JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
Interesting Article:
Volcanic eruption sparked a weeklong thunderstorm, and scientists want to know why
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/volcanic-eruption-sparked-a-weeklong-thunderstorm-and-scientists-want-to-know-why/ar-BB10wQT3?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout
91
La Nina may form in the equatorial Pacific Ocean later this year and, if so, it could have wide-ranging ramifications
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/28/la-nina-may-form-in-the-equatorial-pacific-ocean-later-this-year-and-if-so-it-could-have-wide-ranging-ramifications/
80
This is the cooling we have been waiting for and the klimatariat will be caught flat footed. Natural variability rules.
“All three modes of natural variability – solar, volcanoes, internal variability – are expected to trend cool over the next 3 decades” Judith Curry
110
Should I bookmark this one as well. You”ll soon have a ten year boxed set of the commencement of cooling pronouncements
721
Climate change takes time, as I’ve said previously, at the end of this year we should see the beginning of La Nina conditions. The Pacific Decadal Oscillation is a major player.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri16/pdo-jan20.png
It strikes me that you have totally ignored natural variability as a possible cause of climate change.
200
Very droll Geeaye!
90
Green thumb for drollery…
90
In my opinion it is better to accept UAH as a reliable source and not corrupted by other measurements(ahem!). Suffice to say that it indicates a slight warming punctuated by El Nino spikes. Cooling is in the pipeline if ocean and atmosphere interact and La Nina gets rolling.
60
As the learned el gordo also mentions oceanic changes in medium term time frames(PDO) gives a good indication of natural variability that, of course, is the sole determinate in changes in climate.
70
Why UAH? They admit they adjust the satellite data, but unlike the BOM, there is no published method, nor do they release their raw data. If anything they are more suspect than any of the others, as their results are wildly divergent from everyone else
26
Satellite battle: Five reasons UAH is different (better) to the RSS global temperature estimates
Five reasons UAH is different to RSS
Both RSS and UAH use the same data dont they? Provided by other large organisations eg NASA
70
RSS has also been changed. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/5/054007
The point remains that all the data sensors have inbuilt and inherent problems. Choosing one over another is evidence of something, but it is hardly scientific. Taking an ensemble, would be a better way.
Unless for example, you are grinding an axe, metaphorically speaking of course.
16
Read my last comment again. This is not a reply. There are reasons for choosing one over the other and you have given us no reason to choose RSS or any other dataset.
60
1. UAH does have a published methodology. They “adjust” for known deviations of satellite orbits. The raw data matches NOAA Start data as well as all unadjusted balloon data
2. RSS now add all sorts of scientifically unjustified adjustments, such as bad ocean temperature data, climate model (lol) non-data etc
3. BOM’s “adjustments” are known, and they are purely speculative, non-scientific whim-based nonsense. Their continued random adjustments prove their own fabrication is worthless. Not to mention the fact that nearly half their data sites are totally unfit for basically any purpose whatsoever.
40
Speculating further, there will be more La Nina over the next three decades. ENSO remains an enigma, would anyone like to hazard a guess at the mechanisms involved?
60
Convection?
30
True but it doesn’t take in the big picture, or predictive ability.
The Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) is very sensitive to the sun on multi-decadal (50–100 years) timescales. ENSO appears to be independent of solar forcing.
31
Why do you even bother ga
30
Whatever he racks up it will never surpass Al Gore. He is an over achiever in that department.
20
I continually refer to Prof Weiss’ presentation. The two great cycles which proved a near perfect fit to the many osciallations of temperature in the last 2500 years are the De Vries 260 year cycle and the 64 year AMO-PDO. And the PDO, Pacific Decadal Oscillation is an induced sea surface oscillation which includes La Nina and El Nino.
So I am amazed that people look to these induced oscillations for explanations, most recently the Indian Ocean dipole. They are the refelections of the solar cycles like bell ringing long after it is struck. Of course the climate models cannot predict or explain these oscillations, so when the models utterly fail as this year, they blame effects, not causes.
It’s the sun. The only source of energy on our planet. Everything else is a result of solar activity, filtered by oscillation and mobile oceans which contain 99.9% of all stored solar energy. And the so called Climate Models are about the Atmosphere. They can predict nothing long term because they are modelling effects, not causes.
And this amazingly simple model shows no terrestial influence, like industrialization, CO2, volcanoes, forest fires, ice melting or freezing. However it also predicts a peak plateau 2000 to 2020 and a rapid fall. It is happening now, as predicted. But then that’s real science, not fantasy or politics or a faith system.
180
Javier thinks its the sun and who am I to disagree.
https://judithcurry.com/2019/09/01/enso-predictions-based-on-solar-activity/
30
I believe that a strong La Niña normally means more cyclones in the NW, but ther’s no sign of that so far. In fact it’s been very quiet up there for many years, with only the BOM somehow turning strong winds into mini-cyclones. So I’m guessing that it may be a lot later in the year before we see any effects.
60
This time next year a strong La Nina is almost certain, at the moment ENSO is neutral but well overdue for a temperature correction.
Looking at Warwick Hughes graph, the cool 1950s and 60s and Great Climate Shift of 1976 is clearly visible. The 19th century is fascinating.
20
The “anti-Greta” Thunberg debuts on Fox News with a message of hope for young people.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/27/the-anti-greta-thunberg-debuts-on-fox-news-with-a-message-of-hope-for-young-people/
150
Cool kid!
80
Thanks Ric,
Great short interview. Two very strong messages in 4 minutes. Will spread.
Cheers
Dave B
20
NOAA Relies on ‘Russian Collusion’ to Claim January Was Hottest Month on Record
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/29/noaa-relies-on-russian-collusion-to-claim-january-was-hottest-month-on-record/
50
Extinction Rebellion Accused of Faking a Miners Protest
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/29/extinction-rebellion-accused-of-faking-a-miners-protest/
50
Keep and strengthen the biodiversity protection laws in New South Wales
10
He may be right, but for the wrong reasons. With so much land now put aside as parks, it may be impossible to adequately maintain them o a level required to prevent wildfires. So our state govts perhaps should be looking at returning them to private usage, including logging and grazing.
60
I wonder what a “fire scientist” actually is?
Its not about stopping anything, its about reducing the intensity of the inevitable
30
It’s everywhere.
Yesterday about lunchtime I was leaving the hotel and saw a few taxi drivers poking at something on a tree.
Tried to ask what it was a got a response:
one bloke flapped his arms like a pair of wings.
When I finally found the thing, it wasn’t a spider or small bird it was a tiny black bat curled up in a crevice deep in the bark.
Everyone laughed and Corona Bat was mentioned.
It was maybe 6 cms long and 2 and a bit across the head.
The scary thing happened later when I came back and switched on the T.V. and channel surfed for an hour.
There were lots of movie previews and US news on the Bernie/Biden contest and a bit of Aljazeera.
Frightening that people might be watching all that stuff.
KK
40
One of the best medical sources on Corona Virus 19.
Dr John Campbell in the UK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=20&v=5rOTz9duXwo&feature=emb_logo
60
Very watchable Bill. Thanks.
20
Something else that relates to the media search for truth;
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/02/thursday-open-thread-2/#comment-2278372
There’s almost no doubt in my mind that there are people who have the ability to clearly define both of those core issues of the Man Made Global Warming theme that’s being used to control us.
The thing that has got my curiosity up is that I want to more clearly define what happens to the atmosphere at ground level when it’s warming and getting ready to rise, convection.
What part do ground origin IR and CO2 contribute?
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/02/thursday-open-thread-2/#comment-2283171
KK
30
KK, there is a misunderstanding in the second comment linked to. The CO2 molecule does not absorb energy (trap heat) coming up from the ground then return it later. Energy from the ground is indeed absorbed by GHG molecules, but they then immediately lose that energy to the surrounding air via kinetic collision. The energy in that air then wanders around and finally gets to GHG molecules, which send some of it to the ground. So while the energy received by the ground originally came from the ground, it wandered around in the air in between. (I think trapped is the wrong word for the wandering phase.)
As for air that is warmed by the ground to the point where it rises by convection, I imagine most of that energy transfer is by conduction. After all, the cooler(heavier) air that forces the warmer (lighter) air to rise is getting just as much energy from its GHGs as the warmer air is getting.
71
As Jo reminds, be careful if absolutes. It is a dynamic system and probabilities say that kinetic energy transfer to neighbouring molecule is overwhelmingly likely but re release of IR is not impossible. CO2 behaves the same at all altitudes but the outcome of that behaviour differs because of what is going on around it
55
Yes, my understanding is that re-emission occurs roughly one in a billion times. I consider that negligible in the general case, but there may be special cases where it is important.
50
David, it’s been pointed out that nothing is ever negligible.
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/02/thursday-open-thread-2/#comment-2279524
30
I consider that point negligible. In the nicest possible way.
71
🙂
30
It is important to be clear in case you’re misconstrued. “Negligible” assumes observed and measured physics. “Can’t” or “doesn’t “ requires the invention of new physics.
21
David, this is also Prof. Happer’s opinion. Apparently he was the leading atmospheric scientist on the Star Wars project. I have seen other figures down to 1 in 100,000, but the point you made is still valid – there is very little chance of a CO2 molecule re-radiating its acquired energy before it is bombarded by the numerous other gas molecules. Some folks try to pretend that these other gas molecules have no effect, but as Prof. Happer points out, they have a major effect. And there’s a heck of a lot up there in the lower atmosphere.
70
This was the discussion where Prof. Happer makes some interesting comments: http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/Another_question.html
40
Good stuff.
30
I did not know he did ABM work and will have to ask him about that. I did some theoretical work while at NRL. There is an interesting decision problem. I want to throw as many ABMs at each incoming ICBM as I can afford, but I really really do not want to run out of ABMs while my opponent still has ICBMs. Assuming the ICBMs do not all come at once, how do I allocate my ABMs?
50
I wonder why you collected red thumbs for that? it sounds quite reasonable/factual. Do you get downvoted simply for being Mr Leaf?
30
Very interesting David.
I understand from one of your previous comments that you have designed dams.
This bit is particularly interesting;
“The energy in that air then wanders around and finally gets to GHG molecules, which send some of it to the ground. So while the energy received by the ground originally came from the ground, it wandered around in the air in between.”
It would be interesting to get someone with a solid basis in physics to give us a more definitive description of the basic energy transfer possibilities.
From a thermodynamic viewpoint energy is constantly being degraded as it moves from situation to situation so the concept of degraded energy at altitude being able to return to ground is problematic.
KK
40
I do not know what you mean by degraded. Energy is conserved. Wander is a metaphor, because kinetic energy is not quantized, so it does not have a path. The point is that the GHGs put energy into the air and also take it out.
Also, civil engineering is applied physics.
30
Hi David,
Perhaps the most obvious example of degraded is with the turnaround of solar energy.
Incoming solar UV moves through the atmosphere largely uninvolved with the atmospheric components.
When it reaches the ground or ocean it is stopped and transfers energy to warm the surface.
“Spare” energy unable to be held in the surface is turned around and looks for a means of escape.
The lowest temperature it can “see” is the cold upper atmosphere and that is where this IR now heads, towards space.
Energy, like this, can only move down the temperature gradient and from a thermodynamic viewpoint it will lose further intensity with every interaction it experiences.
It becomes degraded or is of lower “virtue”.
That’s evident in the spread of IR wavelengths found.
KK
30
Energy is still conserved.
Some of it is left in the ground and the remainder is in the outgoing IR.
30
It sounds like your temperature gradient refers to radiation, but I am talking about kinetic energy. The GHGs absorb photons and add kinetic energy to the air. They are also agitated by the kinetic energy in the air, from time to time enough to emit photons. The emitted wave lengths are not based on the absorbed wave lengths, so there is no degradation. To put it metaphorically, when a molecule is energized enough to emit a photon it has no idea where that energy came from.
By the way, I am pretty sure that the molecules in the surface emit in all directions equally. The ones headed for space just happen to be the ones that get away. But I imagine that mountainsides emit UV that just crosses the valley and hits the mountain on the other side.
40
Will Janoshka made the point that it was a power struggle between sources of power.
The potential for energy/power expression was tested and then the resultant moved down the energy gradient to create equilibrium.
It is undoubtedly true that in theory energy radiates spherically but that’s only the potential, not the actuality which is constrained by the environment.
