JoNova

Weekend Unthreaded

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Vegans save a cow, kill 1,000 mice. Eat less red meat, get anemia.

How many sentient mammals died to make that vegan hamburger? Tasmanian farmer Matthew Evans has added up the inconvenient numbers and written “One Eating Meat”. The death toll for vegetarian foods means vegans kill less cows, but more mice, lizards and ducks.

Preachy vegans should be silenced by new book on true cost of plant-based diets

Susie O’Brien, Herald Sun (paywalled)

For every 75 hectare of peas, 1500 animals die each year, including possums, wallabies, ducks and deer, not to mention many more rodents.

The 200,000 wild ducks killed in one year by NSW rice farmers?

Evans estimates he kills close to 5000 moths, slugs and snails each year in order to grow vegetables at Fat Pig Farm, his property in the Huon Valley.

Apparently beef uses more water, but plants use more brains:

One scientific analysis from the University of NSW quoted by Evans concludes that “25 times more sentient beings die to produce a kilo of protein from wheat than a kilo of protein from beef”.

The sentient beings are mostly mice.

More spent on low iron hospitalisations as meat intake declines

It’s down with red meat, and up with iron deficiency in NZ h/t Warwick Hughes

As the amount of red meat Kiwis eat shrinks, hospitalisations for iron deficiency anaemia are on the rise.

And it’s costing millions.

The cost of hospitalisations – primarily due to iron deficiency anaemia – has crept up from an annual $3.2 million to $6.7m over the past 10 years, according to Ministry of Health

On the ABC Evans talks about the effect the book is having on vegans.

What’s a true vegan these days?

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Climate scare machine — happy to use people with a mental illness as a promotional tool:

So some people have a mental illness. Unbridled, baseless Climate-Panic makes that worse. Now those victims are advertising material:

Climate Despair is making people give up on life

Mike Pearl, Vice.

There’s nothing like a bit of unprecedented misery made possible by unprecedented history denial:

“This is painful,” [Renee] Lertzman said. “It’s super painful to be a human being right now at this point in history.”

We live longer than ever, are richer than ever, fly all over the world, and one of our biggest fears is losing our mobile phone. This article is wholly so far gone past the Rubicon that it makes Michael Mann look sensible. Seriously, by reviewing apocalyptic books and stories from mental health wards, the man who brought hockey-stick hype to the world appears to be the most normal person in the room.

This article is doing its best to normalize climate-depressive-obsession.

Step 1: pick one graphic tale

Suddenly, she was contemplating self-harm. “Though I don’t think I would have hurt myself, I didn’t know how to live with the fear of… the apocalypse, I guess? My son was home with me and I had to call my friend over to watch him because I couldn’t even look at him without breaking down,” Ruttan Walker said. She eventually checked herself into an overnight mental health facility.

Step 2: do a sweeping generalization

Her case is extreme, but many people are suffering from what could be called “climate despair,” a sense that climate change is an unstoppable force that will render humanity extinct…

People are suffering from climate despair. Journalists are suffering from a lack of any supporting data, too. Coincidence?

Total supporting observations here: one group letter from Swedish psychologists, a teenage girl, plus a grab bag of anecdotes with no evidence to suggest that their mental illness was due to “climate” change.

Most of the article is just mere speculation, the rest is worse:

This despair could be a consequence of climate change being on more people’s minds than ever before.

No kidding. Probably due to stories like this one.

The article helps readers find the most bleak of bleak books, like The Uninhabitable Earth, or worse:

But nothing compares to the intense viral bleakness of Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy, by Cumbria University professor Jem Bendell, a 2018 paper that Bendell self-published after an academic journal declined to publish it. The paper argues that total societal collapse is on its way, and describes life in the midst of that collapse with vivid sentences like, “You will fear being violently killed before starving to death.” The paper was so powerful that people have credited it for sending them to therapy or quitting their jobs to live closer to nature.

Then author MikePearl manages the impossible — makes Michael Mann look sensible

Nice advertising for Michael Mann as well as the Religion.:

These feelings can be powerful, but they aren’t grounded in hard science. [You mean like Michael Mann is?]

Michael Mann, the Penn State climatologist often credited for helping bring the public’s attention to the historical trends that are central to our understanding of climate change, calls this perspective “doomism,” and he wanted to make it clear the evidence doesn’t support it. “Unfortunately there’s some bad science behind much of the ‘doomism,'” he said. “There is no need to exaggerate or misstate what the science has to say.”

No need indeed, except when you need to hide a decline and bury the last 40 years of tree ring data.

When you need a heart surgeon get a heart surgeon, but when you need a therapist, find a believer:

For these patients, one important first step seems to be simply finding a therapist who acknowledges upfront that climate change isn’t a manifestation of mental illness.

According to Ruttan Walker, the activist who had the crisis in 2015, the perfect therapist would recognize that yes, mental illness is the problem at hand, but would simultaneously recognize the “enormity of the climate crisis.”

They might give you handy clues like this:

… there’s another, much older and simpler way to process despair. Give into it for a moment. Cry it out. Let yourself acknowledge how fucking bad it all is, and how a lot of it is never, ever getting better. In short: grieve.

If they asked people with a proven track record of being immune from climate despair — they’d ask a skeptic. Jo Nova recommends reading real history books as a way of feeling jubilantly thrilled for being born during a non-event non-crisis with decades of what was actually pretty good weather.

Failing that, read a skeptic blog!

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Midweek Unthreaded

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Antarctica was warmer one thousand years ago — and life was OK

Remember when polar amplification was the rage? So much for that theory

Antarctica is twice the size of the US or Australia. Buried 2 km deep under domes of snow, it holds 58 meters of global sea level to ransom. The IPCC have been predicting its demise-by-climate-change for a decade or two.

A new paper looks at 60 sites across Antarctica, considering everything from ice, lake and marine cores to peat and seal skins. They were particularly interested in the Medieval Warm Period, and researched back to 600AD. During medieval times (1000-1200 AD) they estimate Antarctica as a whole was hotter than it is today. Antarctica was even warmer still — during the dark ages circa 700AD.

