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How things change. This article has a straightforward tenor, asks questions of both sides of the climate debate and discusses whether skeptics might finally be given a seat at the government funded table (so to speak). It’s so blandly normal in tone it is a bit wildly rare! (Almost like real journalism?) How often do we see Judith Curry and Michael Mann in the same article as Bjorn Lomborg and Will Happer?
Most skeptics are optimistic that the Global Freeze on skeptical scientists may be finally coming to an end. But not Richard Lindzen, the carefully spoken man, with decades of experience, who lets loose…
Skeptical Climate Scientists Coming In From the Cold
Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT and a member of the National Academy of Sciences who has long questioned climate change orthodoxy, is skeptical that a sunnier outlook is upon us.
“I actually doubt that,” he said. Even if some of the roughly $2.5 billion in taxpayer dollars currently spent on climate research across 13 different federal agencies now shifts to scientists less invested in the calamitous narrative, Lindzen believes groupthink has so corrupted the field that funding […]
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8.1 out of 10 based on 22 ratings
For most of this year 2016 was expected to break the 1998 record (which was the hottest year in the UAH satellite data set). But a sudden drop in Dec pulled the yearly average down so that statistically they are indistinguishable.
From one big El Nino year to another big El Nino, we’ve put out one third of all human emissions that have ever been put out since hunter gatherers wandered the steppes, but it appears to have made very little difference.
Thanks to Roy Spencer and global satellites: 2016 not Statistically Warmer than 1998
The top five years in the 38 year satellite record
RANK YEAR deg.C. 01 2016 +0.50 02 1998 +0.48 03 2010 +0.34 04 2015 +0.26 05 2002 +0.22
Does it mean much? Not a heck of a lot. The pause was already long enough to show the models don’t work, and whether or not 2016 was another record is neither here nor there, except as a PR point.
9 out of 10 based on 118 ratings […]
It is sad to see that Judith Curry will not be continuing her research. The dead hand of buracademia drives out the best.
From Mark Steyn, who doesn’t hold back:
“…distinguished climate scientist Judith Curry had decided to resign from her position at Georgia Tech:
The superficial reason is that I want to do other things…
The deeper reasons have to do with my growing disenchantment with universities, the academic field of climate science and scientists.
Dr Curry elaborates:
A deciding factor was that I no longer know what to say to students and postdocs regarding how to navigate the CRAZINESS in the field of climate science. Research and other professional activities are professionally rewarded only if they are channeled in certain directions approved by a politicized academic establishment — funding, ease of getting your papers published, getting hired in prestigious positions, appointments to prestigious committees and boards, professional recognition, etc.
How young scientists are to navigate all this is beyond me, and it often becomes a battle of scientific integrity versus career suicide (I have worked through these issues with a number of skeptical young scientists).
Darn free energy costs a fortune to collect.
The 39ft turbines were fitted with a sonar so they could be switched off if seals and dolphins wandered by, but the sonar developed a fault.
£18MILLION tidal energy scheme supposed to power 600 homes stops working after just three months The taxpayer-funded DeltaStream project in Pembrokeshire in Wales, was designed to use the flow of the ocean with a 39ft turbine installed on the seabed But the system developed a fault and stopped generating electricity weeks after Tidal Energy Ltd has now gone into administration and is seeking a buyer Dolphins and seals killed by coal: zero h/t Marvin 9.6 out of 10 based on 93 ratings
The iconic Sydney Observatory is Australia’s longest running weather station. But everything around the site has changed. Bill Johnston has spent months researching, photographing, and hunting through historic files to document those changes. He wasn’t paid for this work, but what he found was that the BOM has missed that the area around the thermometers has changed dramatically over the last century, so much so, that he claims it’s scientifically meaningless to try to construct climate trends from this data. Aerial photographs show exposure of the instruments changed in 1950, when Stevenson screens were moved, and after a brick wall was built metres from the screen in about 1972. It is suspicious that the changes are undocumented in Bureau reports, especially given they are responsible for much of the “unprecedented warming” in Sydney’s temperature data. The BOM may counter that this site is not used to calculate warming trends across Australia, but as Bill points out, Sydney Observatory is used to homogenize other sites that are. So site changes and the urban heat island effect infects many country sites, and the traffic in Sydney “warms the nation”. — Jo
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Its fake news week! Guest post by Dr. Bill Johnston[1]. […]
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Geoff Derrick writes: The John Christie talk is one of the best I have seen for a long time, keeping things simple but very very effective in the message. It should be compulsory viewing while still in holiday mode to take 1 hour off and watch the main event. It is just simply excellent, logical observation at work here.
