A picture is worth 1,000 words

Receiving a hammer and sickle.  Note the small added crucifix. The media try to make out that he was embarrassed but he showed no sign of it.  It is in fact a symbol of Latin American "liberation theology", a belief system that Frank clearly shares



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Seas could rise 6 metres even IF governments curb global warming: Study says ocean changes have 'already begun'

Pure speculation. They don't understand what drives present temperatures nor do they understand what drove temperatures in the past

Sea levels could rise by at least six metres (20 feet) in the long term, swamping coasts from Florida to Bangladesh, even if governments achieve their goals for curbing global warming, according to a study published on Thursday.

Tracts of ice in Greenland and Antarctica melted when temperatures were around or slightly higher than today in ancient thaws in the past three million years, a U.S.-led international team wrote in the journal Science.

And the world may be headed for a repeat even if governments cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to a United Nations goal of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.

Thursday's study, based on studies of everything from ancient ice to fossil corals, said sea levels rose by between six and nine metres in a warm period about 125,000 years ago when temperatures were similar to those of today.

Ocean levels gained between six and 13 metres 400,000 years ago when temperatures were up to about 1C warmer than present.

And in a warm period three million years ago, sea levels were also at least six metres higher than now.

'Present temperature targets may commit Earth to at least six metres sea level rise,' the authors at the Past Global Changes project wrote. Some greenhouse gases can linger for centuries in the atmosphere.

Such a thaw would threaten cities from Beijing to London, and swamp low-lying tropical island states.

Lead author Andrea Dutton, of the University of Florida, said it could take many centuries for a six-metre rise, despite some ancient evidence that more rapid shifts were possible.

'This is a long-term projection. 'It's not going to happen the day after tomorrow,' she told Reuters.

'Studies have shown that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets contributed significantly to this sea level rise above modern levels,' said Anders Carlson, an Oregon State University glacial geologist and paleoclimatologist, and co-author on the study.

'Modern atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are today equivalent to those about three million years ago, when sea level was at least six meters higher because the ice sheets were greatly reduced.

'It takes time for the warming to whittle down the ice sheets,' added Carlson, who is in OSU's College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, 'but it doesn't take forever.

'There is evidence that we are likely seeing that transformation begin to take place now.'

The United Nations' panel of climate scientists said in 2013 that global warming could push up world sea levels by 26 to 82 cm (10 to 32 inches) by the late 21st century, on top of a 19 cm gain since 1900.

Thursday's study, based on studies of everything from ancient ice to fossil corals, said sea levels rose by between six and nine metres in a warm period about 125,000 years ago when temperatures were similar to those of today.

Ocean levels gained between six and 13 metres 400,000 years ago when temperatures were up to about 1C warmer than present.

And in a warm period three million years ago, sea levels were also at least six metres higher than now.  Six meters (or about 20 feet) of sea level rise does not sound like a lot.

However, coastal cities worldwide have experienced enormous growth in population and infrastructure over the past couple of centuries – and a global mean sea level rise of 10 to 20 feet could be catastrophic to the hundreds of millions of people living in these coastal zones.

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That really IS a buzzkill: Global warming shrinks range of pollinating bumblebees

Since there has been no global warming for 18 years, this attribution CANNOT be correct

Global warming is shrinking the terrain where bumblebees live in North America and Europe, with these vital pollinators departing the southernmost and hottest parts of their ranges while failing to move north into cooler climes, scientists say.

Their study, published on Thursday, used records from 1901 to 2010 to track 67 bumblebee species, finding that the insects have surrendered about 185 miles (300 km) from the southern end of the regions they called home on both continents.

The researchers found no evidence pesticide use or habitat destruction were to blame, instead implicating rising temperatures recorded since climate change began accelerating in the 1970s.

To respond to this problem, the research team suggests that a dramatic solution be considered: moving bee populations into new areas where they might persist.

This 'assisted migration' idea has been considered--and controversial--in conservation biology circles for more than a decade, but is gaining support as warming continues.

'This is the 'climate vise,'' said University of Ottawa biologist Jeremy Kerr, with the bumblebees 'stuck at the northern edges of ranges while the southern edges are crushed inward and those populations are lost.'

'Bumblebees are declining incredibly fast and the fingerprints of human-caused climate change are all over these changes,' Kerr added. 'Even more incredibly to us, these effects are often nearly identical across continents, occurring at the same pace in both Europe and North America.'