KK
11
🙂
We’re getting a bit tangled up there David.
00
🙂
“But I imagine that mountainsides emit UV”
Was that intended to be IR?
00
Speaking of designing dams, what I did was mathematical stability analysis. If I made a mistake and the dam failed thousands of people might be killed. That is when I got seriously interested in uncertainty. I told the hydrologists that they could not possibly know what the hundred year flood was from just a hundred years of data, which they rejected.
The point is that engineers make good skeptics because they frequently have to consider consequences that scientists do not have to think about. Lots of AGW skeptics are engineers. It is part of the engineers job to look at the practical limits to the science.
90
True, and as I understand it the pouring of concrete dams had a heating issue. The curing concrete in such great bulk had to be carefully laid to avoid overheating. Ice was even mixed in on occasions.
20
When the Hoover dam was built, I believe they laid refrigeration pipes in the concrete as they poured each section.
30
” … I imagine most of that energy transfer is by conduction … ”
No. I and many others have tried to measure these effects here in the tropics. A lot more complex than say, building a boundary layer wind tunnel. Creating a 3 dimensional net of temperature sensors soon gets cost-prohibitive. I learned most by liberal use of a smoke generator, eg one of those amusing devices for parties, rock concerts etc. The turbulence at ground level is spectacular. The air basically churns over like water in a kettle. It starts to become stratified at about 2m above ground level. Another reason why sensible people built houses on stumps. If your head is somewhere near 3.5m up it is more comfortable. Convection does occur, advection is much more significant – and it is very noticeable if it is absent. Conduction allows you to cook on the bbq without turning on the gas. Heat in the tropics is about thermal capacity. By late afternoon, everything exposed to the sun is hot or at least warm. If it has low thermal capacity, it cools rapidly as the sun goes down. If it is concrete or stone and exposed to the sun, it stays warm for seven months.
41
Hi Martin, interesting.
On the point of conduction, I think David and I viewed that as the air picking up heat from the ground when molecules make physical contact.
Your description of the resulting turbulence observed and the layering is great.
KK
30
Right KK, we were talking physical contact mechanism versus radiation. Adding advection does not change the answer.
But I agree too that this is fascinating info. I have always said I wish I could see the air because of its complex motion. I can see how the near surface could be extremely turbulent, like waves breaking on the shore, even when the general air flow is laminar. With the air moving and the surface not, there is serious friction.
30
David,
Aren’t these questions addressed by Prof John Nicol about a decade ago? If his paper had found a wide audience then perhaps we would be looking for the real drivers of climate and be spared the Thunberg Extinction Emergency rubbish.
40
Can I point out that sunlight contains a substantial amount of Infra Red.
From Wikipedia “In terms of energy, sunlight at Earth’s surface is around 52 to 55 percent infrared (above 700 nm), 42 to 43 percent visible (400 to 700 nm), and 3 to 5 percent ultraviolet (below 400 nm)”.
So presumably a higher CO2 content in the atmosphere would be absorbing more of the incoming IR, and disposing of it by kinetic collision or radiation, and thus reducing the heating of the earth (or the atmosphere in the first 1.5 metres where measurements are currently concentrated).
10
🙂
Now that’s a complex question.
I speculate that the incoming IR would be at the higher frequency end of the IR span.
00
Graeme:
99+% of incoming solar radiation is of wavelengths less than 4 microns. The IR band from 0.7 microns to 4 microns is usually called “near IR” or “shortwave IR”.
99+% of the earth’s own thermal radiation is of wavelengths greater than 4 microns. This band is usually called “far IR” or “longwave IR”.
This separation makes it easy to determine the source of a given wavelength of radiation.
CO2’s key absorption/emission band is the 14 to 16 micron band. This is prevalent in earth’s thermal radiation, but not in solar radiation.
20
Interesting.
So ground origin IR is categorised as degraded or pw intensity.
KK
00
In just 13 weeks you can be an expert, KK.
Won’t even cost you a cent it’s free of charge.
https://www.edx.org/course/global-warming-science
If you do it you can tell us all how great Climate Science is and how wrong we were. 😀
10
🙂
Watched the video.
One of the “academic” instructors tells us that global warming is man made.
This from MIT, one of the biggest names in U.S. academia.
Graduates will obviously be qualified to take action on climate change and I suspect that everyone enrolled will “graduate”.
KK
00
Super Tuesday may clinch crazy Sanders as the Dems candidate for president.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/28/bernie-sanders-super-tuesday-118249
https://www.foxnews.com/media/chris-stirewalt-super-tuesday-backfire-democrats
Woohoo!
30
David have you seen the photo of Bernie in Cuba during Fidel Castro’s revolution? The one where Bernie is with Fidel and a couple of soldiers with someone being tied to a tree with a blind fold on !
Not the best look for a presidential hopeful and committed socialist .
31
Would love to see it but do not believe it is real.
22
Photo is on my Facebook page but just double checked it and it may be a well done bit of photo shopping .
40
The amusing, though terrifying, part is that it is believable!
00
He has more detail than the rest of the photo.
00
The coronavirus epidemic will put the public/private U.S. healthcare model to the test.. Imagine what will happen when people must pay for corona virus testing isolation and treatment out of their own pocket.
This is a complex issue. it will reveal the strength and weakness of privately driven health care.
40
Surely this testing and treatment is covered by people’s health insurance.
60
here is a NYT article regarding who pays. The issue is much larger and there are both and many sides to it https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/upshot/coronavirus-surprise-medical-bills.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
what happens to people who have little or no insurance? Ehat happens to those who are reluctant to pay for expensives which are unlikely to be covered by the medical insurance. Staying in self isolation and unable to work for example?
on the alternate side there is ample opportunity for the government to extend emergency assistance to the public as a whole. There is a big capacity to mobilize the pre-existing facilities and surge the number respirators and critical care beds.
Health care really is in the hands of the government and private providers. They have the capacity to both enhance and degrade the outcome of a wide scale epidemc.
How all this plays out might determine the election in Novemer
32
If there is a wide scale epidemic we will throw all sorts of aid at it.
40
In Canada, as elsewhere hospital resources are stretched to capacity. Heath care often involves wait times and a shortage of providers.
Keep on hearing about the lack of wait times and ample facilities for those Americans who are able to pay. Now is the golden opportunity to surge with an exuberance of care or tight fisted money pinching miserliness.
As I say, it could play out in many directions. What does transpire is apt to alter the American view on healthcare
22
That would be the least of their worries. The potential of millions of deaths as a result of it becoming a pandemic ought to be on the top of their list. In reality of course their real worry on their minds will be the economy.
51
It won’t really be a proper comparison, because there is no fully free-market health system anywhere.
40
News just in says that Biden had a convincing win in the South Carolina primaries.
20
If only they had a carbon (sic) tax … or, maybe they had a carbon (sic) tax, but it was too high …
46,000-year-old bird found frozen in Siberia sheds light on the end of the ice age
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2020/02/22/46000-year-old-bird-found-frozen-siberia-sheds-light-end-ice-age/
You know it makes sense.
50
Mammoths, rhinoceroses, horses, bison, lark…
Won’t somebody think of the Arctic camels!
Stimpy – the C A M E L S ! ! !
00
The rare and seldom seen Arctic Camel, as it is referred to in our house.
An answer selected by a quiz show contestant in regard to naming an animal inhabiting the Arctic. Had a choice of 4 and picked camel. The pressure of the moment and the stage lights I guess.
00
Just like Climate change, a lot of disastrous political directions have bipartisan support. Illegal immigration in the US for example..
“Congress has refused to legislate fixes for either problem. GOP legislators are reluctant to slow the migration of workers, renters, and consumers to business groups. At the same time, Democrats welcome the inflow of people who will likely vote Democrat once they are amnestied.”
90
So what the voters want is ignored. At least the US has a President fighting for them.
We in Australia have the bankers who want the Climate Cash and the communists who want to wreck the joint. Which is why Tony Abbott had to be removed.
Thus an ins*ne zero CO2 target for 2050 utterly against the will of the people. It would be crushed in a referendum.
170
BREXIT was another example of politicians versus the people. Corona virus too where both sides of politics want an open border for the money when the people want it closed.
120
And another gem from Donald Trump “It would be so much easier for us as a country if the press told the truth.”
180
Faint hope.
The socialists haven’t spent the last three decades infiltrating the main stream media to subvert it and turn it into their propaganda machine, to voluntarily walk away.
He needs a different strategy.
10
True. When we elect governments we expect them to follow through and honour their promises. Morrison for example failed miserably. He has become a full blown advocate of emissions reduction craziness.
110
Never a truer word written.
The long march through the institutions increased the likelihood of both achieving their objectives. A war of position has been successfully completed with the major institutions now in the hands of the green left socialists and outright Communists. The crony capitalists are their running dogs.
The war of maneuver, the next stage, is now underway.
30
It is amusing that Minister Angus Taylor called people like us “the keyboard warriors”.
I wonder if that compares to the gullible sheep and media parrots?
110
He is soon to announce a new abatement plan to reduce our emissions. I presume that means the Morrison government is about to unleash better ways to reduce our emissions than just using wind and solar farms. We shall see what it all means but all I will say at the moment is the government is unknowingly pushing an agenda to increase the risk of crashing our economy at the same time they must know our economy is already skating on thin ice.
61
Yeah well I put no stock in social media whatsoever…its just shouting into the void…..
People like us that actually know “stuff”, should be respected by opportunist politicians, who often have the functional capability of wet rice paper…..
51
I cant decide if my punctuation is wrong, above….
Anyway, the gist is most pollies would be flat out knowing how to change a tyre, let alone understanding atmospheric mechanics….
60
It’s fine.
10
I guess Angus feels like he is on the front line doing the doing. Given his upbringing he would not be used to criticism, and needs to deflect condescendingly.
00
Another Antarctic summer has come and gone, temperatures are back to below freezing, after record highs, and there have been no reports of sea levels rising
111
That’s because they’re falling, at least around Antarctica.
70
Lack of ocean heat puzzles Nasa -2014
“The deep parts of the ocean are harder to measure,” said researcher William Llovel of Nasa JPL.
“The combination of satellite and direct temperature data gives us a glimpse of how much sea level rise is due to deep warming.
The answer is – not much.”
https://www.news24.com/Green/News/Lack-of-ocean-heat-puzzles-Nasa-20141006
30
That’s because even in summer the air temperatures over the icecap would have to rise by tens of degrees (not one or two degrees) to even begin any melting. Not likely in our lifetimes.
30
The coronavirus epidemic is kinda like the flip side of the global warming crisis. Both topics assert ‘Abundance of due caution’ to extend the urgancy and subdue the threat.
yet with coronavirus epidemic, revealing accurate infection rates and vigorous containment measures is interpreted as spreading undue panic and fear. This is strange insofar as to escape a heavy epidemic, its necessary to reduce a growing infection rate as opposed to hiding its real growth
“Italy, Mired in Politics Over Virus, Asks How Much Testing Is Too Much”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/world/europe/italy-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
30
It has suddenly dawned don me that Morrison has managed to reach a new low in being the most devious leader in the world of Australian politics. Gillard broken the promise of there won’t be a carbon tax under the government she leads. Morrison is a full blown advocate of emissions reduction. At least Gillard’s excuse is she had to form a government with the support of a handful of independents who required her to break that promise. What’s Morrison’s excuse? None. He can’t be trusted. He has to go.
90
Freeman Dyson passed away. Of his multiple achievements it’s interesting to note that the only thing mentioned in this newspaper article was that he was a “climate change skeptic”.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/prominent-physicist-and-climate-skeptic-freeman-dyson-dies-at96
90
I’ve been listening to ‘Macca on a Sunday morning’
On the ABC radio.
Interesting listening to all the folk in the bush
Noting that Summer is ended and Autumn started a few weeks ago.
Cold damp mornings all through February here in the Adelaide Hills !
I wonder how those climate ‘scientists’ explain how global warming
Causes a short Summer and early cool Autumn !
Dumbnuts !
I also wonder how long Macca will get away with being so far
Out of synch with the ABC’s ideology,
Before he is sacked or moved on to a less prominent radio show.
50
Don’t just be critical of the ABC and the rest of the climate change alarmists. Morrison himself announced we should expect hotter, drier, longer summers in the future. Given his agenda to set a new target for emissions reductions to be harsher than the Paris Agreement, that places him in the same camp as the climate change alarmists. He has soled us out, and in more ways then one.