9.4 out of 10 based on 73 ratings
Victoria built a desal plant in 2012 that was immediately mothballed because the rains came back and the dams that weren’t supposed to fill, got full. The total cost will be something like $18 – $24 billion.
Last year the Victorian government decided to order some water for fun anyway (or it might have been a PR trick so that people couldn’t mock them for paying for a Desal plant that was “never” used). But on Dec 11, the plant started and immediately tripped a circuit breaker (see also The Herald Sun). Stuff got damaged, and three weeks later no one is exactly sure why that happened, so it still isn’t running.
Victorian Dams are over 70% full, the state has just suffered major flooding. The Water Minister Lisa Neville promised on Friday that the 50 gigalitres of water (about a tenth of Sydney Harbour’s capacity) that is contractually due to be delivered by June 30 will still arrive on time.” — The Age.
I bet Victorians are relieved to know that the water they don’t need won’t be late.
The costs of the climate panic are still coming:
The order of 50 billion litres will see […]
Best wishes to everyone for a fantastic new year after the remarkable year that was 2016.
9.8 out of 10 based on 57 ratings
Just another way Government strangles science:
Apparently a good scientist is not supposed to answer all of the questions from congress. In late 2014,Dr Noelle Metting was the only scientist DOE provided to help congress figure out what mattered, but DOE management had already told Dr Noelle Metting not to answer queries outside of a certain zone they marked out. Alas, she was too helpful to congress though, and got the sack within a month. According to the report, emails within DOE reveal that her sacking was retaliatory, and the reason for her “removal from federal service was her failure to confine the discussion at the briefing to pre-approved talking points.”
This information comes from a congressional investigation chaired by Lamar Smith. (Rep)
Message to scientists — obey the bureaucrat masters, not the elected ones.
By censoring information to congress, the DOE was doing a form of lobbying. Her testimony related to low dose radiation and risks of exposure during terrorist attacks. DOE allegedly wanted to kill off this line of research so they could do more climate research instead. Just out to save the world but kill democracy.
Congress: Obama Admin Fired Top Scientist to Advance Climate Change Plans […]
Two stories shed new light on Rex Tillerson, the incoming Secretary of State for the US.
Read this. It’ll warm your heart: What I learned about Rex Tillerson. A major corporate leader does what any good citizen would do. But in a sea of corruption and self serving glorification it’s a rare story and quite a good read too.
During a five day trial of a man accused of abusing a young girl, the jury noticed one juror was a tall and somewhat charismatic middle aged man who wore a business suit. Mysteriously, he always had another man in a suit present around him, but doing nothing much. He was picked as the jury foreman, but declined to “be in the spotlight”. When finally asked about the extra man, he just pointed at an Exxon headline in the paper and just said “I work for them” and he needed extra protection. The jury used the internet to figure out who he was. In 2007 Tillerson was CEO, and Exxon was the second largest company listed in the Fortune 500 list.
Emily Roden: “As our deliberations came to a close, it appeared we might have a hung jury.
A fifth of South Australia lost power yesterday due to a nasty storm.
You would think with all the climate models predicting more of every kind of extreme weather that South Australia, of all places, which is spending millions to prevent this sort of weather, would have upgraded their transmission lines to cope with it? Then again, maybe the models didn’t exactly predict these, not-so-extreme 120km/hr gusts.
Still Adelaide has a good desal plant to help them cope with climate change.
That wasn’t the case back in 1948 when a cyclone went through.
Roofs were blown off, flash floods occurred and a frigate washed ashore in 1948. (Click to read it all).
