The latest attempt to keep the global warming theory alive

Contrary to all predictions, global warming stopped more than 18 years ago.  But Warmists didn't let go. They said that CO2 was still producing heat but that the heat had suddenly started being mopped up by the oceans.  What caused the oceans to come suddenly to that watery decision they cannot explain

But the explanation REALLY falls apart if there is no evidence of increased heat in the oceans.  And such evidence is hard to come by.  The oceans change very slowly, not suddenly.  And the only prominent Warmist who is actually an oceanographer -- Rahmstorff -- doesn't believe the heat-gobbling ocean theory. So the Warmists are a touch desperate at the moment

But salvation is at hand.  A new study is just out that purports to provide the needed evidence. The irrepressible  Chris Mooney summarizes it below.

In my wicked way, however, I have had a look at the underlying academic journal article "Industrial-era global ocean heat uptake doubles in recent decades" in Nature Climate Change

I note two things:  1).  They use data from the mid-19th century on to the present time. And there is no dispute that there was some slight warming over the late 19th and the 20th century.  So over their chosen period they are able to show warming.  They in effect "swamp" the 21st century data with earlier data.

2). They do eventually get around to looking at the 21st century explicitly and produce exactly the finding Warmists need.  But the finding is just a modelling exercise:  "Our model-based analysis suggests that nearly half of the industrial-era increases in global OHC have occurred in recent decades".  And you can get anything you want out of models

The Guardian also has a riff on the matter under the heading "World's oceans warming at increasingly faster rate, new study finds".  How consoling!  But how come the rest of the world is not getting warmer?  And how long will the greedy old ocean keep  gobbling up all the heat?  Pesky questions I think


Scientists have known for some time that when global warming occurs, the oceans will be the site of the most profound response.

The reason is simply that they are able to retain vastly more heat than the atmosphere. “Ninety, perhaps 95 percent of the accumulated heat is in the oceans,” said Peter Gleckler, an oceanographer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The physical reason is that water has a far greater heat “capacity” than air, requiring more energy to raise its temperature — something that is apparent to anyone who has ever tried to boil it on a stove.

Gleckler is the lead author of a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change finding that, in the past two decades, ocean heat content has been rising rapidly and that, much more than before, heat is also mixing into the deeper layers of the ocean, rather than remaining near the surface.

“As the upper oceans have been warming over time, more and more of this heat is finding its way down into the deeper ocean, and our results indicate that the fractional amount of heat that is trapped in the deeper ocean is increasing as well,” Gleckler said.

“We find that the heat uptake of the global oceans has doubled since about 1997, compared to what took place prior to that over the industrial era. And that was a surprising result to us,” he added.

The research was conducted with scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Pennsylvania State University.

We tend to think of global warming as an overall upward trend in air temperature — but that’s simply the most immediate way in which we experience it. From a scientific perspective, it is perhaps best understood as an energy imbalance between the Earth and space, with less heat escaping and more being retained within the planet’s system.

In this sense, the new study represents a strong confirmation of this overall energy-balance shift. If large volumes of heat are trapped on Earth because of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, then inevitably, the majority of that heat must be stored in the oceans, simply because of their greater ability to retain such energy.

“The heat capacity of the Earth’s entire atmosphere is equaled by the top 3.5 meters [11 feet] of the ocean,” explains a fact sheet released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to accompany the new study.

“The overall global ocean heat uptake is a result, we know, of the increasing greenhouse gases,” Gleckler said.

Conducting the latest work required stitching together multiple data sources, including measurements from the historic Challenger expedition of the 1870s — a landmark moment for oceanography — and modern readings from Argo floats. Nearly 4,000 of these instruments are spread across the global ocean, providing temperature measurements as deep as 2,000 meters.

Scientists divide the ocean into layers, with the top portion — the one that is warming and, therefore, affects humans the most — extending from the surface down to 700 meters. The middle section spans 700 meters to 2000 meters deep, and the deepest ocean is below that.

The research suggests that two-thirds of heat accumulation has occurred in the upper layer so far, with the remaining third in the lower layers. But it also finds that the percentage stored deeper in the ocean has been increasing recently.

