Warming in Antarctica?
Only using ‘creative’ statistics
Much has been written in the tabloids, and repeated by the fashionable, about it being very hot through June – even in Antarctica. Really, I wondered. Is Antarctica melting?
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has measured air temperatures at the Mawson weather station in Antarctica since early 1954 – this is one of the longest continuous surface temperature records for that part of the world. The Russians did not establish the more famous and isolated Vostok weather station until 1957. The satellite temperature record doesn’t begin until 1979.
The Bureau makes very few adjustments to the temperatures as measured at Mawson that oscillate within a band of some few degrees – mostly below freezing. These same temperatures show no statistically significant long-term warming trend, at least not since 1954. There are longer proxy temperature series, based on ice core records, and they show an overall cooling trend, considering the last 1,900 years. Here, again, I am referring to data from published studies, for example, the temperatures of East and West Antarctica were reconstructed by a team led by Barbara Stenni including scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division, British Antarctic Survey, and Russian Antarctic Research Institute. It is only remodelled proxy series that show warming over this same period.
Last month (June 2023), Antarctica was reported as ‘hot’ in various publications including Vox.com. Yet the average maximum temperature for Mawson was minus 12.6 degrees Celsius, which is not quite as cold as the long-term June average for all years since 1954 which is minus 13.5 C. When the June maximum temperatures for Mawson are ranked highest to lowest, June 2023 comes in as the 29th hottest, and 42nd coldest – suggesting temperatures in Antarctica were not particularly newsworthy and rather cold.
Yet the tabloids, and fashionable, are claiming June 2023 as hot – even in Antarctica. It is all nonsense.
Some of these claims have their origin in the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, a tool that uses satellite data and computer simulations. So, they represent a remodelled average. Indeed, there is not a single place where anyone, can measure the average temperature of the Earth – or Antarctica. Rather, when it is announced that it is the hottest it has ever been, reference is made to a statistic.
This average temperature is necessarily a number that has been derived from other numbers. There will perhaps have been some measuring done here and there, and then some adjusting, and then some adding up and some adjusting again. This is how it is with the calculation of regional and global average temperatures – whether from satellites, tree rings, ice cores, or thermometers. To be sure, every year we are told it is getting hotter, and back in the late 1980s, this was achieved for the globally averaged thermometer record by dropping out some of the colder weather stations. This had the effect of increasing the overall average global temperature, at a time when temperatures at many individual sites were dipping somewhat.
Those who have followed the politics of measuring temperatures may also remember the infamous line in the Climategate emails, whereby the globally averaged temperatures based on tree rings, which also show a decline after 1980, are ‘corrected’ by substituting the globally averaged temperature from thermometer records – never mind that the dip in that record had already been ‘corrected’ by removing data from a great many high latitude Canadian and Russian weather stations.
Drawing from this sordid history of calculating global and regional temperatures, I can think of a large number of ways that the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer could possibly generate a higher-than-average temperature for Antarctica and especially the Earth. Indeed, the larger the geographic area covered, the more opportunity for creative accounting, for which corporates using similar techniques would go to jail, while climate scientists are more usually promoted.
The solution is to perhaps give up on believing the nonsense news headlines, especially when there is no reference to a specific weather station, like Mawson. Or do away with a random selection of weather stations and focus instead on a simple index based on a good sample of well-sited weather stations with long histories, like Mawson.
Such a concept could be based on the Dow Jones Averages or the S&P 500. No one ever tries establishing an impossible-to-define ‘average stock price’ — including many stocks of doubtful provenance — and nobody cares. Rather the solution is to have a pre-selected index of certain representative stocks, that are then followed over a long-time span. So why not have an index of agreed weather stations?
The only problem is, the tabloids and the fashionable, might then have nothing to talk about – should they limit reporting to the same weather stations and with temperatures reliably measured, which will require some modification to current methods and of course, no subsequent adjusting.
There may be no catastrophe to report at least not when it comes to weather as a measure of climate, for which the lack of reliable measures, and the great number of potentially creative solutions, are currently being exploited over and over to justify rather large expenditures on all manner of things.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/07/warming-in-antarctica
***************************************The hottest day
Ian Plimer
In my lifetime, the hottest days I have enjoyed were in Jeddah (55°C), Adelaide (47°C), and Death Valley (46°C). For some strange reason, these were in summer in a dry climate.
