NOAA is trying to tell Americans that 2014 is shaping up as hottest year on record

Steve Goddard comments:  "It was obvious to me since about April that NOAA had decided that 2014 was going to be the hottest year ever. The White House needed this for their political objectives"

It's going to be a tough sell considering the unusual cold weather Americans have been experiencing -- but the main point never mentioned is that this year is projected to be  hotter than other 21st century years only by hundredths of a degree Celsius. It will indeed be hotter by some tenths of a degree than the 20th century average because the 20th century did have some periods cooler than the present.  But that tells us nothing about the present century.  NOAA is judging a portion of this year against the 20th century average without mentioning that ALL the years of the 21st century average higher than the 20th century  -- meaning that nothing different is happening this year.

Since the crucial statistics are in hundredths of a degree and errors of measurement are in tenths of a degree NOAA's claims are in fact meaningless.  The 21st century temperature variations they parade are so small that they exist only as statistical artifacts.  They cannot be shown to be real.  So NOAA's own figures show that there is nothing significant about temperatures this year.  The global temperature is still on a plateau -- where it has been for all of this century, and then some

The claims below are just an exercise in lying with statistics -- a Warmist specialty.  They have to lie.  If Warmists stuck to telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth they would have nothing of interest to say.  The whole truth is that we live in a time of exceptional temperature stability

The first ten months of 2014 have been the hottest since record keeping began more than 130 years ago, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

That may be hard to believe for people in places like Buffalo, New York, which saw a record early snowfall this year.

But NOAA says, despite the early bitter cold across parts of the United States in recent weeks, it’s been a hot year so far for the Earth.

With two months left on the calendar, 2014 is shaping up to be the hottest year on record.  The average global temperature between January and October has been 0.68 degrees Celsius (1.22 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than the 20th century’s average global temperature of 14.1 C (57.4 F).

NOAA’s analysis is an important “health gauge” indicating an ominous trend for the planet, says CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam.  “It’s becoming increasingly more difficult to be a skeptic of the causes of our warming planet,” he says.

Hottest October

This October was the hottest October on record globally, NOAA data showed. The mercury climbed more than one degree Fahrenheit above the 20th century average of 57.1 F.  It was the fourth warmest October on record for the United States, NOAA said. [Not the warmest?]

“The record high October temperature was driven by warmth across the globe over both the land and ocean surfaces and was fairly evenly distributed between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres,” the agency said.

That’s significant, says Van Dam.  “Most notably, this record warmth is not contained to any specific part of the world. Meaning, we are all in this together,” he says. “So far this year, record-breaking warmth has been observed in at least every continent and major ocean basin of our planet. This is something we cannot ignore.”

Important benchmark

NOAA’s analysis breaks down global temperatures into two categories — land and ocean — then an average that includes both. The record high temperatures in October were recorded across both land and sea.

The surface temperature on land approached an important scientific benchmark. It was almost 2 degrees Celsius higher than the 20th century average for October of 9.3 C (48.7 F).  [Cherry-picking one month is useless.  I could pick another month to show something entirely different]

Scientists have long predicted that a change in global average temperature of just 2 to 3 degrees higher could spell disaster for the planet, contributing to catastrophic storms, sea level rise, dangerous storm surges and melting polar ice.

According to the non-binding international agreement on climate change — the Copenhagen Accord, reached in 2009 — any temperature increase above the 2 degree Celsius mark is “dangerous.”

NOAA said the ocean temperatures were also the warmest on record in October with an increase of 1.12 F over the 20th century average of 60.6 degrees.

Hot spots

“Record warmth for the year-to-date was particularly notable across much of northern and western Europe, parts of Far East Russia, and large areas of the northeastern and western equatorial Pacific Ocean, ” NOAA said. “It is also notable that record warmth was observed in at least some areas of every continent and major ocean basin around the world,” the agency added.

Of particular note, several countries have already seen an average temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius in October 2014 compared to 20th century averages, including Australia, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Sweden.  [Cherry-picking one month in a few places tells us nothing.  What about all the other places?]

There was also one notable cold spot on the map.  The average temperature this year in the midsection of the United States, which saw a severe winter, has been below the 20th century average.  [So the place for which we have the best records was cooler!]

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Enjoy Seafood While You Can: Commercial Fisheries Likely to Collapse by 2048 (?)