Credit to the paper authors: Sebastian Lüning, Mariusz Gałka, and Fritz Vahrenholt

Feast your eyes on the decidedly not unprecedented modern tiny spike:

Luning, 2019, Graph, Antarctica Temperatures, AD 0 - 2000, MWP, LIA.

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The little jaggy down after 2000 AD is real. While there was rapid warming across Antarctica from 1950-2000, in the last twenty years, that warming has stalled. Just another 14 million square kilometers that the models didn’t predict.

We already knew the Medieval Warm Period was a global phenomenon, thanks to hundreds of proxies, and 6,000 boreholes. But this new paper is a great addition.

With an awesome dedication to detail, the team put all the big oceanic and other factors into one big graph. It is nice to see them side by side so we can see the connections between them.

Fig. 8. Reconstructions of key drivers of natural climate variability. Southern Annular Mode, SAM, 70 year loess filter (Abram et al., 2014); El Niño-Southern Oscillation, ENSO (Conroy et al., 2008); Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation, IPO, piece-wise linear fit (Vance et al., 2015); Pacific Decadal Oscillation, PDO (MacDonald and Case, 2005); Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, AMO (Mann et al., 2009); solar activity changes (Steinhilber et al., 2012); volcanic eruptions (Sigl et al., 2015).

Main drivers of the multi-centennial scale climate variability appear to be the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) which are linked to solar activity changes by nonlinear dynamics. The MCA forms the final part of a long warm phase that dominated the first millennium CE

Looking at different parts of Antarctica some parts cooled while other parts warmed. Many of these “sea-sawing” pairs appear to be flexing as a dipole.

Luning et al 2019, Antarctica, Temperatures, Ice cores, MWP, LIA.

Fig. 4. Temperature development in the Antarctic region during the past 1500 years based on palaeoclimate proxies of selected study sites. 7: Fan Lake (Strother et al., 2015), 25: ODP 1098 (Domack and Mayewski, 1999; Shevenell et al., 2011; Shevenell and Kennett, 2002), 31: Berkner Island (Mulvaney et al., 2002), 45: EPICA Dome C (Masson-Delmotte et al., 2004), 49: Woods Bay (Mezgec et al., 2017), 57: RICE ice core (Bertler et al., 2018), whole Antarctica (Stenni et al., 2017:
composite-plus-scaling CPS reconstruction). Location maps in Figs. 1–3. Those location numbered:

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Somewhere is all this data are some answers that might help us figure out the climate.

A B S T R A C T
The Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) is a well-recognized climate perturbation in many parts of the world, with a core period of 1000–1200 CE. Here we are mapping the MCA across the Antarctic region based on the analysis of published palaeotemperature proxy data from 60 sites. In addition to the conventionally used ice core data, we are integrating temperature proxy records from marine and terrestrial sediment cores as well as radiocarbon ages of glacier moraines and elephant seal colonies. A generally warm MCA compared to the subsequent Little Ice Age (LIA) was found for the Subantarctic Islands south of the Antarctic Convergence, the Antarctic Peninsula, Victoria Land and central West Antarctica. A somewhat less clear MCA warm signal was detected for the majority of East Antarctica. MCA cooling occurred in the Ross Ice Shelf region, and probably in the Weddell Sea and on Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf. Spatial distribution of MCA cooling and warming follows modern dipole patterns, as reflected by areas of opposing temperature trends. Main drivers of the multi-centennial scale climate variability appear to be the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) and El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) which are linked to solar activity changes by nonlinear dynamics.

Falling sea levels bleaches corals — hear from Jen Marohasy in Maroochydore, Sunday

Jennifer Marohasy is speaking on Sunday in Maroochydore. Details at her blog.

Jen’s mother on Heron Island, mid 1950s.

From Jennifer Marohasy:

Corals usually grow-up to just below the lowest mean spring tide. Corals are particularly vulnerable to extremely low tides and in particular low tides in the middle of the day when there is also high solar radiation. The damage from such events may leave a characteristic tell-tale structure, for example, micro-atolls.

I have a picture of my mother (who migrated to Australia after WWII, see the picture featured at the top of this post) standing in front of a micro-atoll at Heron Island, where she worked as a waitress in the mid-1950s. I have another picture — I will show at the Maroochydore surf club on Sunday — showing the extent of the bleaching at Heron Island at that time.

This coral bleaching back in the 1950s, and much of the recent bleaching at the Great Barrier Reef, may have been due to falling sea levels, rather than extreme temperatures as I will explain on Sunday.

Fed up UK viewers raise £33,567 in days for legal challenge about BBC Bias

Smashing plan — raising funds to call for a judicial review of BBC bias

David Keighley has a great strategy — instead of debating “the facts” with an organisation that accepts whatever an unaudited foreign committee says — he’s going for the jugular — how do they measure and define impartiality? They aimed initially to reach £30,000 to cover our legal fees but have already achieved that in mere days, such is the anger out there, Australians are even donating. (We get fed the BBC too!) So they’ve just extended the aim to raise £60,000. This is important because we know the BBC has deep pockets — remember in 2006 how they held an in house seminar with high level “climate experts” that turned out to be mostly a workshop with Greenpeace, industry activists and lobbyists. They then spent years and tens of thousands of your taxpayer pounds to hide the identities of the 28 experts.

The BBC will fight this judicial review to the end, unless of course, they actually think they are unbiased. What are the odds?

From the FAQ for the StopBBCBias campaign group:

Dear Auntie: You cannot call yourself impartial if you are measuring yourself

StopBBCBias campaign group launches crowd-funding appeal to fight for a judicial review into how the BBC measures its own impartiality

The BBC’s Royal Charter and Framework Agreement lays down a clear statutory obligation of impartiality. Documents to be filed at the Administrative Court will say that the measures the Corporation has in place to meet this Charter requirement are seriously inadequate, and that this has led to bias and a failure to carry out a main public service duty to its audiences.

We believe that the only way the BBC can be seen to be impartial is to have an independent, objective system of measurement – not one that the BBC runs against itself. Then and only then can it really be called impartial.

