GWPF | 13 Jan 2015
Alarmists seem to have gone quiet about the drought in California lately. I wonder why? Precipitation in 2014 was actually close to normal, ranking 44th driest since 1895. A look at the 60-Month averages shows much more severe droughts in the 20thC. As with all droughts, it will take time for water reserves to build back up again. But it has done so before from much lower levels and there is no reason to suppose it won’t do again. –Paul Homewood, Not A Lot Of People Know That, 12 January 2015
President Obama has repeatedly blamed global warming for episodes of severe weather, including wildfires and droughts in the Golden State, but Democrats seeking to unseat Republicans in the hard-hit Central Valley region are balking at that argument. When announcing the a $1 billion climate fund meant to aid farmers and communities dealing with drought, Obama’s science adviser John Holdren said to expect more talk “about the connection between increasing frequency in the intensity of drought and climate change” from the president and the White House. Since then, the White House has released a video in which Holdren said the drought and wildfires raging across California and other western states will continue to happen more frequently due to climate change. — Laura Barron-Lopez, The Hill 17 August 2014
1) California Rainfall Nearly Back To Normal In 2014 – Not A Lot Of People Know That, 12 January 2015
2) Indian Science Congress: ‘Fears Of Man-Made Global Warming Exaggerated’ – Times of India, 7 January 2015
3) Polar Ice Caps More Stable Than Predicted – Prime Time, Sun News TV, 6 January 2015
4) Small Volcanoes Cause Warming Pause, New Study Claims – Daily Mail, 12 January 2015
5) Lawrence Solomon: Climate & Other Predictions For 2015 – National Post, 9 January 2015
6) And Finally: Peer Reviewed Climate Study Includes Someone 32,757 Years Old – Jo Nova, 11 January 2015
Two of three scientists at a session on climate change and society at the Indian Science Congress on Tuesday felt fears of man-made global warming were greatly exaggerated. Their presence at the conference was particularly significant in light of the current ‘development-versus-environment’ debates. “Climate change is a natural phenomenon while pollution is caused by man. We are definitely accelerating the process of climate change, but we cannot predict the rate or extent of climate change that can be attributed to man,” said Dhruv Sen Singh, Centre of Advanced Study in Geology, University of Lucknow. According to him, fears of climate change amount to propaganda and “unnecessarily cause panic”. –Anahita Mukherji, Times of India, 7 January 2015
Reports are showing that the polar ice caps are not melting away. Instead, climate scientists say the ice caps may be much thicker and more stable than previously thought. Canada’s Sun News TV talks to Dr Benny Peiser about the implications of the new observations. —Prime Time, Sun News TV, 6 January 2015
Small volcanic eruptions over the past 20 years have been protecting the Earth from global warming, according to a new study. Scientists have confirmed that droplets of sulphur-rich aerosols spewed into the upper atmosphere by volcanoes have been reflecting sunlight away from the Earth. This could have helped decrease the global temperatures by between 0.05°C to 0.12°C over the past 15 years. Professor Ross McKitrick, an environmental economist from the University of Guelph in Canada, said the results could mean that climate models that are used to inform policy decisions are inaccurate. –Richard Gray, Daily Mail, 12 January 2015
In 2015, I predict, the cause of global warming will continue to lose ground, even if, as expected, Pope Francis outs himself as a convert to the Church of Global Warming. Temperatures will again fail to behave as projected by the computer models, the public will again yawn at the faithful’s threats of the coming apocalypse and politicians will again pay lip service to global warming while kissing renewables subsidies goodbye. –Lawrence Solomon, National Post, 9 January 2015
The worst paper ever published has competition. I was going to mock this, but it has all rather slipped beyond the Plains of Derision and sunk in a parallel universe. Lewandowsky, Gignac and Oberauer put out a paper in 2013 which was used to generate headlines like “Climate sceptics more likely to be conspiracy theorists”. The data sample is not large, but despite that, it includes the potential Neanderthal, as well as a precocious five year old and some underage teenagers too. —Jo Nova, 11 January 2015
1) California Rainfall Nearly Back To Normal In 2014
Not A Lot Of People Know That, 12 January 2015
Paul Homewood
Alarmists seem to have gone quiet about the drought in California lately. I wonder why?
Precipitation in 2014 was actually close to normal, ranking 44th driest since 1895.
Note that the blue line is the trend, which is falling at a barely noticeable 0.02”/decade.
The bionomial filter trend also shows many worse periods in the past.
And before anybody says it is only because of the December floods, NOAA show that there have been 16 wetter Decembers.
More important, though, is the longer term trend, as that is really what leads to seriously damaging droughts.
A look at the 60-Month averages shows much more severe droughts in the 20thC.
As with all droughts, it will take time for water reserves to build back up again.
But it has done so before from much lower levels and there is no reason to suppose it won’t do again.
