The Warmists at NOAA are clutching at straws here.
1). They say that just three countries in the Southern hemisphere had record high temperatures. But if it's GLOBAL warming, shouldn't the high temperatures have happened in more countries than that? Nothing in the Northern hemisphere? If a phenomenon is not global it is local and of no use in upholding Warmist dogma. There are plenty of local weather influences.
2). And it's a wonder that they mention the rise in CO2 at all, now at a level that was once predicted to be catastrophic. Where is the catastrophe?
3). And they say that the global temperature ranked "between second and sixth depending upon the dataset used". So which is it? The ranking is obviously far from solid.
4). And they say: "sea surface temperature for 2013 was among the 10 warmest on record". That means that there were 9 years when it was warmer. So it actually COOLED in 2003.
I will comment no further on such hilarious garbage
In 2013, the vast majority of worldwide climate indicators—greenhouse gases, sea levels, global temperatures, etc.—continued to reflect trends of a warmer planet, according to the indicators assessed in the State of the Climate in 2013 report, released online today by the American Meteorological Society.
Scientists from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., served as the lead editors of the report, which was compiled by 425 scientists from 57 countries around the world (highlights, visuals, full report). It provides a detailed update on global climate indicators, notable weather events, and other data collected by environmental monitoring stations and instruments on air, land, sea, and ice.
“These findings reinforce what scientists for decades have observed: that our planet is becoming a warmer place,” said NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan, Ph.D. “This report provides the foundational information we need to develop tools and services for communities, business, and nations to prepare for, and build resilience to, the impacts of climate change.”
The report uses dozens of climate indicators to track patterns, changes, and trends of the global climate system, including greenhouse gases; temperatures throughout the atmosphere, ocean, and land; cloud cover; sea level; ocean salinity; sea ice extent; and snow cover. These indicators often reflect many thousands of measurements from multiple independent datasets. The report also details cases of unusual and extreme regional events, such as Super Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated portions of Southeast Asia in November 2013.
Highlights:
Greenhouse gases continued to climb: Major greenhouse gas concentrations, including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide, continued to rise during 2013, once again reaching historic high values. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased by 2.8 ppm in 2013, reaching a global average of 395.3 ppm for the year. At the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, the daily concentration of CO2 exceeded 400 ppm on May 9 for the first time since measurements began at the site in 1958. This milestone follows observational sites in the Arctic that observed this CO2 threshold of 400 ppm in spring 2012.
Warm temperature trends continued near the Earth’s surface: Four major independent datasets show 2013 was among the warmest years on record, ranking between second and sixth depending upon the dataset used. In the Southern Hemisphere, Australia observed its warmest year on record, while Argentina had its second warmest and New Zealand its third warmest.
Sea surface temperatures increased: Four independent datasets indicate that the globally averaged sea surface temperature for 2013 was among the 10 warmest on record. El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)-neutral conditions in the eastern central Pacific Ocean and a negative Pacific decadal oscillation pattern in the North Pacific had the largest impacts on the global sea surface temperature during the year. The North Pacific was record warm for 2013.
Sea level continued to rise: Global mean sea level continued to rise during 2013, on pace with a trend of 3.2 ± 0.4 mm per year over the past two decades.
The Arctic continued to warm; sea ice extent remained low: The Arctic observed its seventh warmest year since records began in the early 20th century. Record high temperatures were measured at 20-meter depth at permafrost stations in Alaska. Arctic sea ice extent was the sixth lowest since satellite observations began in 1979. All seven lowest sea ice extents on record have occurred in the past seven years.
Antarctic sea ice extent reached record high for second year in a row; South Pole station set record high temperature: The Antarctic maximum sea ice extent reached a record high of 7.56 million square miles on October 1. This is 0.7 percent higher than the previous record high extent of 7.51 million square miles that occurred in 2012 and 8.6 percent higher than the record low maximum sea ice extent of 6.96 million square miles that occurred in 1986. Near the end of the year, the South Pole had its highest annual temperature since records began in 1957.
