that out of 32 million there will be about 16 who will be females and who will each lay 32 million eggs …

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    • #
      ColA

      Actually the barramundi is sequentially hermaphroditic, with most individuals maturing as males and becoming female after at least one spawning season; most of the larger specimens are therefore female.
      I lived in Jabiru, NT for some years and although there was only a minimum size limit (55cm) all the locals only took fish 55 to 75cm anything over 80cm was assumed female and released, tourists, blow-ins and southerners were a different story!
      A great fighting fish to catch, but I say pound for pound NOT as good as the TARPON which is also in the NT.

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    • #
      Hanrahan

      Barra have explosive energy but are pretty lazy otherwise and even big fish swim upstream into lagoons where they are prey for crocks. We should lift the total ban on crock hunting for both ours and the barra’s sake. 🙂

      20

  • #

    “The researchers put the larvae in a tank and bubbled CO2 through it constantly.”

    That’s the cool post-mod way to observe the world and its oceans. Eliminate all complexity and stay within a few blocks of a good barista.

    371

  • #
    Charles May

    It is common in the US at road construction sites we see signs that say “Your tax Dollars at Work”. Could that sign be applied here too?

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    • #
      Graeme No.3

      Well it represents better value than the $500 million just thrown away in the Latrobe valley by ‘our’ PM on a scheme to convert brown coal into hydrogen to be shipped to Japan to reduce their emissions.
      All the right words are used, Green, Lower Emission, Jobs, Future Industry (Ha!), Finkel (yes he’s involved). That there is a proven and economically proven procees using natural gas seems to have escaped notice, or perhaps it is because Dopey Dan doesn’t want natural gas in Victoria.
      I hope that the $500 is the last thrown away on that mad idea but it emboldens me to suggest the solution to the above problem is to equip each barramundi lavae with a Sat-Nav. The current government would be delighted with such an opportunity to waste money.

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    • #
      Annie

      I’m more inclined to have a sign: ‘Your tax dollars being frittered away on nonsense’.

      91

  • #
    Yonniestone

    There once was a poor little fish,
    that wanted just one little wish,
    that thoughts didn’t become too,
    much muddled with CO2,
    and he ends up on some restaurants dish.

    So much low hanging fruit so little time (big sigh)

    211

  • #
    OriginalSteve

    Bubbling co2 up through the tank…yep….last time i was on the reef i spotted these big hoses laid on the sea bed that had “danger co2- may cause confusion”.

    160

  • #
    Ruairi

    That barramundi larvae would fail,
    Due to CO2, find their home trail,
    Would for skeptics ring hollow,
    But then warmists do swallow,
    Just any old wives’ fishy tale.

    240

  • #
    ivan

    I despair, this is what passes for science today, is it any wonder that the level of stupidity is rising when they can’t even setup a realistic experiment.

    This is like the experiments they carry out to ‘prove’ that various substances aren’t good for us – give mice a dose that is several thousand times more than anyone would get in real life and then wonder why they get cancer/spots/select the object of the ‘research’.

    161

  • #

    Surprising that ARC is still funding projects like this. The notion of taking an organism and subjecting it to conditions it can’t immediately adapt to is simply a waste of time and money. A longer term study that gradually changed conditions over successive generations would provide meaningful results. Headlines like “Fish successfully adapt to changes in Co2” aren’t quite as dramatic though.

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    • #
      Lawrie

      Just shows there are numerous ways in which the government could save money and repair the budget. Defund the ARC. Defund the ABC. Defund the HRC. There are a few hundred other XXCs out there to be defunded and I guarantee we wouldn’t know they had gone.

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    • #
      C. Paul Barreira

      Surprising that ARC is still funding projects like this.

      Why? The ARC like the universities it supports is obsessed with CO2 and associated terms such as sustainability. Still, thee are precedents. In the humanities and what passes for social science there was for decades “class”, then “gender”, and latterly “race”. “Nation”, too, has obsessed the political class at times. Each time it was one enemy. In the case of what parades as Climate Science” or any other science, a singular form of nemesis is surely an absurdity. Yet somehow or other just this sort of ludicrous intellectualism rules and mutates into an ideology, of telling how the world should be and how to get there.

      Insane.

      30

  • #

    As has been observed previously, there are plenty of places in the oceans along the “ring of fire” where CO2 is naturally bubbled up from the sea bed. Don’t think anyone has observed confusion among the species that inhabit these areas.
    Barramundi have nares, so they can smell. Juvenile barramundi are plentiful in the mangrove swamp a few hundred metres from my place. Mangrove forests stink. Literally. Pungent gases from rotting vegetation, fauna and flora in abundance. I surmise the reek is what the juveniles recognise as home. I doubt that the “researchers” managed to reproduce that.

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    • #
      ColA

      The only things that stinks in this research is the methodology, the execution and the pungent conclusions!

      Good old their Aunty can sniff out cr*p any day of the week, and twice on Sundays!! 🙂

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  • #
    amortiser

    In shallow water, ocean acidification happens at 7pm daily, and after 400 million years, somehow, fish have adapted.

    Don’t fall for the warmist propaganda. Does the PH level drop below 7 at 7pm daily? Correct me if I am wrong but I don’t think so.

    A solution that becomes less alkaline is not more acidic. It’s this sort of terminology that distorts the climate debate.

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    • #
      Carbon500

      Amortiser: as you rightly point out, a solution that becomes less alkaline is not more acidic. The use of the word ‘acidification’ when referring to minor alkaline pH changes verges on deceit as far as I’m concerned.

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    • #
      Harry Twinotter

      The process is called acidification because that is what it is. Check the science.

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      • #
        Annie

        No, it’s less basic until it drops below PH of 7.
        People who use the term ‘the science’ are not scientists in the true sense in the way it’s being used!

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      • #
        Carbon500

        No, I suggest that you ‘check the science’ Harry.
        I have a working lifetime of medical laboratory experience, and know perfectly well what I’m talking about.
        The use of the term ‘acidification’ in this context is incorrect and misleading.

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        • #
          Harry Twinotter

          Carbon500.

          If you are claiming credentials, citation.

          Meanwhile… check the references.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

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          • #
            robert rosicka

            So my pool PH went to 8.1 so I went to the pool shop and told them it was acidic and the unscientific nasty people laughed me out of the shop .

            80

          • #
            el gordo

            Its come to my attention that rising atmospheric CO2 concentration is significantly reducing ocean pH, which is an ominous sign for the GBR.

            30

          • #
            robert rosicka

            Oh please everybody you have to read this link about ocean acidification from the twotter it’s friggin hilarious and just proves he can’t read .
            Take note of the citation no 3 highlighted in blue which is about three or four lines down from the start where it mentions the ocean can be acidic even if it’s not at less than 7 ph .

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

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            • #
              Graeme No.3

              One wonders how they know the pH of sea water in 1751 when the first pH meter only became available in the late 1930’s. Even the concept of pH wasn’t known in 1751 for over 100 years.

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              • #
                sophocles

                Then stop wondering: litmus and its properties were known from around 1300, with the Spanish physician Arnaldus de Villa Nova credited as its first user. It’s where the phrase Litmus Test comes from.

                The codification or formalisation of pH was more recent but litmus meant the user could determine whether a solution was acidic, basic or neutral.

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              • #
                R. B.

                You highlight the problem, Soph. No way would you notice that anything was happening if you used litmus paper.

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            • #
              Serp

              What, surely Harry Twinotter had nothing to do with the absurd statement that “ocean acidification involves a shift towards pH neutral conditions” adorning the linked wikipedia entry.

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          • #
            Carbon500

            Here’s a link for you, Harry. It’s the website of a professional company dealing with adjusting the pH of effluent. Notice that they frequently and correctly refer to ‘adjustment’, and discuss at length the rise in pH from a low to high value.
            Or do you think that they might call it – let’s make something up now – ‘alkalisation’ instead? 🙂

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          • #
            Senex

            Oh, Wikipedia.. must be true then

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          • #
            R. B.

            The problem isn’t that you can argue that dropping the pH is acidifying is strictly speaking not wrong, its just misleading. Saying “less basic” or even neutralising gives a better indication of just how small the change to conditions is. The solution pH affects compounds but only a large effect around the pKa of the compound (or acidic/basic groups of a compound). That a fish would evolve to be so fickle to such small pH change having evolved in oceans with a large spread of values let alone a costal fish (and this is an estuary fish) is not credible. Then they actually refer to the response to sound due to the response to pH of a buffered internal organ?
            Not even an ABC journalist would take it seriously if it wasn’t misleadingly labelled acidification.

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      • #

        ‘When we run out of rocks on Earth, or plate tectonics cease, then we
        will have acid oceans.’ Professor Ian Plimer.

        http://jennifermarohasy.com/2008/10/not-enough-co2-to-make-oceans-acidic-a-note-from-professor-plimer/

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    • #

      I used to have the job of acidifying water with CO2. The trick was to get the water as cold as possible to lower the pH. Low water temp was really the only determinant for adequate acidification by carbon dioxide.

      Of course, I wouldn’t expect what happens in a metal cylinder to reflect what happens in the oceans of this world. I leave that sort of facile extrapolation to the drongo activists we now have to call climate researchers.

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  • #
    Senex

    Since the solubility of CO2 in water is inversely proportional to the temperature of the water, aren’t rising concentrations of CO2 a sign of DECREASING water temperature?

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    • #
      Harry Twinotter

      “aren’t rising concentrations of CO2 a sign of DECREASING water temperature?”

      No.

      513

      • #
        el gordo

        Warmer SST liberate more CO2 from the oceans and doesn’t increase SST.