2) Indian Science Congress: ‘Fears Of Man-Made Global Warming Exaggerated’
Times of India, 7 January 2015
Anahita Mukherji
Two of three scientists at a session on climate change and society at the Indian Science Congress on Tuesday felt fears of man-made global warming were greatly exaggerated.
Their presence at the conference was particularly significant in light of the current ‘development-versus-environment’ debates.
“While I agree that glaciers are melting because of global warming, if this is because of man, then what was the reason for the melting of the glaciers in the Gondwana period long before man arrived on the planet?” asked Dhruv Sen Singh, Centre of Advanced Study in Geology, University of Lucknow.
“Climate change is a natural phenomenon while pollution is caused by man. We are definitely accelerating the process of climate change, but we cannot predict the rate or extent of climate change that can be attributed to man,” Singh said.
According to him, fears of climate change amount to propaganda and “unnecessarily cause panic”.
“The Cretaceous period 65 million years ago was the hottest in the history of the earth. Man was not around at the time,” he added.
Singh said that if climate change was the cause of glaciers retreating, they should all be retreating at the same rate. “But in reality they are retreating at different rates, and some were advancing,” said Singh. “Despite the melting of glaciers, only at some places the sea level is rising, whereas at others it is constant, possibly due to the sinking of land,” he added.
As for extreme climatic events such as the Uttarakhand cloudburst, he said such cloudbursts were not new to the Himalayas. “These are cyclical events but not catastrophes. The devastation in Uttarakhand was caused by people living in hazard-prone areas, a function of India’s high population density,” he added.
Rajesh Agnihotri senior scientist at the Radio and Atmospheric Science Division, National Physics Laboratory, who mapped changing trends in India’s monsoons, said there was nothing to suggest that this was because of man-made climate change.
Hypothetically, even if man stopped industrial activity, stopped using cars and stopped using air-conditioners, monsoon patterns would still change,” said Agnihotri.
3) Polar Ice Caps More Stable Than Predicted
Prime Time, Sun News TV, 6 January 2015
Reports are showing that the polar ice caps are not melting away. Instead, climate scientists say the ice caps may be much thicker and more stable than previously thought. Canada’s Sun News TV talks to Dr Benny Peiser about the implications of the new observations.
4) Small Volcanoes Cause Warming Pause, New Study Claims
Daily Mail, 12 January 2015
Richard Gray
Small volcanic eruptions over the past 20 years have been protecting the Earth from global warming, according to a new study.
Scientists have confirmed that droplets of sulphur-rich aerosols spewed into the upper atmosphere by volcanoes have been reflecting sunlight away from the Earth.
Until recently it was thought that only particularly large eruptions had any noticeable affect on the climate.
Eruptions of volcanoes like Tavurvur in Papa New Guinea in 2006 had a greater impact on the climate in the past 15 years than had previously been appreciated and may require climate models to be revised
However, the new study has confirmed results from the end of last year that showed these small eruptions can have an accumulative impact on global temperature.
This could have helped decrease the global temperatures by between 0.05°C to 0.12°C over the past 15 years. […]
Since 1998, the warmest year on record, the steep increase in global temperatures seen during the 1990s has levelled off, failing to match computer model predictions for climate change.
This pause, or hiatus, has been blamed on weak solar activity and increased uptake of heat by the world’s oceans. […]
[..] Professor Ross McKitrick, an environmental economist from the University of Guelph in Canada, said the results could mean that climate models that are used to inform policy decisions are inaccurate.
If volcanic eruptions are masking some of the impacts of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, then the climate may be more sensitive than previously thought, or changes in aerosols could be responsible for some of the temperature changes attributed to carbon dioxide.
He said: ‘If small variations in volcanic activity turn out to have larger and more persistent climatic effects than previously thought, this should have important implications for how climate models are parameterized and how greenhouse gas attribution studies are done.
‘The study seems to me to raise the possibility that commonly-used historical reconstructions of volcanic dust forcing may not have been all that reliable.
‘Climate modelers rely on dust veil indexes that use measures of known historical volcanic activity to estimate optical effects in the atmosphere.
‘These are then used to estimate natural forcings over the 20th century, which are then used in greenhouse gas signal detection (attribution) studies.
‘If the historical reconstructions weren’t capturing the full magnitude of volcanic effects on the climate, as this study suggests, that presumably means those attribution studies need re-examination as well.’
5) Lawrence Solomon: Climate & Other Predictions For 2015
National Post, 9 January 2015
[…] In 2015, I predict, the cause of global warming will continue to lose ground, even if, as expected, Pope Francis outs himself as a convert to the Church of Global Warming.
Temperatures will again fail to behave as projected by the computer models, the public will again yawn at the faithful’s threats of the coming apocalypse and politicians will again pay lip service to global warming while kissing renewables subsidies goodbye.