The atmosphere is a natural air conditioner that modulates air temperature by the evaporation and precipitation of water. The adiabatic heat of the evaporation of water shows that to vaporise water, energy must be taken from the air, soil, plants, lakes, rivers, and seas. This is why your skin feels cool when wet. To precipitate water from the air as rain or snow, heat is given out.
Townsville and Mount Isa are at almost the same latitude. Air in Townsville is humid and contains about 4 per cent dissolved water vapour, the main greenhouse gas. Summer temperatures rarely exceed 28°C. At Mount Isa where the air contains less than 2 per cent water vapour, summer temperatures often exceed 42°C. Winter nights in Mount Isa are freezing whereas in Townsville they are quite balmy.
Both Mount Isa and Townsville have the same atmospheric carbon dioxide content. The only variable is water vapour as humidity and clouds which modulate temperature. It is humidity and rain that stops the planet from having an excessively high air temperature, runaway global warming, or any other concocted crisis on the catastrophist climate menu.
When the news cycle is quiet, people are away on summer holidays and, if there are a few warm summer days in a row, then it’s time to scare people witless. Tell them it’s the hottest day for the last 10 years, since Wimbledon started, since records were kept, or for the last 125,000 years. Make sure the colour of the background on temperature maps is changed to fiery red.
This is aimed at keeping the climate gravy train on the rails with the implication that the alleged hottest day must be a result of human activities. If record winter lows in the other hemisphere are ignored, then the narrative is enhanced. This is fraud and the media perpetually promote such climate disinformation.
If asked whether the planet is heating or cooling, the only answer to give is ‘Yes’. For the last 50 million years, planet Earth has been cooling. We have warmed up at least 10°C since the cold dry Younger Dryas 12,900-11,700 years ago, a time when no fossil fuels were used by humans. Since the peak of the current interglacial 7,000-4,000 years ago, there has been a long-term cooling trend with spikes of cooling and warming.
If told the planet has warmed, then the reply must be ‘Since when?’ We have cooled since Roman times, warmed since the Dark Ages (535-900 AD), cooled since the Medieval Warming (900-1300 AD), and warmed since the Little Ice Age (1300-1850 AD). What would you expect after the Little Ice Age? Bitterly cold times or warming. The unsolved scientific question is: which part, if any, of modern warming is of human origin? To talk about warming or hot times without discussing climate cycles is misleading and deceptive.
How do we measure temperature? Is it by mercury thermometers which have been used for a couple of centuries? Is it by the homemade secret thermal probes used by the taxpayer-funded Bureau of Meteorology? Is it by infrared probes? Is the measuring station correctly located? What is measured at the measuring station? Is the spot maximum temperature or the average maximum temperature over time used? Has the measuring station been moved over its history? Have buildings, airports, roads, and air conditioning units encroached on the measuring spot? How has the urban heat island effect influenced the measurement?
Do we get told that the bulk of global ground measuring stations are in the US and EU giving a very biased land measurement record? Not all measuring station data is used. Why not? Those in extreme climatic and remote areas are being closed, especially in Russia. The Bureau of Meteorology ignores the long-term record of rural land-based stations. Some 70 per cent of the planet is covered by water yet most measuring stations are on the land. The average temperature from an irregularly biased array of measuring stations cannot be calculated. As soon as the words average global temperature are used, you know you’re being conned.
Atmospheric temperature, mainly above the land, has been measured from the millions of weather balloons released year in and year out. Over the last 40 years, the 24/7 measurement of atmospheric temperature in 3D up to the stratosphere of the planet has been measured by satellite. Satellite is the most accurate measurement of temperature but is not used. It does not give scary data hidden away by some taxpayer-funded institution and is much harder to ‘adjust.
To compare the measurement of modern temperature with less accurate temperature deduced from proxies is invalid. Modern temperature measurements with an accuracy of ± 0.1°C are combined with older measurements with an accuracy of ± 0.5°C and then it’s claimed that the 20th-century average has risen by 0.86°C. A school child educated 60 years ago learned that every measurement must be accompanied by an order of accuracy and they could have shown that the claimed 20th-century average temperature rise is invalid. It is doubtful whether an ‘educated’ teenager today could see the flaw.
Proxies have an order of accuracy of 0.1-0.5°C, depending upon which proxy is used and how far back in time it is applied. A great diversity of proxies have been used to determine the past temperature record. The geological record shows us that the hottest days ever were 600, 500, 400, 200, and 100 million years ago. They were Thursdays!