The steep decline of bumblebees on a continental scale threatens food security and the economic viability of some crops, the researchers said.

Bumblebees pollinate numerous plants that provide food for people and wildlife.

'Wild bumble bees are important pollinators of agricultural crops such as blueberry, apple, pumpkin and tomato, and declines in this ecosystem service of pollination could lead to lower crop yields and higher food costs, with consequences for both our food supply and the economy,' University of Vermont biologist Leif Richardson said.

Bumblebees are losing the southernmost portion of their ranges amid rising temperatures, but unlike other species they have not moved further north into more hospitable territory.

'They are failing to colonize newly available environments created by this warming. [Because there aren't any]

'Climate change may be making things too hot for them in the south, but warming conditions are not pulling them north as we would expect,' University of Calgary ecologist Paul Galpern said.

Kerr said dramatic action should be considered: a proposal called 'assisted migration' involving a large-scale relocation of bee populations into new areas where they might thrive.

'More generally, losing pollinators is a sign that we are playing dangerously with life-support systems we can't do without,' Kerr added.  'That is an experiment we should never have started.'

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Climate is too complex to be modelled

There is no science to global warming, because the climate is too complex and random for the questions which are raised. The few tests that can be done show that saturation precludes global warming caused by greenhouse gases. Scientists who promote global warming skipped over the subject of saturation and used modeling to contrive an effect. Modeling is nothing resembling science, as it is shaped by assumptions and would be too arbitrary even if reliable data could be acquired. Along with the misrepresentations of modeling are contrivances throughout the subject, which includes alteration of temperature measurements to show an increase, where collected data shows none.

The most significant fact about claimed global warming science is that proper scientific methods have been defied so blatantly that nothing can be pinned down. Sheltering claims from accountability to the extent that occurs with global warming corrupts what science is supposed to be so totally that it should not be viewed as science.

Evolution of the Concept

The initial concept of global warming was that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would absorb more radiation and heat the atmosphere. Scientists then found that laboratory tests were not showing an increase in radiation absorption with an increase in CO2 for a very simple reason: A very small amount of CO2 absorbs all radiation available to it in a short distance. Adding more CO2 only shortened the distance required for absorbing all of the radiation. Climatologists refer to this concept as "saturation." But hold-outs were sure global warming must be caused by increases in CO2 and looked for explanations. During the seventies, as computers became available, complex modeling was used to show heating of the atmosphere upon increases in CO2.

In 1979, a quasi governmental office created a study group to clarify the climate influences of carbon dioxide. The result was a publication by Charney et al, 1979 (1), who used modeling of atmospheric effects. Their conclusion was that a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere would result in a temperature increase of 3°C. The claims were total fakery. Scientists do not have the slightest ability to convert the details, complexities and randomness of the atmosphere to measurement or calculation, which is why weathermen cannot predict more than a few days for simple elements such as temperature and precipitation. They claimed to model such things as "horizontally diffusive heat exchange" and "heat balance."

The terms used are nothing but word salad. There is no such thing as horizontally diffusive heat exchange in the atmosphere. In large fluids, diffusion would cover no more than a few nanometers before convection renders it irrelevant. Why add "heat exchange?" There needs to be two mediums with an interface for heat exchange. If atmosphere and oceans were the interface, there is no "horizontally diffusive" element to it. Diffusion is a chemistry concept, not an energy concept. Heat moves through conduction, not diffusion. There is also no such thing as "heat balance." Heat migrates and transforms to and from other forms of energy. There is nothing balanced about it.

To model heat through the atmosphere resulting from carbon dioxide, the starting point must be some quantity of heat which is supposed to be moving through the atmosphere. Yet that quantity was the end result of the Charney study rather than the starting point. Numerous other studies used the same basic modeling concepts.

In 1984 and 1988, Hansen et al (2,3) used similar modeling but started with a concept of how much heat carbon dioxide should produce determined as "empirical observation," by which they meant the assumed historical record of carbon dioxide heating the atmosphere. [The assumed historical record is that humans increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the air by 100 parts per million (ppm) (280-380 ppm) when the first 0.6°C temperature increase occurred in the near-surface atmosphere.] Modeling then had the purpose of showing how the atmosphere would add secondary effects to the primary effect of carbon dioxide. But the historical record included the secondary effects, which means the secondary effects were compounded. In other words, there is no clear concept of a purpose or a logical set of cause-and-effect relationships.