Tropical cyclones near average overall / Historic Super Typhoon: The number of tropical cyclones during 2013 was slightly above average, with a total of 94 storms, in comparison to the 1981-2010 average of 89. The North Atlantic Basin had its quietest season since 1994. However, in the Western North Pacific Basin, Super Typhoon Haiyan – the deadliest cyclone of 2013 – had the highest wind speed ever assigned to a tropical cyclone, with one-minute sustained winds estimated to be 196 miles per hour.
State of the Climate in 2013 is the 24th edition in a peer-reviewed series published annually as a special supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The journal makes the full report openly available online.
"State of the Climate is vital to documenting the world's climate," said Dr. Keith Seitter, AMS Executive Director. "AMS members in all parts of the world contribute to this NOAA-led effort to give the public a detailed scientific snapshot of what's happening in our world and builds on prior reports we've published."
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Owen Paterson to give climate sceptic group's keynote address
Owen Paterson, the sacked Environment Secretary, has signed up to deliver the annual lecture of the controversial climate sceptic group founded by former Chancellor Nigel Lawson.
Mr Paterson, who was frequently accused of climate scepticism by environmental campaigners during his tenure, was axed in Monday's reshuffle and had already warned the Prime Minister he intended to be vocal from the backbenches.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation, founded by Mr Lawson in 2009, describes itself as "open-minded on the contested science of global warming" but "deeply concerned about the costs and other implications of many of the policies currently being advocated".
Critics say it misleads people by casting doubt on the overwhelming scientific consensus over manmade climate change.
Mr Paterson will deliver the GWPF's annual lecture in October, the group announced on Friday.
Last year's lecture was delivered by John Howard, the former Australian Prime Minister, who described advocates of tackling climate change as “alarmists” and “zealots”.
Asked on Friday whether he GWPF engagement confirmed he was a climate sceptic, Mr Paterson said only: "I am a realistic country person."
"I'm giving the lecture, my views will be made clear then," he told the Telegraph, while appearing at the CLA Game Fair.
Mr Paterson's speech will have the potential to embarrass David Cameron, who has said climate change is one of the most serious threats facing the UK.
Mr Paterson was criticised for his response to the floods last winter, which Mr Cameron said he "strongly suspected" were linked to climate change.
Environmental groups suggested that Mr Paterson had failed to take the increasing risk of floods seriously because he was sceptical of climate science.
Tony Bosworth, Friends of the Earth energy campaigner, tweeted that Mr Paterson was revealing his "true colours" while Ben Stewart, Greenpeace UK's head of news, tweeted "that didn't take long".
Guy Shrubsole, Friends of the Earth climate campaigner said: "This is beyond satire, and confirms that Owen Paterson was never fit to hold the post of Environment Secretary.
"Liz Truss must make a clean break with her predecessor by backing urgent action to slash emissions, and by speaking to scientists and experts - not the climate quacks at the GWPF."
Mr Paterson said he was “disappointed” to lose his job on Monday night after being summoned to the Prime Minister’s Commons office, and said he wanted to push his “clear ideas” about the future of the country.
“At this critical moment in our nation’s history, I have clear ideas on the future of the UK and its place in the world. I intend to continue to serve my country and constituents from the backbenches,” he said in a letter released by Downing Street.
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The Prince Really is Potty – Dangerously So!
By Rich Kozlovich
Prince Charles has been criticized a lot over the years, including for claiming how ‘crucial’ it is to talk to plants. He claims, "I happily talk to the plants and trees, and listen to them. I think it's absolutely crucial," "Everything I've done here, it's like almost with your children. Every tree has a meaning for me."
I’m willing to bet the ancient Druids felt the same way.
One thing we must come to understand about these ‘green’ loons is this. The issue is now and has always been, the battle between nature worshipers and worshipers of God. Modern environmentalism is nothing more than a neo-pagan nature worshiping movement that is irrational, misanthropic and morally defective, dressed up to appear modern and science based in its approach and thinking.