There is no doubt that overfishing can reduce wild fish stocks to the point where fishing becomes generally unproductive -- but where is that happening?  Mostly in Asia, as far as I know.  The EU has rigid quotas on fish catch in European waters and most of the vast Australian continental shelf is closed off from fishing.  So what we have below are vast, sweeping and brainless generalizations that take no account of the different situations in different parts of the world.  Also overlooked is that fact that somewhere near 50% of the developed world's fish consumption is supplied by fish farms, not wild fisheries -- and there is no reason why fish farming cannot continue indefinitely. It is in fact on an expanding trajectory.  Boris really is a worm

Dr. Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada warns that the oceans are quickly losing biodiversity and that nearly 30 percent of seafood species that humans consume are already too small to harvest. If the long-term trend continues, there will be little or no seafood available for a sustainable harvest by 2048.

Dr. Worm’s study was recently published in the journal Science and is an update of a study that was published in 2006. Importantly, the study is of the collapse of commercial catches, not species extinction. Catch collapse means that fish are caught at 10 percent or less of the rate they had been caught historically. Several media outlets have incorrectly stated that the study warns that all seafood will be gone from the ocean. CBS News, for example, reported that “the apocalypse has a new date: 2048″ and that the oceans would be empty of fish at that time. To our knowledge, the television network has not issued a retraction.

“We never said that,” says Dr. Worm. “We never talked about extinction. We talked about the collapse of the commercial catches.”

Still, Worm and his international team of scientists and economists say that catch collapses still paint a grim picture for the ocean and for human health. The accelerated loss of biodiversity, they say, is imperiled by overfishing, pollution, habitat loss and climate change. Saltwater ecosystems, including human populations that depend on them for survival, can be adversely affected by dwindling populations. Harmful algae blooms, coastal flooding and poor water quality can be the results of reduced fish populations.

“Biodiversity is a finite resource, and we are going to end up with nothing left … if nothing changes,” says Worm.

The updated study points out that it’s not too late to change, however. Areas can be managed for improved biodiversity and recovery is possible, says the study. In areas of the world where action has been taken to protect marine species, there have been notably positive results.

The problem is already affecting the U.S. seafood industry. Scientists are urging a moratorium on cold water shrimp harvesting in the Gulf of Maine as rising ocean temperatures are threatening populations of the tiny crustacean. This is the second straight season that researchers have urged that the netting of northern shrimp be halted.

The northern shrimp catch in Maine has been falling in recent years, as it has in neighboring New Hampshire and Massachusetts. However, it is estimated that some 85-90 percent of the northern shrimp caught in the Gulf of Maine are brought in by Maine boats. In 2010, more than 12 million pounds were caught by them, but it has declined by a factor of 14; less than 600,000 pounds were caught last year, according to the state of Maine.

The shrimp harvest averaged some 25 million pounds a year from 1969 to 1972 before falling below one million pounds in 1977. Those involved in the regional fishing industry are noticing a sharp decline in the population and are worried. Glen Libby, a shrimp processor and former fisherman, told the Portland Press Herald that the 2013 season was a bust and fishermen are finding few shrimp in their nets over the summer. He said it “probably is a good idea to give the fishery time to recover.”

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Only 50% Of Scientists Blame Mankind for Climate Change In New Study

Rather than claiming 97 percent of scientists believe in man-made global warming, hopefully now some media outlets will revise that number closer to 50 percent.

Contrary to the repeated insistence of both climate alarmists and the media, scientists do not all agree on the standard climate alarmism talking points.  A Purdue University scholar, surveying scientists in the agricultural sector including climatologists, found surprising disagreement on humanity’s role in climate change. These findings, though contrary to popular narrative on climate change, are unsurprising to anyone familiar with the prevalence of dissent in the scientific community.

Linda Prokopy, a Professor of Natural Resource Social Science at Purdue University, surveyed more than six thousand farmers and scientists and found widespread disagreement on human contributions to climate change. While 90 percent of scientists and climatologists surveyed thought the climate was changing, only about 50.4 percent contended that humans were the primary cause of these changes.

More shocking was that just 53 percent of climatologists surveyed thought “Climate change is occurring, and it is caused mostly by human activities.” While that number of climatologists was small, the result is still significant.

This evidence is inconvenient to the many media outlets that have endlessly repeated that 97 percent of scientists endorse the global warming hypothesis. Prominent outlets like NBC and The New York Times, as well as countless others, have effectively shut down debate by asserting there is no scientific debate.

Of course, many skeptics will not find this newsworthy, because they have known for a long time that there is dissent amongst the scientific community.

In fact, many studies cast doubt on climate alarmism and many scientists have differing views from the so-called "consensus." In 2010, Marc Morano released a collection of more than 1000 scientists who “challenged man-made global warming claims.” Similarly the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change aggregated “thousands of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles that do not support” man-made climate change.

