Tuesday, May 21, 2019



Chinese researchers find the OPPOSITE of what global warming theory predicts -- in a study of Antarctic ice 1978–2016

They found lots of ups and downs in sea ice extent but a significant trend towards MORE ice.

They were however mostly interested in what caused the fluctuations, in particular the very low ice cover in February 2011 and the big bounceback the year after.  They attributed it to variations in cloud cover. No mention of CO2

And they found that clouds had a COOLING effect, which is the exact opposite of what global warming theory says.  Warmists say that a warmer climate will produce more clouds -- which it well may do -- but then go on to say that the clouds will produce warming

They also note that trends in the Arctic are very different,  which rules out any global process being involved.  But by definition can you have ANY global process that does not include the poles?


The Contributions of Winter Cloud Anomalies in 2011 to the Summer Sea‐Ice Rebound in 2012 in the Antarctic

Yunhe Wang et al.

Abstract

Antarctic sea‐ice extent exhibits a modest positive trend in the period of near four decades. In recent years, the fluctuation in Antarctic sea ice has been strengthened, including a decrease toward the lowest sea‐ice extent in February 2011 for the period of 1978–2016 and a strong rebound in the summer of 2012. The sea‐ice recovery mainly occurs in the Weddell Sea, Bellingshausen Sea, Amundsen Sea, southern Ross Sea, and the eastern Somov Sea. This study offers a new mechanism for this summertime sea‐ice rebound. We demonstrate that cloud‐fraction anomalies in winter 2011 contributed to the positive Antarctic sea‐ice anomaly in summer 2012.

The results show that the negative cloud‐fraction anomalies in winter 2011 related to the large‐scale atmospheric circulation resulted in a substantial negative surface‐radiation budget, which cooled the surface and promoted more sea‐ice growth. The sea‐ice growth anomalies due to the negative cloud forcing propagated by sea‐ice motion vectors from September 2011 to January 2012. The distribution of the sea‐ice anomalies corresponded well with the sea‐ice concentration anomalies in February 2012 in the Weddell Sea and eastern Somov Sea. Thus, negative cloud‐fraction anomalies in winter can play a vital role in the following summer sea‐ice distribution.

Introduction

Contrasting to Arctic sea ice, which has decreased in all seasons and at nearly all locations (Comiso et al.,2017; Liu, Lin, Kong, et al., 2016; Liu, Lin, Wang, et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2018), the sea‐ice extent (SIE)around Antarctica has displayed a marked seasonal cycle (Polvani & Smith, 2013) and a modest, but statis-tically significant, positive trend since 1979 (Hobbs et al., 2016; Holland, 2014; Simmonds, 2015). Also, different regional trend distributions exist in Antarctic sea‐ice with rapid sea‐ice loss in the Amundsen Sea and Bellingshausen Sea, while significant and moderate ice gain in the Ross Sea and Weddell Sea, respectively. Large cancellations from different sectors have resulted in a net positive trend in the Antarctic totalSIE (Parkinson & Cavalieri, 2008).However, the causes of the Antarctic sea‐ice expansion remain a matter of debate, which could be caused by anthropogenic and natural factors. Some mechanisms have been suggested. Liu and Curry (2010) suggested that increased precipitation in the warming climate is an attributable factor for the current Antarctic sea‐icegrowth. In an ice‐ocean modeling study, Zhang (2014) suggested that strengthened westerlies increasesea‐ice volume by producing more ridged ice, which leads to sea ice more resilient to melting. There wasa hypothesis that increased surface freshwater from the Antarctic continent and enhanced snowfall promotesea‐ice expansion by stabilizing the upper water column (Rignot et al., 2013), which increases upper‐oceanstratification and suppresses oceanic heat transport (Bintanja et al., 2013; Liu & Curry, 2010). In addition,the dipole pattern of the Pacific sector, combined with increasing sea ice in the Ross Sea and decreasingice in the Bellingshausen Sea, has been ascribed to strengthening the Amundsen Sea low (Clem & Fogt,2015; Fogt et al., 2012; Meehl et al., 2016; Raphael et al., 2016; Turner et al., 2016). Moreover, these sea‐ice trend patterns around Antarctica have been attributed to interdecadal variability (Fan et al., 2014;Gagné et al., 2015), sea‐surface temperature warming in the tropical Pacific (Clem & Fogt, 2015), andatmospheric intrinsic variability in the Antarctic (Turner et al., 2016

Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 2018, Volume 124, Issue 6





Guardian Concocts Scarier Term For ‘Global Warming’ — Global Heating

Leftist verbal magic again.  They think they can change the nature of a thing by renaming it

The Guardian newspaper has decided to change the name ‘global warming’ because it doesn’t sound scary enough. From now on, the Guardian‘s editor-in-chief Kath Viner has ordered, ‘global warming’ is to be called ‘global heating.’

This, apparently, will more closely reflect the “scale of the climate and wildlife crises” now afflicting Mother Gaia.

The use of the names like ‘climate science denier’ or ‘climate denier’ for ‘climate skeptic’ makes Ms. Viner’s claim that the Guardian is trying to be more ‘scientifically precise and rooted in facts’ look nonsensical.

For a start, it presupposes that ‘climate science’ is a field with a fixed view of how climate works – which simply isn’t true. There are lots of competing theories on what it is that drives climate.

While climate alarmists insist that recent warming is primarily man-made and driven by anthropogenic CO2, many other respected scientists believe it is due to a combination of factors, ranging from solar activity to cycles in the deep ocean.

There is, in essence, no such thing as a ‘climate science denier’ because not even the most ardent skeptic denies the existence of ‘climate science’.

Even more problematic is that use of the word ‘denier’, which implicitly invokes the Holocaust – and in doing so, weirdly and irresponsibly puts ‘being skeptical about anthropogenic global warming’ in the same category as ‘denying that Hitler murdered six million Jews.’

"The next time someone talks about “climate change deniers,” ask them to name one — and tell you just where specifically you can find their words, declaring that climates do not change. You can bet the rent money that they cannot tell you"

There are scientists on both sides of that issue. Presumably, the issue could be debated on the basis of evidence and analysis.

But this has become a political crusade, and political issues tend to be settled by political means, of which demonizing the opposition with catchwords is one.

The Guardian is tacitly admitting that this is not an argument it is capable of winning on the science or indeed the facts. Therefore, it has decided to ramp up the rhetoric instead.

There’s a name for what it’s doing and it’s not ‘journalism’.  The word – just in case Ms. Viner feels like adding it to the Guardian style guide – is ‘propaganda.’

SOURCE





Ending Obama EPA climate deception

Let’s finally review Endangerment Finding used to justify trillions in climate and energy costs

Paul Driessen

In December 2009, the Obama Environmental Protection Agency issued its Endangerment Finding (EF) – decreeing that carbon dioxide (CO2) and other “greenhouse gases” (GHGs) endanger the health and welfare of Americans. In the process, EPA ignored the incredible economic, health and welfare benefits of fossil fuels – and the fact that (even at just 0.04% of the atmosphere) carbon dioxide is the miracle molecule that enables plants to grow and makes nearly all live on Earth possible.

EPA turned CO2 into a “dangerous pollutant” and ruled that fossil fuels must be eradicated. The agency subsequently used its EF to justify tens of billions of dollars in climate research, anti-fossil fuel regulations, and wind and solar subsidies; President Obama’s signing of the Paris climate treaty; and proposals to spend trillions of dollars a year on Green New Deal (GND) programs.

And yet, despite multiple demands that this be done, there has never been any formal, public review of the EF conclusion or of the secretive process EPA employed to ensure the result of its “analysis” could only be “endangerment” – and no awkward questions or public hearings would get in the way.

