Is this a hoax?

I think this article below is a joke designed to make skeptics look foolish by believing it.  To my knowledge, NOBODY has been talking about carbon monoxide in relation to climate, though I suppose it's possible

A first-ever study of air trapped in the deep snowpack of Greenland shows that atmospheric levels of carbon monoxide (CO) in the 1950s were actually slightly higher than what we have today. This sets back global warming theories because their "computer models" predict much higher CO concentrations over Greenland in 2013 than in 1950. The opposite is in fact true.

You're going to love this: "It seems that no one thought to study carbon monoxide in the Greenland snowpack before our work," said Vasilii Petrenko, an assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences. "Also, the difficulty of taking the samples and making measurements may have discouraged some researchers." Perhaps "discouraged" as in not producing the right outcome.

In a paper recently published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, Petrenko and his colleagues concluded that CO levels rose slightly from 1950 until the 1970s, and then declined strongly to present-day values. This finding contradicts computer models that had calculated a 40 percent overall increase in CO levels over the same period.

"The CO decline coincides with improvements in combustion technology, in particular the introduction of catalytic converters in automobiles," said Petrenko. "CO emissions were declining even as fossil fuel use was increasing. In order for computer models to get things right, it's important to have accurate historical records," said Petrenko. "Until now, we haven't had enough reliable data on carbon monoxide concentrations. This work helps to fill that gap."

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IPCC In Crisis As Climate Predictions Fail

Ross McKitrick

There has been a lot of talk lately about the upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, and whether it will take into account the lack of warming since the 1990s. Everything you need to know about the dilemma the IPCC faces is summed up in one remarkable graph.


The above graphic is Figure 1.4 from Chapter 1 of a draft of the Fifth Assessment Report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The initials at the top represent the First Assessment Report (FAR) in 1990, the Second (SAR) in 1995. Shaded banks show range of predictions from each of the four climate models used for all four reports since 1990. That last report, AR4, was issued in 2007. Model runs after 1992 were tuned to track temporary cooling due to the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in The Philippines. The black squares, show with uncertainty bars, measure the observed average surface temperatures over the same interval. The range of model runs is syndicated by the vertical bars. The light grey area above and below is not part of the model prediction range. The final version of the new IPCC report, AR5, will be issued later this month

The figure nearby is from the draft version that underwent expert review last winter. It compares climate model simulations of the global average temperature to observations over the post-1990 interval. During this time atmospheric carbon dioxide rose by 12%, from 355 parts per million (ppm) to 396 ppm. The IPCC graph shows that climate models predicted temperatures should have responded by rising somewhere between about 0.2 and 0.9 degrees C over the same period. But the actual temperature change was only about 0.1 degrees, and was within the margin of error around zero. In other words, models significantly over-predicted the warming effect of CO2 emissions for the past 22 years.

Chapter 9 of the IPCC draft also shows that overestimation of warming was observed on even longer time scales in data collected by weather satellites and weather balloons over the tropics. Because of its dominant role in planetary energy and precipitation patterns, models have to get the tropical region right if they are credibly to simulate the global climate system. Based on all climate models used by the IPCC, this region of the atmosphere (specifically the tropical mid-troposphere) should exhibit the most rapid greenhouse warming anywhere. Yet most data sets show virtually no temperature change for over 30 years.

The IPCC’s view of the science, consistently held since the 1990s, is that CO2 is the key driver of modern climate change, and that natural variability is too small to count in comparison. This is the “mainstream” view of climate science, and it is what is programmed into all modern climate models. Outputs from the models, in turn, have driven the extraordinarily costly global climate agenda of recent decades. But it is now becoming clear that the models have sharply over predicted warming, and therein lies a problem.

As the gap between models and reality has grown wider, so has the number of mainstream scientists gingerly raising the possibility that climate models may soon need a bit of a re-think. A recent study by some well-known German climate modelers put the probability that models can currently be reconciled with observations at less than 2%, and they said that if we see another five years without a large warming, the probability will drop to zero.