I’ve been reading R. Mark Musser’s Nazi Oaks, which outlines the historical accuracy of my statement. The policies, philosophy and programs promoted by the Green movement in the West, including the Prince’s, originated in the dark mist covered forests of ancient Germania and the nature worship of the ancient Celtic religion of the Druids, who were the educated, professional class, whose function was to be the intermediaries between the gods and mankind. They would make the decisions for their people. Sound familiar?
In the mid to late 1800’s German philosophers attempted to define these pagan originated concepts into a modern philosophy, and people like Martin Heidegger, who promoted his green claptrap well into the 20th century, helped to develop it into codified law under the Nazis. Everything the green movement has espoused in modern times is nothing more than a carbon copy of Nazi green laws, including the Precautionary Principle.
It has been claimed that the Precautionary Principle originated in the 1970's, with the German green movement and the influence of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. That may have been a strong influence for adopting it in the Maastricht treaty, but while the origin is clearly German, the philosophy goes back much further. According to Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen in a chapter which appeared in the book “Interpreting the Precautionary Principle” edited by Tim O’Riordan and James Cameron, the Precautionary Principle;
“evolved out of the German Socio-legal tradition, created in the heyday of democratic socialism in the 1930’s, centering on the concept of good household management. This was regarded as a constructive partnership between the individual, the economy and the state to manage change so as to improve the lot of both society and the natural world upon which it deepened for survival.
This invested the precautionary principle with a managerial or programmable quality, a purposeful role in guiding future political and regularity action.
In short, under the concept of Precautionary Principle – which no matter what is claimed is virtually indefinable in the real world, or if you will, unendingly re-definable according to someone's whim - was codifying central planning for everything by elitists bureaucrats that “know best” for everyone and who would make all the decisions using ‘saving the planet’ as a theme to justify tyranny. Remember who ran Germany in the 1930’s? Adolph Hitler! A monstrous incompetent who’s “Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick considered those who were mentally ill, incurable sick or handicapped to be useless eaters”. He was one of the primary authors of Nazi euthanasia law. Accordingly his contribution to “Nazism was to envisage the monstrous and cloak it in law”.
Please keep that sentence in mind as we go along.
The Prince has been quoted as saying, "I got a lot of flak for a lot of things”….."I mean, potty this, potty that, loony this, loony that." Well, maybe there’s a reason for those expressed views. They're accurate!
This is a future monarch who privately ‘consorts’ with government ministers to promote his pet policies, including his views on climate change, modern agricultural practices, genetically modified organisms, which he claims, “despite all evidence to the contrary, will lead to mass extinction of our species”. One journalist, Jeff Randall, suggested to the Prince that the future of farming perhaps should be with industrial-scale production, the Prince 'exploded' saying 'That would be the complete destruction of everything!' And he’s frustrated because no one in government will go along with his ‘potty’ views on 'complementary medicine’, which would include coffee enemas as a cure for cancer.
Quite frankly, I never understood why the British has a Constitutional Monarchy that’s not permitted to express opinions, privately or publically. If that’s the case just dump them, but that’s another issue.
It’s claimed the Prince isn’t an unkind man, in fact it appears just the opposite according to one writer, but that truly calls the caliber of his mind into question. It’s been said, “If you are waiting to be the King of the United Kingdom, and you’ve waited a very long time, you genuinely have to engage with something or you’d go spare.” Well, perhaps that’s the problem. This is man who has lived an amazingly privileged life, for which he did nothing to earn, and desperately desires to be meaningful.