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Our case

We are a group of private individuals bringing a case for judicial review of the way the BBC measures impartiality. It is our contention that the current methodology – based as it is on opinion polling – is fatally flawed.

Our argument is based on the fact that we believe that opinion polling is not a suitable mechanism to determine whether in fact the BBC is impartial.

We Australians need to get serious ourselves. As far as I know our ABC is so unaccountable it doesn’t even have to do dodgy inhouse opinion polls. We are so far behind…

h/t TomoMason, GWPF, Peter M, El Gordo, Another Ian.

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Methane emissions: don’t blame cows and camels, blame the oceans

Steak-lovers — look at the volatility in the graph of methane levels. That is not the cows…

Methane emissions are a bit of a sleeper. They are ignored (even by me) yet and cows, sheep, pigs and lamas produce a whopping 11% of the Australian national greenhouse emissions (mostly as methane and nitrous oxide). Livestock emissions are 70% of our entire agricultural sector emissions. They are so important, at one stage Australia was considering a camel genocide — hoping to stop storms and reduce droughts by knocking off some camels. So if we like ham, steak and hamburgers, we need to pay attention. The carbon-politisi are coming.

The UN thinks we need to worry about methane which has 34 times the impact of CO2 (which is 34 times something immeasurably insignificant, so who cares?). Somehow global methane levels are often blamed on fossil fuels and farting cows, but this latest analysis suggests humans are pretty much irrelevant.

Tom Quirk tracks the annual changes in methane and finds that it bumps up by both big and small amounts, and the volatile pattern doesn’t match human agriculture or mining but rises and falls in time with El Ninos. This is not entirely surprising as El Nino’s affect rainfall (and thus affect droughts and fires). And wetlands are the largest natural source of methane on Earth. Dryness leads to methane…

Humans were once responsible for the global rise in methane, as Tom Quirk explained in 2013. Russian pipes were so leaky in the 1970s and 80s that the large annual increases in methane may have been due to “communist maintenance”. When the Soviet Union started selling natural gas to the Europeans, the leaks were stopped and the rises in methane became much smaller.

It’s another wonderful bit of original research from Tom Quirk. Looks like thousands of cows and camels may be saved.

— Jo

_______________________________________

Guest post by Tom Quirk

Latest Methane Measurements from Cape Grim

Annual changes in atmospheric methane show no smooth progression but rather great variability.

The annual changes in direct atmospheric methane measurements from 1986 to 2018 are shown in Figure 1 along with 12 year smoothed ice core data from 1900 to 1991. These measurements are from the CSIRO at Cape Grim and ice cores at the Law Dome in Antarctica.

Figure 1: Annual changes in atmospheric methane in ppb per year from ice cores at the Law Dome in Antarctica with 12 year smoothing and direct annual measurements at Cape Grim in Tasmania

Law Dome measurements.

The Law Dome ice core measurements show rising annual emissions in the last half of the twentieth century. This is understood to be due to leaky gas pipelines and in particular the Trans-Siberian pipeline[1] where the leakage was much reduced in the 1980s. There is also a gentle rise to a peak in the mid 1920s and then a gentle decline. The decline is at the start of the Great Depression with a recovery at the start of the Second World War. Figure 2 shows a similar rise and fall from an estimate of total fossil fuel emission for the United States[2] so the Law Dome data may reflect the economic events of the early twentieth century. Similarly the change in trend in the early 1970s may reflect the economic recession that followed the oil embargo of the Arab-Israeli war.

Figure 2: Annual and10 year running average of total fossil fuel emissions for the United States from CDIAC estimates. Note the peak in the mid 1920s.

Cape Grim direct measurements

The direct annual measurements at Cape Grim in Tasmania are also shown in Figure 3-upper along with the year of the Mount Pinatubo eruption, 1991, and the years in which El Ninos occurred. Figure 3-lower shows the monthly El Nino 3.4 Index.

The Pinatubo eruption coincides with an atmospheric methane peak. This has been explained[3] by the sulphur dioxide from the eruption reducing the removal of methane from the atmosphere.

The remaining methane peaks coincide with the years in which El Nino’s occur. There is one exception in 2016 where the methane peaks in 2014, preceding the El Nino peak by 2 years.

The methane peaks are associated with droughts and forest fires from changing conditions in wetlands[4]. Also there were massive forest fires in 2014 and 2015[5].

Fig 3a

Fig 3b.

Figure 3a: (upper) : Annual changes in atmospheric methane in ppb per year from ice cores at the Law Dome in Antarctica with 12 year smoothing and direct annual measurements at Cape Grim in Tasmania. The vertical red line is for 1991, the year of the Mount Pinatubo eruption and the vertical black lines are the years for El Ninos .Fig 3b (lower) Monthly El Nino 3.4 Index.

Conclusion

The main source of atmospheric methane since 1995 is from natural sources with great variability.

It is not from domestic livestock as noted by Albrecht Glatzle[6]. However it is possible fracking and increased transport of natural gas may make a contribution to the methane in the atmosphere.

Update

Export Table, Morgan, Australia, Iron, gold, tourism, education, oil, agriculture.

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REFERENCES

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ABC BOM suddenly discover historic weather records (but only for snow)

Snow again in Western Australia?

South West WA got snow at Easter this year, a remarkable event, and then snow a week ago with predictions of more — which maybe fell on July 5. Concerned that two or three* bouts of snow didn’t fit the narrative, the ABC and BOM suddenly found an interest in our historic weather archives:

Australian snow is usually associated with the alpine region of the east coast, but the fluffy white stuff has been falling in Western Australia since records began in 1846.

It is estimated that Western Australia experiences an average 1.7 snow events annually
This could be more as meteorologists do not have an observational system to record them
The Bureau of Meteorology have said there could be another snow event this weekend at Bluff Knoll as a cold front approaches the south of WA

What the ABC never seem to report:

50 degrees? It’s occurred all over Australia and many times

Heatwaves, Perth, Geraldton, Western Australia.