What’s more, the U.K.’s main climate modeling lab just this summer revised its long-term weather forecasts to show it now expects there to be no warming for at least another five years. Ironically, if its model is right, it will have proven itself and all others like it to be fundamentally wrong.

To those of us who have been following the climate debate for decades, the next few years will be electrifying. There is a high probability we will witness the crackup of one of the most influential scientific paradigms of the 20th century, and the implications for policy and global politics could be staggering.

It is the job of the giant UN IPCC panel to inform world leaders of up-to-the-minute developments in the field. With its report due out within days, you would think it would be jumping at the chance to report on these amazing developments, wouldn’t you? Well, guess again.

Judging by the drafts circulated this year, it is in full denial mode. Its own figure reveals a discrepancy between models and observations, yet its discussion says something entirely different. On page 9 of Chapter 1 it explains where the numbers come from, it talks about the various challenges faced by models, and then it sums up the graph as follows: “In summary, the globally-averaged surface temperatures are well within the uncertainty range of all previous IPCC projections, and generally are in the middle of the scenario ranges.” Later, in Chapter 9, it states with “very high confidence” that models can correctly simulate global surface temperature trends.

The IPCC must take everybody for fools. Its own graph shows that observed temperatures are not within the uncertainty range of projections; they have fallen below the bottom of the entire span. Nor do models simulate surface warming trends accurately; instead they grossly exaggerate them. (Nor do they match them on regional scales, where the fit is typically no better than random numbers.)

In the section of the report where it discusses the model-observation mismatch in the tropics, it admits (with “high confidence”) that models overestimate warming in the tropics. Then it says with a shrug that the cause of this bias is “elusive” and promptly drops the subject. What about the implications of this bias? The IPCC not only falls conspicuously silent on that point, it goes on to conclude, despite all evidence to the contrary, that it has “very high confidence” that climate models correctly represent the atmospheric effects of changing CO2 levels.

There are five key points to take away from this situation.

First, something big is about to happen. Models predict one thing and the data show another. The various attempts in recent years to patch over the difference are disintegrating. Over the next few years, either there is going to be a sudden, rapid warming that shoots temperatures up to where the models say they should be, or the mainstream climate modeling paradigm is going to fall apart.

Second, since we are on the verge of seeing the emergence of data that could rock the foundations of mainstream climatology, this is obviously no time for entering into costly and permanent climate policy commitments based on failed model forecasts. The real message of the science is: Hold on a bit longer, information is coming soon that could radically change our understanding of this issue.

Third, what is commonly called the “mainstream” view of climate science is contained in the spread of results from computer models. What is commonly dismissed as the “skeptical” or “denier” view coincides with the real-world observations. Now you know how to interpret those terms when you hear them.

Fourth, we often hear (from no less an authority than Obama himself, among many others) slogans to the effect that 97% of climate experts, 97% of published climate science papers, and all the world’s leading scientific societies agree with the mainstream science as encoded in climate models. But the models don’t match reality. The climate science community has picked a terrible time to brag about the uniformity of groupthink in its ranks.

Finally, the IPCC has proven, yet again, that it is incapable of being objective. Canadian journalist Donna LaFramboise has meticulously documented the extent to which the IPCC has been colonized by environmental activists over the years, and we now see the result. As the model-versus-reality discrepancy plays out, the last place you will learn about it will be in IPCC reports.

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New science report debunks climate scare

"As the science promoted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) falls into disrepute, reporters face a difficult decision," said Tom Harris, executive director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC). "Should they cover IPCC reports, the next of which will be issued on September 27th, as if there were no other reputable points of view? Or should they also seek out climate experts who disagree with the UN's view that we will soon face a human-induced climate crisis?