Well, he chose poorly and he’s failed! One writer noted;
“Everything that Charles holds dear, certainly. While he is always accorded the reputation of being a 'progressive', in fact, he is a spectacularly reactionary figure, whose ideal vision of Britain is a kind of pre-industrial paradise — which never existed.“
There are a number of things we know for sure. The policies the Prince promotes such as; “renewable energy only, no pesticides, no industrial-scale farming — would lead to a crippling increase in the prices of everything from home heating to the cereal we feed our children.” “The point is that all the technological advances the Prince detests have been designed to reduce the cost of living for the public. Yes, the companies that make those breakthroughs are motivated above all by the desire to increase profits — but that does not make their achievements contemptible. “
As for Nobel-Prize winner Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution which saved untold millions in India - the Prince denounced it. Truth is the sublime convergence of history and reality, and the ‘self sufficient and sustainable’ practices the Prince promotes “slaughtered millions of populations on the subcontinent”. Is it possible he can’t be aware of that? That’s a historical fact he must be aware of. The Prince is, as all the world’s leaders, at the center of the information world. How can he be unaware of the history of what occurred before modern agriculture?
Norman Borlaug was what Prince Charles would love to be. A truly great man, and may have been the greatest man to live in the 20th century for his “Green Revolution”, possibly saving the lives of a billion people from starvation. A man who earned all the accolades accorded to him including the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal and India’s second highest civilian honor, the Padma Vibhushan.
When Borlaug's work has been challenged by these prominent pampered people like the Prince he states:
'They have never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for 50 years, they'd be outraged that fashionable elitists were trying to deny them these things.”
Of course the Prince and his cohorts make the claim they’re saving the planet, but the reality is they’re codifying or attempting to codify laws that would be monstrous to billions of people. They’re not saving the planet they’re attempting to impose a worldwide government that will plan and execute laws at the expense of the people living on it. The number one thought that's shared by all these greenies is there are too many people on the planet. The 'moderates' among them wish to eliminate between four and five billion people. The minority wishes for mankind to cease to exist.
The Prince is dangerous in a number of ways because he has a platform on the world's stage, and he’s is either historically ignorant- or chooses to be. He is intellectually and scientifically ignorant – or chooses to be. And he must be morally clueless - and chooses to be - because he’s chosen to ignore the history and science showing all his views are irrational, misanthropic and morally defective.
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An eco-friendly Harley Davidson – worst idea ever?
Within a year, an eco-friendly, electronic version of the famous motorcycle will be on sale – without the va-va-vroom which gives us such a thrill.
The idea of an electronic version of the Harley Davidson is the worst idea in commercial history – after Cherry Coke and the autobiography of Michaela Biancofiore, the Italian politician. The Harley Davidson is akin to a garish bimbo - and yet the whole essence of such a bimbo is her very appearance.
To deprive the Harley Davidson of its infamous noisome rumble, and to replace it with an electric alternative, is not only an awful idea, it’s just weird. It’s like taking away the chug-chug sound from an espresso machine, or the school bell from playtime, or the fanfare of a military parade. These are unrivalled sounds, and the vulgar, bombastic noise of a Harley is also historic, it being the only motor sound to be protected by copyright.
That’s not all. Women say that a Harley’s roar is the last bastion of true virility, a hallmark of authentic masculinity. You feel and even know that a heterosexual male is driving one. Even if it’s a bit boorish, the bike is still masculine.
My fear now with this metrosexual version of the Harley is that your typical biker will soon adapt himself to it. Before you know it, we’ll be finding hordes of these one-time ex-centurions of the road dressed in dyed skinny-jeans and moccasins.
You can’t ride a Harley that makes no noise. You can’t ask for a ride in a contraption that makes the same sound as a golf cart or a child’s toy. Be gone with your puny, eco-Harley Davidson, I implore you. Perhaps the planet won’t be grateful to us for saying as much, but women will be. And how!
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People, your TVs are too big!
Earlier this year, Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat secretary of state for energy, hit a new low in proposals to deal with Britain’s inadequate and pricey energy supply. In a startling new insight, he declared that the government would pay factories to shut down at times of peak demand, that no economic activity would be curtailed by such a measure, and that it was ‘cheaper than building new power stations’.