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      • #
        abt

        Yes they are. CO2 becomes less soluble in water as the water temperature increases. We keep getting told that the “oceans are warming”. They can’t have it both ways, increasing temperature and increasing CO2 concentration. Simple chemistry.

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        • #
          Harry Twinotter

          abt.

          You have not factored in the increasing partial pressure of the atmospheric CO2. Increasing partial pressure increases CO2 being dissolved in the ocean.

          It is true the oceans might warm to a point where more CO2 is outgassed than dissolved due to the partial pressure increase. At that point the oceans will stop being a CO2 sink.

          But seriously, climate scientists and oceanographers would not have missed something as obvious as the relationship between ocean temperature and the soluability of CO2. So the scientists will be correct when they say the oceans are warming AND more CO2 is being dissolved at the same time, resulting in ocean acidification.

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          • #
            sophocles

            Harry, have you heard of limestone?
            Do you know what it is?
            Do you know how it is formed?
            Do you know what a buffer solution is?
            Do you realise that the oceans are an excellent example of a very strong buffer solution?
            Did you know the human body uses the bicarbonate buffer solution. Without it, our stomach wouldn’t be able to prevent the HCl it uses to digest our food from eating holes in it.

            In a buffer solution, the pH won’t change much. It can’t. That’s the whole principle of a buffer solution: to prevent large swings of pH. The ocean pH won’t change by more than about 0.5 units of pH. It is a very strongly buffered solution and hence extremely resistant to pH change, far more so than the human body’s bicarbonate buffer solution.

            You, Harry, haven’t factored in the oceans being a very strong buffered solution. The partial pressures don’t matter, because the ocean will control the concentration of CO2 rigorously.

            Those who claim it will be more are wrong or are being deliberately misleading. They either don’t know what other salts are dissolved in brine (ocean water) or don’t know their effects on the buffer or choose to ignore it because it makes their message more scary. You choose.

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          • #
            Senex

            Climate scientists have not missed the relationship between rising CO2 levels and rising grant money.

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  • #
    robert rosicka

    Must admit when I heard this yesterday on the radio I thought at least they’re not screaming “more acidic” , but in the end yes it’s just as ridiculous because if it was true these fish would have died out when the earth had higher concentrations of Co2 .

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  • #
    mikewaite

    Of all vertebrate families , that of fish have the greatest species diversity . They have adapted to more individual niches of temperature , salinity , pH, pressure , visibility , etc than any other vertebrates , including humans. No human could survive even the mild British winter naked, but plenty of fish do.

    112

  • #
    PeterS

    They make it sound like the oceans never had CO2 until man came to the scene. I’m sure that’s what they like people to think to boost their CAGW scam. Even if they believe that man is causing a significant increase in CO2 concentration already present in the oceans then as usual the ignorant and propagandists ignore all the facts and come up with false conclusions. Undersea volcanoes also have a bearing on the amount of CO2 present in the oceans. No one knows the amount they collectively produce but it has to be significant given the large numbers of them, and the fact it’s not just active volcanoes but also inactive ones, fissures and the like that constantly seep CO2 and other gases into the water in large quantities. Without taking into account all the factors all they are doing is preaching propaganda to suit their agenda.

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  • #
    nb

    Rising CO2 levels are bad for the scientific method.

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    • #
      PeterS

      The scientific method was never used wrt climate change. If they used the scientific method as intended they would need to replicate our climate on another planet with the exact same conditions as earth, and repeatedly perform experiments to prove or disprove their theories. Since this can’t be done GW alarmists need to rely on fictional models and corrupted/incomplete data to promote their agenda.

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  • #
    toorightmate

    I think they are on to something with this study.
    I have trouble finding my way home when additional CO2 is present

    in my beer.

    100

    • #
      robert rosicka

      Do you reckon we could get a grant for a couple of million and do some research into this very serious problem ? We could test the effects of the various brands over a period of 40 years or until our liver fails but I’m willing to take a hit .

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      • #
        R. B.

        I got a grant to do it, Austudy. Found that lack of CO2 when drinking cheap scotch lead to bigger hangovers.

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  • #
    TdeF

    So increased CO2 means natural selection no longer works? Charles Darwin would be amazed. The slightest change to the environment and the species is wiped out? Really?

    Natural selection is the process by which species change to survive. That’s why there are millions of eggs when one would do. Otherwise it’s a bit of a waste, except for caviar.

    Still, you cannot expect non scientists to understand Darwinian selection, survival of the fittest. Journalists, the new scientists. Instant experts. Perhaps they could read a book on the subject, but journalist do not have to read. They get their science and their politics from the Greens. Just like Malcolm Turnbull who thinks coal power stations are a right wing conspiracy to destroy the planet.

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    • #
      TdeF

      In fact natural selection is why sex exists at all, the blending of genes and hybrid vigour, natural selection. Why do eggs need fertilization? Why aren’t all eggs the same. In fact why don’t fish just give birth to smaller identical fish? Avoids all that messy stuff like courtship. Then when the environment changes, the entire species is wiped out. Science is easy. Just make it up.

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    • #
      robert rosicka

      One thing that’s always worried me about Darwins theory ,natural selection and only the fittest survive is how a sausage dog replaced the T Rex !

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      • #
        TdeF

        The sausage dog was much shorter and ducked when the asteroid arrived.

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      • #
        PeterS

        If anyone studies real science one finds out that natural selection only works with EXISTING information. So for example, a dog in a cold climate will have longer hair than one in a hot climate despite the fact they are from the same type of dog species originally. It’s similar to how we breed a large variety of dog species. It does not in itself results in new information to allow say a dog to evolve into something else. That would require new information by way of some other action, such as mutation or intelligent design, depending on your worldview.

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        • #
          Annie

          How about mutation being part of intelligent design?

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          • #
            PeterS

            Some believe it is, in particular the theistic evolutionists, which IMHO is an oxymoron.

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            • #
              • #
                PeterS

                As I said IMHO. Each to their own. I could go on for hours but suffice to say if you need proof then I nor anyone else can provide it for or against it. It’s a matter of faith regardless of what one’s belief is and how one interprets the available evidence, scientific or otherwise. We don’t have the luxury of definitive proof, but we will one day, IMHO. Be patient 🙂

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        • #
          Harry Twinotter

          “That would require new information by way of some other action, such as mutation or intelligent design, depending on your worldview.”

          Intelligent design is not a world view, it was made up to promote Bible studies.

          You can still get genetic drift when breeding groups become isolated from each other.

          39

        • #
          • #
            Mary E

            1. Galapagos is probably the oddest place on earth, re species and their adaptations (blood drinking finches, come on!) and 2. the finch may have had genes already in place to make such a swift change (or something like that)- it might look and act like a new species, but simply be “adapted” to, er, adapt so quickly to changes.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomic_rank

            30

          • #
            el gordo

            Thanks for that G, it made my day.

            21

          • #
            PeterS

            Yes one can breed a new species very quickly and easily. For example wolf-dog hybridization in a single breeding period has been achieved. Many other similar experiences have been observed. Again, this is evidence of removal, activation or deactivation of existing information (eg, by physical rearrangement of the genes) never the addition of new genetic information. So for example the dog did not grow wings to fly or the finches did not obtain the ability to swim under water like a fish, and they never will unless the information necessary to do these things is somehow added to the gene pool of the species. Perhaps one day we will be able to achieve this but all that will show is intelligence is required to create such information in the first place, let alone add it to an existing species later on. Computer programs, which are far more simple and basic compared to DNA sequencing and function do not come about by random chance mutation; they require an intelligent mind to be generated.

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      • #
        robert rosicka

        I’m wondering where GA is because he is an expert on this subject .

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    • #
      Senex

      A lot of people forget the flip side of natural selection and evolution. If species adapt to changing environments, and new species emerge, then others must become extinct. All of the people who moan and wail every time a species is “facing extinction” are actually trying to halt evolution.

      11

  • #
    TdeF

    The whole Man Made Climate Change thing is like this. Something changed. We will all be wiped out.

    Humans have evolved for millions of years, ice ages, famine, disease, wars. Viruses and bacteria have evolved too, like ebola. It is a battle. If the seas rose, we moved further inland or built boats. Even Noah built a boat.

    If you listen to the science free Greens, we are all doomed if anything changes. No, humans more than any other creature have learned to change their environment. We can survive at the South Pole or on the equator, in space with no air or on the bottom of the ocean. We have learned to exploit the oil and gas and wood and coal to our advantage.

    The Greens live in fear. They want a simpler world with wooden huts in the forest and a paleolithic diet. Still you see them in their inner city cafes with their dogs sipping Lattes and flexitime and raging against a changing world and predicting imminent doom. When they are not flying off for some ‘me time’ in the Maldives. You can hardly call it hypocritical. It is simply selfish, self indulgent ignorance combined with a good does of NIMBY. Send the CO2 to China.

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  • #
    robert rosicka

    Not at all OT given the subject matter .

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-13/rise-in-predatory-publishers-sparks-warning-for-researchers/9640950

    As a matter of fact Jo’s story may be what the warnings about .

