Maldives

"a very surprising result"

It is increasingly difficult to take the mainstream media seriously. Today's example is from the Washington Post (timed to coincide with the Peru conference, of course).

Fall snow cover in Northern Hemisphere was most extensive on record, even with temperatures at high mark

At least they admit this is a "surprising result." No, a "very" surprising result. Here's how the article starts: 

In 46 years of records, more snow covered the Northern Hemisphere this fall than any other time. It is a very surprising result, especially when you consider temperatures have tracked warmest on record over the same period.

Data from Rutgers University Global Snow Lab show the fall Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent exceeded 22 million square kilometers, exceeding the previous greatest fall extent recorded in 1976.

The rest of the article tries to make the point that "record high temperatures" in 2014 have led to increased snow because warmer air holds more moisture! How many readers of the Washington Post are ignorant enough to believe that?

Notice how the snow coverage grows as the planet supposedly gets warmer. Except the albedo effect (more snow = more reflection of the sun's energy) is supposed to cool off the planet. Declining ice was supposed to be a death spiral; i.e., lack of ice in the Arctic meant the ocean would absorb more heat, year after year, until the ice was all gone. 

Instead, the "death spiral" seems to be death by snow!

Here is a reader comment that sums it up:

FORWARNED

11:55 AM MST

Key point the media always glosses over: When the government says it's the warmest year "on record," they aren't referring to actual historical records. They are referring to "adjusted" historical records. NOAA has been revising historical data lower by far more than the latest "record."  
If you look at actual historical data, 2014 is far from the hottest year on record. That's how we can have record sea ice (including growing Arctic ice extent) and record snow cover even though this is supposedly the hottest year ever.  
It's true that warmer air can hold more moisture, but "global warming" isn't changing the laws of physics. At the freezing temperatures necessary for snow and ice, moisture content doesn't change.


NOTE: I also came across Tony's comments:

Wildly Corrupt Government Climate Science

Posted on December 5, 2014by stevengoddard

It has been obvious since about April that government agencies had been instructed to make 2014 the hottest year ever. But this headline in the Washington Post summed up the fraud in spectacular fashion.

Fall snow cover in Northern Hemisphere was most extensive on record, even with temperatures at high mark – The Washington Post

The record snow extent this autumn was due to record intrusions of cold air to low latitudes in North America and Asia. Obviously not compatible with record heat.

But it gets must worse. Last winter also had well above average snow cover.

Antarctica had record sea ice cover this year.

iphone.anomaly.antarctic.png (512×412)

The amount of sea ice on Earth is above normal.

iphone.anomaly.global.png (512×412)

Arctic sea ice extent is at a 10 year high

http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/old_icecover.uk.php

The Greenland ice sheet has gained a record amount of ice this Autumn.

Greenland Ice Sheet Surface Mass Budget: DMI

Satellite temperatures are far more accurate than surface temperatures, and they show that temperatures are not warming, and are nowhere near a record.

Wood for Trees: Interactive Graphs

The surface temperature record which the claims are based on has huge geographical gaps of no data, shown in gray. They have an error of at least half a degree, yet make claims of record heat at 0.01 degrees. Junk science and fraud at its absolute worst.

It is not a coincidence that these wildly fake claims of record heat came out just as Obama and the UN are doing their big push to take control of the world’s energy supply through “climate” regulations.

And even with all their endless data tampering, GISS is still below zero emissions scenario C.

These claims of record heat by NASA and NCDC are not even remotely credible. They are in defiance of all corroborating science, and are complete utter nonsense.

One aspect of the climate change debate that most surprises my students is the fact that historical temperatures have been adjusted downward, which if course makes current temperatures appear higher by comparison. That's why we have so many records reported in the media.

In this case, we see the comparison between British measurements of global temperatures. The older one, Hadcrut3, shows lower historical temperatures than the newer one, Hadcrut4. The Met Office claims 2014 is the hottest year on record, but their adjustments to historical temperatures are ten times the amount of the so-called record. IOW, if they didn't adjust historical temperatures downward, we'd be nowhere near a record high year in 2014.