125F in Geraldton. The Chronicle newspaper, Trove, Jan 11 1896

When it’s hot, it’s proof of a climate crisis, when it’s cold, it’s all happened before.

Let’s not forget the BOM lost the coldest ever April record for Albany this year (near Bluff Knoll). Accidentally adjusted up by 15 degrees C.

Put away those ideas it might be snowing more, it’s just a facebook thing, eh?

The rise of social media

Reports of snow have significantly increased since 1846 but that is not to said (sic) it is snowing more, it might just be people’s fascination with touching the fluffy white stuff. Mr Bennett said the advent of social media meant people were getting out, taking pictures of the snow and the result may have led to an increase in record numbers.

How many heatwaves, fires and droughts would have been recorded in 1850 if they had “social media”? We’ll never know, and the ABC will never ask.

It’s easy to predict if a science story will get published on the ABC. Ask the question:

Will this help elect the kind of people who give the ABC more money?

_____________________________

PS: Weekend Fun. Who knew Bluff Knoll in WA is listed in a “ski resorts” report?

You can find out handy live data like today it has 0mm of snow and “0 out of 0 lifts open.”

Jonas from Australia comments on the ski page:

Don’t listen to these locals who just want to scare away skiers to keep the slopes to themselves. The fact is Bluff Knoll provides the best snow conditions anywhere for thousands of kilometres and ski conditions were supreme last ice age!

*The Snow report of 1cm of July 5 was predicted by their weather models. I can find no confirmation that it happened.

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Antarctic Sea Ice lowest in 40 years, but no one knows why — “back to drawing board”

Put it in a history book: scientists are sounding like scientists — admitting they don’t understand

Antarctic Sea Ice set records in 2014, but then in 2016 it rapidly declined and hasn’t recovered, indeed right now as the southern winter peaks, it’s at a record low. The long term trend is still rising, but its now only half the rate it was in 2014. On this blog, Mike Jonas recently demonstrated that the Southern Ocean had cooled, not warmed as all the models predicted. But what matters here is that sea ice covers 7% of the world and we don’t know what caused it.

What is also a record is that most scientists and journalists are showing real restraint and are not blaming this as a climate change event.

Even, bowl-me-over, New Scientist, is showing admirable restraint: Antarctic sea ice is declining dramatically and we don’t know why. This is the first time since starting this blog ten years ago that I have been able to say that. Congrats Adam Vaughan.

Decades of expanding sea ice in Antarctica have been wiped out by three years of sudden and dramatic declines, leaving scientist puzzled as to why the region has flipped so abruptly. However, researchers cautioned against pinning the changes on climate change and said it was too early to say if the shrinking is the start of a long-term trend or a blip.

The decline may just be natural variability, driven by shift in wind patterns which influence the extent of Antarctic sea ice, says Mark Serreze, director of the US National Snow and Ice Data Center. “To argue that this recent dip is evidence of the start of a longer term decline driven by greenhouse warming is premature.” — New Scientist.

On average across the seasons there is about 13 million square kilometers of sea ice around Antarctica, so even though this is a record low, it’s still only 10% below normal. Right now, because its winter, there is 14 million square km of sea ice , but at this time of year normally there would be 15 million km2.

Antarctic Sea Ice, Graph, June, 2019. Source: NSIDC

The water around Antarctica is no warmer than normal for this time of year:

You might think a warm sea current could be to blame, but it’s not that simple. The black area around the ice below shows the sea surface temperature today has a 0.0C “anomaly”. In other words, spot on average. (Though this is not a trend graph, just a daily situation graph, which can change quickly).

SSTA, Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly, Antarctica, Graph, Nullschool.

SSTA, Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly, Antarctica | Nullschool.

The Southern Ocean long term trends are what matters. This above, is a pretty picture, symbolic, but just a snapshot.

Scientists admit they have to go back to the drawing board:

Maddie Stone, Gizmodo — January 2019:

“Notably, the November to December 2016 period was considered an extreme excursion of Antarctic sea ice at the time,” the NSDIC wrote.

In short, scientists pinned the last sea ice nosedive on natural variability. But it’s currently unclear what’s behind this year’s ice crash. Notably, University of Washington sea ice researcher Cecilia Bitz told Earther that the Southern Annular Mode is not strongly negative at the moment. Nor are we still nursing the hangover of a monster El Niño, as we were at the end of 2016.

“I think we have to go back to the drawing board a little bit,” Bitz told Earther.

Bitz was reluctant to speculate as to whether the near back-to-back sea ice slumps are part of a new trend associated with climate change. While parts of Antarctica are definitely feeling the heat, until recently, Antarctic sea ice was growing slightly, reaching a record high in 2014. That doesn’t negate the warming trend, it simply speaks to the complexity of sea ice behaviour in an environment impacted by both ocean currents and a giant continent.

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Cosmic rays seeded clouds during the last geomagnetic reversal

That’s not in the models

The cosmic ray theory, Henrik Svensmark, (Click to enlarge)

What if our clouds are partly driven by a rain of cosmic radiation from far flung exploding stars… What if the warming on Earth had more to do with magnetic fields than with CO2? h/t GWPF

The Grand Mal test of Henrik Svensmark’s cosmic ray theory was 780,000 years ago when the poles on Earth flipped. For 5,000 wild years our magnetic shield was down to about a quarter of its normal strength. That would have allowed more cosmic rays to come streaking through the atmosphere down to the lowest part, crashing into molecules and generally busting things up in the air. Those ionised particles then seed clouds — in theory, which make an umbrella shade for the planet, keeping things cooler, and reflecting all that solar heat back into space. But how do we measure clouds that disappeared three quarters of a million years ago?

A team at Kobe University studied the patterns of monsoons in East Asia during the reversal. They argue that the extra low clouds would cause the winter monsoons to become stronger, so they looked closely at layers of dust deposited in the Loess Plateau south of the Gobi desert in China. There, something like 2.6 million years of dust has collected. When the winds are stronger the layers of dust are thicker and the particles are bigger. And sure enough, during that 5,000 year period the winds were blowing hard, the monsoons were stronger, and dust accumulated three times faster. Temperatures fell by around 2 – 3 degrees.