Over the last 500 million years, the temperature has been up and down many times between numerous hothouse and icehouse conditions. As a result of cooling for the last 50 million years, we are currently living in one of the coldest times on planet Earth for 300 million years.
If Antarctica would just break up into microcontinents or move away from the South Pole, we would reach the planet’s normal wet warm greenhouse planetary conditions with a high sea level. Antarctic rift valleys and 150 sub-glacial geothermal areas and volcanoes show that the fragmentation has started.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/07/the-hottest-day/
*****************************************G20 energy ministers fail to agree on plan to reduce fossil fuels
Energy ministers from the group of 20 nations meeting in India on Saturday failed to agree on a roadmap to phase down the use of fossil fuels in the global energy mix.
A final statement after the meeting did not even mention coal, a major contributor to global warming.
The dirty fuel is also a key energy source for many developing economies such as India – the world's most-populous country – and China, the world's second-largest economy.
The failure to reach agreement in Goa comes despite G7 leaders agreeing in Japan in April to "accelerate the phase-out of unabated fossil fuels" and with global temperatures hitting record highs, triggering floods, storms, and heatwaves.
Explaining the stalemate, G20 president India said that some members had emphasised the importance of seeking a "phase down of unabated fossil fuels, in line with different national circumstances".
But "others had different views on the matter that abatement and removal technologies will address such concerns," it added.
Can't afford to delay
A coalition of key EU economies – including Germany and France – and some of the most vulnerable island states this week urged the G20 to accelerate plans to reach net zero emissions and phase out fossil fuels, adding: "Humankind cannot afford to delay".
They called for greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2025 at the latest and be cut by 43 percent by 2030, compared to 2019 levels, in line with recent updates from UN climate experts.
But many developing economies argue that the developed West must pay more as a legacy polluter and greenhouse contributor.
They insist that any transition needs huge capital and new technology, while giving up on polluting fuels without affordable alternatives will condemn their huge populations to poverty.
No clear time frame
G20 host nation India is itself only pledging to reach net zero by 2070, 20 years later than the commitment made by many other countries.
A report prepared for its G20 presidency estimated the cost of the energy transition at $4 trillion a year and emphasised the importance of low-cost financing for developing countries and technology transfers – a key demand of New Delhi's.
Some of the biggest energy-producing economies, such as Russia and Saudi Arabia, have also resisted a quick transition away from fossil fuels.
Emirati oil boss Sultan Al Jaber, who will head up the COP28 talks, has said he expects fossil fuels to continue to play a role with the use of often controversial technologies to "abate", or neutralise, the emissions.
He has said that a phase down of fossil fuels is both "inevitable" and "essential", but has been reluctant to spell out a time frame.
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Yes, climate change is real. But the prophets of doom ignore some very inconvenient truths...
Was there anything more ludicrous during last week's European heatwave and worries about global warming than the BBC's climate editor travelling from London to Spain (and back again) to report on the high temperatures?
Addressing viewers from Alicante, Justin Rowlatt, the Corporation's prophet of doom, said: 'We're getting the blast of the heat today in Spain, it's going to go across into Italy. It's already very hot in Italy but it's going to get hotter there, and finally it will end in Greece. All accentuated, exaggerated by the effects of climate change.'
Lucky for some, many viewers may have thought, as they sat in cooler Britain. In southern England, daytime temperatures did peak last week at 25C but for much of the country, temperatures struggled to push beyond 17C, well below the seasonal average. It is not unusual in the summer for the Mediterranean to be hot and Britain a lot cooler. That is, after all, why millions go there on holiday every year.
Yet it seems we are no longer allowed to enjoy the prospect of a hot summer's day, whether in Britain or the Med. Sun-kissed beaches, for Rowlatt and his ilk, are a portent of doom and a symptom of the fast-gathering 'climate emergency'.
What's more, we are encouraged to feel guilty – partly because of all those carbon emissions spewed out by holiday jets.
Thus the irony – and hypocrisy – of Rowlatt taking a return trip (believed to be by gas-guzzling plane) to Spain when he could have delivered the same message from London, or the BBC could have used one of its many Spain-based correspondents.
It must be stressed that climate change is a problem but there is evidence to suggest it is not the apocalypse that the eco-lobby wants us to believe. True, the incidence of heatwaves has increased in recent decades as the world has warmed. Mean maximum daily summer temperatures in Britain, for example, have risen by one degree Celsius in the past 60 years – with most of that increase occurring between the late 1980s and early 2000s.