    30

  • #
    pat

    meanwhile:

    10 Apr: Nature Communications: Longer and more frequent marine heatwaves over the past century
    (15 AUTHORS LISTED)
    We find that from 1925 to 2016, global average marine heatwave frequency and duration increased by 34% and 17%, respectively, resulting in a 54% increase in annual marine heatwave days globally. Importantly, these trends can largely be explained by increases in mean ocean temperatures, suggesting that we can expect further increases in marine heatwave days under continued global warming…

    Atmospheric heatwaves can have significant impacts on human health and attribution studies have shown that these events, and atmospheric heatwaves in general, have become much more likely as a result of anthropogenic warming. For example, the 2003 European heatwave caused tens of thousands of deaths and was later superseded in intensity by the 2010 European heatwave, events which can be expected to increase in probability over the 2010–2050 period…
    http://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03732-9

    11 Apr: BBC: Climate change dials down Atlantic Ocean heating system
    By Victoria Gill
    A significant shift in the system of ocean currents that helps keep parts of Europe warm could send temperatures in the UK lower, scientists have found.
    They say the Atlantic Ocean circulation system is weaker now than it has been for more than 1,000 years – and has changed significantly in the past 150.
    The study, in the journal Nature, says it may be a response to increased melting ice and is likely to continue…

    Scientists involved in the Atlas project – the largest study of deep Atlantic ecosystems ever undertaken – say the impact will not be of the order played out in the 2004 Hollywood blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow.
    But they say changes to the conveyor-belt-like system – also known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (Amoc) – could cool the North Atlantic and north-west Europe and transform some deep-ocean ecosystems…
    http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43713719

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    • #
      TdeF

      So the current thinking (pun intended) is that left to itself, nothing ever changes. Therefore all change is Climate Change caused by Global Warming caused by increased CO2 caused by fossil fuels? Self evident really.

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      • #
        TdeF

        The corollary of that is that if it cannot be explained by Man Made Climate Change Global Warming then it is just natural variation. That is why the absolute predictions are wrong. They are not wrong, just disguised by (unexplained) natural variation. So much for science.

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    • #
      David-of-Cooyal-in-Oz

      Thanks Pat,
      But what is a “marine heatwave”? It’s a new term to me, and no defintion has appeared so far.
      Cheers,
      Dave B

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  • #
    pat

    11 Apr: AP: Study: Global warming is weakening key ocean circulation
    By SETH BORENSTEIN
    Andreas Schmittner at Oregon State University, who also wasn’t part of the studies, said the Potsdam group’s analysis makes sense, adding that as the world emits more greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels, we can expect it to slow further.
    But MIT’s Carl Wunsch said that the paper’s “assertions of weakening are conceivable, but unsupported by any data.”
    And Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research said his recent work faults regular cycles in the atmosphere more than the ocean. He said the Potsdam study doesn’t explain year to year variability, while atmospheric cycles do.
    Rahmstorf said his study averages data over a decade at a time to render year-to-year changes less meaningful. The work shows that it is ocean circulation that drives the changes in atmosphere, not the other way around, he said.
    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_WEAKER_OCEAN?SITE=SCAND&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

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  • #
    Tony

    Anything to say about current record April heat instead of recycled stories and blabbering all time about power station. It is hard to look someone in the eye and say climate not changing faster when they see heat for themselves. Do you live in real world?

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    • #
      Annie

      Tried looking at all the lows in the NH for balance? A bit of heat in this part of Australia is merely local, not global. Look at Iceagenow…climate always changes…nothing new.

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    • #
      Harry Twinotter

      Tony.

      I for one do not expect balance in this blog. This blog has an agenda, clearly.

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      • #
        toorightmate

        No agenda Harry, but it sure shows up those that are out of balance – no names mentioned.
        You’re safe, I wont mention your name.

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      • #
        manalive

        The atmospheric temperature trend since satellite records began will also disappoint.

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        • #
          Harry Twinotter

          Manalive.

          Why are you showing only part of the satellite data?

          Try Dr Roy Spencer’s data set. He shows the complete data.

          http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_March_2018_v6.jpg

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          • #
            manalive

            I was replying to commenter Tony who was referring to April, so was I.

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          • #
            manalive

            I get your point Harry, the link shows only that portion of the UAH satellite record concurrent with and relevant to the CMIP model projections starting ~1997, not hindcasts.

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            • #
              Harry Twinotter

              manalive.

              “I get your point Harry, the link shows only that portion of the UAH satellite record concurrent with and relevant to the CMIP model projections starting ~1997, not hindcasts.”

              Well if you think that is the case, citation. The chart has cherry-picking AND bad documentation. It obviously was not taken from a scientific paper or anything.

              I do find the dodgeball going on very entertaining. “There is no global warming” – but the chart shows there is. “There is global warming, but it does not match the model projections” – but the model projects match within 2-sigma confidence levels. “There was no global warming between years X1 and X2” – the period of time is too short to be statistically-significant. “Al Gore is a rich fatman” – well you got me there, global warming must be a lie then.

              People who can think for themselves and understand scientific are not climate change deniers.

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                manalive

                Harry, no-one is saying there is no warming taking place during the satellite record, that’s a straw man argument, a logical fallacy.
                The warming as recorded by satellites and balloons since 1995 when the IPCC model predictions began (as opposed to hindcasts) don’t come within a bull’s roar of the those models and if the period of testing against observations is too short (23 years), let’s wait and see what happens in the next twenty years before wasting more $Bs ‘fighting Climate Change™’.

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      • #
        el gordo

        Harry do you have an answer for the anomalously warm Tasman Sea?

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKwD0xmcePs

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          Harry Twinotter

          The Tasman Sea heatwave? No idea.

          I can’t recall if it is breaking any records, there was something about it on the BOM website somewhere.

          http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/scs64.pdf

          If you want to investigate further, I suggest you try to find any trend data for at least 30 years.

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            el gordo

            Thanks Harry, my fears have been realised.

            ‘Sea surface temperatures in the southern Tasman Sea were above average throughout 2017 but rose sharply from November, reaching 2 °C or more above average1 over most of the Tasman Sea south of 35 °S. In November, they were at record-high levels over a region extending from New Zealand to Tasmania. This warming coincided with an extended period of blocking high pressure over the Tasman Sea sector.’

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      • #
        Senex

        Well, duh. Which blog doesn’t? If you don’t like it, feel free to post CONSTRUCTIVE comments and criticism, or if that’s not your style, feel free to piss off.

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        • #
          Harry Twinotter

          Senex.

          “feel free to piss off”

          Language!

          You do have a point though, I only come to Conspiracy Theory blogs when I am slumming. The “arguments” put forth here are mostly just right-wing political trash.

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          • #
            el gordo

            ‘…are mostly just right-wing political trash.’

            Hmmm …. I’m from the far left comrade and enjoy the wide ranging discussions on political science, atmospheric science and paleo climate history.

            The blog is in need of more contrarians, so hang around and bring your Skeptical Science bible as a back up.

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      manalive

      Oh for pity’s sake get a grip, so far this April the global atmosphere temperature is in “free fall”.
      More information here.

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      yarpos

      Bit hysterical Tony. You think records can never be broken? or is it when they are its a fantastically big deal symptomatic of global disaster? (rather than a passing factoid)

      This is the greenie imagined world of mythical past stability. Over recent history just do a little basic research on global and regional max/min temps as that seems to be a focus for you. Hint: very few of them have been established in recent times. I’m guessing you wont even look as you might find something that disturbs your estbalished world view.

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      el gordo

      Tony the reason for the unusual weather in south east Australia is down to the ‘blocking highs’ which as you well know is caused by the subtropical ridge losing intensity.

      This is a relatively recent phenomenon and is related to the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The weather has been grand but a cool change is coming to end our joy.

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        Harry Twinotter

        Well it is only weather. But the BOM does point this out:

        “In addition to our natural climate drivers, Australian climate patterns are being influenced by the long-term trend in global air and ocean temperatures. Winter maximum temperatures have increased by 1C over the past century, with three of the top five warmest winters in the past 108 years occurring since 2009. Oceans around Australia have warmed by slightly more, with four of our top five warmest years since 2010.”

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        • #
          el gordo

          Yeah okay, but the main problem is trying tp convince the Denialati that the warmer winters have been caused by an increase in CO2.

          The ‘blocking highs’ are a recent phenomenon, beginning in the Austral winter of 2017, so we should be looking for some other mechanism to cause those warmer winters in the SH.

          For over a decade BoM have been saying the intensification of the subtropical ridge is a global warming signal, which I agree with, but now that the STR has collapsed we’ll have to assume its a global cooling signal.

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      TdeF

      I don’t know about these records. Did they pick a specific town? In a lifetime of Easters and what we used to call Indian Summers, I well remember some at 100F. We often in Melbourne at least enjoyed a hot Easter and in the family home in Deniliquin NSW it could be roasting. That was normal.

      However if someone has found a record, good. They have to be broken sometime. Does it mean anything? Probably not.

      Of course it could be Climate Change which appears to mean any warm days at all.

      Are cold days Climate Change too?

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        TdeF

        Remember that the BOM in their wisdom refuse to consider the records they inherited and start there ‘for all time’ in 1909, just a century ago. That makes the chance of record heat at least twice as high.

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        Harry Twinotter

        The April record was broken for all of Australia.

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      sophocles

      Yeah: it’s local, it’s part of natural variation and in a few days/weeks/or even months it will be gone. It’s only weather.

      On the other side of the Tasman, it’s been darned cold and very wet. That’s only weather too.

      Want to swap?

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    Greg in NZ

    What’s next: CO₂ causes bald kittens and confused dogs?

    Jo, you’ve summed-up perfectly the dis-ease which ‘runaway carbon’ has infected certain New Zealand leaders with as of late. It’s not so much bald dogs and confused kittens (though some resemble these descriptors), it’s more the look of the proverbial stunned mullet [see 2nd photo in link below of coalition members at press conference].