Review, transparency and accountability may finally be on the way, however, in the form of potential Executive Branch actions. If they occur – and they certainly should – both are likely to find that there is no valid scientific basis for the EF, and EPA violated important federal procedural rules in rendering its predetermined EF outcome. (One could even say the EF was obtained primarily because of prosecutorial misconduct, a kangaroo court proceeding, and scientific fraud.) Failure to examine and reverse the EF would mean it hangs like Damocles’ sword over the USA, awaiting another climate-focused president.

To the consternation and outrage of climate alarmists, keep-fossil-fuels-in-the-ground radicals, and predictable politicians and pundits, President Trump may soon appoint a Presidential Committee on Climate Change, to review “dangerous manmade climate change” reports by federal agencies.

Meanwhile, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has filed a formal petition with EPA, asking that the agency stop utilizing and relying on the EF – and instead subject the finding to a proper “high level” peer review, as required by the Information Quality Act. The reasoning presented in CEI’s succinct and persuasive petition is compelling. Its main points are these.

* EPA’s Endangerment Finding and the Technical Support Document (TSD) that supposedly justifies it did not meet Information Quality Act (IQA) requirements for how the work should have been done.

* The agency’s evaluation of the then-current climate change and related science was clearly a “highly influential scientific assessment” (HISA), which triggered important IQA and OMB rules governing rulemakings that have “a potential impact of more than $500 million in any year” … or present “novel, controversial or precedent-setting” changes … or would likely raise “significant interagency interest.”

* EPA’s “Clean Power Plan” to shut down coal-fired power plants alone would cost $2.5 billion in annual compliance costs, EPA admitted. Its motor vehicle rules would cost tens of billions. The Paris agreement and GND would add trillions per year in costs to the US economy. All are based on the EF. And all were certainly controversial and generated significant interest by multiple other government agencies.

* EPA deliberately downplayed the significance of its review and decision, ignored the IQA and OMB requirements, and refused to allow citizens, independent energy, climate and health experts, or even scientific and professional societies to nominate potential reviewers or participate in the EF analysis.

* Instead, the agency utilized an entirely internal review process, designed and conducted entirely by its own federal employees. Those employees had substantial conflicts of interest, because they were reviewing their own scientific work; would be writing, implementing and enforcing regulations based on that work; and had jobs and professional status that might be affected by the outcome of their review.

[The review team even summarily dismissed one of EPA’s most senior energy and economic experts, because his probing analyses and comments “do not help the legal or policy case” for the EF decision.]

* EPA never allowed the general public or scientific, energy, health or economic experts to review its draft scientific assessment; never sponsored any public meetings; and never let its internal peer reviewers see any of the public comments that outside experts and organizations submitted to the agency.

* In fact, none of the EPA peer review panel’s questions and responses have ever been made public.

Each of these actions violated specific IQA and OMB peer review guidelines. Indeed, two years after the Endangerment Finding was issued, even EPA’s own Inspector General found that that agency had violated rules governing all of these matters. And yet even then nothing was done to correct them.

The entire Obama EPA process smells like a crooked prosecutor who framed CO2 and was determined to get a conviction. The agency built its entire case on tainted, circumstantial evidence, and testimony from agency officials who had conflicts of interest and their own reasons for wanting CO2 convicted of endangering Americans. EPA reviewers ignored or hid exculpatory evidence and colluded to prevent witnesses for the CO2 defendant from presenting any defense or cross-examining agency witnesses.

A full reexamination now is essential, and not just because the Obama EPA violated every procedural rule in the books. But because EPA ignored volumes of climate science that contradicted its preordained EF finding. Because real-world climate and weather observations consistently contradict alarmist computer models and headlines. Because science is never settled … must never be driven by ideology … and must be reevaluated when new scientific evidence is discovered – or evidence of misbehavior is uncovered.

We know far more about Earth’s climate and have far more and better data than a decade ago. But climatologists still cannot explain why our planet experienced multiple ice ages and interglacial periods, Roman and Medieval warm periods, the Little Ice Age, or Anasazi, Mayan and Dust Bowl droughts.