"With today's release of Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science (CCR-II - see http://climatechangereconsidered.org/, a 1,200 page report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), it is now much easier for media to adopt the second more balanced approached," continued Harris. "Co-authored and co-edited by Dr. Craig Idso, Professor Robert Carter, and Professor S. Fred Singer who worked with a team of 44 other climate experts, this document cites more than 1,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers to show that the IPCC has ignored or misinterpreted much of the research that challenges the need for carbon dioxide (CO2) controls. In other words, the NIPCC report demonstrates that the science being relied upon by governments to create multi-billion dollar policies is almost certainly wrong."

Professor Carter, former head of the School of Earth Sciences at James Cook University, Australia, explained, "NIPCC's CCR-II report uses layman's language to present solid evidence that today's climate changes are well within the bounds of natural variability. Real world observations tell us that the IPCC's speculative computer models do not work, ice is not melting at an enhanced rate, sea-level rise is not accelerating, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events is not increasing, and dangerous global warming is not occurring."

CCR-II Lead Author for the extreme weather chapter, Dr. Madhav Khandekar, agrees, "When the earth was generally cooling between 1945 and 1977, there were as many extreme weather events as there are now, but climate scientists did not attribute this to human activity. The perceived link between global warming and extreme weather is primarily due to greater media attention on violent weather today than in past decades. Earth's climate is robust and is not being destabilized by human-added CO2."

Associate Professor of Resource and Environmental Geology and Geochemistry at the University of Oslo, Norway, Dr. Tom V. Segalstad, added, "CO2 is 'the gas of life'. The more CO2, the more life. More CO2 means we can feed more people on Earth. CO2 is contributing very little to the 'greenhouse effect'. Clouds have much more influence on temperature."

Segalstad, a CCR-II Contributing Author, also pointed out, "The ocean has a very large buffer capacity. Hence the pH of the ocean will not be significantly changed from the relatively small contribution of anthropogenic CO2."

NIPCC Chapter Lead Author, Dr. Anthony Lupo, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Missouri, describes the new report as "the most comprehensive report yet on all the issues surrounding climate and climate change." Lupo worked on the climate models chapter about which he said, "It represents the problems and benefits of working with computer models as well as highlighting the current techniques, strategies, and shortcomings."

"There is a climate problem," Carter admits. "It is the natural climate-related events that exact very real human and environmental costs. Therefore, we must prepare for, and adapt to, all climate hazards when they happen. Spending billions of dollars on CO2 controls in a vain attempt to stop these events from occurring reduces the wealth of societies, and so our capacity to address these and other real world problems."

ICSC Energy Issues advisor, New Zealand-based consulting engineer Bryan Leyland, concludes, "Governments should welcome the NIPCC CCR-II report. It provides them with the scientific evidence they need to justify ending the expansion of ineffective alternative energy sources and other expensive and futile strategies to control climate. Then they can focus on supporting our most powerful energy sources—coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro-power—in order to end the scourge of energy poverty that afflicts over one billion people across the world."

SOURCE





Pessimism at the UN

International leaders are failing in their fight against global warming, one of the United Nations' top climate officials said Tuesday, appealing directly to the world's voters to pressure their politicians into taking tougher action against the buildup of greenhouse gases.

Halldor Thorgeirsson told journalists gathered at London's Imperial College that world's leaders weren't working hard enough to prevent potentially catastrophic climate change.  "We are failing as an international community," he said. "We are not on track."

Thorgeirsson, a senior director with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, was speaking with two years left to go before the world powers gather in Paris for another round of negotiations over the future of the world's climate, which scientists warn will warm dramatically unless action is taken to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.

He seemed to strike a pessimistic note, talking down the idea that Paris — or any other conference — would produce a grand bargain that would ensure the reductions needed to prevent a dangerous warming of the Earth's atmosphere. He even seemed to suggest that a global solution to the [non] issue wasn't likely until the effects of climate change came barreling down on peoples' heads or flooding into their homes.

"I don't think that an international treaty will ever be the primary driver for the difficult decisions to be made," he warned. "It's the problem itself that will be the primary driver — and the consequences of that problem."