So this is further evidence that magnetic fields (like the Sun’s rather large one) have an effect on clouds. The stronger the fields the fewer the clouds. That obviously shows that magnetic fields change the temperature on Earth, though it doesn’t say “how much”. So this is a quasi proof of concept, which is very helpful, but these were extraordinary conditions (where our North pole becomes our South Pole). If the field fell by 75% and temperatures only fell 2 – 3 degrees, it seems to me, that there must be other major players that the IPCC favoured models also don’t include. (Like the solar wind, solar spectral changes, ozone for starters). But nonetheless, it’s still a bigger empirical effect than any due to CO2. Remembering that CO2’s supposed effect is only “discovered” by asking broken models with missing variables to explain the last 50 years. Ergo: if we ignore most solar physics, “it must be CO2”. (See how to create a crisis graph in six easy steps).

Amazing what people can figure out from a pile of old dust.

— Jo

Winter monsoons became stronger during geomagnetic reversal

Press release

New evidence suggests that high-energy particles from space known as galactic cosmic rays affect the Earth’s climate by increasing cloud cover, causing an “umbrella effect”.

When galactic cosmic rays increased during the Earth’s last geomagnetic reversal transition 780,000 years ago, the umbrella effect of low-cloud cover led to high atmospheric pressure in Siberia, causing the East Asian winter monsoon to become stronger. This is evidence that galactic cosmic rays influence changes in the Earth’s climate. The findings were made by a research team led by Professor Masayuki Hyodo (Research Center for Inland Seas, Kobe University) and published on June 28 in the online edition of Scientific Reports.

Cosmic ray theory, Mongolia, geomagetic reversal. Cloud cover. Graph, 2019.

Figure 2. Comparison of Loess Plateau monsoons with the paleoclimate and paleoenvironment changes from other regions. (a) North Atlantic paleoceanic environment. (b) Northwest Pacific (Chiba Section) paleoceanic environment. (c) Lingtai summer rainfall. (d) Xifeng summer rainfall. (e) Osaka Bay sea levels. (f) Osaka Bay mean temperature of the warmest month (MTWA), mean temperature of the coldest month (MTCO). (g) Lingtai winter monsoon strength. (h) Xifeng winter monsoon strength. (i) Magnetic dipole strength. (j) Cosmic ray flux. (k) Winter insolation at 45 degrees north. The blue bar shows the period of the intensified winter monsoon in the Loess Plateau and the cooling event in Osaka Bay

The Svensmark Effect is a hypothesis that galactic cosmic rays induce low cloud formation and influence the Earth’s climate. Tests based on recent meteorological observation data only show minute changes in the amounts of galactic cosmic rays and cloud cover, making it hard to prove this theory. However, during the last geomagnetic reversal transition, when the amount of galactic cosmic rays increased dramatically, there was also a large incr

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Not the hottest ever June, 1998 was hotter and so was most of the last half billion years

But who doesn’t love using junk data to create a fake scare?

Another pound of panic with cherry picked data measured on junk equipment and adjusted by secret methods.

June 2019 was the hottest ever recorded on Earth: European satellite agency

New data released Tuesday found the average temperature in Europe for June 2019 was higher than any other June on record.

According to the data, the average temperature in June was more than 2 C above normal.

Earth is 4.5 billion years old and we’ve “recorded” 1 part in 35 million of the total climate history of Earth. It’s not only not the hottest on Earth ever, it’s not even the hottest in the last thirty years, according to UAH satellite data. Thanks to Roy Spencer.

June 1998 was hotter (and 16 other months) and thousands upon thousands of years

Since 1979 fully 17 months have been hotter than this last June, and if we had had satellites for 10,000 years, we’d have found thousands of Junes hotter than today. Even without satellites there is no respectable climate scientist on Earth who would argue that temperatures weren’t higher than this for most of life on Earth.

UAH Satellite, Global Temperatures, Lower Troposphere, graph, June 2019.

Before ground data was adjusted and homogenized, June 1998 was 0.1C hotter. If you want to avoid heatstroke, don’t get homogenized and don’t sit near a jet engine (where many thermometers are based, and where you might really get homogenized).

The hottest month in the last 150 years is irrelevant

Nothing about the “hottest year-month-day ever” is meaningful or significant on a big scale.

The world has been warming for 300 years, long before the industrial revolution. Seas have been rising since 1800. The trend didn’t change as our emissions rose, it was the same in the 1980s as it was in 1870s.
150 years of “records” is tiny. It was warmer 1000 years ago, 2000 years ago, 5000 years ago and 130,000 years ago. In fact its been warmer for most of the last 10,000 years than it is today, and it’s been warmer for most of time life since life on Earth was a mere sponge. Only people who think CO2 matters keep repeating that it’s warmed from 1850 to now without pointing out the bigger perspective.
The records have usually been set with thermometers like this one (next to concrete and exhaust vents). There probably weren’t too many car parks or air conditioners in 1880 either. Not to mention the non-random adjustments, and that mystery about how 75% of thermometers are ignored.

The hottest-ever-lines are bait for the too-busy and the easily-fooled.

It’s holocene denial:

Sea levels were higher, corals were happy, people thrived, and both Greenland and Antarctica were warmer. Seas have been falling for 7,000 years around Australia. Some 6,000 boreholes drilled around the world show it was global. It was hotter and CO2 was irrelevant.

GISP, Greenland, Ice Core temperatures, Holocene.

UPDATE: This graph shows the ice-core data up until 1855. The last 150 years (1705 to 1855) are highlighted in red to show the warming as the Earth began coming out of the LIA.

Vostok Antarctica, last 12,000 years of Interglacial temperature.

Since you asked: there are five reasons UAH is better than RSS.

(The other main satellite data set). UAH agrees with millions of weather balloons. RSS agrees with dodgy adjusted ground thermometers near airconditioners, tarmac and hot concrete. UAH uses empirical data, RSS uses models to guess. UAH removed a faulty satellite. RSS kept it. UAH corrects for diurnal drift, RSS keeps the error in the early years when it warms the trend then corrects for it after 2002. When is an error not an error — when it warms the planet.