As renewables lose momentum in 2015, fossil fuels will gain it. It can’t really be otherwise. If the glut we now see in oil and gas continues, the low prices that result will spur consumption. A rise in prices, on the other hand, would only further spur shale gas and oil development. Up or down, I predict, the environmental lobby loses the energy war, even if — should President Obama veto the Keystone XL Pipeline — it wins some battles.
Obama’s refusal would nevertheless be a hollow victory for environmentalists — Alberta oil will flow, Keystone or not. More significantly, environmentalism will increasingly seem a hollow pursuit by the generation about to inherit this earth: Today’s youth, having been force-fed an unrelenting diet of hype and fear, will have trouble stomaching more. Polls show youth’s appetite for things environmental has been waning. Look for this trend to continue.
The environmental mush that youth are rejecting originates largely from the mainstream media, which also dishes out pap when covering other politically correct issues. Herein lies much of the explanation for the collapse of the media’s authority — and thus of its audience. Among the cable news networks, CNN in 2014 logged the lowest audience in its history. Hard-left MSNBC got hit especially hard, with a 17% decline in prime time audience following a 29% decline in 2013.
These ratings catastrophes contrast with those of Fox News, the only politically incorrect media outlet on global warming, on President Obama and on most other sensitive subjects. Fox — which scored the largest audience in cable news for 13 straight years now — bucked the disappearing-audience trend by increasing the size of its lucrative prime time audience in 2014, by scoring the 14 most popular shows, and by attracting more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined. […]
All told, I predict, free markets and free ideas and free people will prosper in 2015. This time next year, I’ll report back to you on how well these predictions held up.
6) And Finally: Peer Reviewed Climate Study Includes Someone 32,757 Years Old
Jo Nova, 11 January 2015
The worst paper ever published has competition. I was going to mock this, but it has all rather slipped beyond the Plains of Derision and sunk in a parallel universe.
Researcher Jose Duarte is flummoxed, he simply can’t explain why a paper so weak was written, but more so why it was ever published, and why everyone associated with it is not running for cover. It’s not so much about the predictable flaws, biased questions, and mindless results, it’s now about why UWA, The Uni of Bristol, PLOS, and the Royal Society are willing to wear any of the reputational damage that goes with it.
Lewandowsky, Gignac and Oberauer put out a paper in 2013 which was used to generate headlines like “Climate sceptics more likely to be conspiracy theorists”.
The data sample is not large, but despite that, it includes the potential Neanderthal, as well as a precocious five year old and some underage teenagers too. The error was reported on Lewandowsky’s blog over a year ago by Brandon Shollenberger, then again by Jose Duarte in August 2014. Nothing has been corrected. The ages are not just typos, they were used in the calculations, correlations and conclusions. The median age was 43 but the mean age was a flaming neon 76. One wildly old person in the data skewed the correlation for age with nearly everything:
That one data point – the paleo-participant – is almost single-handedly responsible for knocking out all the correlations between age and so many other variables. If you just remove the paleo-participant, leaving the minors in the data, age lights up as a correlate across the board. Further removing the kids will strengthen the correlations.
Duarte remarks he would not sleep if he knew his work had a problem as major as this:
I don’t understand how anyone could let a paper just sit there if they know the data is bad and specific claims in the paper are false. No credible social psychologist would simply do nothing upon discovering that there were minors in their data, or a five-digit age. I’d be running to my computer to confirm any report that claims I’d made in a peer-reviewed journal article rested on bad data, fake participants, etc. I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I knew I had something like that out there, and would have to retract the paper or submit a corrected version. You can’t just leave it there, knowing that it’s false.
In any case, something is very wrong here. The authors should explain how the 32,757-year-old got into their data. They should explain how minors got into their data. They should explain why they did nothing for more than a year. This is a very simple dataset – it’s a simple spreadsheet with 42 columns, about as simple as it gets in social science. It shouldn’t have taken more than a few days to sort it out and run a correction, retraction, or whatever action the circumstances dictated. These eight purported participants allowed them to claim that age wasn’t a factor. It allowed them to focus on the glitzy political stuff, allowed them to focus on finding something negative to pin on conservatives.
They don’t tell you until late in the paper that conservatism is negatively correlated with belief in conspiracies – the exact opposite of what they claimed in the earlier scam paper that APS helped promote. Also note that we already know from much higher quality research that Democrats are more likely than Republicans to believe in the moon hoax, though it’s a small minority in both cases (7% vs. 4%), and that Democrats endorse every version of the JFK conspiracy at higher rates. I think some journals might be unaware that the pattern of these conspiracy beliefs across the left-right divide is already well-documented by researchers who have much higher methodological standards – professional pollsters at Gallup, Pew, et al. We don’t need junky data from politically-biased academics when we already have high-quality data from professionals.