90
Macca has a fair dose of the religion – certainly in the believer category. I do not listen much but I suspect he would be placing much blame on CAGW for the bushfires just like other ABC commentators.
10
Well he was not displaying those beliefs this morning.
The conversation was about the early arrival of a cool autumn.
Maybe listening to country folk living in the bush has forced him to reconsider ?
40
Freeman Dyson remained true to science until the end.It is a credit to him.A great man. R.I.P
140
If you’ve been fighting failed doomsday global warming by stopping runways being built, you’ve just been offset and made a fool of …
The Guardian view on a defeat for Heathrow’s third runway: a welcome precedent
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/27/the-guardian-view-on-a-defeat-for-heathrows-third-runway-a-welcome-precedent
Whoa! Wait. What?
China to build 216 new airports by 2035
https://www.airport-technology.com/news/china-new-airports-2035/
80
And the Chinese will build them to, on time and on budget. No nonsense like 50 years of enquiries just to make a decision on a second major airport for Sydney and then who knows how long and how many countless billions to build it.
80
Not to mention they are building nuclear subs as we speak while we have embarked on a very wasteful and length project to build diesel powered subs that won’t be delivered for a long-time to come. Utter insanity.
80
I’m not sure which is the greater insult, the laughable “subs” or the “funding” of the Great Big Barrier Reef Foundation.
KK
70
I still think the biggest joke on us is the agenda adopted by both parties to reduce our emissions. It will cost us 100’s of billions, surpassing all the other projects governments have mismanaged.
60
With the proliferation of the banning of internal combustion cars to achieve zero emissions by 2035, will there be any diesel available anywhere to drive our diesel subs, or will we have to convert them to coal fired or nuclear once we have built the fool things.
60
not to mention the long term mishandling of strategic fuel reserves (3 x 200 litre drums behind the officers mess at Puckapunyal)
10
Once was a sceptic on AGW. Not now. Don’t question the science, I do not believe it. I am a proud heretic, a non-believer in the toxic religion. It is sickening what the religion is destroying the youngs’ aspirations, I believe the religion will fail. I have faith that the common sense of my fellow man will eventually come to the fore.
41
Here’s an article that stresses some of the same points Jo has been making:
“Preparing for Coronavirus to Strike the U.S.: Getting ready for the possibility of major disruptions is not only smart; it’s also our civic duty”
By Zeynep Tufekci on February 27, 2020 Scientific American
For the sake of everyone else, prepare to stay home for a few weeks. You’ll reduce your own risks, but most importantly, you will reduce the burden on health care and delivery infrastructure and allow frontline workers to reach and help the most vulnerable.
if we can slow the transmission of the disease—flatten its curve—there will be many lives saved even if the same number of people eventually get sick, because everyone won’t show up at the hospital all at once. Plus, if we can flatten that curve, there is more time to develop a vaccine or find antivirals that help.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/preparing-for-coronavirus-to-strike-the-u-s/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits
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Rowen Dean on Sky news outsiders just did a brilliant job exposing the BOM for what they did to the temps at Marble Bar , JoNova was used as the main reference which was good to see .
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Yes excellent stuff, i just hope it gets repeated often on the other Sky shows..Credlin, Bolt, Jones, Kenny, etc. because we know that generally this is “preaching to the converted” and those that need to hear are not listening.
These messages somehow need to reach those that can influence or make significant change in policy decisions, and it seems main stream media is the best way to get their attention
40
I’m pretty sure that Outsiders gets to a wider audience in the regions via WIN.
30
Unfortunately, it’s on at 0900 on Sundays; we are otherwise occupied at that time. Their ‘encore’ was only half of it on Sunday evening and it’s not been happening the last two Sundays. I tried staying awake for the 0100 repeat on Monday and the first week they cut it to just a half hour; the second week I fell asleep anyway. What with moving Andrew Bolt to 2200 for Win watchers, I’m somewhat disappointed with it. We are not set up to record at present (for local reasons) and topical items need to be seen as they happen.
I love Outsiders but am feeling deprived! Not prepared to make any more subscriptions either; we have a few already (UK Telegraph, and The Australian online and The Spectator print version) and are pensioners, not made of money.
50
Try this Annie. No picture but that is no big deal. I only listen because I’m doing other stuff around the house at that time on Sunday.
50
Thanks for that Scaper. I should have looked it up before. There is always so much to read and listen to! How does anyone get bored? 🙂
60
But this is exactly my point..
Folks like you, me, Annie, etc already understand this stuff,..
But how do we expose it to the politicians, etc
..they are not going to seek out podcasts !
Coincidence ??
..as i was typing this..Outsiders Encore came on the TV (Win South coast ). !!!!
20
Sky in the regions (free to air) helped Morrison win the election.
10
OK…Monday 8am on 2GB radio, A Jones gave a good 10 min trashing of this BOM Marble Bar temp juggleing and a clear explanation of its relavence to the IPCC and Global Warming data.
He had Jenifer Mahrosy (?) on to detail some of the other BOM fiddeling with data at other sites also.
Probably the best platform for public coverage to the masses, and you just know the pollies monitor what jones has to say !
30
Good catch Chad and you’re right about it being the best platform for getting complex details across to the masses.
10
For those who may have missed the Marohasy interview on Marble Bar.
https://jennifermarohasy.com/2020/03/warming-marble-bar/
00
Thanks Scaper. I too was missing out with the Outsiders due to time schedule and lack of repeats.
20
Thanks, Scaper. I too was missing out with the Outsiders due to time schedule and lack of repeats.
10
A really great video from Tony Heller today on the zombie temperature stations.
aka, destruction of the value of empirical data.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nw71wBUK6Y
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Getting to the truth about the present health crisis is way beyond me, but as a fan of media conditioning I was interested to read that there has been, since early this year, a Netflix series called Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak. Seems it’s about doctors and scientists doing battle against not just a flu but against misinformation (looking at you, moso man!).
I guess preparation for this series predated Event 201, last October’s simulation of a corona outbreak starting with pigs in Brazil rather than bats in China. Lots of misinformation-tackling strategies there, needless to say. The unspoken or hinted-at hero of both the simulation and the Netflix series is, of course, Bill, ably assisted by Melinda. This has nothing to do with the Gates’s direct funding of the simulation at Johns Hopkins and their indirect funding (alleged) of the docuseries. When you’re in the foundation game you need to spend some tax-deductibles to make some tax-free, right?
But chill. Not every sniffle and sneeze has the potential to go as big as the present one. Why, the extraordinary deaths in Melbourne from thunderstorm asthma are barely mentioned now. There was some kerfuffle inventing or skewing unlikely precedents, scaring up a Nobel guy to explain via YouTube, making a wiki page appear on a general subject which had not existed, some learned journals following on…then normalisation and oblivion for one of the strangest events of our time.
So not every bug goes big.
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Just an aside, re conditioning through entertainment.
Three years before the 2008 general election in the US a major series appeared on TV featuring Geena Davis as the first female president. While she only tumbles into the job, turns out this capable and assertive chick is just what the world needs.
Two years before the 2016 general election a series appeared called Madam Secretary. Golly. Do you think this capable and assertive Secretary of State in a pantsuit might be good presidential material?
The encouraging thing is that either few watched this slop or few soaked up the conditioning. But it was never going to be easy selling Hill to the voters. You want them to see Geena, but they keep seeing Lady Macbeth.
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Australia has just had its first death from COVid-19.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/swift-ban-on-iran-arrivals-as-australian-coronavirus-cases-rise-slightly/news-story/972279b15ef5cfe09e2ac04a3573be99
78 year old gent was from Diamond Princess. Isolated at Darwin and flown to Perth Hospital. His wife was also infected but is stable.
Number of Aust. infections now 27.
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And the victim was of Asian heritage i believe ?
01
Poor man looked a really decent fellow; I feel sorry for his wife, who is still quite ill. A rotten end to a happily anticipated holiday.
20
Would you trust a government that fits curtains to its submarines?
20
With all this uncertainty about COVID-19, the insignificance of renewable power problems just fades right into the background.
In the last 18 Months, the total Nameplate for wind power has risen ten times, from a total of 4900MW to now 6960MW, so an increase of around 2100MW.
There have been two times when the daily total power generation (and from that the average power generation across the day) has been lower than it was yesterday, but that was from a much lower total.
Total power generation from ALL wind power yesterday (Saturday 29Feb2020) was 21.12GWH, and that equates to an average across the day of just 880MW per hour.
That’s 880MW from a Nameplate of 6960MW, so that means the daily operational Capacity Factor (CF) was 12.64%, so across the whole day, barely one in every eight wind towers had their blades turning over, so with (around) 3650 of them, barely 460 of them were operating and delivering power.
That total power delivered amounted to 3.9% of the generated power from every source.
Power consumption goes from low to high during daylight hours and then back to its low point for the day again.
Of late, wind generation has been doing the opposite, so that when consumption is at its highest during the day, wind power is stumbling along at its lows for the day, and yesterday was no different, when for NINE hours, wind generation barely managed 1.4% of power delivery, and at the low for the day, 6960MW of wind Nameplate was generating 330MW, at a CF of 4.7%.
Oh and you know how these newer wind plants are so much more efficient than those older ones, you know, how the technology has increased out of sight.
18 Months ago, back when wind Nameplate was 4900MW, the CF was a little lower than the 30% I have always quoted. It was around 29.5% in those days.
As those newer and more efficient wind turbines came on stream, so that now we have 2100MW of those newer turbines, more efficient than those older ones the operational CF is, umm ….. 29.5%. it had struggled almost to 30% twice and both times has fallen back. The 52 week average CF and the long term CF, now 80 weeks are both within a tenth of a percentage point of each other.
So, that Nameplate of 6960MW equates to an average power delivery of 2050MW.
Billions spent on wind power, and only a little more than an ancient, decrepit, retired 53 year old Hazelwood.
But hey, 50% by 2030 is coming, and coming and coming and coming ……
Pity it’ll never reach any of us. They can’t make it work in South Australia with 7.2% of total power generation, so how do they ever expect it to work in the Three States with almost 90% of all power consumption.
It will not happen, no matter who tells you it will.
Tony.
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Thanks Tony, another dose of reality.
On the bright side they are achieving their intended aims.
The banks which handle the finance involved with the construction, operation and return of profits to the point of origin are doing O.K.
for a construction cost of $100 million the banks would receive about $100,000 just to receive and hold that money before redistribution during construction. Cross currency transfers would net about $4 million each way from either Deutschmarks or Chinese currency.
It’s a hard life but somebody has to do it.
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Thanks Tony, great reality check. I note that the minimum wind generation per your data for Feb 29 was 331 MW. That means, despite the investment of 6,960 MW of nameplate wind capacity at a capital cost of of order $12.6 Billion, plus additional network costs for systems that may deliver 0-5,000 MW but deliver on average 1,994 MW, there had to be reliable backup capacity on standby ready to deliver 1,663 MW of reliable electricity. So redundant capacity, yet people still wonder why electricity prices have risen by 135.5% since 2007, while CPI has risen by just 32.5%. Unless of course there is even further investment in massive batteries and pumped hydro, still yet to be factored into the “levelised costs” of renewables. And yet the media still wonders why those investors keep campaigning for ever higher mandatory targets for uncompetitive “renewables”.
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one climate billionaire exits:
29 Feb: NBC: Billionaire Tom Steyer quits Democratic primary race
By Adam Edelman, Allan Smith and Jordan Jackson
Steyer’s departure came after a disappointing finish in the South Carolina Democratic primary. With 56 percent of the vote in, Steyer had just 11.7 percent of the vote — despite spending millions of dollars on campaigning there…
Steyer based his candidacy on promising to declare a “national emergency” on climate change upon taking office…
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/billionaire-tom-steyer-quits-democratic-primary-race-n1146286?cid=ed_npd_bn_fb_bn
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more talk sessions:
29 Feb: ClimateChangeNews: African countries need rich nations to take the lead on ambition at Cop26
Comment: Developed countries must deliver on their promise to mobilise $100 billion a year by 2020 to help vulnerable countries unlock ambition
By Tanguy Gahouma-Bekale
(Tanguy Gahouma-Bekale is a special advisor to the President of Gabon and the chair of the African Group of Negotiators on climate change)
A report by UN Climate Change found that developed countries, excluding former soviet union countries, decreased their total aggregate greenhouse gas emissions by only 1.6% from 1990 to 2017 (LINK), when excluding forestry and land use change. From 2000 to 2017, that figure was 9.5% (LINK).