Thanks to Rod for technical proof reading.

9.8 out of 10 based on 90 ratings

Coral reef totally recovers (for 400th time) and researchers surprised

Corals If only coral researchers read skeptic blogs, they’d know that corals have been getting bleached and wrecked by cyclones for millions of years. They have adaptable genes, honed by 500 million years of natural selection, plus epigenetic tricks, and with safe zones to seed recovery. The Great Barrier Reef spans 2,000 kilometers and five degrees Celsius from 27 to 32°C and we’re still finding reefs we didn’t even know about. The pH swings on a daily basis, and fish do better when it does. One coral has adapted to ocean “acidification” in 6 months. Other fish remarkably adapted from salt to freshwater in just fifty years. As Peter Ridd says: Of all the ecosystems in the world, the reef is one that’s best at adapting to climate change.

So once again, corals have recovered — and yet the “experts” who wear their dogma covered glasses didn’t see it coming.

By Melissa Martin and Erin Semmler, ABC

One Tree Island was lashed by Cyclone Hamish in 2009, destroying much of the island’s coral.

In the five years following the cyclone, no metabolic recovery was detected on the reef and by 2014 calcification of the coral had declined by 75 per cent.

But things changed dramatically between 2014 and 2017, when Ms Davis and her team at the National Marine Science Centre found the coral system calcification increased four-fold.

“We found that the coral ecosystem has completely recovered from this cyclone event after eight years,” Ms Davis said.

Commenter Pat points out that the Brisbane Times picked this up a week before the ABC.

In other news, environmentalists are doing their best to destroy tourism:

She said tourists are more worried about the reef than previously because of the way it is portrayed in the media.

“Questions I get asked everyday, they say, ‘so is the reef dead? Is this bleached here?'” she said.

Things the ABC BBC and CBC might forget to tell you about coral reefs:

In some places ocean acidification happens every single day. No biggie.
Scientists surprised that reef that survived the hotter holocene is already recovering from 2016 bleaching
Corals already have the genes to survive another 250 years of climate change
Corals survive 542m years of supervolcano, asteroids, 125m sea level change only to go extinct any year now
Researchers astonished: Coral reefs thriving in a more “acidic” ocean
Corals use epigenetic tricks to adapt to warmer and “more acidic” water
*Surprise* Great Barrier Reef has 112 tough spots that survive and replenish the rest
Great Barrier Reef: 5% bleached, not 93% says new report “discrepancy phenomenal”
One vulnerable coral type adapts to ocean acidification in just 6 months
Fish behave better when artificial tanks mimic these natural daily swings.
A bit less alkalinity is good news for hundreds of marine species.
Some coral reefs thrive in a more acidic ocean
Hottest reefs on Earth make a nice home for corals?
There is a big safety margin: farmed fish seem to cope fine with CO2 levels that are even fifty times higher than today.
We only discovered coral bleaching in the 1980s but it’s probably been going on for millions of years.
Ocean Acidification — a little bit less alkalinity could be a good thing: 1103 studies show that a slight lowering of pH promotes growth in marine life.
World is going to hell but we’re finding new coral reefs everywhere…
The chemistry of ocean pH and “acidification”
NOAA scientists admit in private that they can’t name any place affected by ocean acidification
Life adapts — fish evolved from salt to fresh water in just fifty years
Look out! Climate change makes fish reckless

All posts on Reefs, Corals, and the Great Barrier Reef

REFERENCE

Frontiers in Marine Science open-source journal

h/t George, David, Pat

Image: Wikimedia, author Wise Hok Wai Lum: Flynn Reef 2014.

9.9 out of 10 based on 99 ratings

But it’s good for the renewables religion: Electricity doubles, cold deaths up one third

Progress? Australia has more fashionable energy but less ability to protect elders from the cold

Elderly man, Photo, StockSnap, Pixabay Deaths in elderly folk from hypothermia or cold related conditions are up 34% in last ten years. These are people who can’t afford heating.

Power prices were up 117% in the same period, undoubtedly due to policies that put weather control 100-years-from-now, above the present day quality of life.

Watch SkyNews

This doesn’t appear to be the additional deaths from flu or cardiac causes which also rise as indoor room temperature falls. The real total will be much higher. Despite “global warming”, six times as many people die of cold in Australia not heat. That tally of excess winter deaths is around 2,400 per year. Cold kills more people than heat in every Australian capital.

Startsat60

The rising cost of electricity has become a major concern for the elderly in particular with new data revealing more than 130 people were admitted to NSW emergency departments last winter with cold-related problems such as hypothermia.

This is a shock increase of 34 per cent from 10 years ago. Alarmingly, the health statistics correlate with an increase of power prices by a whopping 117 per cent,The Daily Telegraph reports.

Daily Mail UK: The tragic toll of Australia’s power crisis: Elderly people are freezing to DEATH in their homes because they can’t afford to turn their heaters on

A study conducted by Dr Michelle Ananda-Rajah from the Monash University in Victoria found those who were diagnosed with hypotheria lived alone and did not have much social support.

She concurred with Mr Fulde and said the elderly are the most at risk due to their inability to ‘afford adequate heating’.

The billion dollar ABC Australia coverage:

………………………………..

A search for “ABC Cold Death Warning”still turns up a story of a dead cook in a freezer. A search on their ABC site turns up: Fact check: Do more people die in Australia than Sweden due to poorly heated homes?” The verdict, by the way, is that “Mr Kelly’s claim is overstated.” The evidence supports the claim that more Australians than Swedes die in cold temperatures, and these deaths relate to moderate – rather than extreme – cold.” “But it is a stretch to say deaths are “simply” the result of inadequate heating. Our habits also play a part in keeping warm.”

Blame the elderly for not wearing more blankets?