Now he has gone one worse.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs have just published a report with the oxymoronic title Powering the Nation 2: Electricity use in homes, and how to reduce it. It pretty much does to households what Davey’s earlier scheme proposed for factories. True, the government won’t pay you to switch off the TV, lights and other appliances in your home; but, to save on Britain’s consumption of energy, it would like you to buy smaller TVs, if you’re a working-class telly addict. And, if you’re middle class, it would like you to stop buying big fridges.
‘We cannot make informed decisions about electricity generation’, the report pompously declares, ‘without also understanding the potential for efficiencies and savings from households… This relies on robust data and analysis.’ What the authors – researchers at Loughborough University and consultancy firm Cambridge Architectural Research – mean by this turns out to be simple. Manufacturers of household appliances need to improve the energy efficiency of their machines – despite the fact that, according to DECC itself, they have been doing exactly this.
Old people and poor people (or members of Britain’s ‘claimant culture’, according to the classification quoted from the market research company Experian) need to stop using electricity to heat their homes, and switch to gas instead. And everyone should cut back, so that, in sum, energy savings equivalent to ‘more than the annual output of two large (1.5 GW) power stations’ can be made.
Related categories
As Nicola Terry, a co-author of the report, put it: ‘Why do we need a bigger TV, and why do we need a bigger fridge? [The trouble is that] when people go to the shop they think, that’s bigger it must be better.’
The disdain felt by the authors for the populace is all too palpable. The possibility that people might want a bigger screen to enjoy the World Cup does not seem to occur to our learned experts. And have they never considered the possibility that dispensing with big freezers and, instead, making a daily visit to get your super fresh in-season organically-grown pesticide-free victuals could actually use a lot of petrol?
No, they haven’t. They know better than the plebs. Just keep on with fruitless efforts to lower demand for energy. Anything, anything but build new power stations!
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Australian carbon price helped curb emissions, ANU study finds
As something of a coincidence with Australia's repeal of the carbon tax, a study has come out claiming that the tax did have the effect intended. A report of the study plus the journal abstract is given below. There is no intrinsic problem with that conclusion. Taxing something does generally reduce demand for it. I nonetheless think that the report is pure guesswork. I cannot see how they can separate out the effect of the tax from other factors bearing down on electricity generation.
For most of the period surveyed the Labor government was in power, energetically pressing a variety of policies designed to have the same effect as the tax. The winding back of brown coal powered generation in Victoria is the most obvious example of that. Shutting down the cheapest power generators in the country took some time but it did eventually happen to some extent in the latter phase of ALP rule.
And if you read the abstract, it is clear that estimates (guesses) were involved. Their admission: "There are fundamental difficulties in attributing observed changes in demand and supply to specific causes" is very much to the point
Australia cut carbon dioxide emissions from its electricity sector by as much as 17 million tonnes because of the carbon price and would have curbed more had industry expected the price to be permanent, according to an Australian National University study.
The report, due to be submitted for peer-reviewed publication, found the two years of the carbon price had a discernible impact on emissions even assuming conservative responses by consumers and businesses.
“We see the carbon price doing what it was meant to do, and what it was expected to do, namely dampen demand and shift the supply from dirtier to cleaner sources of electricity,” said Associate Professor Frank Jotzo, director of the Centre for Climate Economics and Policy, and a co-author of the report with the centre’s Marianna O’Gorman.
The paper comes as the Senate voted on Thursday to bring almost five years of Coalition campaigning against a price on carbon to an end by repealing the tax. Labor and the Greens say they will continue to push for a price on emissions.
The ANU report, which used official market data to the end of June, found the drop in power demand attributed to the carbon price was between 2.5 and 4.2 terawatt-hours per year, or about 1.3 to 2.3 per cent of the National Electricity Market serving about 80 per cent of Australia’s population.
Emissions-intensive brown and black coal-fired power generators cut output, with about 4 gigawatts of capacity taken offline. The emissions intensity of NEM supply dropped between 16 and 28 kilograms of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour of supply, underscoring the role of carbon pricing rather than slumping demand in curbing pollution, the paper said.