This is alarming…
The Government of Gabon will now host the ***first meeting of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN) at the end of February in its capital Libreville for three days under the theme “Cop26: Africa’s Roadmap for Climate Action.”
At the Libreville meeting, the Africa Group will aim to reach a common position and strategy for ***intersessional UN talks in Bonn in June, and decide its priorities for Cop26 in November…
https://climatechangenews.com/2020/02/29/african-countries-need-rich-nations-take-lead-ambition-cop26/
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1 Mar: Brussels Times: Economic leaders ask finance sector to support COP26
by Sarah Johansson
Economic leaders, including the Bank of England Governor and the President of the European Central Bank, asked the finance sector to increase their ecological efforts on Thursday…
“You can all contribute to a successful transition towards a carbon neutral economy,” Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said to a group of investors assembled at the Guildhall, the headquarters of the City of London Corporation…
Speaking as a government consultant to the COP26 organisation, the future United Nations special climate envoy highlighted the importance of expanding the evaluation of and publishing businesses’ climate risk…
Dring the forum, the President of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde also called on the financial sector to act, as the sector “will have a crucial role to play in mobilising the resources necessary for the transition and helping other countries deal with climate change.”…
Several big financial company leaders spoke about their climate ambitions. These include Philipp Hildebrand, vice-President of BlackRock, one of the biggest asset-managing companies in the world, and David Schwimmer, head of the London Stock Exchange…
“Becoming carbon neutral is the future. There are massive opportunities for those that are ready to act now,” said Alok Sharma, British State Secretary for business. He has also been president of the COP since Claire Perry O’Neill was ousted last month for attacking Boris Johnson’s climate change achievements.
https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all-news/politics/97830/economic-leaders-ask-finance-sector-to-support-cop26/
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29 Feb: National UAE: How the carbon-neutral asset class is taking over finance
Financial flows can change like the weather, but heavy investment in sustainability appears to be a change in climate
by Damien McElroy, London bureau chief of The National
Investment flows are often like weather patterns, erupting in sudden storms before shifting to new cycles. In economics and meteorology alike, an increase in the frequency of dramatic shocks is a sign that the overall climate may be changing.
It is no surprise, therefore, that investment bankers are starting to listen to meteorologists and climate scientists…
As the storm on the financial markets that has taken place in the last week has proved, there is little in the way of certainty in the face of natural forces such as pandemics, climate or conflict.
However long the current market gyrations last, the wall of money going into climate solutions is not going to be blown off course by this downturn…
A survey by Deloitte has projected that ESG-classed investments will rise to $34 trillion by 2025, an almost two-fold increase on current levels.
That is a huge amount and dwarfs the $100 billion per year pledged by the world’s biggest economies to meet the 2030 climate targets set out in Paris Accord of 2015…
On Thursday, outgoing Bank of England governor Mark Carney gathered the financial elite in the City of London to rally support for a “whole economy transition”….
The Canadian superstar central banker is the special envoy on Climate Finance ahead of the COP 26 summit in the UK later this year. After he steps down, he is due to take up the role of the UN Secretary General’s envoy for climate action and finance…
Mr Carney pointed out that, according to an analysis of ***pension funds, the policies of companies are currently consistent with an expected climate warming of around 3.8 degrees.
The impacts of an almost four-degree rise in temperatures includes a nine-metre rise in sea levels, affecting 700 million people.
It is no wonder the teenage campaigner Greta Thunberg can rally thousands of school children her own age to break school, as she did on Friday in the western English city of Bristol…
The COP 26 conference takes place just days before the G20 meeting Riyadh in November. The organisers of both summits are already working to have a coordinated outcome. Despite the resistance of significant states like the US, India and China, there is the potential for Saudi Arabia and Britain to find a common platform for action…
It may not seem like it, but from the boardroom to the classroom, a storm is brewing.
https://www.thenational.ae/opinion/how-the-carbon-neutral-asset-class-is-taking-over-finance-1.985999
National bio: Damien McElroy: Before joining The National in 2017 to oversee the London editorial operation, he worked for The Sunday Times and Telegraph titles as an editor and roving reporter. He started his career in China and has a degree in finance.
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Warning! some obvious ABC participants etc:
WOMADelaide: The Planet Talks: 2020 Lineup: 6-9 March
Join us daily in the Frome Park Pavilion as The Planet Talks forums host some of the world’s great thinkers, activists and commentators for smart and passionate discussions on the issues facing the citizens of this ‘third stone from the sun’.
Generously supported by Claire Pfister and David Paradice, and City of Adelaide
LINEUP INCLUDES:
Christian Figueres to be interview by ABC Big Ideas’ Paul Barclay
Fran Kelly (ABC Breakfast)
Patrica Karvelas (ABC The Party Room w/ Fran Kelly)
Sabra Lane (ABC AM)
Sarah Hanson-Young
Will Steffen
Friday 6pm: Being seen and Heard: The power and passion in the student climate strike movement
https://www.womadelaide.com.au/lineup/the-planet-talks
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some of the world’s great thinkers?! they must be f’n kidding
00
Vic Jurskis does a great take-down of the “koalas are now extinct” meme.
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2020/02/bushfires-and-koalas-its-not-that-simple/
Some key points paraphrased:
• It was 15 years after settlement before the first koala was spotted by a European in 1803, so uncommon were they due to native predation and native landscape management practices.
• By 1896 after population explosions, hundreds of thousands of koala skins were being exported from Australia.
• Koala populations have historically surged after megafires as the eucalypts they feed on also surge into dominance of the landscape.
• In total there were 20 recorded megafires [sic] in 200 years (Gippsland and surrounds) up to 2009. Koalas are still there in unnaturally high densities.
Note also Jerskis’ photos he took of the state of the NSW far south coast bushland in November. Any wonder it burned.
Of course the koalas introduced to Kangaroo Island in the 1920s were regarded as such a pest that there are now no plans to rehabilitate their decimated population on the island after the fires. Their devastation to the island plant communities was unsustainable. An estimated 80 to 90% have been killed out of the pre-fire 50,000 population. In the Mt Lofty Ranges near Adelaide a population of about 150,000 is still thriving.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-21/repopulation-of-pest-koalas-on-kangaroo-island-a-no-go/11885552
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We shoot possums here (and run ’em over like wascally wabbits, kah-doof!) for the environment y’know.
Haven’t seen a koala for a while.
Signed: Elmer Fudd.
[Might be an invisible /sarc tag here somewhere… :- )- Jo]
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I’ve just finished reading Eric Rolls’s _And they all ran wild”.
Interesting that there was also an explosion in kangaroo numbers around the 1870’s
40
for those who missed it – especially those who are pro-coal – check comment #25 on Jo’s “Who rules Britain” thread, where I had to post it to be on topic:
great piece:
29 Feb: Australian: Asia in no hurry to do without energy sourced from coal
by Greg Sheridan
Don’t mention Asia. And if you must mention Asia, don’t mention China. And if you must mention China, for goodness sake don’t tell the truth about it…
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“WATCH: Delingpole Trolls Greta Fans at Climate Change Protest”
“And there, in a nutshell, you have the problem with the Greta Thunberg rally in particular and the global warming scaremonger movement in general: it is fuelled by a dangerous combination of well-meaning passion and the most abject scientific ignorance.”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/02/29/delingpole-trolls-greta-fans-at-climate-protest/
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“Energy advocacy in a world of energy ignorance – countering the fear narrative one step at a time”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2020/02/29/energy-advocacy-in-a-world-of-energy-ignorance-countering-the-fear-narrative-one-step-at-a-time/
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Morrison needs to be very careful as to how he responds to the push for 0% emissions that’s gathering pace around the Western world. He could adopt the same policy but with the real means to do it including an estimate of the costs, as distinct from the opposition where it’s all hype with no costing. Clearly nuclear has to be thrown into the mix of solutions, just as other nations have already adopted, which allows them to reach the 0% target far more easily, even if they never get there for any number of reasons. Perception is key.
Alternatively, Morrison could go down a similar road as the opposition or he could set a more easily achievable target of say 50% by 2050 or 0% by the second half the century but that would be risky as that would give the perception he’s not taking all the climate change story seriously enough. It’s a little like a poker game of bluff and skill. To win he needs to bluff with at least some realistic solutions. Of course, he could come out and declare the truth and state categorically all this emissions reductions stuff is a whole lot of crap and a total waste of time and money, but he won’t. The only Western leader doing so is Trump, and there is clearly no one even remotely like him in other nations.
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behind paywall. h/t Sky’s Outsiders:
22 Feb: UK Times: V&A wants to find next Greta Thunberg by training green teens to protest
Teenagers could use museums as protest bases where they create slogans, badges and campaigns for their climate change strikes, the director of one of Britain’s leading institutions says. Tristram Hunt, director of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, has defended museums’ relationships with fossil fuel funding…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/v-a-wants-to-find-next-greta-thunberg-by-training-green-teens-in-the-art-of-protest-gbqmpd65z
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it seems the Greta thing is not new to the V & A:
8 Oct 2019: V & A Museum Blog: Extinction Rebellion, V&A Museum of Childhood until February 2020
This October, Extinction Rebellion is acting once again to persuade governments to acknowledge and address the climate crisis the world is facing. A non-violent protest group network raising awareness of global heating and climate change, Extinction Rebellion – known as XR – use civil disobedience to engage people with their cause…
At the V&A Museum of Childhood, we recently unveiled our own acquisition of a child’s hi-vis vest from the major XR action in April. This is quite a departure for the museum, known by most for its extensive collections of toys. Many children with concerns about their future, however, have been inspired by the actions of young activists such as Greta Thunberg, initiator of the School Strike for Climate, and have participated in these protests through the Extinction Rebellion Families Group. The vest is displayed here is part of a larger display of loans from the XR Families Group alongside the creative work of children produced at these actions, including flags, protest signs and giant banners…READ ON
https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/museum-of-childhood/change-is-coming
btw it was great to see Jo’s Acorn/Chris Gilham thread full screen on Outsiders today. Rowan Dean explained it well.
10
***only “white” Australians should learn…as SMH says we should keep in mind the “shared identity” of our national character! I didn’t realise we were either indigenous or white:
28 Feb: SMH editorial: Goodbye to a bad summer that has changed us forever
Goodbye and good riddance to the summer of 2020…
It has thankfully rained in some places and the fires are now out although the drought persists in large parts of the inland. But any relief was short-lived with the spread of coronavirus, which has deterred tourists from the Chinese Lunar New Year festival that marks the end of our summer…
It was also good to be reminded by the bushfires of the wisdom of Indigenous people who managed the country for millennia with controlled burns. ***White Australians should realise this is just one area where we could learn from them…
Which brings us to the question of the role of scientists in the debate about climate change. Hopefully the bushfires and drought this summer have focused attention on what scientists say and less on the nonsense peddled by climate-change deniers and special interests…
For all its tragedies, this summer has done something to the national character…
We must keep that shared identity in mind as we look for solutions.
Herald editor Lisa Davies writes a weekly newsletter exclusively for subscribers.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/goodbye-to-a-bad-summer-that-has-changed-us-forever-20200228-p545fi.html
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more of the “managed the country for millenia” myth
how exactly does a small population of scattered tribes in a vast landscape “manage” anything at scale? Its noble savage fantasy stuff.
flushing animals into the clear isnt managing the land
I think the great land manager in ancient Australia was lightning.
10
overstates China’s domestic “green” credentials; however, lots of detail worth noting:
29 Feb: Forbes: Inside China’s ‘Greenwashing’ Of The Belt And Road
by Wade Shepard
Three decades of rampant development and urbanization in China has taken a heavy toll on the environment…
By the mid-2010s, China saw the writing on the wall and began an all-out, top-down initiative against pollution, which saw coal plants being phased out in exchange for renewable energy resources, big fines for excessive polluters and mass efforts to greenify and increase the ecological sustainability of cities throughout the country. However, as China has made commendable strides towards cleaning up the environment in their own backyard, they are exporting dirty energy sources and polluting industries to other countries all along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), repeating many of the same mistakes they’ve already made at home…
A 2017 report by the World Wildlife Fund found that upwards of 1,739 important bird areas and key biodiversity areas and 265 already threatened species are being put at increased risk by BRI projects—not to mention the additional deforestation and poaching that could occur due to the access that these projects create…
“There was a lot of ‘greenwashing’ at the most recent Belt and Road Forum with announcements like the Green Cooling Initiative, Green Development Coalition and Green Lighting Initiative,” notes Jonathan Hillman, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It all sound nice, but I’m skeptical they are more than advertising. My understanding is that there are many cases when China’s practices for overseas projects would not meet their own domestic environment requirements, but they go ahead with them under the rationale that it is the host country’s choice.”