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/top/354855/govt-scorns-oil-industry-s-surprise-over-permits-move

    A more-fitting headline might be: Government Sharks And Blow-Fish Dazed And Confused Due To Catastrophic Beehive Gas [am still awaiting my 1st-ever fossil fuel cheque so I can knock together a half-decent hypothesis on this subject].

    BTW, the hill country is covered with snow from Fiordland in the deep south right up to the volcanoes in the north, including the higher peaks around the East Cape, thanks to the 3-day-long Blizzard of April (with more on the way). As ‘your’ ex-pat Russel Norman, ex-NZ Greens leader and now Greenpeace NZ leader, says, ironically, in the article: “the world was waking up to the realities of climate change.”

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  • #
    Earl

    I have often wondered what greens use for brains.
    The other day, after a particularly large bowel motion, I looked into the toilet bowl, and there it was, what the greens use for brains.

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      toorightmate

      Earl,
      The Greens don’t use anything for brains – they live in a brain-free environment.

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    pat

    ***”Science is proving the link” – a headline debunked in DW’s own sub-heading, and throughout this deceptive article!

    11 Apr: Deutsche Welle: Climate change and extreme weather: ***Science is proving the link
    Pinning down blame for complex weather events isn’t straightforward. But cutting-edge science is rapidly shrinking the space to argue that the crazy weather we’re experiencing isn’t due to greenhouse gas emissions.
    by Ruby Russell

    Around the world, ever more of us seem to be experiencing freak storms, floods and droughts — from catastrophes that devastate whole regions, to local heat waves and floods that leave us thinking: Surely it didn’t used to be like this?

    Since the early 1990s, scientists have been able to clearly show a rise in the average global temperature due to human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.
    With the Earth getting hotter, heat waves become more intense and more frequent. High temperatures evaporate more water, so average global rainfall increases too. With more energy and water vapor in the system, circulation patterns change how weather systems develop, causing severe storms in some regions and drought in others.
    Pinning the blame for any given weather event — of even global weather trends — has long been controversial. Yet scientists are getting closer to establishing the link…

    A WWA (World Weather Attribution project) study found that southern Europe’s unusually hot summer last year was 10 times more likely as a result of climate change, and the intense August heat wave dubbed Lucifer made four times more probable.
    CHART: Lucifer rising: Europe at greater risk of heat waves…

    “The larger-scale it is, the easier it is to attribute and predict; the smaller-scale, the harder,” (Gavin) Schmidt said. “And the more it’s related directly to temperature the easier; the more it’s related to water, the harder,” he continued.
    But the science continues getting better — models are becoming more complex and more fine-grained.
    As this happens, attribution studies are getting churned out faster.

    Claudia Tebaldi, a climate statistician at the United States National Center for Atmospheric Research, says when the field of weather attribution emerged about a decade ago, it took a couple of years to produce a study.
    Now, simpler events can me modeled in just a few days — and that’s key to informing public debate.
    “There are some big events that will be talked about for a long time — like Harvey, because people are still suffering the consequences.”
    “But for smaller events, it’s important to have something to say as (or right after) the event unfolds, because the news cycle moves on,” Tebaldi told DW.
    http://www.dw.com/en/climate-change-and-extreme-weather-science-is-proving-the-link/a-43323706

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    pat

    a must-read:

    12 Apr: Breitbart: James Delingpole: Government Watchdog Reprimands BBC for Telling Truth About Climate Change
    http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2018/04/12/delingpole-government-watchdog-reprimands-bbc-for-telling-truth-about-climate-change/

    lol:

    12 Apr: Guardian Editorial: The Guardian view on the BBC: we should cherish and defend it
    The BBC has myriad faults, and frequently stumbles in its aim for impartiality. But it represents a valuable and increasingly fragile public space. And for that it must be treasured.

    It is easy to become frustrated with the BBC. On the right, the complaint has always been that the corporation is an overmighty behemoth staffed by overpaid lefties. In more progressive circles, there has recently been anger over the time devoted to climate change deniers (such as Nigel Lawson) and pro-Brexit positions…
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/11/the-guardian-view-on-the-bbc-we-should-cherish-and-defend-it

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    RickWill

    Actually this research deserves some credit. Can you imagine the discussion around a research project like this. The priorities on a whiteboard;
    1. Must be related to increasing atmospheric CO2.
    2. Must have a result that reinforces that evil of CO2.
    3. Should have the least complicated connection between CO2 and evil.
    4. Should pull on the heart strings of the those dishing out the research funds.

    Bingo – So lets see what happens if we bubble CO2 into a tank that has baby fish in it!

    It has all the required ingredients; has to be a winner. I noted the word “acidification” gets used 28 times – impressive.

    As far as I can assess the report has no recommendation for more funding. That is a surprise as it appears a missed opportunity.

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      OriginalSteve

      Reading through The Conversation last night ( yes, for some reason I am a sucker for punishment…) people were with a straight face talking earnestly about burying co2 in the ground….

      All I could think of is the character “lucy” from Penauts who couldnt handle dumb stuff …..”my stomach hurts…” she used to say….

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    PeterS

    It’s all so stupid. Here there are worrying about CO2 concentration “jumping” from 0.035% to 0.04% and beyond to say 0.05% and the world is threatened with disastrous consequences? I do understand that even small changes can sometimes cause significant impacts to the environment but this is not small – it’s tiny. If it went from 0.04% to say 1% then I might be concerned. I’m more concerned about the dramatic weakening of the earth’s magnetic field.

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      Harry Twinotter

      Sigh.

      I see the same old talking points being recycled.

      I like this twist though. Deny rising CO2 is increasing the global temperature and the majority of climate scientists agree with the evidence. But worry about fluctuations in the magnetic field of the earth even though there is NO scientific evidence of any harm (at least no evidence that I have been able to find).

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        toorightmate

        Harry,
        The CO2 horsesh*t has to stop.
        Would you like to give me some of your “scientific” references which you deem to be infallible.

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          Harry Twinotter

          toorightmate.

          “Would you like to give me some of your “scientific” references which you deem to be infallible.”

          Well you obviously do not believe the majority of the climate scientists, you must have a reason thinking you are right and they are wrong.

          Which area do you want references on – there are many. The website Skeptical Science has thousands.

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            PeterS

            Just because the word “science” is used in “climate science” or “skeptical science” does not make it true necessarily, just as Scientology is not necessarily true (and is not true anyway but an evil cult IMHO). We here deal with facts and logic, not distortions of the truth and data to fit a predetermined agenda. If you really believe in the CAGW agenda then I suggest to convince the rest of the world to stop building hundreds of new coal fired power stations rather than wasting your time here where we are already shutting down ours.

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        RickWill

        But worry about fluctuations in the magnetic field of the earth even though there is NO scientific evidence of any harm (at least no evidence that I have been able to find).

        I can give you at least one example.

        The linkage between the magnetic field, cosmic rays and air crew radiation dosage is well documented. The increased incidence of cancer among air crew is not conclusive but is subject to major study using actual data.

        Quote
        Occupational studies of aircrew in civil or military aviation did not receive much attention until the beginning of this decade. Since 1990, a number of epidemiological studies has been published on the cancer risk among flight personnel. Their results are equivocal: elevated cancer risks have been observed in some studies, but not in others. The exposure situation for pilots and flight attendants is unique with respect to several factors and particularly in that cosmic rays contribute substantially to their cumulative radiation dose. The average annual doses received are relatively low, however, and commonly range between 3 and 6 mSv. Results of epidemiological studies are presented as well as information on planned studies.

        Occupational cancer risk in pilots and… (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/13556447_Occupational_cancer_risk_in_pilots_and_flight_attendants_Current_epidemiological_knowledge [accessed Apr 13 2018].
        Unquote

        The linkage between burning fossil fuel, increased levels of CO2 and increasing global temperature are only modelled. There is no data that confirms the speculation; it remains un unproven hypothesis.

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          Harry Twinotter

          RickWill.

          The reference you give does not mention magnetic fields.

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            RickWill

            Harry T
            I assumed you would be aware of the well known proven linkage between cosmic rays reaching Earth’s atmosphere and the Earth’s magnetic field.
            https://www.solarcitizens.org.au/survey_2018?e=1d2b33a2af7a9b1888b1c3c393764fcdadeb095b&utm_source=solarcitizens&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2018_supporter_survey&n=2

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            RickWill

            Harry T
            I assumed you would be aware of the well known proven linkage between cosmic rays reaching Earth’s atmosphere and the Earth’s magnetic field.
            https://phys.org/news/2012-11-cosmic-rays-reveal-event-earth.html

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              Harry Twinotter

              RickWill.

              I am aware of the earth’s magnetosphere. Keep in mind there are more than one type of cosmic ray – some come from the sun and some come from outside the solar system.

              What is your point?

              The original reference you gave does not mention magnetic fields which is my point. So it does not say anything about whether the radiation will increase or decrease because of flucuations in the earth’s magnetic field.

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                sophocles

                Then you should watch and listen to this and you just might be educated.

                The earth’s magnetic field is highly permeable to high energy galactic cosmic rays. The solar magnetic field (it’s drawn out by the Solar Wind) is the Earth’s major protector. As the sun snoozes and it’s magnetic protection lessens, GCRs (Galactic Cosmic Rays) are not deflected away from earth as much so our GCR exposure rises. (Think: less magnetic field, more GCRs).

                However, GCRs of lower energy are having more effect on Terrestrial weather than they used to because the planet’s magnetic field is also weakening. Watch the video and find out all about it.

                All cosmic rays are just nuclear particles. Some are protons some are helium nuclei, some are heavier atoms and some are fragments of atomic nuclei. Those from the sun are of generally significantly less energy than those from the galaxy and that’s about the only difference which matters.