Interestingly, a third of farmers surveyed claimed they had not noticed any significant effects of global warming. This is an inconvenient realization for the many alarmists that believe climate change is already disrupting weather. In fact, many alarmists, including those in the media, have argued that wildfires and droughts are increasing with climate change, but certainly many of these farmers disagree from their personal experience.

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California Punishes the Working Poor with new carbon tax on gasoline

Gasoline prices are running at their lowest level in years, a great boost for embattled consumers with the holiday season approaching. Unfortunately, the ruling class isn’t about to let that continue. The ruling class operates on the superstition that the world is getting hotter, that this is entirely due to human activity, and that regulatory zealotry in a single state is capable of stopping it. That comes through measures such as “cap and trade,” which supposedly burden only the captains of industry, but which as Dale Kasler shows in the Sacramento Bee, really means a punishing new tax on everybody who drives.

California’s two-year-old regulatory mechanism “puts a price on carbon spewed into the atmosphere,” and “the result will be higher gasoline and diesel prices.” California Air Resources Board (CARB) boss Mary Nichols explains that “the increase is likely to be less than 10 cents a gallon,” and consumers will probably barely notice the difference.” She says “the amount is small,” and “It does get hidden in the noise, in the other changes that are constantly taking place in the pricing of gasoline.” Nichols said “gasoline is cheap relative to other things you can buy and relative to overall inflation in the economy.” This bureaucratic boilerplate deserves a translation.

The increase is going to be not small, but significant, and everybody will notice, particularly those Californians who drive to work, such as the working poor. The increase does not “get hidden.” Rather, an axis of legislators and unelected regulatory zealots chose to delay the imposition on drivers, hoping to blunt the punishment, in the style of Obamacare, also sold with lies.

Jon Costantino, a former CARB climate-change planner, told the Bee that “the cost of the carbon allowance has to get passed through. That’s the whole point. The consumer feels the impact.” So listen up all drivers, especially those making a 60-plus-mile round trip to earn minimum wage. Politicians and unelected, highly paid regulatory zealots like Mary Nichols want you to feel the pain. But the problems do not stop there.

Mary Nichols also kept on CARB staff Hien Tran, who bought his statistics PhD in a New York City diploma mill and fudged air pollution figures. Trofim Lysenko truly lives on in the Golden State.

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EPA in the crosshairs of new Republican majority

Over the first five years of the Obama Administration, the federal government has issued 157 major regulations, costing the American people and businesses around $73 billion per year, a recent estimate by the Heritage Foundation found.

In response, the American people spoke with an unwavering, unified voice on November 4 and the message to Congressional Republicans was clear: stop Barack Obama’s radical executive overreach and the Democrat Party that has enabled it.

And that’s exactly what they intend to do.

The front lines of the Administration’s alarmist war on coal literally hits home for the new incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who during this year’s campaign identified the his top priority in January’s new Congress to “do whatever I can to get the EPA reined in.”

Anti-coal regulations from the EPA has virtually eliminated the financial feasibility of establishing new coal-fired power plants in the United States and new regulations threaten the industry altogether, all the while the livelihoods of thousands of energy workers hang in the balance, hundreds of years of inexpensive, efficient potential energy won’t be used to power the next century of American development, and needy American families, whom are already suffering from rising energy costs directly caused by sweeping overregulation, will bear the brunt of the cost.

There are, however, several means for the McConnell-led Senate to accomplish rolling back Obama’s radical EPA.

All regulations from federal agencies such as the EPA are under the direct funding and oversight of Congress. With that power, Congress can utilize the appropriations process and Congressional oversight to confine the EPA with funding restraints, for example, against the carbon endangerment finding or new rules for coal power plants set to take effect in June.

Congressional members and staffers from both the House and Senate have stated openly that no EPA regulation is off the negotiating table on budget talks with the White House.

The wind production tax credit faces renewal in January and, as a tool of Obama’s anti-coal agenda, it is an obvious target for a crony capitalist-averse Congress to eliminate.

And perhaps most importantly, different legislative options make the EPA’s job-killing regulations — especially the most onerous and unpopular power plant rules — vulnerable targets for the Republican majority. Barack Obama enters his lame duck session already facing close to the lowest approval numbers his Administration has seen and Republicans are showing zero willingness to spare the President difficult decisions between passing popular, common sense bills while not vetoing the same bill due to equally popular portions that would rein in the EPA.