This take is supported by a World Bank report which analyzed 3,000 international Chinese projects and found that they are predominantly located in “poorer nations with weak environmental regulations and controls.”… READ ON
https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2020/02/29/inside-chinas-greenwashing-of-the-belt-and-road/
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Sandy Aloisi on ABC News Radio had lengthy interview with Dr. David Holmes, (Director Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub) about the following this morning, and very much along the same lines, with Aloisi first to bring up the big decrease in so-caled climate denialism.
2 Mar: Medianet: Climate change and bushfires: How our media reported on our most recent crises
Media coverage mentioning climate change in relation to Australia’s recent bushfire crisis is up tenfold compared to media coverage of the Black Saturday bushfires, Monash University research has found.
As summer 2019/20 comes to a close, an analysis from the Monash Climate Change Communication Research Hub (LINK) (MCCCRH) has revealed that 49 per cent of media coverage analysed in the lead up to and throughout the recent bushfire season, or “Black Summer,” mentioned climate change.
This is compared to just five per cent back in 2009 in the five days before and after Black Saturday.
Climate change denialism in media reporting around bushfires also decreased, with 21 per cent of the Black Saturday coverage on climate change featuring denialism and just five per cent during Black Summer.
MCCCRH researchers analysed 700 articles that reported on this season’s fires and climate change between September 1, 2019 and January 31, 2020…
It was also found that 16 per cent of the recent sample directly explored the links between climate change and the fires.
Of these, more than half were critical of the Coalition government and just under 12 per cent blamed the government for exacerbating the fires through lack of climate action, lack of leadership or lack of funding to fire services.
In contrast, only seven per cent of overall articles framed Scott Morrison as an effective leader; 58 per cent of which occurred in News Corp publications.
News Corp made up a quarter of the overall accurate and in-depth coverage of climate change during Black Summer, but represented 59 per cent of all denialist discussion of climate change.
Fairfax was the second most frequent publisher across the period, with a third of all coverage and the highest percentage of accurate and in-depth discussion of climate change. Fairfax made up 19 per cent of denialism…
MCCCRH Director Dr David Holmes said it was telling that the mentions of climate change had increased in recent times…
“Australia had, in 2019, both its driest year on record and its hottest year on record. Climate change unleashed a war on the Australian summer and it is easy for journalists and the public alike to acknowledge what scientists have been talking about for many years.”…
https://www.medianet.com.au/releases/184807/
00
ABC News Radio followed the above with the wonders of green hydro for export in Tasmania. used earlier dates than the up-and-running 2024 one below. from memory, had some elements ready by 2021/2022, which gave impression it was quick, cheap and job-creating. Michael Rowland, ABC TV Breakfast, did the interview:
2 Mar: TheAdvocateTasmania: Tasmanian Premier Peter Gutwein announces $50 million investment in hydrogen energy production
by Sandy Powell
Tens of millions of dollars could be invested in a hydrogen energy production facility in Burnie if the Tasmanian government is able to attract private investment to the sector.
A Renewable Hydrogen Action Plan to be announced by Premier Peter Gutwein on Monday will provide $50 million over the next 10 years, potentially creating hundreds of jobs and boosting the local and state economy.
In 2018, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation developed a roadmap for the development of an Australian hydrogen energy industry.
The roadmap said hydrogen is “derived primarily by splitting water or by reacting fossil fuels with steam or controlled amounts of oxygen”.
“If produced using low or zero emissions sources, ‘clean’ hydrogen can enable deep decarbonisation across the energy and industrial sectors.”
A government report has identified Burnie and Bell Bay “as being very suitable for this type of development”.
The government will commit $20 million through a Tasmanian Renewable Energy Fund and will provide up to $20 million in concessional loans and up to $10 million worth of support including “competitive electricity supply arrangements and payroll tax relief”…
“Attributes such as extensive road and rail links, and access to deep-water ports for export at Devonport, Port Latta and Burnie make the North-West perfectly placed to host a renewable hydrogen production industry,” Mr Gutwein said…
“New wind farms, pumped hydro schemes and a second transmission interconnector across Bass Strait complement large-scale commercial renewable hydrogen production and export,” he said…
Mr Gutwein said he hoped to have a facility “up and running” in Tasmania by 2024 and to be commercially exporting hydrogen domestically and internationally by 2030…
He said a 1000-megawatt facility would create about 1000 local jobs and inject billions into the economy.
He said the investment showed a commitment to “taking real action on climate change”.
https://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/6655978/gutweins-gas-gamble-50-million-for-hydrogen-energy-production/
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TWEET: Michael Rowland, ABC TV Breakfast
Correction: the Vic Nationals Deputy leader.
29 Feb 2020
(Rowland’s earlier tweet)
Victorian Nationals leader @StephRyanNats reckons Australia’s emissions reduction targets aren’t ‘ambitious enough.’ @theage #auspol…TEXT EXCERPT “THE AGE”
https://twitter.com/mjrowland68/status/1233887770197651457
The Age article:
1 Mar: Age: Emissions targets not ‘ambitious enough’: Nationals’ Steph Ryan
By Sumeyya Ilanbey and Noel Towell
The Victorian Nationals have split from their federal colleagues over the flashpoint issue of climate change, with the state branch’s deputy leader saying Australia’s emissions reduction targets are not “ambitious enough”.
Victorian Nationals deputy Steph Ryan also wants her warring federal counterparts to end their infighting, saying the instability at the top of the Nationals is “deeply frustrating”.
Ms Ryan is opposed to building new coal-fired power stations, unlike sections of her party in Queensland and NSW which are clamouring for new coal-burning energy generation. But she says the market, not governments, should dictate when the nation’s ageing coal-fuelled power stations should close.
“I think the [climate change] debate has moved beyond whether we’re meeting our existing targets,” the Euroa MP said.
“I think the majority of people do want to see greater action, and in rural communities we live at the knife edge of the consequences of climate change.
“Many people that I talk to, whether they’re farmers or working across rural industries, are concerned about the cost of inaction.”
She said she also wanted greater action from the Commonwealth.
Ms Ryan said the federal government’s current climate change policy – using Kyoto carryover credits to meet Australia’s 2030 Paris commitment of reducing missions by 26-28 per cent on 2005 levels – were not “ambitious enough”.
Asked if she wanted the prime minister to adopt stronger emissions reduction targets, she said: “Yeah. I think there is a valid conversation to be had about whether our current targets are ambitious enough.
“I don’t think [our current targets] are ambitious enough. But I do understand concerns from some industries who feel that they will bear all of the pain of change, and that’s why I think we need a constructive, national debate around how we take stronger action,” she said.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Sunday Age, Ms Ryan said she believed that voters in rural and regional Australia who are living at the “knife edge” of climate change want leadership from their politicians on the issue.
Her comments put her sharply at odds with her party’s national leader Michael McCormack – who this month described a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 as “not the Australian way” – and his fractious senior colleagues…
Ms Ryan said “national leadership” was needed on emissions reduction targets, putting her in lock-step with her Liberal colleagues in Victoria who also want to see “sensible” long-term targets at a federal level…
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/emissions-targets-not-ambitious-enough-nationals-steph-ryan-20200228-p545ft.html
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A1000MW facility would consume all the electricity that Tasmania currently consumes/ generates !…So they would need to double up on every “green” generator they have
..and i do not believe even Tasmania has enough rain for that to work !
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Alan Jones/2GB this morning had lengthy segment on Marble Bar/BoM plus interview with Jennifer Marohasy. will post audio if/when it is available.
i have tried to open Jo’s “Acorn adjustments” thread multiple times in the past five minutes and only on about the 8th attempt has it opened! i am posting it again because some of Jo’s readers may not have seen her VERY IMPORTANT UPDATE:
26 Feb: ACORN adjustments robbed Marble Bar of its legendary world record. Death Valley now longest hottest place
UPDATE: The Hon. Craig Kelly MP was so appalled by this story he has taken this to the Australian Parliament already where The Labor Party was so afraid they interrupted his allocated 15 minute speech just to stop him finishing. They even called a formal Division which means the bell is rung and all the missing MPs have to return to the Chamber to vote. See that on Kelly’s Facebook page (LINK).
Who cares about our climate and who covers up for incompetent bureaucrats?!
http://joannenova.com.au/2020/02/acorn-adjustments-robbed-marble-bar-of-its-legendary-world-record-death-valley-now-longest-hottest-place/
26 Feb: Facebook: Craig Kelly: PART 2 : LABOR SHUTS DOWN DEBATE ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORLD’S LONGEST HEATWAVE AT MARBLE BAR IN 1923/4
https://www.facebook.com/CraigKellyMP/videos/606139103574963/
1 Mar: Jennifer Marohasy: Warming Marble Bar
MY friend Craig Kelly – the Federal member for Hughes – attempted to raise the issue of the world’s longest heat wave record in the Australian parliament last Wednesday. He was shut down by Tony Burke, the manager of opposition business.
Specifically, Mr Kelly was attempting to draw attention to how the historical observations have been changed, and how the values as originally recorded at Marble Bar between 31 October 1923 and 7 April 1924 have been adjusted down. This was first brought to our attention by Chris Gilham (LINK), and reposted by Joanne Nova (LINK).
The Bureau has made many more changes to the Marble Bar record, than just dropping down the temperatures back in 1923 and 1924…READ ALL
https://jennifermarohasy.com/2020/03/warming-marble-bar/
28 Feb: Facebook: Craig Kelly MP
SERIOUSLY, IF THE ’CLIMATE ANALYSTS‘ AT BUREAU SAID IT WAS RAINING, YOU’D BEST LOOK OUT THE WINDOW AND CHECK.
Back in Jan 2008, the SMH reported that the Bureau of Meteorology’s head of Climate Analysis warned that we should,
‘’Stop describing south-eastern Australia as ‘gripped by drought‘ and instead accept the extreme dry as permanent’’ and ‘’we should call this our new climate’’.
LINK SMH
Then the flooding rains came again – as they always have.
And despite assertions by the ABC’s climate expert Tim Flannery that these rains ‘’would never fill our dams’’ – our dams filled to overflowing again.
Then the cycle started yet again, and drought returned, and the dams started to empty.
And late last year the Bureau told us ‘’No rain until April’’.
LINK Australian
Then the heavens opened and down she came again, and at the end of February our dams are now back up to an average 82% full in Greater Sydney region – with more rain expected this week.
LINK WaterNSW
657 COMMENTS AT TIME OF POSTING BUT, EVEN IF I LOOK FOR “ALL COMMENTS”, IT STOPS AT 132, WHICH MEANS I CAN’T FIND OUT IF ANYONE POSTED JO’S ACORN/CHRIS GILHAM THREAD.
https://www.facebook.com/CraigKellyMP/photos/a.117937578400885/1435073993353897/?type=3
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WOW! no date. no big fanfare. but it is on news.com.au. be thankful for small mercies. of course, it should be a front page sensation. and the subject of an ABC Four Corner long before now:
VIDEO: 6m10s: 2 Mar: news.com.au: Outsiders weather and ice age watch: BOM is ‘rewriting history’
Australia’s hottest place Marble Bar doesn’t need air-conditioning since the Bureau of Meteorology is “cooling the town” down already according to Sky News host Rowan Dean.
https://www.news.com.au/national/outsiders-weather-and-ice-age-watch-bom-is-rewriting-history/video/46ceab979ed1b49a4132cd1cef996ef8
somewhat ironically, this is below the Outsiders’ video:
BoM’s Dr. Andrew Watkins, senior climatologist – with a 2-minute-plus look back to summer extremes, before a minute on the autumn forecast:
VIDEO: 3m37s: news.com.au: Bureau of Meteorology climate and water outlook for March-May 2020
Supplied video obtained Monday, March 2, 2020, of the Bureau of Meteorology’s Climate and Water Outlook for the period of March-May 2020. The climate and water outlook provides a look at likely rainfall, streamflow and temperature for the months ahead. (AAP VIDEO/Supplied/Bureau of Meteorology)
https://www.news.com.au/national/bureau-of-meteorology-climate-and-water-outlook-for-marchmay-2020/video/8821df65894f5f4df79ec014bf328fbf
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lengthy Jones intro, plus Jennifer Marohasy:
AUDIO: 15m11s: 2 Mar: 2GB: Alan Jones: Outback Australian town ‘robbed’ of 100yo world record due to figure fudging
Marble Bar, in between Exmouth and Broome, saw temperatures of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7°C) for 160 consecutive days.