And yet some of them insist they can accurately predict calamitous temperatures, weather events and extinctions 10, 20, 100 years from now – based on computer models whose temperature predictions are already a degree Fahrenheit above what satellites are measuring … and that rely primarily or solely on carbon dioxide, while downplaying or ignoring fluctuations in solar energy and cosmic ray output, the reflective properties of clouds, El Niño events, ocean current shifts, and other powerful natural forces.

And then, in the face of all that uncertainty and politicized science, they demand that the United States slash or eliminate its fossil fuel use – and that the poorest nations on Earth continue to forego fossil fuel development, and instead remain wracked by joblessness, misery, disease, malnutrition and early death.

Thankfully, poor countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America are building or planning more than 2,000 coal and gas-fueled generating plants. They deserve to be freed from dictatorial carbon-colonialism and eco-manslaughter – and to become as wealthy, healthy and vibrant as modern industrialized nations that also relied on fossil fuels to develop … and are still 80% dependent on those fuels today.

But if those countries are building fossil fuel power plants, driving millions more cars and trucks, and emitting multiple times more CO2 and other GHGs than the United States – why should the USA slash or eliminate its coal, oil and natural gas? Why should we roll back our job creation, living standards, health and welfare, based on the IPCC’s junk science and EPA’s fraudulent Endangerment Finding?

For unfathomable reasons, a few White House advisors still oppose any PCCS or IQA-triggered review of the EF or junk/fraudulent science behind it. Perhaps they are too closely tied to the Deep State or invested financially or ideologically in the $2-trillion-per-year Climate-Industrial Complex. But whatever their reasons, they must be ignored in favor of science and the national interest. Let’s get the job done – now!

Write to President Trump: Ask him to appoint his Presidential Committee on Climate Science – and instruct the EPA to agree to the CEI petition and review the 2009 Endangerment Finding forthwith!

Via email





Five years of the Labour Party's "watermelon" policies would ruin Britain

Take Corbyn’s energy and environment policies, which have been leaked to the press. Here’s the Telegraph‘s take:

Jeremy Corbyn has drawn up plans to take control of Britain’s energy networks in a multi-billion pound power-grab modelled on the nationalisation of Northern Rock.

A leaked Labour party document has revealed plans for a swift and sweeping renationalization of the country’s £62bn energy networks at a price decided by Parliament.

Under the plans the energy companies will fall under the control of a newly formed public body, the National Energy Agency. The quango will control the energy system while operating the high voltage wires. It will also oversee a matrix of so-called “regional energy agencies” that will advance Labour’s plans to tackle climate change.

The agencies will be tasked with sourcing low carbon or renewable sources for 60pc of all energy use by 2030. They will also oversee the rollout of electric vehicle charging networks and new energy storage projects across the country.

Like John Constable at the Global Warming Policy Foundation, I have little sympathy for the big energy companies threatened with nationalization – nor, frankly, with their shareholders.

As Constable points out the UK energy industry is not about the creation of value but is essentially just a form of subsidy farming.

The big energy firms could have resisted. They could have said: “Look. Our job is to generate the power needed to keep the lights on in Britain as cheaply and efficiently as possible. Leave us out of your green politicking.”

But the easy money from rising prices and growing subsidies was just too tempting. Big energy colluded with the government by pretending that rising energy prices had nothing to do with green levies and climate targets.

When everyone finally wakes up to the degree to which their energy bills have been artificially inflated by climate change nonsense, the energy companies are going to be even less popular than they are already.

According to Constable:

It is obvious that energy and climate policies already accounted for a large a fraction of the price in 2014, prices being 17% higher than they would have been in the absence of policies. By 2020 policies were predicted to make prices 37% higher, and 41% higher in 2030.

And that’s just on the current trajectory. It doesn’t require much imagination to appreciate how much more energy bills will soar if Labour gets in and starts erecting still more bat-chomping bird-slicing eco-crucifixes as part of its renewables/low carbon “60pc of all energy use by 2030” target.

