Headline-Grabbing Global Warming Study Suffers From A Major Math Error

The recent headline-grabbing study that claimed global warming was heating the oceans up faster than expected suffers from a major math error, according to two researchers.

The study, which was published in a prestigious scientific journal at the end of October, put forward results suggesting global warming was much worse than previously believed. The media ate the results up.

Independent scientist Nic Lewis found the study had “apparently serious (but surely inadvertent) errors in the underlying calculations.” Lewis’ findings were quickly corroborated by another researcher.

Numerous media outlets uncritically highlighted the study’s findings. The Washington Post, for example, reported the work suggested “Earth could be set to warm even faster than predicted.”

The Post’s coverage of the “startling” climate study was echoed by The New York Times, which claimed the study suggested global warming “has been more closely in line with scientists’ worst-case scenarios.”

The BBC warned “[t]his could make it much more difficult to keep global warming within safe levels this century.”

However, Lewis found the new paper’s findings stemmed from a math error. Lewis said “a quick review of the first page of the paper was sufficient to raise doubts as to the accuracy of its results.”

“Just a few hours of analysis and calculations, based only on published information, was sufficient to uncover apparently serious (but surely inadvertent) errors in the underlying calculations,” Lewis wrote in a blog post published on climate scientist Judith Curry’s website.

Lewis found the study’s authors, led by Princeton University scientist Laure Resplandy, erred in calculating the linear trend of estimated ocean warming between 1991 and 2016. Lewis has also criticized climate model predictions, which generally over-predict warming.

Resplandy and her colleagues estimated ocean heat by measuring the volume of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the atmosphere. The results: the oceans took up 60 percent more heat than previously thought. The study only sent alarm bells ringing, especially in the wake of the United Nations’ latest climate assessment.

“The planet warmed more than we thought. It was hidden from us just because we didn’t sample it right. But it was there. It was in the ocean already,” Resplandy told The Post at the end of October.

After correcting for the error, however, Lewis found the paper’s ocean warming rate “is about average compared with the other estimates they showed, and below the average for 1993–2016.”

Lewis’ results were replicated by University of Colorado professor Roger Pielke, Jr., who shared his analysis via Twitter on Tuesday.

"Lewis is correct that the linear trends reported by Resplandy et al are not matched by what the data indicate. See figure below which I just created based on data provided by Resplandy et al.
Mistakes happen in science, that's no crime. What matters more is what you do next"

Resplandy and her co-authors hoped their study would resolve problems many scientists have with measuring ocean temperatures before the use of Argo floats in 2007. Before then, scientists patched together data from boat engine intakes, buckets and buoys to measure ocean heat.

However, Resplandy did not respond to Lewis about the errors he found in her paper. “To date I have had no substantive response from her, despite subsequently sending a further email containing the key analysis sections from a draft of this article,” Lewis wrote on Tuesday.

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‘Green Wave’ Crashes, Environmentalists Blame Oil Companies

Not only did a Democratic “blue wave” fail to materialize on Tuesday night, the “green wave” of major global warming and energy-related ballot measures largely failed to get voter approval as well.

Voters in Arizona, Colorado and Washington rejected measures aimed at fighting global warming, despite two of those states being in Democratic hands.

The “Green New Deal” pundits gushed over in Washington state went down in flames, with voters overwhelmingly rejecting a state ballot measure to tax carbon dioxide emissions, despite its support from Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee.

Washingtonians voted against the carbon tax initiative 56 percent to 43 percent, according to state election officials.

“The voters have spoken,” Tom Pyle, president of the free market American Energy Alliance, said in an emailed statement.

“It’s time to listen to them and focus on policies that expand the availability, affordability, and reliability of energy, rather than on policies that makes energy more scarce, more expensive, and less reliable,” said Pyle, a former Trump transition team leader opposed to carbon taxes.

Environmentalists argue the oil industry’s $30 million cash influx into the ballot measure campaign tipped the scales, compared to the more than $15 million spent by carbon tax supporters.

“Democrats did not quite get the blue wave they wanted, but it was even worse for environmentalists,” The New Republic’s Emily Atkin wrote on Wednesday, before blaming, in part, spending by energy producers. “There was no green wave whatsoever.”

However, Washington voters rejected a similar carbon tax measure in 2016, and Inslee was forced to admit defeat earlier this year trying to pass a carbon tax through the state legislature.

In Arizona, voters rejected liberal billionaire Tom Steyer’s campaign to increase Arizona’s green energy mandate from 15 percent by 2025 to 50 percent by 2030. Steyer’s campaign group, NextGen Climate Action, spent about $23 million backing the ballot measure.

Utility groups, including the owner of the state’s largest utility, spent nearly $31 million opposing Steyer’s effort. Nearly 70 percent of voters rejected the ballot measure, with only about 30 percent supporting it.

Steyer, however, was successful in getting Nevada voters to support a similar measure that was on the ballot in Arizona. Nevadans voted nearly 59 percent to 41 percent to increase the state’s green energy mandate to 50 percent by 2030.

NextGen pumped more than $10 million into the ballot campaign, but there was no group registered opposing the ballot — the group the Coalition of Energy Users did work against the green mandate increase, but their spending was not registered on Ballotpedia.

Environmentalists also saw voters overwhelmingly reject a measure that would have effectively banned new hydraulic fracturing operations in most of the state. Voters rejected the measure nearly 57 percent to 43 percent.

In that campaign, the oil and gas industry led opposition forces in spending more than $30 million to defeat the anti-fracking initiative, which would have required a 2,500-foot buffer between drilling and “vulnerable” areas.

Environmentalists only spent about $1.2 million in support of the anti-fracking measure, but the spending failure could stem from the fact Democrats were divided on the issue. Prominent Democrats, including former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and former Governor Bill Ritter, opposed the de facto fracking ban.