The consequences of upper-ocean warming are well documented. From the bleaching of corals to the potential for more-intense hurricanes, a warmer surface has profound consequences for anything living in the oceans (this is where most sea life is) but also on land. Heating the ocean also raises sea levels, because warm water expands.

The consequences of warming the middle and deepest layers are less clear and less immediate to those of us living at the surface, but they are also sure to be significant. The new study provided a global overview of increasing ocean warming, rather than any specific prediction of regional consequences. But warming the deep ocean could lead to changes in its circulation, Gleckler said. One key factor driving the oceans’ global overturning circulation is the density of water, which is in turn affected by its temperature.

On the bright side, Gleckler notes, you can argue that increasing heat burial in the deep ocean is, in some ways, good news for humans. If the heat wasn’t at depth, then more of it would be in the surface layer and the surface of the globe would be even warmer, and feeling greater effects, than it already is.

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Let's hear it for the woodrats!

A stupid laboratory study that ignores the fact that animals can move.  They can and do move from habitats that don't suit  them to ones that do.  So if warming ever happens they can simply migrate Northwards



Global warming could be a killer to some animals in the near future.

A University of Utah lab experiment discovered that when temperatures increased, woodrats were left vulnerable to plant toxins that they normally consume without a problem when cooler. That leads scientists to believe that global warming could potentially threaten herbivores in the near future.

"This study adds to our understanding of how climate change may affect mammals, in that their ability to consume dietary toxins is impaired by warmer temperatures," biologist Denise Dearing, senior author of the research published in the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, said this week, as reported by Phys.org. "This phenomenon will result in animals changing their diets and reducing the amount of plant material they eat, relocating to cooler habitats or going extinct in local areas."

Dearing added that "over 40 percent of all existing mammals eat only plants" and that "[m]ost plants produce toxins, so the majority of plant-eating mammals eat toxic compounds, and this may become more difficult to deal with as the climate warms."

Birds could also be affected by this, according to Dearing.

The study's first author and University of Utah biology doctoral student Patrice Kurnath says any free-range domestic animal will come across plants with toxins, leaving many more animals susceptible to not being able to withstand these poisonous compounds as temperatures warm up.

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How global warming is revealing old Alaska shipwrecks

Groan!  This discovery had nothing to do with global warming but it had everything to do with new "remote sensing technology"

NOAA archaeologists discovered two whaling ships last week that sunk off the Alaskan Arctic shore in September 1871. They were part of a 40-ship whaling expedition whose captains had mistakenly counted on a wind shift to clear away surrounding ice. They were wrong, and 33 ships soon became trapped. The enveloping ice slowly destroyed the ships within a few weeks, but all 1,219 officers, crew and whalers aboard were safely rescued by seven ships waiting for the fleet 80 miles south.

All 33 ships had remained hidden for the past 144 years, until climate change removed some of the icy barriers, making two of the ships visible to remote sensing technology.
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“Until now, no one had found definitive proof of any of the lost fleet beneath the water,” said Brad Barr, NOAA archaeologist and project co-director, in a NOAA press release. “This exploration provides an opportunity to write the last chapter of this important story of American maritime heritage and also bear witness to some of the impacts of a warming climate on the region’s environmental and cultural landscape, including diminishing sea ice and melting permafrost.”

The survey area consisted of 30 miles of Alaskan shoreline in the Chukchi Sea from the cities of Wainwright to Point Franklin. Using “state-of-the-art sonar and sensing technology, the NOAA team was able to plot the ‘magnetic signature’ of the two wrecks,” as well as anchors, ballasts and tools from other ships.

To save all 1,219 passengers, the seven rescue ships had to throw their equipment and catch overboard. Barr told the Guardian that the disaster cost $33.3 million dollars in modern terms, ultimately hastening the demise of the American whaling industry.

With a total of 45 ships lost between the 1871 wreck and another in 1875, Arctic disasters “effectively dampened enthusiasm for bowhead whaling,” says the New Bedford Whaling Museum. “The implication was that there may have been better ways to earn a living and better investments for capital.”