However, the trend in summer temperatures has been flatter in the two decades since, according to the State of the Climate Report published by the Royal Meteorological Society. In Spain, according to a study in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, maximum daily temperatures in summer have increased by a little more – by 1.9C since 1960. But none of this justifies the hyperbole served up over the past week. There is nothing unprecedented about the temperatures recorded in Europe. The continent's record of 48.8C – in Sicily two years ago – has not been passed nor has the second-highest temperature (48C in 1977).
Further afield, the global high temperature record – 56.7C in Death Valley, California, in 1913 – has not been broken.
Just as with Covid, fear is being used to try to convince us that the heat is more dramatic than it is. An analysis of the weather maps shown on TV over the past week proves this. During last year's heatwave, such maps showed areas experiencing 40C in deep red. Now, these areas have turned a lurid pink – or white. Even Britain was depicted on some maps as red.
Another move has been to quote ground temperatures, rather than air temperatures. During heatwaves, the temperature of dry, dusty ground can reach 60C – which can be up to 20C warmer than air temperatures. Film of burning trees, too, sends the message promulgated by climate activist Greta Thunberg that 'the world is on fire'. Yet, according to data from the European Forest Fire Information System, 2023, so far, has been an average year for forest fires in Europe, with a total of 150,000 hectares burned.
In the worst years, 500,000 hectares have burned by the middle of July. Besides, wildfires have, for millennia, been a natural part of the ecosystem in many climates. Some plants – called pyrophytes – need fire in order to germinate.
Last Tuesday, Sky News' Kirsty McCabe told viewers ready to holiday in the Med: 'You won't be able to have the traditional beach holiday, you want to be staying inside.'
Actually, temperatures at the coast, as usual, were more moderate than the hotspots inland. In the Algarve, at 3pm that day, they ranged from 21C to 29C, the Costa Brava 27C to 29C, and the Costa del Sol 27C to 31C. There was no reason why anyone should not have been able to enjoy the beach as usual.
How many times were we told during the past week that last year's heatwave killed 60,000 people in Europe? The figure is derived from a study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, published in the journal Nature Medicine last week.
And yes, it is true that hot spells tend to see 'excess deaths' above the average. But what the reporting omitted was that, each year, deaths from the heat are vastly outnumbered by deaths from cold weather – and that cold extremes are falling as the Earth warms.
The most comprehensive study of temperature-related deaths globally was made by Monash University, Australia, in 2021. It concluded that five million deaths annually could be attributed in some way to extreme temperatures (with other underlying causes) but that deaths from extreme cold outnumbered those from extreme heat by more than ten to one. This was true even in Africa.
Moreover, while deaths from high temperatures increased by 0.21 per cent between 2000 and 2019, deaths from extreme cold fell by 0.51 per cent over the same period. The net result, as the world warms and we experience fewer cold temperature extremes, is that the world is seeing fewer temperature-related deaths by the year. This point is rarely made because it doesn't fit with the fear-mongers' narrative that we are headed for climatic Armageddon – and that it is all our fault.
Sure, climate change is real and the world is seeing a greater frequency of extreme high temperatures. But, no, the world is not becoming unliveable. It was Spain, after all, which gave us the concept of a siesta to avoid the hottest part of the day. Air conditioning, storm warnings, flood defences and technological advances all help mankind deal with extreme weather.
Indeed, as temperatures in Spain have increased, the country's excess death-rate has gone in the other direction. Similarly, in New York, where summers have for centuries been known for their oppressive temperatures. Since the 1960s, deaths attributable to heat have fallen by two-thirds.
You might expect higher than normal temperatures would be a prerequisite for those preaching climate catastrophe. But, according to the BBC, even this year's below-average July temperatures in Britain are a symptom of man-made climate change.
Ten days ago, in an online explainer – entitled Where Has The UK Summer Gone? – BBC weather presenter Ben Rich wrote that our current 'dropped temperatures' and more rainfall are due to a blocking pattern in the air circulation over the North Atlantic. Even so, he concluded that 'some studies suggest climate change might make blocked patterns more common'.
In other words, we all risk going to hell in a handcart – or, in Justin Rowlatt's case, gallivanting 1,800 miles there and back by jet.
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My other blogs. Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM )
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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