For the poor people of the west coast of SA, this may be their fourth blackout in four months. Some had another blackout last week due to lightning and a wind gust of “up to 111km/hr”. It doesn’t look like this has anything to do with renewables, it appears to be inadequate infrastructure and probably the return of a natural weather cycle (Adelaide was hit by a cyclone in 1948, widespread damage in 1954, much damage in 1927, and in 1910 and 1916):
Almost one-fifth […]
Looks like China is going to apply punitive taxes all sorts of human pollution even noise pollution, but they’re not taxing CO2:
Polluters will be charged for contributing to air, water and noise pollution, according to a copy of the legislation on the NPC’s official web site.
But CO2 did not make the list, which includes air and water pollutants such as sulphur dioxide and sulfite, taxed at rates beginning at 1.2 yuan ($0.17) and 1.4 yuan ($0.20) per unit respectively.
It also stipulates a monthly tax ranging from 350 to 11,200 yuan ($50 to $1612) for noise pollution.
China is the worlds largest emitter of CO2 and they are happy to do symbolic things for the climate, like sign the Paris agreement where they can commit to do nothing til 2030, and not much after that. But taxing carbon does actual collateral damage on an economy. China is obviously having none of that.
For a change, the thing that apparently inspired these new laws was a real pollution problem:
The new law was precipitated after 20 cities in Northeast China went on high smog alerts, which forced the closure of factories […]
We Must Maintain the Pressure Dear Readers and Supporters,
The Moderators have temporarily seized control of the posts. We mods happen to know some big bills are piling up, and the bank account is very low heading into Christmas, and Jo doesn’t like to ask, but your support keeps this work, research and blog going. Please hit the tip jar, buy Jo and David a beer, a steak, a month on the server ($100), or a mini-break.
The Climate Skeptic Movement has had a phenomenal year in 2016, though there is much still to do to slow the trillion dollar juggernaut that takes from the poor and gives to the wealthy. Progress is only happening through the persistent and hard work of prominent skeptics like Jo Nova who’s material is reproduced around the world, who continues to inspire and inform and who takes the brunt of abuse from climate alarmists in politicians and the main stream media.
As you all know Joanne came from a science communication background and once worked with our national publicly funded ABC, the ANU and the National Science and Technology Centre. Jo doesn’t say it on the blog, but asking questions about the ‘accepted’ […]
These are Enercon wind turbines in Germany, Lower Saxony. Image: Philip May
UPDATE 3: In the washup, these updates #1 and #2 show the fierce battle to control a message. The Wind Industry denies everything, but reports say the plaintiffs are delighted. If the story spread that wind farms were paying out to homes nearby without even contesting liability, it could go viral in a very bad way for the wind industry. Settling out of court with confidentiality agreements would be a gambit to stop a flood of similar claims. Perhaps the wind industry lost control of the message when the Irish Examiner reported it?
UPDATE #1: Hmm. Industry Body says it is all false? It’s a strange one. The original link has vanished from The Irish Examiner, and a pro renewables site SeeNews which covered their story has disappeared their copy too [cached here, screencap copy too]. SeeNews has posted an update which totally contradicts the news. Did The Irish Examiner get it wrong? Removing the story suggests they did, but they have not issued a correction yet. News of the update comes not from the court, but from the Irish Wind Energy Association, […]
The sorcerers say they can stop volcanoes with light globes. They come dressed as scientists, but chant fantasies about “deniers”.The Global Bullying has cowed whole nations into coughing up money for lost causes. But as I’ve said before, bullying is brittle, and once the cracks appear in the veneer, it can come apart very fast.