Of course, it won’t be a fast or an easy undertaking by any means. Most likely, it won’t be until a Republican occupies the Oval Office before true reform to collapse Obama’s radical regulatory environment can take full shape. But understanding this, there is no time to waste.

There are over 120 remaining major regulations (or regulations that will cost the private sector at least $100 million annually) that Obama’s radical regulatory state is working on as this is written, leaving an unknown amount of jobs and future productivity in peril.

The final levee between the full damaging power of the final wave of regulations from a lame duck (free bird?) Obama Administration no longer facing electoral consequences is the people’s newly elected Republican majority with a clear mandate to hold back the flood as much as possible.

Given Senator McConnell’s profound commitment to stopping the EPA’s overreach, this should be a battle worth watching during the upcoming lame duck session of Congress.

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Green rules slap £50 on a family ferry fare from Britain to France: EU fuel diktat will force prices up in weeks

Families taking a ferry across the Channel in the New Year face a 30 per cent hike in ticket prices as the EU brings in tough new green rules.

Britain’s biggest ferry operator, P&O Cruises, said a return ticket for a family of four from Dover to Calais will jump from £160 to £210.

The UK Chamber of Shipping says the move could be the death knell for the ferry industry, adding: ‘Routes teetering on the edge of economic viability will be pushed off the edge.’

Experts say it will cost the industry £300million a year – much of which will be absorbed into ticket prices. File picture

The new EU rules – which force shipping firms to buy expensive low- emission fuel – will push traffic on to the roads, drive up the cost of diesel for cars and result in the loss of 2,000 jobs, it was predicted last night.

And a European committee has warned that the fuel switch could lead to engine breakdowns and fires, leaving boats floating dangerously without power in busy shipping lanes.

Brussels has ordered that all ships in the English Channel, North Sea and Baltic Sea act to reduce sulphur emissions from January 1.

Firms will have to switch to expensive low-sulphur fuel or install filtering equipment at the cost of millions of pounds. Experts say it will cost the industry £300million a year – much of which will be absorbed into ticket prices.

Independent consultants Amec say ferry companies will have to cut routes and slash jobs. Freight traffic to Europe will be forced on to the roads and through the Channel Tunnel – resulting in more pollution.

And increased demand for low-sulphur shipping fuel could lead to higher prices on forecourts. The price at the diesel pump could rise by 2.8p a litre, Amec said, because there is not enough capacity in refineries to cope with the demand for both vehicle and shipping fuel.

A route from Harwich to Esbjerg in Denmark was scrapped in September because of the expected rise in fuel costs.

Most operators are expected to switch from heavy fuel to lighter marine gas-oil – which is 60 per cent more expensive.

A spokesman for P&O Ferries, which runs 15 ships in the Channel and North Sea, told the Daily Mail: ‘Consumers will be picking up the bill for this because shipping companies cannot bear this cost alone.

'Marine gas-oil is considerably more expensive than the fuel we use today, so we can predict price increases for both freight and tourist customers.

‘All shipping companies will be affected – but our biggest rival, the Channel Tunnel, will not be affected. Peak-time sailings might cost 30 per cent more than people paid last year.’

Jonathan Roberts, of the UK Chamber of Shipping, said: ‘There is no doubt that the additional cost has to go somewhere – it will have to put up ticket prices. This will be the final straw for some routes.’

The decision to reduce sulphur emissions was agreed by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in 2008. But Mr Roberts said the EU has insisted on a ‘gold-plated’ version of the agreement.

He said: ‘The IMO said implementation of the regulations could be done by 2020 – but the EU has insisted on 2015.

‘The IMO said there should have a degree of flexibility, to allow companies to transition into the new era without damaging their business. The European Commission removed this flexibility and pragmatism – and jobs will be lost as a result.’

The EU Sulphur Directive requires all commercial ships to use 0.1 per cent sulphur fuel by midnight on January 1, or install sulphur filters known as ‘scrubbers’ – which usually will cost more than the ship itself.

The policy could also have grave safety consequences.

A report to be presented to the European Commission on Thursday warns that smaller shipping firms are not ready for the switch. When a similar policy was implemented off the Californian coast in 2012, the US Coastguard said the number of power failures doubled.

The European Sustainable Shipping Forum says breakdowns – including engine fires – in the much-busier English Channel could have dangerous consequences.

A European Commission spokesman said: ‘Sulphur dioxide emissions result in acid rain and fine dust that causes respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

'They are a direct health hazard in particular near major ports – like Dover.

‘The savings on healthcare and the environmental benefits will far exceed the costs of implementing the agreed International Maritime Organisation measures.

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