Yet Hansen et al arrived at approximately the same conclusion as Charney et al—that the expected temperature increase upon doubling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would be about 3°C. This result is always given for hundreds of such studies with widely varying procedures, which shows that it is nothing but a contrived end result with nothing but fakery for a method of deriving it. How could the same number be produced with and without a starting point for the amount of heat CO2 supposedly produces based on the historical record?

The reason for the invariable 3°C increase upon doubling CO2 is that journalists said they would not be concerned unless the temperature increase would be 3°C. Otherwise, why not just use the historical record? If it is extended, it would indicate a temperature in crease of 1.7°C upon doubling CO2 in the atmosphere. (280/100 x 0.6 = 1.7) To get some other number than 1.7°C upon doubling CO2 is to say the atmosphere is going to do something different than it did in the past. There is no explanation of why it should.

The next major development was in incongruous leap. In 1998, Myhre et al (4) added "radiative transfer equations" to the brew. Radiative transfer equations erase the saturation problem. Isn't it strange that the saturation problem didn't exist for Charney et al or Hansen et al. The conclusion of Myhre et al was that Charney et al and Hansen et al were only off by 15%. In other words, the radiative transfer equations sharpened the pencil but did not change the analysis much. Yet they changed everything. Notice a very strange contradiction: Modeling now days shows an expected range of somewhere between 1°C and 4°C in the future upon doubling CO2 in the air. This is a 400% uncertainty. If Myhre et all had the certainty down to 15% in 1998, why so much uncertainty now? Total fakery is always the answer.

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Is a mini ICE AGE on the way?

The Earth could be headed for a 'mini ice age' researchers have warned.  A new study claims to have cracked predicting solar cycles - and says that between 2020 and 2030 solar cycles will cancel each other out.

This, they say, will lead to a phenomenon known as the 'Maunder minimum' - which has previously been known as a mini ice age when it hit between 1646 and 1715, even causing London's River Thames to freeze over.

Conventional wisdom holds that solar activity swings back and forth like a simple pendulum.

At one end of the cycle, there is a quiet time with few sunspots and flares.  At the other end, solar max brings high sunspot numbers and frequent solar storms.  It's a regular rhythm that repeats every 11 years.

Reality is more complicated.  Astronomers have been counting sunspots for centuries, and they have seen that the solar cycle is not perfectly regular.

The new model of the Sun's solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun's 11-year heartbeat.

It draws on dynamo effects in two layers of the Sun, one close to the surface and one deep within its convection zone.

Predictions from the model suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the 'mini ice age' that began in 1645, according to the results presented by Prof Valentina Zharkova at the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno.

The model predicts that the pair of waves become increasingly offset during Cycle 25, which peaks in 2022.

During Cycle 26, which covers the decade from 2030-2040, the two waves will become exactly out of synch and this will cause a significant reduction in solar activity.

'In cycle 26, the two waves exactly mirror each other – peaking at the same time but in opposite hemispheres of the Sun,' said Zharkova.    'Their interaction will be disruptive, or they will nearly cancel each other. 'We predict that this will lead to the properties of a 'Maunder minimum''

'Effectively, when the waves are approximately in phase, they can show strong interaction, or resonance, and we have strong solar activity. 'When they are out of phase, we have solar minimums.

'When there is full phase separation, we have the conditions last seen during the Maunder minimum, 370 years ago.'

The Maunder Minimum (also known as the prolonged sunspot minimum) is the name used for the period starting in about 1645 and continuing to about 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time.

It caused London's River Thames to freeze over, and 'frost fairs' became popular.

This period of solar inactivity also corresponds to a climatic period called the 'Little Ice Age' when rivers that are normally ice-free froze and snow fields remained year-round at lower altitudes.

There is evidence that the Sun has had similar periods of inactivity in the more distant past, Nasa says.

The connection between solar activity and terrestrial climate is an area of on-going research.

It is 172 years since a scientist first spotted that the Sun's activity varies over a cycle lasting around 10 to 12 years.

But every cycle is a little different and none of the models of causes to date have fully explained fluctuations.

Many solar physicists have put the cause of the solar cycle down to a dynamo caused by convecting fluid deep within the Sun.

Now, Zharkova and her colleagues have found that adding a second dynamo, close to the surface, completes the picture with surprising accuracy.

'We found magnetic wave components appearing in pairs, originating in two different layers in the Sun's interior,' she said.

'They both have a frequency of approximately 11 years, although this frequency is slightly different, and they are offset in time.

'Over the cycle, the waves fluctuate between the northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun. Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97%,' said Zharkova.