This entry was originally posted on NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

Records & Adjustments

DECEMBER 4, 2014

By Paul Homewood  

While the Met Office tell us that that global temperatures for 2014 are running 0.01C above the previous record (with an error margin of 0.1C!), we should remember how much their temperature data has changed over the last few years.

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/HadCRUT3-gl.dat

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/current/time_series/HadCRUT.4.3.0.0.monthly_ns_avg.txt

[The latest update of the old V3 is only up to May 2014]

In their Hadcrut V3, 1998 was 0.07C warmer than 2010, but is now shown as 0.02C cooler, a turnaround of 0.09C. Current year numbers, at least up to May, have been similarly inflated.

So, the adjustment is nearly ten times the amount by which the old record is claimed to have been beaten by!

CO2 theory questioned at MIT

There is a very odd study out of MIT, summarized thus:
Researchers show that a canonical view of global warming tells only half the story

Outgoing longwave radiation from CERES Instrument on NASA Aqua Satellite for March 18, 2011, near Vernal Equinox of 2011

Courtesy of NASA

I'm not sure what to make of this. Basically, they say that rising CO2 will not block more longwave radiation from leaving the atmosphere, but that the Earth will heat up because the atmosphere will absorb more incoming shortwave radiation.

Here's what the article says:

They found the answer by drawing on both computer simulations and a simple energy-balance model. As longwave radiation gets trapped by CO2, the Earth starts to warm, impacting various parts of the climate system. Sea ice and snow cover melt, turning brilliant white reflectors of sunlight into darker spots. The atmosphere grows moister because warmer air can hold more water vapor, which absorbs more shortwave radiation. Both of these feedbacks lessen the amount of shortwave radiation that bounces back into space, and the planet warms rapidly at the surface.

But in reality, we are seeing more and more sea ice and snow cover, which completely contradicts the basic predictions of the CO2/global warming theory. My initial reaction to this MIT study is that it shows the CO2 effect is already pretty well saturated; i.e., additional concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will not block more longwave radiation, which means it will have no impact on global warming (which is also what the data shows for the last 18 years). This also means that we will not have the death spiral of sea ice that the alarmists long predicted. Instead, the global sea ice will continue to expand, and the Arctic will continue the current trend toward more sea ice until it reaches the peak of the cycle in a few decades. Then it will cycle downward again, like it has since around 1978.

Tony Heller thinks this: The takeaway from the article is that the authors believe that Mann-made global warming is nonsense, but can’t say it for political reasons.

Maybe he's right, but I suspect the researchers were just repeating the "consensus" view that, despite the actual facts, the Arctic sea ice will continue to melt and the late summer sun at the north pole will somehow heat the exposed water enough to change the planet.

I'm laughing writing this, the theory is so absurd.

:)

Global sea ice

Today I read a typically bizarre article by Seth Borenstein of the AP. He's famous for promoting the idea that global warming will produce more snow because warmer air can hold more water, ignoring the facts that it can't snow when the temperatures are above freezing (i.e., no matter how warm the planet gets, the cold air necessary for snow can't hold more water), and that colder winters have more snow and more big snow storms.

At any rate, in his most recent article, Borenstein mentions the current international climate conference underway in Lima, Peru. To set the stage, he lists a series of misleading, outdated, and falsified "facts" to promote his thesis that "the numbers are stark." In typical fashion, he claims that Greenland lost 3.35 trillion tons of ice between 1992 and 2011, that Antarctica lost 1.56 trillion tons of ice over that same period, and, of course, that the Arctic sea ice average is off around 600,000 square miles, on average.

Yet in reality, global sea ice has increased 700,000 square kilometers over the past decade and is rising.

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/timeseries.global.anom.1979-2008

This reality is the opposite of Borenstein's claims, as well as the predictions of climate scientists.

In addition, the snow extent in North America has been rising since the 1960s, also contrary to the climate models and scientists' predictions.

http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/table_area.php?ui_set=1&ui_sort=0

Finally, regarding Greenland, the actual data show increasing accumulated surface mass balance.

http://beta.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/

There is a good discussion of Greenland at Tony Heller's blog. See the discussion in the comments, too.