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The global warming consensus that isn't

By Thomas Lifson

At last, we have a peer-reviewed paper that accurately surveys how much support there is for anthropogenic global warming among relevant scientists. And the news isn’t good for Al Gore, nor for Barack Obama, who sees climate change as our number one national security threat.

The widely cited figure of 97% of scientists supporting man made global warming theory has always been a fraud:

     "…a Canada-based group calling itself Friends of Science has just completed a review of the four main studies used to document the alleged consensus and found that only 1 - 3% of respondents "explicitly stated agreement with the IPCC declarations on global warming," and that there was "no agreement with a catastrophic view."

    "These 'consensus' surveys appear to be used as a 'social proof,'" says Ken Gregory, research director of Friends of Science. "Just because a science paper includes the words 'global climate change' this does not define the cause, impact or possible mitigation. The 97% claim is contrived in all cases."

    The Oreskes (2004) study claimed 75% consensus and a "remarkable lack of disagreement" by the other 25% of the abstracts she reviewed. Peiser (2005) re-ran her survey and found major discrepancies. Only 1.2% or 13 scientists out of 1,117 agreed with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) view that human activity is the main cause of global warming since 1950."

Investor’s Business Daily reveals the devastating new research:

    "….a peer-reviewed paper showing that only 36% of 1,077 geoscientists and engineers surveyed believe in the man-made global warming crisis as defined by the United Nations' Kyoto model.

    According to the paper, the Kyoto position expresses "the strong belief that climate change is happening, that it is not a normal cycle of nature, and humans are the main or central cause."

    Thirty-six percent is not insignificant. But it certainly is a long way from the oft-cited 97% "consensus" among scientists that man is causing temperatures to change.

    Researchers behind "Science or Science Fiction? Professionals' Discursive Construction of Climate Change," which appeared in Organization Studies, also found "the proportion of papers" collected from a science database "that explicitly endorsed anthropogenic climate change has fallen from 75%" between 1993 and 2003 "to 45% from 2004 to 2008."

    The Heartland Institute's James Taylor reminds us in Forbes that "survey results show geoscientists (also known as earth scientists) and engineers hold similar views as meteorologists. Two recent surveys of meteorologists revealed similar skepticism of alarmist global warming claims."

A 36% consensus definitely is less impressive than 97%. In fact, it is a minority view.

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I can’t stand this heat, but it has nothing to do with global warming

The inimitable Boris Johnson reports on his office Christmas party

It was the office Christmas party, and for a few brief minutes we broke off from our labours for the annual ping-pong challenge. We took the chairs out from around the big table in my office, and put some books down the middle – and soon we were whacking the ball to and fro with metronomic rhythm and serpentine guile.

"And then I had a ghastly vision. What if this is it? What if winter is over – for ever?"

After a while, I noticed an embarrassing problem. Perhaps it was the wine. Or maybe it was the exertion required to fend off the challenge from some of these fit, young staffers (and I don’t believe in letting them win, I can tell you). It could have been the choice of shirt – that shade of blue is always a risk. At any rate, I was conscious of a dampness in the torso area – and I stared down with horror. I was awash; I looked like an advertisement for antiperspirant. Do you remember that chap in the Harry & Paul sketches – Brian Farnet from Friern Barnet, who gets into a total lather on Question Time? That’s how I looked – as though someone had soused me with a bucket of warm water. It was stifling in here!

I rushed to the window. I opened one. I opened another – and I closed my eyes and waited for the cooling breeze. Then I opened my eyes, and wafted my hand in amazement in front of the window. Hot damn: the air coming in – from the streets of London in December – was, if anything, actually warmer than the air in my office, which had itself been raised to Reptile House temperatures by the ping-pong. What in blazes was going on?

And then I had a ghastly vision. What if this is it? What if this is the long-awaited inflexion point – the moment that has been prophesied since the Eighties? What if winter is over – for ever?

Aaargh, I thought: and in that moment of horror, I contemplated the loss of something so intrinsic to our psychology. Imagine: no more snow. No more tobogganing on Primrose Hill, no more waking up to see the magic prints of the dog on the lawn.