So it’s a “Fact” that the ABC will go to pedantic extremes to avoid saying “Craig Kelly was right”.

h/t George

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

9.8 out of 10 based on 94 ratings

Weekend Unthreaded

…

9.2 out of 10 based on 25 ratings

Clickbait climate records: Hot in France but snowpacked in Canada and Colorado

News today is filled with “record heat” in France — whatever, it might be the hottest since thermometers started measuring, but it’s been hotter before. Even if it’s real, it’s only a technicality because we only started records recently. At most it can only be the hottest in 130 years or so, and we know it was just as hot in medieval times, hotter 7,000 years ago, hotter 130,000 years ago, and so on, hotter for most of life on Earth.

The record heat in France is a meaningless clickbait moment in climate history that preys upon the short term human psyche. Like some collective amnesia we forget that the French Revolution was but a moment ago in geologic history. So this is the worst heatwave in Europe since … 2003?

But is it even a real (albeit short term) record? We don’t know if French historic records were adjusted, cooled, subject to unaccounted site moves, or measured in super sensitive electronic thermometers that didn’t exist in 1896. But we do know that when France’s top TV meteorologists wrote a skeptical book, he was sacked. If the data is being tampered with, what are the odds that any recognised French expert could speak up? It’s the only certainty in the climate debate — question the propaganda and kiss the career goodbye.

It was 44C in Toulouse in 1923. All it takes is a bit more tarmac at the airport, a few more high rise buildings blocking the breeze and the same 44 degree day would easily register as 46C today, especially with an electric probe.

Record heat brings record …snow…

In the same week, Beartoothpass on the border between Montana and Wyoming in the USA was closed for five days due to snow in summer. Colorado welcomed summer with 2 feet of snow, after the fifth coldest May on record. That’s 40 times more snow than normal for this time of year, there is so much snow there will be skiiing on the 4th of July. It’s also unexpectedly snowing in Mongolia. It snowed in Yellowstone for the summer solstice. It’s also snowed to start summer in Canada, 25cm in in Alberta, people are asking if June is June-uary. There were icicles in Alice Springs this week, and a bumper snow start to the Mt Hotham season — at least it’s winter downunder. Did you hear about the freak cold?

James Murphy, New American

Which brings us to the recent summer solstice snowstorm in the Colorado Rockies. On June 21, a freak snowstorm dropped up to 20 inches of snow on parts of Colorado, adding to an already substantial snow season, which since January has seen snow totals in Colorado at more than 750 percent above normal. The recent snow has ballooned that number to over 4,000 percent above normal. A large part of that percentage is because snow is normally completely absent by June, and this year’s abnormally cold temperatures have helped preserve vast amounts of snow that fell earlier in the year.

CLOSED for five days in summer! June 25th

Beartooth Pass on US-212 in Montana is currently closed due to blowing and driving snow and high winds and has been closed for the past 5 days. The Pass closed on Thursday, June 20th, 2019, at 7:30 pm and is currently closed as of this writing (10:30 am PDT).

Summer in Colorado when you go hiking at 12,000 feet. @10isaacsmith #hiking #adventure #colorado #summer pic.twitter.com/v3Hx8I36WJ

— Carole Smith (@welivegreen2011) June 24, 2019

This is so wise #9wx #CoWx #Colorado pic.twitter.com/Tw0AmjNuP6

— Erin Powell (@erinepowell) June 23, 2019

h/t ClimateDepot, Lance, Andrew V

9.8 out of 10 based on 73 ratings

Advice to the National Environmental Science Program

Unfortunately this survey closes ~~Saturday~~ Sunday at 5pm EST. One DAY to go now. [Correction: Day was wrong, go for it. h/t Eric Worrall].

Apologies to those who would have liked to send in a submission. Hopefully I covered much on your behalf.

The National Environmental Science Programs wants feedback and to figure out priorities for environmental research in one specific program. This funding is $145m, among other things they fund David Karoly at CSIRO. The form promises a receipt and a PDF reply.

NESP is seeking your feedback

The National Environmental Science Program (NESP) is scheduled for completion in 2021. Early planning for a future environmental research program to succeed NESP has commenced. The details of a future program are subject to Government decisions.

Feedback on key aspects of NESP will help inform the design and administration of a future program. A survey is now available via the Department’s online consultation hub. The survey will close on 30 June 2019.

Consultation on the National Environmental Science Program

h/t Darren Nelson

________________________________________________________________________________________

6. What have been the barriers to engagement [with NESP research]?

1. Data and methods are not always publicly available.
2. Published research is not easy to obtain from some journals which require payment.
3. Media releases announce news sometimes that is not even published. This means it’s very difficult for independent commentators to assess or respond to that media.
4. Media releases are often misleading, omitting key information, perspectives, or simply exaggerate the effect or importance.
5. Research with inconvenient results often has no media release, no publicity. Eg: stories of failures of modeling.

7. What would you change to make a future program easier to engage with?

Transparency

Government funded research should be freely available and transparent — the finished paper (or preprints), the full methods, and the full data. All of this should be online and easy to find from the day a media release is issued.

The media release should allow public discussion and response at the site, or on the public broadcaster. Why is there not one place where the public can discuss the results and ask questions?
Preferably this should be at the university — and maintained under FOIA — with responses from the researchers and an obligation to the public to publish all questions and answers. This site should not be able to simply delete inconvenient questions to hide them.

8. What do you think are the key factors for enabling people who have a research need to have it recognised and correctly understood by researchers?

The key factors are:
1. Civility and respect.
2. Funding to replicate and check results.

1. Across Australia, people are often derided for even asking a question. Namecalling and bullying effectively stop people discussing important scientific topics. “Denier” is not a scientific term, and yet David Karoly has resorted to this. (eg https://newmatilda.com/2016/07/07/one-nation-cancelled-an-interview-because-we-called-them-climate-deniers/) Even if other NESP participants don’t use the term, they tacitly encourage it by staying silent while other commentators do.

2. Without funding volunteer audits happen only with self funding or donations.

Keep reading →

9.6 out of 10 based on 51 ratings

“Insanity”. Feel the angst — should the Emissions Reductions Fund pay money to coal?