Francis Menton predicts the Impending Collapse Of The Global Warming Scare
Just asking these questions in the public domain will change everything:
Now the backers of the global warming alarm will not only be called upon to debate, but will face the likelihood of being called before a highly skeptical if not hostile EPA to answer all of the hard questions that they have avoided answering for the last eight years. Questions like: Why are recorded temperatures, particularly from satellites and weather balloons, so much lower than the alarmist models had predicted? How do you explain an almost-20-year “pause” in increasing temperatures even as CO2 emissions have accelerated? What are the details of the adjustments to the surface temperature record that have somehow reduced recorded temperatures from the 1930s and 40s, and thereby enabled continued claims of “warmest year ever” when raw temperature […]
Last week the Maroondah Reservoir, near Melbourne, was full. Thanks to Bob Fernley-Jones for a great shot, perfect for a weekend thread:
Observations early on 7/Dec/2016 in Maroondah Reservoir Park Photo: Bob Fernley-Jones
In 2009 things were dry, the drought was endless, and in a panic, billions were spent on desalination plants for Victoria (not to mention for Sydney, Adelaide, and Brisbane). Then the rains returned, the desal plants were mothballed. In Victoria alone, up to $18 billion will continue to be spent regardless of whether any water is used.
(Amazing what a desal plant can do for water storage. 😉 )
Water Storage
Water Storage two weeks into summer, Australia: Melbourne 72% | Sydney 91% | Canberra 98% | Adelaide 89% | Hobart 98% | Darwin 68% | Brisbane 75% | Perth 28% *
There is water overflowing from the full dam below. As Bob says: “Not the greatest overflow it’s ever been but positive, and its only part of an interconnected system that is currently a very healthy collective.”
9.2 out of 10 based on 70 ratings […]
It doesn’t get much better than this. Mazin Sidahmed at The Guardian has posted a handy list of Trumps Cabinet Picks. The times have changed so much that it’s not a case of “spot the skeptic” but a hunt to find any believers in the climate doctrine. Make no mistake, things are very, very bad for the fans of human-caused-weather. Almost every name on this list would be the “top target” of green protests if they had been the one appointee among the standard Obama-Clinton picks. But almost all of them are drawing fire. People who have taken the toxic, unforgivable position of personally investing in oil and gas projects seem neutral now, compared to people who have run lawsuits against the government department they’ve been told to manage. If only The Guardian could find someone who was not in the bottom 10% of the Conservation scorecard!
Climate change denial in the Trump cabinet: where do his nominees stand? Scott Pruitt: Environmental Protection Agency
Pruitt is the anti-christ for the EPA. He has led lawsuits against their unconstitutional grab for power. What’s not to like?
Ryan Zinke: Department of the Interior
He is a congressman, former […]
Right now, the hottest year ever appears to be causing an extra 4 billion tons a day or so of frozen stuff on Greenland.
Thanks to Patrick Moore, @EcoSenseNow, who tweeted: “Holy Shomoly, look what’s going down on Greenland. Ice World” after Richard Cowley posted the DMI link.
Top: The total daily contribution to the surface mass balance from the entire ice sheet (blue line, Gt/day). Bottom: The accumulated surface mass balance from September 1st to now (blue line, Gt) and the season 2011-12 (red) which had very high summer melt in Greenland. For comparison, the mean curve from the period 1990-2013 is shown (dark grey). The same calendar day in each of the 24 years (in the period 1990-2013) will have its own value. These differences from year to year are illustrated by the light grey band. For each calendar day, however, the lowest and highest values of the 24 years have been left out.
Source: Danish Climate Centre.
Over the last decade the Greenland Ice Sheet may have been losing 200Gt per year, but evidently, this winter it’s making some of that back. The Danish Climate Centre describes the graph:
8.5 out of 10 based on 81 […]
UPDATE: Libby Plummer at The Daily Mail has a different take, calling this a natural thermostat that cools the upper atmosphere after solar storms. I guess we’ll have to wait to see the paper to see if this can be connected to the global surface temperature at all.
The solar wind is is coming at us at a million miles an hour, but we really don’t know much about what happens when it weaves and buffets past us. In a news release NASA GISS describe how their traditional understanding of what is going on 150 miles up can sometimes just turn inside out. That’s “Revolutions in Understanding the Ionosphere, Earth’s Interface to Space”. It describes how energy from space weather can get into the ionosphere, and also muck up some of our satellites.
Despite climate models being sure that the Sun has hardly any effect, even NASA Giss admits there are some pretty wild things going on up there, and they are mostly due to the Sun. As the solar wind blasts in, it can set up a voltage difference between the upper layers of the atmosphere and the “magnetosphere”. A current will flow, discharging this energy into […]
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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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