But the Bureau of Meteorology has now adjusted its records, stripping Marble Bar of the record and “cooling history”, according to Alan Jones.
Dr Jennifer Marohasy tells Alan it’s been done to suit the global warming storyline.
“It does rob Marble Bar of that heatwave record but it also generates what they want, which is a warming trend.
“If you look at the actual historical data it actually has a cooling trend but they remodel and they get a warming trend.”
https://www.2gb.com/outback-australian-town-robbed-of-100yo-world-record-due-to-figure-fudging/
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How does the opposition party get to shut down a government MP making a statement to the house ??
I seem to recall MPs “Fillyblustering”. For hours when they want to waste debate time ??
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headline on ABC “Just In” page:
The Australian town where summer is 48 days longer than it was in the 50s
by Liv Casben
actual headline:
2 Mar: ABC: Summers are now twice as long as winters in all Australian capital cities, report finds
By Liv Casben
Australian summers have become, on average, 31 days longer in Australia’s capital cities, and in regional areas that number is even higher, according to a new report.
Researchers at the Australia Institute crunched Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) data from between 1999 to 2018 and compared it with Australian weather records from 1950 to 1969…
In regional areas the trend was even more pronounced — including the NSW town of Port Macquarie, on the Mid-North Coast.
“Summers in Port Macquarie have increased by 48 days, while the catastrophic 2019 fires near Port Macquarie occurred before summer as defined by the calendar, but well within the new summer as caused by climate change,” the report summarised…
The discussion paper, titled Out of Season, concluded climate change had led to significant changes in Australian seasons.
Australia Institute Climate and Energy Program director Richie Merzian said average temperatures previously recorded around the start of December were setting in much earlier.
“If summer feels like it’s getting longer and longer, it’s because it actually is, especially if you’re an older Australian,” Mr Merzian said…
The Australia Institute is a non-partisan organisation which conducts research on matters of public policy…
Responding to the report, NSW Rural Fire Service Mid Coast District Officer and Port Macquarie resident Stuart Robb said bushfire seasons would also get longer as temperatures increased.
“This would put additional pressures on landholders and agencies to undertake hazard reduction works ahead of the summer months,” he said.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-02/australian-summers-getting-longer-winters-shorter/12013978
51-page report can be found by searching “The Australia Institute” “Out of Season”.
????
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2 Mar: BBC: Climate change: Australian summers ‘twice as long as winters’
The country experienced a devastating bushfire season, which killed 33 people and an estimated ***one billion native animals…
Australia’s government faced scrutiny over its climate policies during the devastating bushfire season, with critics accusing Prime Minister Scott Morrison of inaction.
Australia is one of the highest emitters of carbon pollution per capita, largely because it is still heavily reliant on coal-fired power…
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-51697803
2 Mar: news.com.au: Summer now twice as long as winter compared with mid-20th century
Just because it’s March doesn’t mean summer is over. A new report shows the season goes for a month longer than it used to.
by Jack Gramenz
VIDEO: 2m58s
A build-up of excess fuel has been considered as one of the factors that increased the severity of recent bushfires.
Increased heat could make it difficult to conduct fire reduction burns in the future…
“Extended summers will have significant impacts on Australia’s tourism, construction and mining sectors as well as impacting the everyday lives of Australians. When it comes to agriculture, extended summers can damage crops and exhaust livestock,” Mr Merzian said…
He said more ambitious emissions reduction targets needed to be set to help combat further global warming…
***More than 70 countries have now pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2050, but collectively they only account for a little more than 10 per cent of emissions…
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change/summer-now-twice-as-long-as-winter-compared-with-mid20th-century/news-story/cf52115278b7dd4b31e2e260ce919191
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2 Mar: SMH: Summers are starting earlier, finishing later and winter is in retreat
by Peter Hannam
The bureau will release reports on the recently concluded summer on Monday. This season ranked as the country’s second-warmest summer, trailing only 2018-19, updated bureau data showed.
Autumn was off to a warm start on Sunday as Melbourne topped 32 degrees, or 8 degrees above the March norm. Sydney, meanwhile, is forecast to hit 36 degrees on Monday, well above March’s average of 24.8 degrees…
Among the implications are that strains on infrastructure from high temperatures are lasting longer. A study by University of Melbourne energy analyst Dylan McConnell underscores that trend, noting how the electricity sector’s performance fell away during the recent summer even as demand rose…
They also say the longer and hotter summers have coincided with an increase in the incidence of more frequent and extreme heatwaves, and the heat-related illnesses they spur…
https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/summers-are-starting-earlier-finishing-later-and-winter-is-in-retreat-20200301-p545r0.html
it’s almost as if all of this stuff is a response to the Marble Bar story!
2 Mar: 9News: AAP: Australia warms more than rest of world
Australia’s temperatures are increasing more than the global average, the nation’s weather bureau says.
Bureau of Meteorology head of climate monitoring Karl Braganza said Australia had warmed by about 1.4 degrees Celsius while the rest of the world had increased by 1.1C.
“Australia warms slightly more than the global average,” Dr Braganza told a Senate estimates committee in Canberra today.
When temperatures across the rest of the world increase by 3.4C on average – which was estimated in a recent report – Australia is projected to be closer to 4C, he said.
BOM chief Andrew Johnson said Australia was expected to become drier and warmer, which would see the risk of severe fire weather continue.
It comes as an independent analysis of weather data shows Australian summers are getting longer and winters shorter…
Australia Institute’s climate and energy director Richie Merzian says having more extreme heat events puts the public at risk and hurts the economy.
“The Australian government’s current emission reduction targets are aligned with three to four degrees of warming,” he said.
“Which leaves ***young Australians having ever-lengthening summers with significant consequences.”…
https://www.9news.com.au/national/climate-change-weather-australia-warms-more-than-rest-of-the-world/572d8ff9-ba26-474c-8929-ef9e34b4886a
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Even if you believe all the anti-science of the AGW mob…
… Australia’s emissions will have basically ZERO effect on global temperature or climate.
Changing our emissions levels will have absolutely zero effect on climate in any way whatsoever..
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looking more and more like cover for the Marble Bar/Chris Gilham/Jonova story:
AUDIO: 4m47s: 2 Mar: ABC Breakfast: Fran Kelly: Australian summers getting longer, data shows
If you feel like Australian summers seems to be getting longer, it turns out you’re right.
New analysis by the Australia Institute has found that summer is now, on average, 31 days longer in our capital cities than it was in the 1950’s and 60’s, with winter about three weeks shorter.
Featured:
Richie Merzian, Director, Climate and Energy Programme, Australia Institute
Producer: Julia Holman
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/australian-summers-getting-longer-data-shows/12015722
AUDIO: 4m31s: 2 Mar: ABC The World Today: Longer summers, shorter winters: report analyses 70 years of weather data
By Annie Guest
If you hear older Australians saying summers aren’t what they used to be – they’re right, according to a report by The Australia Institute.
Using weather bureau data, the ***progressive-leaning think tank found Australian summers are now over one month longer than they were in the middle of last century.
And the last five summers were twice as long as the winters.
Featured:
Latif Ucdereli, Port Macquarie business owner
Richie Merzian, Australia Institute
Helen Cleugh, CSIRO
The Institute is using the report to renew calls for strong policy to reduce emissions.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/darwin/programs/worldtoday/report-analyses-70-years-of-weather-data/12016494
Reuters: Climate change lengthens Australian summers by 50%: study
UK Independent: Australian summers a month longer and winter shorter as climate crisis hits, study finds
Guardian: Climate crisis cutting short Autralia’s winters and extending summers
Sky Australia: Longer summers ‘a consequence of climate change’
Pedestrian TV: Climate Change is so severe that Australian Summers are now twice as long as Winters
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how convenient TAI and BoM provided a hot atmosphere for Adam Bandt to introduce his Climate Emergency Bill today!
2 Mar: ParliamentOfAustralia: Climate Emergency Declaration Bill 2020
Sponsor: BANDT, Adam, MP
LINKS
https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;page=0;query=BillId:r6506%20Recstruct:billhome
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slash theirABC’s budget:
1 Mar: SMH: Future of AAP in doubt as financial pressure mounts
By Zoe Samios
National news agency Australian Associated Press is facing mass job cuts and the prospect of closure as its shareholders confront one of the toughest media markets in history.
Sources close to discussions about AAP’s future, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the operation has been under immense financial pressure and major shareholders Nine Entertainment Co and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp were assessing all options. Nine is the owner of this masthead…
As many as 180 jobs could go as a result of the planned changes – representing the entirety of AAP’s remaining editorial operations…
Both Seven West Media and Nine announced significant cost-cutting plans after downgrading their earnings forecasts in half-year results, while News Corp said its third-quarter earnings were affected by the “sluggish” Australian economy…
Following the merger of Nine and Fairfax Media in 2018, the business has increasingly been able to use its own video and audio assets in stories, as opposed to AAP resources…
Like others, AAP has come under increasing financial pressure with technology platforms like Google and Facebook taking clients, advertising dollars and distributing content…
Like others, AAP has come under increasing financial pressure with technology platforms like Google and Facebook taking clients, advertising dollars and distributing content…
News.com.au has an entire section of its website dedicated to the AAP feed. AAP is also Facebook’s fact-checker, a role which it took on in mid-2019. The future of this arrangement is not clear…
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/future-of-aap-in-doubt-as-financial-pressure-mounts-20200301-p545qh.html
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just came across this by chance:
1 July 2019: Nature: Biased data undermine an iconic weather record
Flaws are revealed in a highly cited database that dates back more than two centuries.
Scientists have identified biased data in an iconic meteorological record, and are now challenging conclusions about long-term precipitation trends in England, Wales and possibly other regions.
The England and Wales Precipitation (EWP) series is a continuous monthly record of British snow and rainfall, stretching back to 1766. For decades, climate scientists have used this record — one of the longest-running available — to examine precipitation and atmospheric-circulation patterns in northwest Europe.
Conor Murphy at Maynooth University, Ireland, and his colleagues drew on independent data, including long-term measurements of British snowfall, to reconstruct the record’s early portion. Their reconstruction showed that the EWP underestimated winter precipitation before 1870, whereas summer rainfall was overestimated before 1820. As a result, the widely accepted conclusion that winters have become wetter and summers dryer since 1766 appears to be an artefact.
Scientists should exercise caution in using early EWP data and when drawing conclusions from other multicentury precipitation datasets, the authors say…
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02057-x
Wikipedia: England and Wales Precipitation
The England and Wales Precipitation (EWP) record is a meteorological dataset which was originally published in the journal British Rainfall in 1931 and updated in a greatly revised form by a number of climatologists including Janice Lough, Tom Wigley and Phil Jones during the 1970s and 1980s. The monthly mean rainfall and snowfall for the region of England and Wales are given (in millimetres) from the year 1766 to the present, though the original 1931 dataset went as far back as 1727…
Recent analysis suggests that the sparse data (besides the absence of data from South West England for four years, only one station was used per region until the 1820s) from early years can lead to bias towards drier conditions since higher and wetter areas are not likely to be accounted for, though no effort has yet been made to examine the data. There has also been a suggestion that many of the very earliest values, before circa 1780 and for a few years near 1800 and between 1809 and 1813, are rather too low compared to other estimates from A.F. Jenkinson of the University of East Anglia…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_and_Wales_Precipitation
Met Office UK: Met Office Hadley Centre observations datasets: HadUKP
HadUKP – UK regional precipitation series
HadUKP is a series of datasets of UK regional precipitation, which incorporates the long-running ***England & Wales Precipitation (EWP) series beginning in 1766, the longest instrumental series of this kind in the world. The map (below) shows the regions that are available…
Brief description of the data
HadUKP incorporates a selection of long-running rainfall stations to provide a homogeneity-adjusted series of areally averaged precipitation. The England and Wales (HadEWP) precipitation totals are based on daily weighted totals from a network of stations within each of five England and Wales regions. A full quality control is performed on the 5th of each subsequent month, allowing data from the most recent six months to be updated…
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadukp/
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Andrew Bolt just had LNP Senator Gerard Rennick on his Sky program re questions he had for BoM boss, Andrew Johnson, (Senate Estimates hearing). brilliant interview and will post it asap. Rennick not happy with Marble Bar/2011 homogenisations with followup changes 8 years later, etc. Bolt asked if he thought it was time for a debate on the science, but Rennick is much more interested in BoM and the destruction of records, etc. as he said, you ask two climate scientists a question and you get two different answers.