However, investors’ doubts that the carbon tax would last – fostered in part by then opposition leader Tony Abbott’s “blood oath” to repeal it if the Coalition took office - meant high-emissions generators were mothballed rather than permanently closed.
“We’d expect the impact of the carbon price would have been larger, perhaps far larger, if there had been an expectation that the carbon price would have continued,” Professor Jotzo said.
Falling demand
Environment Minister Greg Hunt has said repeatedly that the carbon tax was ineffective, stating Australia’s total emissions fell 0.1 per cent in the first year.
More recent figures, though, show the emissions drop accelerated, with 2013’s 0.8 per cent economy-wide fall the largest annual reduction in the 24 years of monitoring. In the power sector, the industry most directly covered by the carbon price, emissions fell 5 per cent.
“As confirmed by Origin Energy managing director Grant King, there are other factors resulting in lower emissions in the electricity sector – including lower demand, the impact of the [Renewable Energy Target], flooding at the Yallourn power station and increased hydro output,” a spokesman for Mr Hunt said.
However, the ANU paper takes those factors into account in estimating the carbon price impact, Professor Jotzo said.
Rather, the impact of the carbon price is probably understated. The highly politicised debate preceded its implementation by about a year, prompting energy consumers to focus more on electricity costs – and presumably to begin making savings – well before the tax began.
“We would expect politically motivated talk ... may well have had a large impact on people’s power usage patterns,” Professor Jotzo said....
“The only thing that went wrong in Australia was the politics of climate change policy,” Professor Jotzo said. “There was nothing inherently wrong with scheme.”
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Impact of the carbon price on Australia’s electricity demand, supply and emissions
Marianna O'Gorman, Frank Jotzo
Abstract:
Australia’s carbon price has been in operation for two years. The electricity sector accounts for the majority of emissions covered under the scheme. This paper examines the impact of the carbon price on the electricity sector between 1 July 2012 and 30 June 2014, focusing on the National Electricity Market (NEM). Over this period, electricity demand in the NEM declined by 3.8 per cent, the emissions intensity of electricity supply by 4.6 per cent, and overall emissions by 8.2 per cent, compared to the two-year period before the carbon price. We detail observable changes in power demand and supply mix, and estimate the quantitative effect of the effect of the carbon price. We estimate that the carbon price led to an average 10 per cent increase in nominal retail household electricity prices, an average 15 per cent increase in industrial electricity prices and a 59 per cent increase in wholesale (spot) electricity prices. It is likely that in response, households, businesses and the industrial sector reduced their electricity use. We estimate the demand reduction attributable to the carbon price at 2.5 to 4.2 TWh per year, about 1.3 to 2.3 per cent of total electricity demand in the NEM. The carbon price markedly changed relative costs between different types of power plants. Emissions-intensive brown coal and black coal generators reduced output and 4GW of emissions-intensive generation capacity was taken offline. We estimate that these shifts in the supply mix resulted in a 16 to 28kg CO2/MWh reduction in the emissions intensity of power supply in the NEM, a reduction between 1.8 and 3.3 per cent. The combined impact attributable to the carbon price is estimated as a reduction of between 5 and 8 million tonnes of CO2 emissions (3.2 to 5 per cent) in 2012/13 and between 6 and 9 million tonnes (3.5 to 5.6 per cent) in 2013/14, and between 11 and 17 million tonnes cumulatively. There are fundamental difficulties in attributing observed changes in demand and supply to specific causes, especially over the short term, and in this light we use conservative parameters in the estimation of the effect of the carbon price. We conclude that the carbon price has worked as expected in terms of its short-term impacts. However, its effect on investment in power generation assets has probably been limited, because of policy uncertainty about the continuation of the carbon pricing mechanism. For emissions pricing to have its full effect, a stable, long-term policy framework is needed.
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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