“Proposition 112 would have hurt more than just the natural gas and oil industry, as seventy-seven percent of the 43,000 jobs it would have eliminated in year one would have come from outside the energy sector,” said Colorado Petroleum Council executive director Tracee Bentley in a statement.

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Oil drilling stocks surge after Colorado voters reject restrictions on industry

Oil and gas companies with operations in Colorado are seeing their shares jump after voters rejected a ballot proposal that would have placed tough restrictions on drilling in the Centennial State.

Colorado's proposition 112 would have prohibited energy companies from drilling within about half a mile from homes, schools, businesses and water sources. The measure would have cut the state's projected oil and gas output roughly in half by 2023, according to an estimate by S&P Global Platts Analytics.

Shares of Bonanza Creek Energy and Extraction Oil & Gas, two drillers that produce solely from Colorado's Wattenberg Field, surged about 9.5 percent and 13.5 percent, respectively. Shares of PDC Energy, another Wattenberg player, were up nearly 8 percent shortly after the opening bell on Wednesday.

Shares of more diversified drillers with a footprint in Colorado were also higher. Anadarko Petroleum's shares rose 6.5 percent in premarket trading, while Noble Energy's stock price jumped nearly 4 percent.

While Colorado voters rejected Proposition 112, they made Democratic Jared Polis their new governor. Polis campaigned on generating 100 percent of Colorado's electric power from renewable energy sources by 2040.

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Going Backwards on Settled Science< /b>

On everything from climate to gender, leftists have an agenda of using science to manipulate

Global warming is far from the most pressing issue on voters’ minds. According to Reuters, just 16% said they feel motivated to vote because of climate change, which pales in comparison to the 84% who said they don’t. On a related matter, Reuters also found that 37.1% would “consider this issue as one of many important factors” when voting. This is slightly above the 30.7% who responded that “this issue will not impact” their ballots.

Given just how much we hear about the alarming state of the climate, why is global warming so low on voters’ totem pole? A big reason is the outcome of climate predictions. Not only has Al Gore proven to be a false prophet, but computer models are anywhere from 30% to 45% overzealous on warming, polar bears are alive and well, impropriety regarding the handling of temperature data is rampant, and frankly, most Americans enjoy global warming. It’s also good for things like U.S. corn yields — contrary, of course, to what we were told.

Yet there’s another related reason, and it has to do with where the scientific body is heading. Two examples tell the story. The New York Times recently ran a piece titled “Anatomy Does Not Determine Gender, Experts Say” wherein the author asserts, “Defining gender as a condition determined strictly by a person’s genitals is based on a notion that doctors and scientists abandoned long ago as oversimplified and often medically meaningless.”

A few days later, some 1,600 scientists cosigned a statement in which they bellowed, “As scientists, we are compelled to write to you, our elected representatives, about the current administration’s proposal to legally define gender as a binary condition determined at birth, based on genitalia, and with plans to clarify disputes using ‘genetic testing’. This proposal is fundamentally inconsistent not only with science, but also with ethical practices, human rights, and basic dignity.”

Keep in mind, we’re not debating rocket science or space physics in these instances. We’re literally fighting over common sense and whether or not there are even two genders. The XX and XY chromosomes are what we can unequivocally refer to as “settled science,” yet the scientific body is going backwards by suggesting everything in life is relative. For this reason, it’s not inappropriate at all to ask the question: Why shouldn’t we question the prevailing narrative on climate change?

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Australian students plan school strikes to protest against climate inaction

Government by children?  Greenie parents behind it, no doubt

Hundreds of students around the country are preparing to strike from school because of what they say is a failure by politicians to recognise climate change as an emergency.

They’ve been inspired by 15-year-old Greta Thunberg, a Swedish student who has been sitting outside the parliament in central Stockholm to draw attention to the fears younger generations hold about the global climate crisis and the failure of countries to take urgent action.

Fourteen-year-old Milou Albrecht, a year 8 student at Castlemaine Steiner school in Victoria, her classmate Harriet O’Shea Carre, and 11-year-old Callum Bridgefoot from Castlemaine North primary school, started by protesting last week outside of the offices of their local representatives, the Labor MP Lisa Chester and the Nationals deputy leader, Bridget McKenzie. They’ve been joined by 50 students from local schools and are planning weekly events.

And what began as a small local protest is growing into a nationwide movement. Students in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Perth, Hobart, the Whitsundays, Lismore, the Gold Coast, Albury-Wodonga and the Sunshine Coast are planning to walk out of classes this month.

Similar plans are being explored in other regional areas including Coffs Harbour, Cairns, Townsville and the southern highlands of New South Wales. Hundreds of students have indicated they want to attend protests outside state parliaments in the capital cities on 28, 29 and 30 November.

The idea for the strikes came from the Castlemaine students, who contacted the Australian Youth Climate Coalition for help.

They have had assistance from the coalition and their parents with contacting media, building a website and spreading the word about the strikes through their social networks.

“We think it’s important because it’s a huge problem,” Milou said. “The Earth is already too hot, with droughts in winter in NSW and the coral reef is dying.”

She said students were speaking to Greta in Sweden each week. “I would like our politicians to acknowledge climate change is an emergency and take the necessary steps in order to have a sustainable world,” she said.

A 14-year-old Fort Street high school student, Jean Hinchliffe, is organising the Sydney walkout on 30 November. She said there was a template letter students who were worried about taking time off class could give to their teachers.

“We’ve got involved because at this stage we can’t vote, we’re not politicians and we want to make a difference,” she said. “We can’t stand around waiting.

“I think it’s because climate change is scary seeing that it’s our future. This is a fact and not to be debated.”

SOURCE 

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