We continue to see the real world contradict both the predictions and the theories of the alarmists such as Seth Borenstein. The only question now is at what point these alarmists will recognize how foolish they look. Will they ever adjust their theories to reality?

Historical perspective - 1954

The year I was born, 1954, 60 years ago, featured climate change like we haven't seen since.

The summer of 1954 brought one the the worst heatwaves in US history. Afternoon temperatures at Columbus, Kansas reached 117 degrees and averaged a mind boggling 100 degrees for the entire summer!

Half of the US was experiencing severe or extreme drought. Compare that to 2014, when CO2 levels were far higher and politicians are citing drought as proof of climate change.

Hurricanes in the 1050s that struck New England were far more common and severe than any time since.

Three major hurricanes hit the US that summer, including two (Carol and Edna) which hit New England within 10 days. They were the last major hurricanes to hit New England.

The third major hurricane (Hazel) was one of the most destructive in US and Canadian history.

Hurricane Carol was among the worst tropical cyclones on record to affect the New England region of the United States. It developed from a tropical wave near the Bahamas on August 25, 1954, and slowly strengthened as it moved northwestward. On August 27, Carol intensified to reach winds of 105 mph (170 km/h), but weakened as its motion turned to a northwest drift. A strong trough of low pressure turned the hurricane northeastward, and Carol later intensified into a major hurricane.[nb 1] While paralleling the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States, the storm produced strong winds and rough seas that caused minor coastal flooding and slight damage to houses in North Carolina, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Delaware, and New Jersey. The well-organized hurricane accelerated north-northeastward and made landfall on Long Island, New York, and Connecticut on August 31 near peak intensity. Early on the following day, Carol transitioned into an extratropical cyclone over New Hampshire. In New York, strong winds on Long Island damaged about 1,000 houses, left 275,000 people without electricity, downed many trees, and resulted in heavy crop losses. Storm surge flooded LaGuardia Airport and inundated the Montauk Highway, which left the eastern portion of Long Island isolated. Carol also brought strong winds and rough seas to New England. Throughout the region, about 150,000 people were left without electricity and telephone service. 1,545 houses were destroyed and another 9,720 were damaged. Approximately 3,500 cars and 3,000 boats were destroyed. There were 65 deaths and 1,000 injuries in New England. Overall, Carol caused 68 fatalities and damage totaled about $460 million (1954 USD),[nb 2] making it the costliest hurricane in the history of the United States, at the time. Following the storm, Carol was retired, becoming the first name to be removed from the naming lists in the Atlantic basin.

Hurricane Carol – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hurricane Edna was a deadly and destructive major hurricane that impacted the United States East Coast in September of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. It was one of two hurricanes to strike Massachusetts in that year, the other being Hurricane Carol. The fifth tropical cyclone and storm of the season, as well as the fourth hurricane and second major hurricane, Edna developed from a tropical wave on September 2. Moving towards the north-northwest, Edna skirted the northern Leeward Islands as a tropical depression before turning more towards the west. The depression attained tropical storm status to the east of Puerto Rico and strengthened further to reach hurricane status by September 7. The storm rapidly intensified and reached its peak intensity of 120 mph (195 km/h) north of the Bahamas before weakening to Category 1 status near landfall in Massachusetts on September 11. Edna transitioned into an extratropical cyclone in Atlantic Canada before its remnants dissipated in the northern Atlantic. Edna caused 20 fatalities throughout its lifetime as a tropical cyclone, as well as a moderate amount of damage. It first caused rainfall-induced flooding in Puerto Rico, and it later brushed the Bahamas. High waves affected the coastline of North Carolina. Edna resulted in the heaviest day of rainfall in New York City in 45 years, while strong waves cut off Montauk from the remainder of Long Island. There were six highway deaths in the state, and $1.5 million in crop damage. There were widespread evacuations in southern New England, after Hurricane Carol struck the same area only 11 days prior. Strong winds caused extensive power outages for 260,000 people, including nearly all of Cape Cod. Edna became the costliest hurricane in the history of Maine, where the hurricane caused flooding that washed out roads and rail lines. There were 21 deaths in New England, eight of whom in Maine due to drownings. Later, high winds severely damaged crops in Atlantic Canada.