Quizzed on the repeated failure of the international community to organize a global deal on greenhouse gases, he said that the politicians involved had to be held to account.

"This is a question that needs to be asked at the ballot box," he said. "This is a question that needs to be asked of leaders at all levels."

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Going Green: EPA Puts Brakes on Chevy Volt's Battery Manufacturer

After getting scolded by the Department of Energy for paying employees (with taxpayer dollars) to play cards and volunteer at local charities, the manufacturer of the Lithium-ion batteries for Chevy Volts finally got their assembly lines moving. . . Only to shut them down again because of “environmental concerns.” It’s kinda cute to watch liberals stumble through their own web of regulatory obstacles.

The LG Chem battery plant in Holland, Michigan was finally scheduled to manufacture a battery or two after years of endless delays. After receiving over $150 million in federal funds, and roughly $175 million in green-energy tax credits, the company decided that it should actually produce a product.

According to the original press reports, the company was supposed to hire over 400 workers, and start producing Lithium-ion batteries for the combustible Chevy Volt as early as 2012 – two years after they scrapped together some environmental fools willing to invest taxpayer dollars in their project. Serving as living proof that Liberals misunderstand the concept of business, the company then paid their workers. . . .well, to do nothing.

Earlier this year, the Department of Energy released an audit in which it reported that the company had only filled about half of its promised positions. Furthermore, the company had run into delays in actually conducting business. But, in an effort to avert giving any hard earned taxpayer dollars back to the Treasury, the company paid its workforce of 200 people to play cards, volunteer in their community, and generally slack off. Of course, this explains our current jobless recovery: Liberals clearly misunderstand the fundamental purpose of a job.

After the DOE audit, the company decided it should get around to doing what they received government funds, and crony capitalist tax credits, to do: Build highly toxic batteries for use in GM’s low quality inefficient hybrid, the Chevy Volt. But, c’mon. . . Let’s not rush into anything.

After being open for business (really this time) for barely a month, the company declared they would have to halt production because of a chemical that has yet to be approved by the Environmental Protection Agency. After reading about EPA agents storming a small community in Alaska with fully automatic weapons and Swat gear, one would have to think the company got off easy with a simple delay in manufacturing abilities.

The LG spokesman, Jeremy Hagemeyer, said “we are currently reviewing the registration status [for the chemical] and will work with the EPA to resolve the issue quickly. In the meanwhile, we are delaying production activities for approximately 6 weeks until we have confirmed the registration status or otherwise obtain approval from EPA.”

It is unlikely that employees will be paid for playing cards this time. According to Hagemeyer, the employees will be involved in continuous factory improvement projects, training, and in “maintaining readiness”. One can only assume this means employees will be prepping the factory for that fateful day that the government’s $300 million investment gets put to use. Apparently “shovel ready” doesn’t mean what most of us were lead to believe.

The unfolding of events for LG Chem epitomizes everything that has been wrong with the spontaneously combustible Chevy Volt experiment. The factory’s initial wasteful nature and disregard for the capital raised by the American taxpayer is indicative of the abuse that comes with government’s meddling in free markets. Would this factory have spent two years paying workers to play cards if the proprietors had fronted their own money? It is nearly a guarantee that private capital would never tolerate such inefficiencies. . . But, then again, that’s why private capital has been largely absent in the green energy sector – unless accompanied by government loans, tax credits, or guarantees.

The most recent delay in manufacturing is also irony-flavored icing on the cake. The environmentalists who hungrily gobbled up money from Big Government to fund their altruistic quest for efficient battery power, are now being stopped by environmentalist-driven Big Government regulations.

It is almost poetic justice. Except poetry shouldn’t cost taxpayers $300 million.

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The EPA's War on America‏

By Alan Caruba

Among the targets to disable an enemy’s ability to wage war is their energy infrastructure. The destruction of the utilities that provide electricity or its ability to refine oil is critical to crippling a nation’s ability to function, based on the universal use of hydrocarbons such as coal, natural gas, and oil.