Bolt had begun with Johnson’s claim – twice – that Australia was getting drier and drier. did Rennick think he should be called back to explain why that differed from the science and data?
yes, Rennick did.
Guardian has a ton of nonsense at the top of this page, but check Adam Morton stuff below posted about 9h ago:
2 Mar: Guardian: Labor presses officials over sports grants scandal – as it happened
by Amy Remeikis
Tweet: Adam Morton
Good times in environment #estimates. LNP Senator Gerard Rennick, a govt backbencher, challenges BOM over its temp data. Malcolm Roberts, also a Qlder, backs him up. BOM CEO Andrew Johnson indicates, politely and not in so many words, they have no idea what they’re talking about…
We also learned just how bad 2019 was, and how the trend for warming is only going up:
Andrew Johnson: “The observations the Bureau has taken are well and truly on the record. 2019 was a very difficult year – national average the hottest and most driest we’ve seen since records began being kept at the beginning of the 20th century.”
Marielle Smith: Would the BoM say there is a trend to warmer and drier years?
AJ: “Certainly yes.”
MS: Will this trend continue for the foreseeable future?
AJ: “Based on current trajectories of global emissions – that trend is likely to continue.”
Gerard Rennick and Craig Kelly might have decided to start donning tinfoil hats when it comes to BoM data, but thankfully, there are still plenty of people who understand weather and climate are two different things and that it can be an imperfect science, but the best one we have at the moment.
In environment estimates, Labor senator Marielle Smith is asking about the pressure BoM was under during the bushfires:
MS: Was there a spike of activity to the BOM app during the bushfire crisis?
BoM: Dr Andrew Johnson: “I’m not sure about the spike of activity into the app but I’m sure there was a spike of engagement with the Bureau and the community during the bushfire crisis.
We received nearly 4,5000 media requests and did many, many, many radio crosses and other engagement with the community.
It wouldn’t surprise me at all that our statistics with the app increased. I know, as of last week, nearly six-and-three-quarter million Australians had the app on their mobile device. Just within the last seven months or so we’ve had nearly 900,000 new users so once could extrapolate that was driven by the severe weather at the backend of 2019…
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2020/mar/02/scott-morrison-peter-dutton-coalition-politics-live?page=with:block-5e5c474a8f086a28115b5b33
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Good grief the BOM is the last place I would go for anything bushfire related. About the only thing I trust is the weather radar, I dont think they can mess with that too much.
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*************and no media is reporting these details. watch the video – Rennick questioning Johnson:
2 Mar: Facebook: Gerard Rennick posed 2h ago
Today in Estimates I asked the Bureau of Meteorology if it agreed that the homogenisation of Australia’s mean temperature data has effectively increased the rate of warming by more than 50% since 1910. The BOM failed to answer this question.
I then asked the BOM to state its accepted margin of error or tolerance level for the original (raw) dataset. Again the BOM failed to answer the question, despite asking the same question more than three times.
Check out my media release on this here
LINK
***VIDEO 6m33s
29 comments at time of posting including:
Frank Maunders I’ll bet they are seeking expert counsel right now, they’ve been caught propping up an agenda by changing history TWICE to get the outcome they are looking for.
Time to put them on notice to answer simply and correctly or their positions will become vacant.
These manipulators are Servants of the taxpayers and we are not happy.
Their collective attitude is bringing Bom into disrepute.
Shane Gresinger The government should bring in their own independent people to go through the BOM raw data ACORN 1 & 2 then get back to the government.
https://www.facebook.com/gerard.rennick/
2 Mar: Gerard Rennick: MEDIA RELEASE: BOM refuses to answer on data records
LNP Senator for Queensland Gerard Rennick has called out the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) during Senate Estimates today with key questions on their Surface Air Temperature dataset.
Despite repeated questions from Senator Rennick about the BOM’s confidence intervals on both its actual and adjusted records, the BOM refused to provide clear answers.
The BOM’s adjusted records, the ACORN-SAT dataset is a time series of daily temperature data from a network of 112 weather stations going back over 100 years in most cases.
Since 2011 the BOM has found it necessary to adjust Australia’s temperature record on two occasions. This process of ‘homogenisation’ is claimed to account for anomalies identified within the raw dataset.
The latest adjustments in the ACORN 2 dataset has increased warming from 0.8 degrees Celsius to 1.23 degrees Celsius from 1910 to 2016.
Senator Rennick asked if the BOM agreed that the homogenisation of Australia’s mean temperature data has effectively increased the rate of warming by more than 50% since 1910. The BOM failed to answer this question and instead sought to defend its adjustment methodology by referencing peer reviews over the past decade.
“If they can’t answer what should be a very straightforward question for them, then I think Australians should be concerned”, said Senator Rennick.
Senator Rennick then asked the BOM to state its accepted margin of error or tolerance level for the original (raw) dataset, ACORN 1 dataset and ACORN 2 dataset. Again the BOM failed to answer the question despite Senator Rennick asking the question more than three times.
The 2011 independent peer review report found that the BOM’s observation practices did not meet international best practice. Furthermore a key recommendation of the report was that the tolerance on temperature sensors be reduced significantly below the present +/-0.5 degrees which is significantly higher than the World Meteorological Organisations standard of +/-0.2 degrees. Another key recommendation of the review was that the BOM should specify statistical uncertainly values associated with calculating Australian national temperature trends.
Senator Rennick said the BOM’s failure to clarify or provide an update on these important recommendations is disappointing given the importance of measuring surface air temperature.
“I intend to submit additional questions on notice on this and related matters that I hope the Bureau of Meteorology will answer expeditiously and in full.”
https://www.gerardrennick.com.au/media-release-bom-refuses-to-answer-on-data-records/
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Youtube: 5m27s: Senate Estimates – Great barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
Malcolm Roberts Published on Mar 1, 2020
Senate Estimates – Great barrier Reef Marine Park Authority
Climate activists and political ideologues, many in this building, are using the Great Barrier Reef as a prop in their propaganda war to convince the public that human carbon dioxide is causing unprecedented and catastrophic warming.
These ideologues falsely claim that the reef is dead or dying.
Does the GBRMPA agree with these ideologues that the reef is dead or dying?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPSyoRZr2NE&feature=youtu.be
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1 Mar: NoTricksZone: Berlin 300-Year Station Shows Temperatures Were Just As Warm In The Mid 1700s – No CO2 Fingerprint
By P Gosselin
One of Europe’s oldest temperature series goes back 300 years: Berlin-Dahlem.
CHART
Readers will note the mean temperatures were warmer than they are today. The 1990s and 2000s were in the mid 1800s.
Moreover, the long-term trend was downward from 1760 to 1990, despite atmospheric CO2 having rising since 1850.
https://notrickszone.com/2020/03/01/berlin-300-year-station-shows-temperatures-were-just-as-warm-in-the-mid-1700s-no-co2-fingerprint/
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today a follow-up to this is being run on Russia Today. Govt is demanding the Uni drop funding from China.
4 Feb: TimesHigherEducation: China influence scandal rocks Berlin university
Contract reveals the Free University of Berlin is bound by Chinese law, which critics fear gives Beijing influence over teaching content
By David Matthews
A leading German university has been plunged into scandal after it emerged that it had signed a contract binding it to abide by Chinese law while accepting hundreds of thousands of euros from China to set up a professorship to establish a Chinese teacher training programme.
German lawmakers have criticised the Free University of Berlin (FU) over the terms, which critics fear give the Chinese government leverage to prevent teaching about subjects such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and Tibet.
The contract, obtained by the Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel (LINK), allows the Chinese side to reduce or halt funding if any element of the programme contravenes Chinese law…
The revelations have drawn condemnation from some German lawmakers. “The interference of China at FU Berlin clearly shows how China envisages ‘cooperation’ with our educational institutions. Independence of science is one of the most important freedoms and must be guaranteed,” tweeted Renata Alt, a federal parliamentarian for the Free Democratic Party (FDP)…
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/china-influence-scandal-rocks-berlin-university
6 Jun 2019: TimesHigherEducation: The future of the planet is in all of our hands
Students have a key role to play in tackling climate change and are not just protesting for the sake of protesting, writes student blogger Patrick Brighty
by Patrick Brighty
US president Donald Trump flew into London this week, adding to his ever-burgeoning carbon footprint. If you remember, he elected to take the world’s biggest polluter out of the Paris Climate Agreement in 2017…
What’s more, activism led by students has already had a number of victories. Many of our universities have recently withdrawn their support for fossil fuels through divestment. Students at my university, University of Warwick, voted overwhelmingly last week to declare a climate emergency…
Students, likewise, played a key role in the Extinction Rebellion protests globally. At my Erasmus university, the ***Free University of Berlin, students took over the cafeteria at lunchtimes to garner support for the 24 May climate strikes. Crucially, through this activism, people who have never protested before got involved…
So if consuming less could theoretically involve working less, that’s definitely something the student lifestyle has prepared us for. We student visionaries have long been living a four-day working week, sometimes even less!
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/blogs/future-planet-all-our-hands
19 Dec 2019: Uni of Sydney: University of Sydney joins SCRIPTS Centre of Excellence
Global research project examining the future of liberalism
University of Sydney social scientists will help address fundamental questions about the development of politics and society as part of a new multimillion-dollar cross-university research project.
The University of Sydney is one of a number of institutions that successfully secured funding of about €50 million ($80 million) from the German Research Foundation – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).
Together, the institutions form the SCRIPTS Cluster of Excellence, which will examine global challenges facing contemporary liberal societies, including ***climate change, migration, nuclear proliferation and terrorism.
SCRIPTS is based at The ***Free University of Berlin and includes top researchers from prominent research institutions in Berlin, including the WZB. International partners include the University of Sydney, National University of Singapore, Peking University, Fudan University, Waseda University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the University of Melbourne…
https://sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2019/12/19/university-of-sydney-joins-scripts-centre-of-excellence.html
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17 Feb: MichaelSmithNews: Nine Entertainment Co’s newspapers copping flack over China fluff pieces
Last week we brought you the story (LINK) of Nine Entertainment Co’s newspapers and their unholy China alliance…
Chris Uhlmann, political editor of Nine News, who has written extensively about the creeping influence of the CCP in Australia, told The Australian the China Daily insert was “extremely disturbing”.
“Since the moment the decision was made (in 2016) to have the China Daily insert in The Sydney Morning Herald, I’ve made it clear that I’ve found it an extremely disturbing development that Communist Party propaganda has the apparent endorsement of an Australian media organisation,” he said. “I said that before I joined Nine and I haven’t changed my opinion.”
Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, the chair of parliament’s intelligence and security committee, has been a vocal opponent of China’s authoritarian rise and attempts to exert influence in Australia. He was highly critical of the newspaper continuing to insert the supplement.
“The Australian people are increasingly sceptical of our political and civic institutions, including the media,” he said. “Printing foreign government propaganda — whether as liftouts or unfiltered embassy talking points — does not build trust with the public,” Mr Hastie said. Both Uhlmann and Mr Hastie have been banned from travelling to China as a result of their strong positions…
The eight-page China Watch pullout promotes China’s government throughout…
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2020/02/nine-entertainment-cos-newspapers-copping-flack-over-china-fluff-pieces.html
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Free Uni of Berlin is hot on climate:
10 Jun 2019: Phys.org: Climate change may shift timing of summer thunderstorms
by Joshua Learn, American Geophysical Union
Climate change could affect the regularity of summer afternoon thunderstorms in some parts of the world, according to new research.