Zharkova and her colleagues derived their model using a technique called 'principal component analysis' of the magnetic field observations from the Wilcox Solar Observatory in California.

They examined three solar cycles-worth of magnetic field activity, covering the period from 1976-2008.

In addition, they compared their predictions to average sunspot numbers, another strong marker of solar activity.

All the predictions and observations were closely matched.

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The EPA Got Marketing Help from Green/Left organization

The Center for American Progress, a progressive, DC-based think tank that has served as a training ground for Obama Administration officials, coordinated with the EPA to provide talking points on carbon control rules, emails show.

A series of emails, obtained by the Environment and Energy Legal Institute, demonstrate an ongoing relationship between the EPA – specifically Joseph Goffman, a senior official with the EPA’s air and radiation practice – and CAP’s then-strategy director David Weiss. The two collaborated as they tried to convince a New York Times reporter, who had discovered that the Carbon Capture and Sequestration program (the EPA’s method for assisting power plants that could not meet Clean Air Act regulations for air pollution) was much less effective than the EPA had previously noted.

According to the Free Beacon, which broke the story:

A prominent left-wing group helped formulate Environmental Protection Agency talking points designed to sell a controversial regulatory scheme to skeptical journalists, internal emails show.

The emails show Joseph Goffman, the senior counsel of EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, circulating talking points from Center for American Progress climate strategy director Daniel Weiss among EPA colleagues attempting to sell the agency’s controversial power plant regulations to a New York Times reporter.

Weiss emailed Goffman in September 2013 with a series of suggestions for convincing the Times’ Matt Wald of the commercial viability of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology, a vital component of the agency’s stringent power plant emissions regulations.

Goffmann, who you’ve met before, no doubt, in our coverage of the EPA’s carbon emissions regulations and “Clean Air Act” materials, had been charged with making a legal justification for the carbon regulations, which would have a demonstrable economic impact on the power industry. As part of that justification, the EPA tried desperately to include references to CCS technology, which they said making adapting to their air pollution standards economically feasible and technologically possible, even for existing coal-powered plants.

The problem? CCS’s reliability has always been in question, and the New York Times became aware of that, sometime in 2013. NYT reporter Matt Wald planned to go public with an “expose” of the CCS program, and Goffman wanted to either head him off or convince him of the error of his ways. Working with associates in the White House and in the EPA’s messaging department (yes, they have one), Goffman contacted Weiss and began sharing ideas. According to the emails, Weiss outlined what he called a “compelling case” that CCS was ready for prime time. Goffman then appears to have emailed Weiss’s suggestions (though copy-pasted in to his own email) to his communications colleagues.

Even though the effort was manic and the collaboration widespread, the “compelling case” for CCS does not appear to have swayed Matt Wald, who went on to write his original story about CCS – and it’s failures. Weiss, on the other hand, apparently so enamored of the CCS justification he’d emailed to Goffman, went on to co-author a Center for American Progress white paper using almost the same language.

The Center for American Progress has filled a number of key roles for the Obama Administration, from rehabbing their ex-employees for suitability on cable news television programs, to serving as a proving ground for administration employees – according to Heartland’s own research, CAP’s outlets have submitted recommendations to 32 regulatory agencies in the Obama Administration and make up 5 of 6 positions on regulatory agencies in the Administration itself. Of the approximately $40 million CAP takes in on a yearly basis from organizations like the George Soros Open Society Foundation and corporations like Wal-Mart, it spends $3.5 million on lobbying for its policies alone. This, however, is one of the first indications that it actively collaborates with the Obama Administration and its officials on marketing strategies for environmental regulations.

The EPA insists that the interactions are just fine (since, of course, no one misrepresented themselves, and no one used copyrighted material), but the emails imply a much larger, closer relationship between the Administration and CAP than was expected. It’s not a surprising relationship of course, given what we known from research on both organizations, but it is concerning – especially that the EPA, which is supposed to focus on environmental protection, is so closely affiliated with an organization tasked with pushing an environmental agenda that relies more on ideology than it does on science.

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Preserving the graphics:  Most graphics on this site are hotlinked from elsewhere.  But hotlinked graphics sometimes have only a short life -- as little as a week in some cases.  After that they no longer come up.  From January 2011 on, therefore, I have posted a monthly copy of everything on this blog to a separate site where I can host text and graphics together -- which should make the graphics available even if they are no longer coming up on this site.  See  here or here

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