If an enemy was doing this to America we would go to war against it, but this is being done and the enemy is the government on which we depend to ensure the nation has the energy it needs to function and grow. Leading the war on America has been the Environmental Protection Agency, but it is joined by the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, and other agencies.

The Institute for Energy Research has estimated that the much of the government’s oil and gas that is technically recoverable is worth $128 trillion, about eight times our national debt. Our coal resources in the lower 48 states are estimated to be worth $22.5 trillion.

On September 10, The Wall Street Journal reported that “The Obama administration plans to block the construction of new coal-fired power plants unless they are built with novel and expensive technology to capture greenhouse-gas emissions, according to people familiar with a draft proposal.”  The U.S. has more than 27% of the world’s known coal reserves.

Greenhouse gas emissions are primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), a gas vital to all life on Earth, the “food” that vegetation depends upon. It plays no role whatever in a “global warming” that is not occurring. It is emitted by the Earth’s many active volcanoes and hot springs. It is exhaled by humans and land animals. It is the product of the combustion of hydrocarbons. As it increased in the atmosphere, the Earth has entered a cooling—not a warming—spell since the late 1990s. Its atmospheric concentration is a very tiny 0.039 percent by volume.

 It is, however, the justification on which much of the EPA’s enforcement activities are based. “The only way coal plants could comply is to capture carbon dioxide emissions and stick them underground—a costly process that hasn’t been demonstrated at commercial scale before.”

The idea of “capturing” CO2 and holding it underground is about as idiotic as it gets. More CO2 means more abundant crops to feed humans, livestock, and wildlife. It means healthier forests and jungles. Yet this is what would be required if the EPA gets its way. And even if it were possible, it would drive up the cost of electricity to consumers.

If implemented the proposal would guarantee one thing; fewer coal-fired plants and, as a result, less production of electricity. In 2012, the American Energy Institute warned that “coal’s share of U.S. electricity is expected to fall to below 40 percent this year from 42 percent last year and produce the lowest share since data was collected in 1949. Just five or six years ago, its share of electricity generation was 50 percent.”

The EPA isn’t content stopping the construction of coal-fired plants. In April 2013 a decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the EPA’s veto of the Arch Coal Spruce Mine in West Virginia. The decision pushed aside the Army Corps that normally conducts the environmental reviews and which granted approval to the mine in 2007.

The EPA ordered the Corps to withdraw the permit. This transfer of power to the EPA imperils all future coal mining projects. A Wall Street Journal article about the EPA’s project veto noted that “A recent study by Berkeley Professor David Sunding estimates that some $220 billion of annual investment depends on these permits; the fact of an EPA veto will deter new investment." EPA warnings have caused a British mining giant, Anglo-American, to walk away from a proposed Alaskan “Pebble” mine—potentially the largest coal and copper project in North America.

It is not just coal whose use is targeted by the EPA, fracking technology has unleashed a boom in natural gas, but the Obama administration has nominated an enemy of natural gas to chair the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Ron Binz regards it as a “dead end” because he too is a believer in carbon capture and storage. His answer to a non-existent global warming is “renewable” energy sources such as solar and wind. Solar currently provides 0.01% of the electricity fed to the grid and wind provides just 2%. FERC oversees much of the gas business and could effectively deter the growth of this industry with all of its attendant benefits from jobs to the reduction in the cost of electricity.

A recent report by the Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee exposes the way the EPA has “pursued a path of obfuscation, operating in the shadows, and out of the sunlight.” The report noted how the former administration established an alias identify in order to discuss agency business without having to report on it. The report provides a lengthy description of violations of the Freedom of Information Act and other federal laws and regulations intended to encourage transparency in government.

All of this is going on while the nation languishes in the long recovery from the 2008 financial crisis, while creating jobs is vital to that recovery, and while it continues its long history of resisting the provision of energy in any form to Americans.

It is a war being waged on Americans, most of whom are unaware of it, but are being victimized by it.

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