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                Harry Twinotter

                sophocles.

                I don’t usually get my science from lawyers assistants who happen to have a YouTube channel.

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          Harry Twinotter

          “The linkage between burning fossil fuel, increased levels of CO2 and increasing global temperature are only modelled. There is no data that confirms the speculation; it remains un unproven hypothesis.”

          There is plenty of linkages. And no, the evidence does not depend on computer models.

          You obviously have not done much reading on the subject. Go check out the Skeptical Science website for starters, it has thousands of references.

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            RickWill

            Harry T
            Pick what you consider to be the best evidence you can find and post it here. I will show you why it is nonsense.

            Can you believe that the IPCC still have the linked chart in AR5:
            https://www.ipcc.ch/report/graphics/images/Assessment%20Reports/AR5%20-%20WG1/Chapter%2002/Fig2-11.jpg

            Notice the back radiation of 342W/sq.m coming from a cold atmosphere to a hotter surface. Climate “science” is the only “science” that defies the second law of thermodynamics. Look how silly that diagram is. It has 161W/sq.m of solar insolation coming getting to the surface and then twice that amount of energy coming down from the atmosphere. No one could go outdoors if there was that much energy streaming down. This is the basis of the models. Its so sad to see this rubbish dished up as science.

            I give NASA a little more credit. They no longer show this nonsense in their training material:
            https://pmm.nasa.gov/education/lesson-plans/global-energy-budget

            I would not call the sudden disappearance of 342W/sq.m “back radiation” trivial in the scheme of things. It is over twice the energy from the sun. Think about that for a minute!

            So we have NASA and the IPCC showing a 342W/sq.m difference between the incoming radiation to the Earth’s surface and then they claim that a CO2 caused imbalance of 0.6W/sq.m is heating the planet catastrophically. It is so far fetched it is sad to see this stuff labelled “science”. IPCC reports are fairy tales.

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            Kinky Keith

            ,” it has thousands of references” —- for the gullible, the uneducated and the easily manipulated.

            KK

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              Harry Twinotter

              Kinky Keith.

              No, you are describing climate change denial blogs there, not Skeptical Science.

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            sophocles

            There is plenty of linkages. And no, the evidence does not depend on computer models.

            Wrong Harry. There has been as much cooling over the 1950s-1970s as there has been warming since 1983. I’ve lived through all that. The prats who are running around like headless chooks now were running around like headless chooks back then. It was all blamed on mankind’s burning of fossil fuels then as the warming is blamed on mankind’s burning of fossil fuels now.

            How very stupid.

            Over the 1950s, atmospheric testing of fission and fusion bombs were blamed. That was actually useful because of the Partial Test Ban Treaty signed in 1963 which pushed such testing underground. It also contained enforcement clauses and everybody built seismograph networks and extended microphone networks into the sea bed around nation’s coasts.

            The monitors soon noticed rumblings and bangs which all appeared in certain areas and along certain lines when the sources were triangulated. That evidence was turned into the modern theory of Plate Tectonics and got some real investigations going. There was the Global Explorer, which sailed around the work drilling sea bottom cores from which even more was learned.

            Even though the bomb testing was underground. it got cooler and ice in the north atlantic expanded to the point where the strait between Iceland and Greenland iced up every winter. Next, someone started speculating that we were slipping into another ice age and this was the end of the Holocene. Burning fossil fuels was blamed.

            In 1983, the cooling switched to warming. It had been warming through the 1930s until about 1940 when it switched to cooling. When the PDO switched back to warming, burning fossil fuels was blamed again.

            No Harry, that has all the hall-marks of a cycle. Fossil fuels have nothing to do with it. John Tyndall and Svante Arrhenius got it wrong: CO2 does not warm the atmosphere, it actually cools it. Nature is still much mightier than puny little man whose hubris refuses to acknowledge it. It had cooled over the 1890s to about 1910 then warmed after 1920 to the end of the 1930s and back to cooling until 1983 and back to warming again.

            A cycle Harry. Nothing to do with fossil fuels. Blaming it on fossil fuels is the finest pseudoscience money—lots and lots of it—can buy.

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    Dennis

    Reminds me about the fisherman with small fish in a bucket approached by a fishing inspector who challenged him for catching under size fish.

    The man replied that is not correct, they are pets bred in captivity and I bring them here for exercising. The inspector responded then show me how you exercise them. The fisherman tipped them into the river and both men stood waiting a while, and then the inspector asked where the fish were.

    The fisherman replied, “what fish”.

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    RGB

    I wonder if the reseachers bothered to think about the fact that Barramundi only live in warmer tropical waters, where there is less CO2 in the water? Perhaps that’s why they live there.

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    Greg in NZ

    Either there’s a major malfunction with the automated thermometers or there’s an ™unprecedented™ space-cold snap happening in Bombala, NSW today, this Friday the 13th: 55˚C below zero at 8:51 am? c/- the usual suspects –

    http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDN60801/IDN60801.94929.shtml

    Also happening down in Antarctica today with a site on Dome Fuji / Valkyrie recording -96˚C.

    http://amrc.ssec.wisc.edu/data/view-data.php?action=view_image&product=surface/plot/TAC.GIF

    Watts up with that? (saved screenshots as numbers update/change).

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      RickWill

      It actually got down to -55.7C at 9.44am (according to BoM). I hope no one froze. The river should be a good place for ice skating today.

      Wow that is cold. Will be interesting to see how this value gets homogenised.

      McMudo in Antarctica only got down to -27C today. Bombala might have the record for the coldest place on the planet surface today. Mt Everest also only made -27C. Oymyakon, Siberia only managed -21C.

      Actually when it is that cold on the ground there is a good chance of radiation from the atmosphere to the ground. Just points out Hansen was not completely wrong.

      I wonder if we will see the ABC report this nonsense. I remember this January they reported the surface temperature at the tennis was 60C.

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    MudCrab

    Skimmed through the paper. If I am reading it correctly the tanks used were 60L which strikes me as rather a small volume within which to ‘prove’ these fishies are getting lost.

    Am I missing anything here?

    I also noted with mild bemusement that the paper’s authors admit “Little is known of the hearing sensitivity in barramundi larvae.” Given that the entire testing method seems to revolve around audio clues this does strike me as a slightly important consideration.

    Another question mark I have is just how important are the audio clues for young fishies? The paper seems to vague over something to do with other changes starting to disrupt the normal physical and chemical clues. What are they suggesting here? That Global Warming remove all other fish clues EXCEPT audio? If you change the CO2 levels but the fish can still see/smell/taste the correct path than do we really care that much that the audio input has been degraded?

    And also also, so what? What happens to these baby fish who end up in the left part of the 60L tank instead of the right side? Do they instantly die? Are they forced to forever roam the oceans like some gilled Flying Dutchman? It is strongly implied this is a Bad Thing but without defining why.

    Am I missing something obvious here or is this paper just further proof to my theory that higher education is just day care for the unemployable?

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  • #
    a happy little debunker

    Forget the bald kittens,
    In the mid 70’s you hardly ever saw a male chrome dome, now you see them everywhere – so it must be all that global warming.

    If the trend fits, wear it!

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    Harry Twinotter

    “If it half the babies are wiped out, Barramundi numbers will drop temporarily — then five or six years later the new generation will be better adapted to higher CO2.”

    Citation?

    I am more interested in the SE Australia heat wave. The BOM says the 9th of April 2018 was Australia’s hottest April day on record. Record being broken are always interesting, even if it is just the weather.

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      Annie

      As in the NH, eh? Where are your citations? You always try demanding them of others, just to sound good. I can’t recall anything else produced by you.

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      RickWill

      I am more interested in the SE Australia heat wave. The BOM says the 9th of April 2018 was Australia’s hottest April day on record. Record being broken are always interesting, even if it is just the weather.

      I much more worried about the freezing soles in Bombala today – beware Friday 13th.
      https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aq1iAj8Yo7jNgnw76SqbCA7M6raC

      According to the BoM, Bombala is likely the coldest place on Earth surface today.

      So it may have been hotter than average on 9th but it is FREEZING on 13th. A little colder and CO2 would be freezing.

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      Hanrahan

      Read upon the Australian fresh water rainbow fish. Every river system has a different specie and some tributaries have separate fish from the main river and PNG has some beautiful fish that are different again. These pretty but seemingly fragile fish are incredibly heat resistant, they need to be. They can survive in the last small water holes and puddles that are under the baking sun, waiting for the next wet season.

      Don’t argue with Darwin.

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      Mark M

      Quote Harry Twitter:

      “I am more interested in the SE Australia heat wave.
      The BOM says the 9th of April 2018 was Australia’s hottest April day on record.
      Record being broken are always interesting, even if it is just the weather.”

      Further evidence solar panels, windfarms and the “world’s biggest battery” fails to stop climate change.

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        Hanrahan

        Weather records, cricket records and bingo cards seem to be infinitely variable, with bingo cards the only one with a real limit on them.