A new study in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters modeled weather patterns in western Germany, northern France and parts of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, under climate change…
“In future climates, this afternoon period may no longer be the most likely period to experience an extreme [thunderstorm],” said Edmund Meredith, a postdoctoral meteorologist at the ***Free University of Berlin and the lead author of the new study…
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-climate-shift-summer-thunderstorms.html
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novel length:
29 Feb: SMH: The new dread of Australia’s once-loved long, hot summer
Though Australians rightly focused on the threat and tragedy of bushfires over this summer, the oppressive weather itself posed a threat of its own.
By Nick O’Malley and Peter Hannam
January 2020 was the earth’s hottest January on record according to the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It was so warm that Helsinki, the Finnish capital, rose above freezing every day that month for the first time and, in parts of the US normally blanketed in snow, people sunbathed in parks.
In Australia, it was so hot on January 4 that in the Heggart family’s garden shed on Grandview Street, South Penrith, plastic hooks melted and tools fell to the ground. On that day, Penrith was the hottest place on the planet.
By lunchtime the air conditioner packed it in. In an online forum Keith Heggart learnt his brand sometimes failed in extreme heat. There was advice to clamp a hose on the external unit for a time, but in Sydney the use of hoses was banned due to water restrictions, in turn made worse by the drought that was nudging temperatures up…
A survey of a 1000 people conducted between January 8-12 by progressive think tank the Australia Institute found the majority of Australians were affected in some way by bushfires. One in three said they had changed usual routines in some way while a quarter said they had suffered illness or health effects because of smoke haze. Nearly 10 per cent missed work and 8 per cent said their home or property was unsuitable to live in…
At present the World Health Organisation recommends people switch off fans when interior temperatures hit 42 degrees. This is because of what Jay calls the “turkey in the oven effect”. At high temperatures people stop sweating, and fans cool people by evaporating perspiration. If it is too hot the fan works in the way a convection oven does – moving the hot air around and roasting the turkey faster…
The season came in as Australia’s second-hottest summer on record, behind only last year, according to the Bureau of Meteorology. However, that runner-up ranking obscured periods of extreme heat, particularly during December, when the country recorded the seven hottest days on record within a blistering spell between December 17-29, capping 2019 as Australia’s warmest year by a big margin.
“December was basically one big heatwave, spilling into the first days of January,” says senior climatologist at the Bureau of Meteorology Blair Trewin…
At a fundraiser for Lifeline earlier this month Constance told the audience of a comment made by his stepson that seared into his mind. “He had been quiet for a month-and-a-half, didn’t really say much. But he came out with these words, ‘Now that it is raining, are we safe?’
“Think about that. Eight weeks after the fire a 10-year-old’s mind is saying, ‘Are we safe now?’”
*An earlier version of this article was updated to show Australia’s summer of 2019-20 came in as the country’s second-hottest, previous(sic) only the previous year’s.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-new-dread-of-australia-s-once-loved-long-hot-summer-20200228-p545di.html
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28 Feb: CleanEnergyWire: Offshore wind farms lose yield when too close, North Sea coordination needed – study
by Freja Eriksen
When offshore wind farms are located too close to each other, the amount of energy their turbines are able to generate falls considerably, shows a study (LINK) commissioned by the think tank Agora Energiewende. The think tank says countries on the North Sea should coordinate their development of offshore wind energy in order to maximise wind yield…
Only in Germany, current scenarios envision 50 to 70 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind capacity by 2050. Placing all of this capacity in the German Bight (Deutsche Bucht) could reduce productivity from around 4,000 full-load hours to between 3,000 and 3,300, say the researchers from the Technical University of Denmark and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry…
Currently, nearly 1,500 offshore turbines with an installed capacity of over 7.5 GW are connected to the German power grid. Generating over 25 terawatt-hours of electricity, offshore wind contributed about four percent to Germany’s gross power consumption in 2019.
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/offshore-wind-farms-lose-yield-when-too-close-north-sea-coordination-needed-study
28 Feb: Agora-Energiewende: Revaluating the space requirements of offshore wind
To ensure offshore wind turbines produce as much electricity as possible, it is necessary to coordinate wind farm development and maintain the greatest possible distance between sites. Particularly in the North Sea, this entails transnational planning coordination, a new study commissioned by Agora Energiewende and Agora Verkehrswende finds. Sufficient distance between sites is essential because wind farms reduce the amount of energy that can be harvested from the wind over a large surrounding area. In extreme cases this effect can reduce the productivity of a neighbouring farm by a quarter or more…
The study, titled “Making the Most of Offshore Wind” contains numerous figures and tables, as well as detailed explanations concerning its methodology and assumptions. It is available for download free of charge below. DOWNLOAD
https://www.agora-energiewende.de/en/press/news-archive/revaluating-the-space-requirements-of-offshore-wind/
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2 Mar: Bloomberg: Billionaire Chris Hohn’s Foundation Takes Aim at Banks Over Coal Loans
By Emily Cadman and David Stringer
Billionaire Chris Hohn’s Children’s Investment Fund Foundation has called on HSBC Holdings Plc, Standard Chartered Plc and Barclays Plc to phase out financing for coal projects and to recognize a higher degree of risk from lending to the sector.
The foundation has also pressed regulators including the European Central Bank and the Bank of England to make new demands on banks to publicly disclose their exposures to coal assets and financing.
“CIFF is now calling on regulators and banks to correctly account for and disclose the risks coal poses to humans, the environment and to bank balance sheets,” Hohn, a co-founder and trustee of the foundation, and Chairman Graeme Sweeney, said in a statement…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-02/billionaire-hohn-s-foundation-takes-aim-at-banks-over-coal-loans
Hohn is not a Big Billionaire, on a par with Michael Bloomberg. reminder:
Wikipedia: Sir Christopher Anthony Hohn KCMG is an English billionaire hedge fund manager.
In 2003, Hohn established The Children’s Investment Fund Management (TCI), a prominent value-based investment fund manager noted for long-term, owner orientated engagement with publicly listed companies. Profits generated by the fund were proportionately allocated to The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, a registered charity in England and Wales that focuses on improving the lives of children living in poverty in developing countries. He is known as an activist investor.
As of 2014, he had given over $4.5B to The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. Hohn is worth £1.2 billion according to the Sunday Times Rich List in 2019, an increase of £200 million from 2018…
In 2003, Hohn set up his own hedge fund, The Children’s Investment Fund. TCI donated regularly to a connected charitable fund, The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, run by his wife…
In 2019, it was reported that he had built a €730m stake in Heathrow Airport via a range of investment companies jointly taking a 4% stake in Spanish multinational Ferrovial…
In December 2014, he was ordered to pay his ex-wife £337 million.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hohn
the Chair:
LinkedIn: Graeme Sweeney, Chairman of the Board at The Chopping Company, London
He is a leading authority on energy, fuels and climate change. He had been with Shell for 35 years holding numerous positions around the world across Trading, Manufacturing, Strategy, Sales and Marketing, Supply and Distribution and Research and Development. Most recently he was Executive Vice President, CO2 for Shell International Petroleum Company Ltd.
Graeme holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics and a B.Sc. in Physics from the Victoria University of Manchester, is a Chartered Physicist and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society…
In 2005 he was asked to establish RDS’ Renewables, Hydrogen & CO2 function, in 2008 he was asked to become EVP CO2 (Group CO2) with responsibility for Shell’s CO2 Management activity, ensuring enterprise integration on CO2 matters plus the strategy, planning and appraisal of the six CO2 reduction pathways .
He has established himself as a leading authority on energy, fuels and climate change, drawing on his extensive international experience across all aspects of the oil, gas and renewable industries…
Trustee of the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and Interim Chair of their Climate Change Advisory Board…ETC ETC
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/graeme-sweeney-5232a43
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it’s all about CAGW – from the sub-heading and opening sentence, to the final paras. everything inbetween is just an attempt to suggest CAGW scepticism is the equivalent of nonsense:
2 Mar: NYT: Can YouTube Quiet Its Conspiracy Theorists?
A new study examines YouTube’s efforts to limit the spread of conspiracy theories on its site, from videos claiming the end times are near to those questioning climate change.
By Jack Nicas;Produced by Rumsey Taylor, Alana Celii and Dave Horn
Climate change is a hoax…
One video, a Fox News clip (LINK MARK LEVIN WITH PAT MICHAELS 14m28s) titled “The truth about global warming,” which was recommended 15,240 times in the study, illustrates YouTube’s challenge in fighting misinformation…
In the Fox News video, Patrick Michaels, a scientist who is partly funded by the fossil-fuel industry, said that climate change was not a threat because government forecasts are systematically flawed and sharply overstate the risk…
***Various scientists dispute Mr. Michaels’s views and point to data that show the forecasts have been accurate.
Mr. Michaels “does indeed qualify as a conspiracy theorist,” said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University. “The key is not just that his science is wrong, but that he packages it with accusations that climate science is corrupt.”
“Everything I said in the video is a fact, not a matter of opinion,” Mr. Michaels responded. “The truth is very inconvenient to climate activists.”…
Consider Perry Stone, a televangelist who preaches that patterns in the Bible can predict the future, that climate change is not a threat and that world leaders worship the devil…Climate change, (Stone) said, had simply been rebranded: “Men have survived Noah’s flood, Sodom’s destruction, Pompeii’s volcano.”…
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/02/technology/youtube-conspiracy-theory.html
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excuse me…what exactly did Goklany get wrong?
2 Mar: ChicagoTribune: from NYT: Trump official in Interior Department embeds climate change denial into the agency’s scientific research
By Hiroko Tabuchi
An official at the Interior Department embarked on a campaign that has inserted misleading language about climate change — including debunked claims that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is beneficial — into the agency’s scientific reports, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times…
The wording, known internally as the “Goks uncertainty language” based on Goklany’s nickname, inaccurately claims that there is a lack of consensus among scientists that the Earth is warming.
In Interior Department emails to scientists, Goklany pushed misleading interpretations of climate science, saying it “may be overestimating the rate of global warming, for whatever reason;” climate modeling has largely predicted global warming accurately. The final language states inaccurately that some studies have found the earth to be warming, while others have not.
He also instructed department scientists to add that rising carbon dioxide — the main force driving global warming — is beneficial because it “may increase plant water use efficiency” and “lengthen the agricultural growing season.” Both assertions misrepresent the scientific consensus that, overall, climate change will result in severe disruptions to global agriculture and significant reductions in crop yields.
Samuel Myers, a principal research scientist at Harvard University’s Center for the Environment who has studied the effects of climate change on nutrition, said the language “takes very specific and isolated pieces of science, and tries to expand it in an extraordinarily misleading fashion.”…
“Highlighting uncertainty is consistent with the biggest attacks on the climate science community,” said Jacquelyn Gill, an associate professor of paleoecology and plant ecology at the University of Maine. “They’re emphasizing discussions of uncertainty to the point where people feel as though we can’t actually make decisions” based on the research…
In 2009, (Goklany) appeared as an expert voice in a film titled “Policy Peril: Why Global Warming Policies are More Dangerous than Global Warming Itself.”…
The new documents show that, as early as September 2017, Goklany, newly appointed to the office of the deputy secretary, started directing scientists to add climate uncertainty language in agency reports…
By early 2018, the emails show, the bureau had adopted a de facto requirement that studies reference climate uncertainty…
The final language seemed “balanced enough, especially since it does mention potential adverse effects of warming on water resources,” wrote Ralph F. Keeling of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in an email. Nevertheless, Keeling — who was the lead author of the study cited by Goklany finding that more carbon dioxide helps plants use water more efficiently — also noted that the text “might have mentioned that warming ***may increase the water requirements for plant growth, which counters the CO2 impact on water-use efficiency.”…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-nyt-nw-interior-department-climate-change-denial-20200302-65jd3mnz2rghjh2aiol5cyr7xe-story.html?outputType=amp
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followup to comments #53 & 54:
AUDIO ONLY: 14m47s to 24m12s: Bolt interview with LNP Senator Gerard Rennick about interview with BoM boss, Andrew Johnson at Senate Estimates 2/3/2020:
The Bolt Report, Monday 2nd March
(click “Play” to download 48m23s audio)
https://player.fm/series/series-2343649/the-bolt-report-monday-2nd-march
(not sure why 8 years is mentioned between ACORN 1 and ACORN 2; my understanding is it was 7 years. anyway, it’s a minor point)
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don’t know why I typed “about interview with BoM boss”.
more properly “about his questions for BoM boss”.
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