Let’s set national policy by “Embarrassment”? Great way to run the country (into the ground).

Skeptics: send in your submissions before July 12.

A coal generator has asked the Emissions Reductions Fund to pay for carbon credits if it upgrades its turbines and makes less CO2. “The Specialist Reporting Team’s” Penny Timms, of the ABC, quotes two activists, asks no skeptics, no engineers, no electricity consumers, and no hard questions. They call the owner of the generator a “coal baron”. Where are the “wind and solar barons”?

Here’s the ABC standing up for their own ideology:

The chief of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Kelly O’Shanassy, said “it would be a mistake.”

“We would be the only country in the world to be using a climate fund to fund coal-fired power, and that would just be a global embarrassment,” she said.

So a know-nothing activist sayth it would be embarrassing. Who cares? Does it reduce CO2 or doesn’t it? Japan the World Bank and the UN green fundshave funded coal power.

Hypocrisy unbounded — does CO2 matter or not?

If CO2 is reduced by upgrading a coal station is it really a CO2 reduction or it is an unthinkable Sin? Apparently we cant fund a reduction in CO2 if it involves the coal word. Lordy, it might keep old clean reliable assets alive at the expense of welfare dependent uneconomic renewables? Once again, the evidence supports the Jo Nova test of green behaviour — when faced with a choice to reduce CO2 or fund a fellow freeloader on taxpayer dollars, the Green activists always choose to fund a friend. CO2 is just a scare-means-to-an-end. The Ends is power and money, the environment is just the excuse.

The hypocritical Green angst proves once again that this is a religious hate campaign against coal and nothing to do with CO2 reduction. If CO2 mattered, the choices of where the money went would be limited too: 1/ Does it reduce CO2, and 2/ is it cost effective?

Which expert has a religious objection to coal?

Tim Baxter. Seriously, his profile pic at Melbourne Uni

According to the ABC, an expert said this is “insane”, which gets repeated three times in the article but Penny Timms does not ask one hard question of the said expert to expose his hypocrisy.

A man with a conflict of interest perhaps?

ERF expert Tim Baxter, a fellow of Melbourne Law School and associate of the Climate and Energy College, said the potential inclusion of coal-fired power stations was worrying.

“We’re asking whether a scheme, designed purportedly to reduce Australia’s emissions, should be funding some of the most polluting sources of electricity generation in the country,” he said.

“This is an insane question to ask.”

You are not even allowed to ask (because Baxter has no answer, so he has to effectively say “shut up and go away”).

Mr Baxter is not convinced the committee will end up recommending the changes being considered.

“I don’t think that there’s a principled reason for this method to exist at all, and if there is a reason for it, I don’t think there’s a principled reason to expand its availability,” he said.

How about the principle of reducing CO2 in a cost effective manner? Skeptics think that’s a waste of money, but judging the way climate activists act, they do too. His target is the coal industry, not CO2.

The Climate and Energy College is a safe space at Melbourne Uni that is entirely dependent on a belief that CO2 is bad, bad, bad, and obviously has a religious hatred of coal power.

Submissions

The ERAC is The independent Emissions Reduction Assurance Committee, which of course is not independent. They have three calls out for consultation:

Consultation	Comments close
Consultation on the National Environmental Science Program	Sunday, June 30, 2019
Review of the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative—Facilities) Methodology Determination 2015	Friday, July 12, 2019
Proposed variation to the National Environment Protection (Ambient Air Quality) Measure standards for ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide	Wednesday, August 07, 2019

$3.5 billion dollars to Fund a green Friend?

Keep reading →

9.6 out of 10 based on 69 ratings

Oregon Democrats say climate bill is “dead”. Republican senators wait in hiding. “Prove it”.

Oregon’s Eleven Update: The eleven Republican Senators remain in hiding to block a vote on the HB2020 Cap N Trade bill. The ruling Democrats have now said the bill is dead — even suggesting that they don’t have the numbers in the Senate themselves. But Republicans are wondering if that’s just a ploy to trick them into returning. After all, if the Democrats didn’t have enough votes from their own Senators why did they put the bill up for a vote?

If the State Troopers caught them, would they detain them “in the Chamber”?

So much for a high trust society:

Top Oregon Democrats Say Climate Change Bill Is Dead After GOP Senators Fled the State

Chip Browlee, Slate

Keep reading →

9.3 out of 10 based on 66 ratings

Recent Posts

Then author MikePearl manages the impossible — makes Michael Mann look sensible

When you need a heart surgeon get a heart surgeon, but when you need a therapist, find a believer:

Remember when polar amplification was the rage? So much for that theory

Smashing plan — raising funds to call for a judicial review of BBC bias

Dear Auntie: You cannot call yourself impartial if you are measuring yourself

Update

REFERENCES Keep reading →

Snow again in Western Australia?

Put away those ideas it might be snowing more, it’s just a facebook thing, eh?

Put it in a history book: scientists are sounding like scientists — admitting they don’t understand

The water around Antarctica is no warmer than normal for this time of year:

That’s not in the models

But who doesn’t love using junk data to create a fake scare?

June 1998 was hotter (and 16 other months) and thousands upon thousands of years

The hottest month in the last 150 years is irrelevant

It’s holocene denial:

Since you asked: there are five reasons UAH is better than RSS.

Things the ABC BBC and CBC might forget to tell you about coral reefs:

All posts on Reefs, Corals, and the Great Barrier Reef

REFERENCE

Progress? Australia has more fashionable energy but less ability to protect elders from the cold

Record heat brings record …snow…

NESP is seeking your feedback

6. What have been the barriers to engagement [with NESP research]?

7. What would you change to make a future program easier to engage with?

8. What do you think are the key factors for enabling people who have a research need to have it recognised and correctly understood by researchers?

Let’s set national policy by “Embarrassment”? Great way to run the country (into the ground).

Hypocrisy unbounded — does CO2 matter or not?

Which expert has a religious objection to coal?

Submissions

$3.5 billion dollars to Fund a green Friend? Keep reading →

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$3.5 billion dollars to Fund a green Friend?

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