        20

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      MudCrab

      Remember kids, Harry has made it clear that we must read what he wrote and that misrepresentation is rude. Hence it is very important we understand the message Harry is telling us here.
      ‘I am more interested in the SE Australia heat wave.’
      So, in Harry’s own words, attempts at discovering relationships between CO2 levels and animal life is less interesting than shiny press releases from the BOM, an organisation that has been frequently been shown to manipulate data and isolate spot temperatures in the name of self promotion.
      Personally I feel a bit of sympathy for the authors of our fishy little research paper. While their paper is pretty much pointless junk we should probably at least give the authors the benefit and assume they set out in their little fish tank adventures with a pure and noble heart – and not because government grant money pays better than the dole – and that the work they were doing was an attempt to better our future world.
      The BOM reports by comparison are either pointless drivel released using corrupt methodology they are in practical terms clickbait, or simple reinforcement of the Warmist belief that the world is being Warmed to Gosh!(tm). A True Warmist would already know the world was warming beyond a shadow of doubt and not need the BOM to hold their hand. Instead they should in all logic be more concerned with research studies that show to the rest of the world just how damaging increased CO2 would be to our entire way of life.
      Remember people, part of the counter argument to Global Warming(tm) is not only ‘Actually it’s not warming’ but also ‘so what if it is?’
      But I am getting into speculation land here and the important thing to remember from this discussion is that Harry finds BOM press releases more interesting than discussions about attempted CO2 research. Those were his words and it would rude to claim otherwise.
      (Also the cold front has come through and weather in SE Australia is now cold, wet and rather unpleasant. Any chance that Harry could get his BOM friends to bring the nice warm weather back?)

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    Leonard Lane

    It is truly sad to see how much global warming/climate change has done to many scientists. I wonder what the proportion of data/results fudging or cheating or incompetent scientists or both. Are we turning out dishonest or incompetent scientists or both?
    But again, there are so many non-scientists (psychologists, Marxists sociologists,advertisers, press release writers, journalists, etc., etc.) calling what they do as a science or scientific?

    I don’t know the number, but I believe it may well be close to 100%.

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      toorightmate

      Harry Twinotter is a perfect example of the non-scientist dopes.

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        sophocles

        Steady on there, toorightmate, he doesn’t have try at all hard to be a cretinous coprocephalic, it just comes naturally.

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      I believe you’ll find nonsense like this in any science field. We aren’t looking in those fields so don’t see them.

      And the non-scientists jumping on the band wagon are simply that; people pushing their own agenda while using anything as an excuse, in this case CO2 causes ??? so we need to do ??? or not-do ???. There’s no science to it. Sometimes there is curve fitting, or correlation, but that ain’t science either.

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  • #
    Geoffrey Williams

    In my humble opinion, studies of this nature are completely useless. No more to say.
    GeoffW

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  • #

    The ‘shadow men’ on a very ‘mechanical orange’ atmosphere to describe a system of corruption and slavery and show that in the 21st century everyone should be rich. Rich!

    https://huemaurice5.blogspot.fr/2014/10/levez-vous.html

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  • #
    pat

    a FakeNews tale – bear with me.

    South Africa declared early March that Cape Town’s Day Zero was – conditionally – unlikely this year.

    7 Mar: DailyMaverick South Africa: Cape Town: ‘Day Zero’ will not occur in 2018, announces (Democratic Alliance Leader) Mmusi Maimane
    by Leila Dougan
    “If we continue and we have rainfall in the winter, even if it’s similar (rainfall) to last year, we can ensure that Day Zero will not occur in 2018. This means the taps will remain open for this current year. We need to hope for rain this year and we need to ensure that residents continue to save water,” said Maimane…
    He said the task team is moving forward with desalination and tapping into groundwater resources. The DA leader said as much as 190-million litres of water will be accessed daily within this year, 220-million litres per day will be accessed in 2019 and 300-million by 2020 through augmentation projects…

    As at 6 March dam storage was at 23.6% with the last 10% of water being unusable, this means only 13.6% of water remains before the expected (but not imminent) winter rains…
    “We are not making any assumptions around (winter) rainfall, said Neilson. “That could put us in a false sense of comfort.”…
    https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-03-07-cape-town-day-zero-will-not-occur-in-2018-announces-mmusi-maimane/

    3 Apr: Reuters: Cape Town ‘Day Zero’ pushed back to 2019 as dams fill up in South Africa
    by Ed Stoddard
    Relief for Cape Town, a major tourist draw famed for its mountain backdrop, beaches and nearby wine farms, may also be imminent, with good seasonal rains forecast. Cape Town typically gets rain in the southern hemisphere winter, starting around May. Above-average-rainfall is now forecast over the next three months, according to the latest seasonal outlook from the South African Weather Service…

    our CAGW-infested MSM weren’t interested in this potential good news and now they’ve moved on:

    11 Apr: CNBC: Cities around the world should prepare for running out of water, experts say
    •Cape Town’s recent water shortage crisis has raised global concern about the threat of water scarcity.
    •The increasing risks have cast a spotlight on the issue of water theft and mitigation efforts.
    by Andrew Wong
    That future isn’t just Cape Town’s. It’s a scenario cities around the globe may face, experts say…
    A nation’s development has frequently come at the cost of undercutting its sources of clean water, Betsy Otto, director of the World Resources Institute’s global water program told CNBC.
    “For example, quite a bit of scientific evidence has shown that deforestation changed the hydrological cycle in the Amazon,” she said…

    Still, it is extremely important that water scarcity is acknowledged as a global problem because cities should begin working on unique solutions to local problems now, according to Rebecca Keller, a senior science and technology analyst at intelligence firm Stratfor
    “It won’t be the same exact scenario that Cape Town is facing,” Keller said. “It might be pollution, drought, drier climates or significant population growth.”…

    The troubles faced by Cape Town should serve as a “wake-up call” for other countries about the realities of increasing water stress, Otto said…
    “There should be two tiers of pricing. Conservation pricing, which charges the minimum amount for water that is sufficient for basic needs, should be provided at low rates. Discretionary water use, which is anything beyond the necessary amount, should be charged more,” (Betsy Otto, director of the World Resources Institute’s global water program) said…
    https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/cape-town-water-crisis-cities-should-prepare-for-water-scarcity.html

    13 Apr: Daily Mail: After Cape Town, cities across the globe are warned to take action NOW to prevent water running out
    Cape Town saved from reaching ‘Day Zero’ – running out of water – last month
    Now a series of other cities around world warned of the possibility of drought
    Among them are Jakarta, Mexico City, Sao Paulo and even Melbourne, Australia
    by Iain Burns
    Betsy Otto, the director of the World Resources Institute’s water programme, told NBC News that most cities around the world are not at risk of drought…
    But Rebecca Keller, a science analyst at statistical and intelligence firm Stratfor, said cities around the world should still be concerned…

    12 Apr: UKExpress: World on brink of running out of WATER: Experts warn cities to prepare as Day Zero looms
    CITIES around the world are at risk of running out of water, with Cape Town in South Africa at risk of becoming the first to be hit in the worst drought since records began.
    By Chloe Kerr
    Rebecca Keller, a senior science and technology analyst at intelligence firm Stratfor told CNBC: “It won’t be the same exact scenario that Cape Town is facing.
    “It might be pollution, drought, drier climates or significant population growth.”…
    National Geographic predicts major cities such as Mexico City, several cities in India, Jakarta and even Melbourne, Australia are at risk…

    more to come…

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    • #
      pat

      apart from the silliness of CIA wannabes Stratfor being quoted, we are told National Geographic “predicts” “cities such as Mexico City, several cities in India, Jakarta and even Melbourne, Australia are at risk”, referencing the following piece by CRAIG WELCH, who is apparently making the predictions. note Jakarta in the list tho it’s situation is not CAGW-related:

      5 Mar: National Geographic: Why Cape Town Is Running Out of Water, and Who’s Next
      The South African city plans to shut off the taps to 4 million people. But it’s just one of many cities around the world facing a future with too little water.
      By ***Craig Welch
      Population growth and a record drought, perhaps exacerbated by climate change, is sparking one of the world’s most dramatic urban water crises, as South African leaders warn that residents are increasingly likely to face “Day Zero.”…

      For years, a shutdown of this magnitude in such a cosmopolitan city had been almost inconceivable. But as overdevelopment, population growth, and climate change upset the balance between water use and supply, urban centers from North America to South America and from Australia to Asia increasingly face threats of severe drinking-water shortages…

      Already, many of the 21 million residents of Mexico City only have running water part of the day, while one in five get just a few hours from their taps a week. Several major cities in India don’t have enough. Water managers in Melbourne, Australia, reported last summer that they could run out of water in little more than a decade. Jakarta is running so dry that the city is sinking faster than seas are rising, as residents suck up groundwater from below the surface…

      Much like Cape Town’s fiasco, reservoirs in Sao Paulo, Brazil, dropped so low in 2015 that pipes drew in mud, emergency water trucks were looted, and the flow of water to taps in many homes was cut to just a few hours twice a week…
      “Sao Paulo was down to less than 20 days of water supply,” says Betsy Otto, director of the global water program at the World Resources Institute…

      Meanwhile, climate change is causing wider swings in weather, with more intense storms and more extreme events. “Think of southern California’s record snowpack after five years of drought followed by more drought—such swings are likely to be the new normal,” she says…
      https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/cape-town-running-out-of-water-drought-taps-shutoff-other-cities/

      ***NatGeo Bio: Craig Welch
      He started at National Geographic in 2015 after 15 years with The Seattle Times…
      He was part of a team that won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News for coverage of the deadliest landslide in U.S. history, and has won journalism awards from the National Academy of Sciences, the Society of Environmental Journalists, and the Overseas Press Club, among others. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.

      more to come…

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  • #
    TdeF

    I notice Twotter has reappeared. Now most of the comments have a red thumb. A coincidence or comment Climate Change?

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    • #
      TdeF

      Also he refers people to Skeptical Science, which should be named UnSkeptical Science. A site for true believers, the true deniers.