Imagine if this unseasonably warm spell is just the beginning of a long period of meteorological mediocrity: no more ice on the canal, no lovely crispness in the air, no excuse to walk into a room with a fire and go “brrr” while theatrically rubbing your hands.

"In my despair, I rang the great physicist and meteorologist Piers Corbyn. You know, Jeremy's brother"

Imagine if we have nothing in these long, dark months save a muggy and melancholy mildness, soft, damp and unwholesome; nothing but rain and a louring grey sky pressing down on our hungover eyeballs. The thought made me feel almost unwell.

In my despair, I rang the great physicist and meteorologist Piers Corbyn. You know Piers: he is the older brother of Jezza, and he is famous for believing that the world – on the whole – is getting colder, and that the whole global warming theory is unsound, to say the least. Piers thinks that whatever the role of humanity in affecting the temperature of the planet, that role is pitifully trivial next to the Sun, the supercolossal boiling ball of gas about which we revolve and which enables life on Earth.

In the view of Piers and his colleagues at WeatherAction, it is all about sun spots, and he is on record as believing that we are now due for a new “Maunder Minimum” – like the famous cold spell in the 17th century, when the Thames froze several times.

“Piers,” I said – and I felt like the children of Israel, denouncing Jeremiah for getting it wrong – “what about the new Ice Age? Where is it?”

And Piers did his best to calm me down. “Helmsman!” he said (since that is how he addresses me). “Relax. Winter has not gone.” And he went on to argue, quite persuasively, that there are plenty of places that are really very cold at the moment – the west of the USA, for instance. He reminded me of the prodigious snows that hit the eastern seaboard of America last winter. Yes, it is warm in the UK at the moment – amazingly warm – but the UK and its territorial waters amount to only one six-hundredth of the planet.

The current mild spell would last till the end of January, he said, and it would then turn bitterly cold in February. Whatever is happening to the weather at the moment, he said, it is nothing to do with the conventional doctrine of climate change.

And there, of course, he is in agreement with the vast majority of mainstream science. Meteorologists of all kinds – climate change sceptics and believers – can see the difference between climate and weather; between randomly occurring changes and deep, long-term trends.

We ordinary human beings are not so rational; we are no different from all earlier cultures in that we have to put ourselves in the story, and to attribute this or that individual weather event to our own behaviour or moral failures. Think of Agamemnon at Aulis, unable to get the wind he needed to sail for Troy. What was the problem? He had shot a deer sacred to Artemis. And the solution? Sacrifice his daughter! It was all about him, him, him.

Scientists look at the data. But everyone else just looks at the weather – and it is the weather, therefore, that makes the psychological difference to the debate. Look at the recent summit in Paris, which ended in a good agreement to cut CO2, in contrast to the debacle at Copenhagen six years ago. What was the real difference? It was the weather. Paris was ridiculously warm for December. Six years ago, Copenhagen saw the biggest snowfalls anyone could remember. “Global warming?” everyone asked.

It is fantastic news that the world has agreed to cut pollution and help people save money, but I am sure that those global leaders were driven by a primitive fear that the present ambient warm weather is somehow caused by humanity; and that fear – as far as I understand the science – is equally without foundation.

There may be all kinds of reasons why I was sweating at ping-pong – but they don’t include global warming.

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Global warming is a scientific boogeyman

Greg Caffrey

As a geologist, I am more convinced than ever that the man-caused global warming fad is a scientific house of cards.

So-called "carbon pollution" is a nonsense term, a boogeyman that exists only in the rhetoric of lazy minds and careless tongues.

Carbon dioxide is a natural part of the atmosphere. It is vital to the growth of plants. It is harmless to human health. It does not drive climate.

Accordingly, the EPA's Clean Power Plan is simultaneously both frivolous and corrupt; a destructive fraud at every level.

Tellingly, the EPA does not expect the plan to result in noticeably different atmospheric temperature. Instead -- and these are their words -- it's "to show the commitment of the United States."

Translation: It is a self-abusive national gimmick that will accomplish nothing while absolving the EPA of any accountability for measurable results.

If you think that is outrageous and insane, you're right.

But did you seriously expect anything else from an attempt to regulate a boogeyman?

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