Before we start getting too cross about Labour’s watermelon lunacy, though, let’s remind ourselves which party has been in charge of Britain’s energy policy since 2010. The Conservatives.

The Conservatives, in other words, have had nearly ten years in office to demonstrate that on energy, they can be more fiscally responsible, consumer-friendly and evidence-driven than its left wing/green opponents.

Instead, they have bought wholesale into the anti-capitalist, anti-market, anti-science, anti-consumer, anti-freedom green agenda – killing through overregulation the nascent UK fracking industry, pouring more taxpayer subsidies into crony capitalist boondoggles like solar energy and offshore wind.

There are a few politicians who totally get this – from The Brexit Party’s Nigel Farage and UKIP’s Gerard Batten to, in the Conservatives, Liz Truss, Priti Patel, Owen Paterson and Jacob Rees-Mogg (whom I interviewed this week for Breitbart – watch this space!).

I hope these are the kind of people who are in office once the current storm afflicting British politics has blown over.

And let us pray that when that moment comes, we won’t have had to endure an interregnum by Jeremy Corbyn and his watermelon loons beforehand. The birds and the bats and the British countryside, not to mention the UK economy, would never forgive us.

SOURCE





The recent Australian Federal election: North Queensland MP  reveals how anti-coal extremists of the Left blew their chances in six must-win Queensland seats

Losing the whole of Queensland North of Brisbane was an amazing loss.  And there was no doubt why:  Leftist opposition to new coal mines.  Had they won those seats they would be in government now

Bob Katter has launched a blistering attack against Deputy Opposition Leader Tanya Plibersek, claiming her comments cost Labor the 'unloseable' election.

The maverick MP said the potential future leader of the Labor party was out of touch with Queensland voters, and that her stance against coal mines alienated constituents in the regions.

'Tanya Plibersek ran amok,' the MP for the seat of Kennedy in north Queensland told Sky News.

'She was out there denigrating the coal industry and saying it will phase out. To say that on the eve of an election in which there are six marginal seats in north Queensland in the coal belt is absolutely disastrous.'

The seats in question include Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton's northern Brisbane seat of Dickson and the Townsville-based seat of Herbert.

George Christensen is expected to return to his marginal seat of Dawson while the Coalition also managed to retain the seats of Flynn, Capricornia and Leichhardt.

'The ALP were certain on the polls to take all six seats, but she and a bunch of loud mouthed extremists that have an immense amount of power in the Labor movement... they blew it to smithereens,' Mr Katter said.

Ms Plibersek has been vocal in her opposition to the Adani coal mine in Queensland.

She previously said Australians 'can't rely on an Indian mining company to bring jobs to central and north Queensland'.

She also said she was sceptical Adani would bring as many jobs to the region as it had promised, and believed backers may have underestimated the impact it could have on the environment.

Labor was accused of alienating their core electorate with policies that were too progressive and divisive on climate change and negative gearing.

Older Australians in particular appeared to turn on Labor over the controversial plan to scrap franking credits for self-funded retirees.

Labor's climate change policy and stance on Adani was at odds with many voters who wanted the new coal mine, which has promised to provide hundreds of jobs in regions struggling against drought and high levels of unemployment.

Liberal Senator Arthur Sinodinos said the result could be partially explained by those opposing the Adani project being seen as anti-jobs.

'Adani became about jobs. It became emblematic of 'we want jobs' and the Bob Brown caravan which went up there to talk about stopping Adani had locals thinking, 'hang on, you are not going to tell us how to live',' he said.

Tax cuts and ministry changes will be Mr Morrison's agenda as the nation awaits the final results of the federal election.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison looks likely to win 77 seats, allowing him to appoint a Speaker and govern in majority.

Out of three close seats listed on the Australian Electoral Commission website on Monday, the Liberals were on track to win Chisholm in Victoria and Bass in Tasmania, with Labor holding the NSW seat of Macquarie.

If the current count trends continue, this will give the Liberals 77 seats in the 151-seat House of Representatives, with Labor on 68 and six crossbenchers.

SOURCE 

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