      The best denial is “the cheerleaders for doing something about global warming seem to be largely the cheerleaders for many causes of which I disapprove”. However, what is causing global warming is a purely scientific question. Skeptical Science removes the politics from the debate by concentrating solely on the science.

      You can always tell non skeptical people, non science people because the talk about ‘The Science’. I had never heard the phrase ‘The Science’ until the Global Warming activists started pushing their barrows. I think it’s short for ‘The Science is IN” or perhaps draws its religious overtones from ‘The Bible’.

      So the red thumbs will now proliferate, even for an article which deserves ridicule. Unskeptical science. People with careers in Climate Change.

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      • #
        Graeme No.3

        TdeF:

        Much as I think most Climate Change boosters are third rate (ethical challenged) non scientists I cannot think that they would want Harry….on second thoughts he would fit in there right at home.

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        • #
          robert rosicka

          I’m still laughing over twots link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification

          Three lines down click on citation number 3 , it says that if all the fossil fuel in the world was burned the oceans wouldn’t become more acidic .

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          • #
            TdeF

            “The ocean would not become acidic even if it were to absorb the CO2 produced from the combustion of all fossil fuel resources”

            Of course. 98% of gaseous CO2 is already in the ocean. You could add another 2% and it would only be 2%.
            Besides it is a massively buffered alkali solution. Think of the white cliffs of Dover. They and the great Barrier reef would have to dissolve first.

            Besides, gases flow freely both ways across the air/water interface, the nett effect being Henry’s Law which say that the warmer the water, the more CO2 in the air. The flat beer effect. To reduce alkali levels (called acidification) you would have to have warmer water absorb more CO2, the reverse of real Science and Henry’s Law.

            Still the CSIRO had a world conference on Ocean Acidification in Hobart two years ago. You have to wonder what they do for a living the CSIRO. Not much apparently.

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            • #
              robert rosicka

              Thanks TdeF I didn’t know that 98% of gaseous Co2 was hiding in the oceans .

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              • #
                TdeF

                CO2 unlike O2 and N2 is very polar, highly compressible. The pressures in the ocean at 1 atmosphere every 10 metres are immense. With an average depth of 3.4Km, 340 atmospheres, the ocean is 340x as heavy as the very light atmosphere above.

                Mankind has exploited the compressiblity and solubility of CO2 for the last few thousand years. Yeast for cheese, yoghurt, bread, wine, beer not only adds flavour but CO2, the output of respiration. We use it directly for carbonated drinks, beer, champagne, dry ice and I have CO2 cartridges for my bike.

                The IPCC dismisses the vast amounts of CO2 in the oceans, that the deep ocean only mixes slowly with the upper ocean, so the gas is trapped at depth. This is a convenient argument without foundation, as gas is not liquid normally and can rise from the bottom as it does from any carbonated drink. Geologists confirm this.

                The absolute proof is the vanishing of C14 with a half life of 14 years. C14 was doubled by the atmospheric testing around 1965 and nearly all gone back the ancient level. A rare isotope (1 in a trillion) with a half life of 5400 years, C14 cannot vanish, so it has gone somewhere big. Further the log of the decay curve is a perfect straight line, so it is e-kt. Everything fits. This is the inconvenient truth, that CO2 and all gases are in rapid exchange and that CO2 is not trapped either in the ocean or in the air for thousands of years.

                I have even read that CO2 goes in in cold water and out in warm water, which is obvious physical chemistry, Henry’s Law or the flat beer effect. So categorically all of man made global warming is busted. Even more, warmer surface water means higher atmospheric CO2 and you do not have to be a physical chemist to know this. Still the warming industry persists, blaming higher ocean temperatures on higher CO2 and even arguing that because the CO2 is higher, there is more CO2 in the water.

                If it wasn’t costing us our country, this mad made up science would be laughable. No one is laughing. A world conspiracy and scam, costing the planet $1.5Trillion a year. Real scientists are not invited to the party.

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                sophocles

                If you want to be really pedantic about it, it’s more like 98.8%.
                But 98% is good enough.

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              • #
                sophocles

                Robert, if you’re unfamiliar with TdeF’s reference to “massively buffered solutions” there’s a poor article on Wikipedia about buffer solutions, with better information in http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/ which is a free download, [pdf] in Chapter 6, Sections 6.3 & 6.5 pp 743 — 950

                Enjoy.

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              • #
                sophocles

                IIRC, the mass ratio between the oceans and the atmosphere is about 104:1 in the ocean’s favour. Ocean covers 71% of the planet’s surface area. This is why the oceans rule, and the atmosphere just tags along and does what it’s told.

                Rule of thumb: the sun (and submarine volcanoes—possibly the cause of El Ninos, there’s a very active very hot spot to the east of New Guinea.) warm the seas, the seas warm the air. CO2? not even a minor player. It actually cools, rather than warms.
                (cf:https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/the-refutation-of-the-climate-greenhouse-theory-and-a-proposal-for-ahopeful-alternative.php?aid=88698

                John Tyndall and Svante Arrhenius got it wrong as have many following them. They noted the IR absorption by CO2 and assumed it was warmed and others were warmed when the IR was re-emitted (“downwelling” radiation which flies in the face of the second law of thermodynamics) It was only last year [2017] when someone actually measured it.
                https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/a-novel-investigation-about-the-thermal-behaviour-of-gases-under-theinfluence-of-irradiation-a-further-argument-against-the-greenh-2157-7617-1000393.pdf

                This planet has been mis-named: it should be Ocean, not Earth.

                Where-ever the deep ocean conveyor current rises to the surface, there is a CO2 plume as the cold water rising to the surface warms and spits out its load of CO2. There’s one off to the west-south-west of the west coast of Australia, in the Indian Ocean, there’s one near the Galapagos Islands on the eastern side of the Pacific and I can’t remember others. Check the OCO-2 satellite web site.

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                robert rosicka Apr13,18:22:49

                Thanks TdeF I didn’t know that 98% of gaseous Co2 was hiding in the oceans

                At ocean temperature below a depth of 200 meters CO2 cannot be a gas, it remains a liquid.
                TdeF Apr14,18:3:44

                CO2 unlike O2 and N2 is very polar, highly compressible. The pressures in the ocean at 1 atmosphere every 10 metres are immense. With an average depth of 3.4Km, 340 atmospheres, the ocean is 340x as heavy as the very light atmosphere above

                Could you please explain what you might mean by your uses of the word “heavy”? Do you mean mass density? According to http://www.energy.psu.edu/tools/CO2-EOS/ , ocean CO2 @ 170 atmospheres has the same density as pure H2O and mixes well. Below that 1.7km ocean depth CO2 density continues to increase and becomes a superfluid. Density 1.5 that of H2O at depth of 7 Km.
                All the best! -will-

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                robert rosicka 4,13,18:22:49
                sophocles 04,14,18:7:24

                IIRC, the mass ratio between the oceans and the atmosphere is about 104:1 in the ocean’s favour.

                No never! try a 300:1 ratio of mass of Earths incompressable H2O vs. atmpspheric compressible N2\O2! What is the difference between “weight” force and ‘pressure’ force’?… Y’all been so Scammed via Professional\political Scammers!! 🙂
                More later if I can please have another beer!-will-

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              • #

                More later if I can please have another beer!-will-

                To illustrate! Consider the gravitationally induced force of a 7kg bowling ball 16 lbs sitting on a 1 m² table? the force of 16lbs is not 16 lbs/m² of pressure! the pressure can become near infinite if the ball and the table refuse to deform to provide ‘some’ sort of supporting area.

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      • #
        Carbon500

        TdeF – ‘The science’ – this is something I’ve noticed as well. It’s a term I’ve never seen used before in the way that the warmists do.
        ‘Let’s see what the science says’ – a sure sign that you’re dealing with a true believer. They never provide their own analysis from a journal, just a fly-by link to Wikipedia or SkS. ‘Look! Here’s all the proof you need! Why don’t you read this? Only read this and you will realise the foolish error of your ways!’
        ‘Yeah, right…..’ is I believe the American expression denoting disbelief.

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        • #
          sophocles

          Nullius in verba.
          On the word of no-one
          It’s the motto of the Royal Society (England). The Royal Society explains it on its website as:

              It is an expression of the determination of Fellows to withstand the
              domination of authority and to verify all statements by an appeal to
              facts determined by experiment.

          From Wikipedia:

          The phrase came from Horace’s Epistle to his benefactor Maecenas, where he claims not to be devoted to any particular sect but is rather an eclectic by nature.

          Skeptical Science has errors. It doesn’t take into account some papers which are more expert than some it does favour. It gives no credit to Svensmark’s hypothesis at all despite Svensmarks experimental record with his SKY experiments. Shaviv is a dirty word with them. The Cern CLOUD experiment is played down—it appears because it too “denies” the CO2 hypothesis.

          So apply Nullius in verba strictly to everything read there.

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  • #
    pat

    re Craig Welch/NatGeo, who churns out CAGW stuff – as do all the CAGW media gate-keepers – e.g.

    Apr 2017: NatGeo: Craig Welch: Warming Bleaches Two-Thirds of Great Barrier Reef
    A huge portion of the 1,400-mile structure has now suffered severe damage for the second straight year–and scientists blame climate change.

    Jun 2017: NatGeo: Craig Welch: Climate Change Pushing Tropical Diseases Toward Arctic

    Aug 2017: NatGeo: Craig Welch: Climate Change May Shrink the World’s Fish

    Oct 2017: NatGeo: Craig Welch: Warming Oceans May Make ‘Nemo’ Harder To Find

    Jan 2018: NatGeo: Craig Welch: Animals Are Shrinking and Freezing to Death in a Changing Arctic

    Jan 2018: NatGeo: Craig Welch: 99% of These Sea Turtles Are Turning Female — Here’s Why

    here he is, with good ol’ Seth Borenstein, as found by NoTricksZone and covered by WUWT:

    Oct 2014: WUWT: Anthony Watts: Video: Why science reporter Seth Borenstein at the Associated Press is more about ‘New Catch Phrases’ and less about science
    Worth repeating, in their own words on video, from Pierre Gosselin’s “No tricks Zone”:

    Amazing…AP Reporter Seth Borenstein Emphasizing Value Of “New Catch Phrases” To Hype Up Climate Stories!
    By P Gosselin on 20. Oktober 2014

    For the media, at least for the AP’s Seth Borenstein (seen at left in the video), it’s not about presenting the science in a professional and balanced manner, rather it’s all about sensationalizing it and getting the editor to print it. The good stuff starts at about the 7:30 mark.
    VIDEO
    Seth Borenstein of The Associated Press, ***Craig Welch of the Seattle Times, and documentary producer Steve Sapienza lead an interactive session that provides insights and tips from accomplished reporters whose reporting on climate change has been lauded for its accuracy, accessibility, and originality at Metcalf Institute’s Climate Change and the News: Impacts in Marine and Coastal Environments seminar for journalists held in Washington, DC April 24-25, 2014 (Video published Online Sept 7th, 2014)

    ***45:38 Craig Welch boasting:
    “Nobody in my newsroom who quotes people who don’t believe climate change is real that I know of. And if I find out about it I will go talk to them myself, but I also work in a newsroom where my managing editor used to be an environmental reporter and so there’s never been, I mean, he understands what we are doing, so.”…ETC
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/20/video-why-science-reporter-seth-borenstein-at-the-associated-press-is-more-about-new-catch-phrases-and-less-about-science/

    NatGeo is, of course, owned by Rupert Murdoch (pending a sale to Disney) – who is regularly accused of being a “climate denier” or giving “climate deniers” a voice.
    what a joke.

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    • #
      Greg Cavanagh

      For me, the environmentalists ‘holier than thou’ attitude is perfectly summed up by Timothy 3:5 “Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”

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  • #
    Mark M

    Spongebob Squarepants and global warming star in …

    The Endless Summer

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlkprv-Upco

    Mr Krabs is who to blame.

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  • #
    Mark M

    Forget 97% Doomsday Global Warming …

    End of the world 2018: Will the Rapture occur on April 23? SHOCK prediction says YES

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/944211/end-of-the-world-rapture-april-23-prediction

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  • #
    pat

    13 Apr: HighPlainsJournal: Cold start to April delays crops
    By Linda Geist, University of Missouri Extension
    The persistent cold “was nothing short of amazing,” said University of Missouri Extension climatologist Pat Guinan.
    Many parts of the state, especially the northern half, averaged more than 15 degrees below normal for the first 10 days of April. Some locations experienced below-freezing minimum temperatures for nine or 10 consecutive days. For many communities, including Columbia, it will likely rank as the coldest first 10 days of April on record. Records date back to 1895.

    A large pool of unusually cold air, centered over Hudson Bay, has been sitting and spinning over the region the past couple of weeks, sending shots of arctic air from Canada into the middle part of the United States.
    “It’s hard to believe, but we’re on pace for experiencing the coldest April on record for Missouri,” said Guinan. The current record was set in April 1907, when the statewide average monthly temperature was 47.2 degrees, 8 degrees below normal…

    Corn planting, hampered by unprecedented subfreezing temperatures and measurable snowfall, remains at only 1 percent, according to an April 8 USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service report. This pales in comparison to the four-year average of 7 percent. USDA reported only 1.5 days suitable for fieldwork in the first week of April…

    Wheat in southern Missouri faces the most danger. MU Extension agronomist Jill Scheidt said the MU Commercial Agriculture weather station in Lamar reported the 2-inch bare soil temperature at 35 degrees at 8:30 a.m. on April 4…
    Bissonnette said freezing temperatures and prolonged moisture set the stage for seedling diseases in corn. This is especially true when germinating seeds or seedlings are damaged early in the growing season. Damage can allow disease-causing pathogens to infiltrate the plant…
    http://www.hpj.com/crops/cold-start-to-april-delays-crops/article_ad2e3e43-ddde-524f-9b9e-8eac138bb385.html

    13 Apr: HarrisonDaily: Fruit growers brace for more cold weather this weekend
    By MARY HIGHTOWER U of A Division of Agriculture
    CLARKSVILLE — Arkansas fruit growers are enduring a nervous week, sandwiched between two periods of freezing weather at a critical time for their crops.
    This week, Arkansas’ fruit growers were assessing damage from last weekend’s freeze, while bracing for another round of cold.

    Early spring is a critical time for Arkansas’ peach, apple and berry growers as their crops put out fruit-making blooms. Damage to the flowers can translate into no fruit being produced.
    For grape growers, some are seeing the tender — and freeze-vulnerable — first leaves or shoots on their vines…

    In Washington County, where snow and sleet fell last weekend, “some of our growers are seeing some major losses,” said Berni Kurz, county extension staff chair for the Division of Agriculture. “Blueberry losses are cultivar dependent so not a total loss with later blooming varieties not showing any signs of damage.”

    There were “some reports of heavy losses on strawberries under floating row covers — frost protection cloth,” he said. “Market gardeners have reported some losses on early season vegetables including broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage.
    “What’s concerning is the low temperatures coming up this weekend,” Kurz said.

    On Wednesday, the National Weather Service at Tulsa said that “additional freezes look likely in the next several days. Both Sunday and Monday mornings look like parts of far northwest Arkansas could see temps (of) 30-32 degrees.”
    To cope, growers resort to floating row covers, burning hay in orchards to keep air temperatures above freezing for the trees surrounding the smoke and fire, and one grower has a helicopter to use its blades to fan warm air down into the orchard.

    Fighting cold with ice
    Ryan Neal, Benton County extension agent for the Division of Agriculture, has about four acres of blueberries. He uses an overhead watering system to protect the fruit from cold damage. While it sounds counterintuitive, keeping a wet icy layer on the fruit will maintain the temperature at 32 degrees, preventing damage. The technique does not work if the wind is blowing or it’s so dry the spray in effect becomes evaporative cooling. Neal has been using the system for two years and it covers about three-quarters of an acre…

    Neal said he didn’t turn it on last Friday because he was expecting a stiff wind. “When I awoke, there was a zero mile-an-hour wind and it was 24 degrees. I did get some damage” to early-season blueberries.
    “The rest of the 3.5 acres look fine,” he said. “They’re still asleep.”…

    Had the cold come later in the season, after fruit formation, damage might be less.
    “The fruit can take more than the blooms because they have some sugar in them to keep them from freezing when it’s 32 degrees,” Chapman said, adding he hoped that the temperatures this weekend would stay in the mid-30s…
    “Peaches have damage from the Missouri border down past Little Rock. Some damage is very extensive and others is spotty based on the farm location and varieties planted…
    http://harrisondaily.com/news/fruit-growers-brace-for-more-cold-weather-this-weekend/article_8e0e6dd4-3e8f-11e8-b7b1-7b863158efd7.html

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  • #
    pat

    12 Apr: Weather Channel: Farmers’ crop hopes soaked by cold and wet March
    By Brett Gibbons, Trinity Mirror UK (Birmingham Mail)
    A cold, wet March has made it hard to get crops planted and growing – with potential knock-on effects for harvests, farmers have warned.
    Difficult conditions have affected planting and growth of crops from wheat and sugar beet to courgettes and leeks, while livestock farmers have found it too wet to put animals out on grass, the National Farmers’ Union said.
    Official figures showed temperatures were below average in March, which began with the bitterly cold weather, and also saw slightly more rain than normal across the UK.

    NFU deputy president ***Guy Smith said farmers were facing a “compressed season”.
    “We started March with the various visits of the Beast from the East, which created havoc, then we got a very short window of reprieve, before very wet weather.”
    He said farmers had missed out on getting their seed beds in good condition, with time running out to get crops planted, and autumn crops not growing as fast as they would have liked.
    Spring wheat, spring barley, sugar beet – which farmers would normally start planting on March 20 – and potatoes are all affected.
    https://weather.com/en-GB/unitedkingdom/weather/news/2018-04-13-uk-weather-harvest-hopes-soaked-cold-wet-march

    ***wanted to see if anyone else was reporting what NFU’s Guy Smith had to say, didn’t find anything, but I came across this unrelated Homewood thread, which is nonetheless worth posting:

    Nov 2014: Paul Homewood: Who Is Guy Smith?
    I reported yesterday on how the NFU (National Farmers Union) Vice President, Guy Smith, had been making nonsensical claims about the weather becoming more volatile at a Parliamentary event last week…
    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/who-is-guy-smith/

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  • #
    old44

    Probably find the lights were on in the laboratory 24 hours a day.

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  • #
    Roy Hogue

    I suppose this will make me some kind of heretic but I have a house full of LEDs for only one reason, they can be expected to last 23,000 hours. I don’t change light bulbs every week or two anymore.

    I can think of no better reason than that, although the utter lack of suitable incandescent bulbs would otherwise be a problem. That they save something on my Edison meter every month is just a side benefit. And not much of a benefit at that because lighting is so small a part of my total electricity consumption.

    If we were serious about saving energy we’d outlaw anything with an electric motor or an engine in it, thereby setting mankind back more than 100 years and no one would worry about saving energy because we’d all be too busy keeping our horse and buggy running.

    00