Hurricane Edna – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hurricane Hazel was the deadliest and costliest hurricane of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm killed as many as 1,000 people in Haiti before striking the United States near the border between North and South Carolina, as a Category 4 hurricane. After causing 95 fatalities in the US, Hazel struck Canada as an extratropical storm, raising the death toll by 81 people, mostly in Toronto. As a result of the high death toll and the damage Hazel caused, its name was retired from use for North Atlantic hurricanes. In Haiti, Hazel destroyed 40% of the coffee trees and 50% of the cacao crop, affecting the economy for several years to come. The hurricane made landfall in the Carolinas, and destroyed most waterfront dwellings near its point of impact. From Carolina, it traveled north along the Atlantic coast. Hazel affected Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York; it brought gusts near 160 km/h (100 mph) and caused $308 million (1954 USD) in damage. When it was over Pennsylvannia, Hazel consolidated with a cold front, and turned northwest towards Canada. When it hit Ontario as an extratropical storm, rivers and streams in and around Toronto, Ontario overflowed their banks, which caused severe flooding. As a result, many residential areas located in the local floodplains, such as the Raymore Drive area, were subsequently converted to parkland. In Canada alone, over C$135 million (2009: $1.1 billion) of damage was incurred.

Hurricane Hazel – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Already below zero emissions scenario

The UN, President Obama, and many EU member states insist that we must cut CO2 emissions to prevent global warming/climate change/climate disruption. As the following chart shows, the Earth is already below the projected scenario for no further CO2 emissions.

Consequently there is no climate-based reason to cut CO2 emissions.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to do so, including conservation of resources for future generations and promoting improved efficiency. These are rarely discussed, however. Instead, the elitists are using the phony climate justification to pursue their version of social justice, which will reduce the standard of living in developed countries, but will also repress developing countries.

The net result will be an impaired capacity to adapt to whatever climatic changes do occur, as well as the ordinary climate extremes experienced by the planet throughout its history.

CO2 drives NCDC Data Tampering

This entry is reposted from Tony's blog because this is critical to understanding the data reported by the federal government through NOAA's National Climate Data Center, which has become completely politicized.

CO2 Drives NCDC Data Tampering

Posted on October 2, 2014by stevengoddard

I wish I could say the data below is a joke, but it isn’t.  USHCN temperature adjustments correlate almost perfectly with atmospheric CO2

US temperatures have not warmed over the past century (blue line below) – but NCDC alters the data to create the appearance of warming (red line below)

They accomplish this through a spectacular hockey stick of data tampering, which cools the past and warms the present.

 

Note the exponential growth of tampering, particularly over the past 15 years, which is very similar to the growth of CO2.

So I tried correlating the magnitude of the tampering with the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and found almost perfect correlation – shown below.

CO2 causes all kinds of great evil, but who would have guessed that it directly causes NCDC to release scientifically meaningless global warming propaganda?

Again, this sounds like a joke – but it isn’t. They are actually tampering with temperature data in unison with the rise in CO2. Difficult to believe this accidental.

The non-melting Arctic

We continue to see media reports about the imminent collapse of the Arctic ice, despite the reality that the ice is not disappearing. Here's an example of what the media is reporting, and why it is not credible.

Climate Science Integrity In A Death Spiral

Posted on September 28, 2014by stevengoddard

Check out this spectacular piece of work in the Sunday Times

THE Arctic ice cap has melted so much that open water is now just 350 miles from the North Pole, the shortest distance recorded, scientists say.

Arctic ice cap in ‘death spiral’ | The Sunday Times

Let’s look at the fraudulent science one piece at a time.

The amount of ice has increased by 60% since 2012, shown in green below. Scientists cherry picked one spot which lied along a boundary between high an low pressure system, where the winds blew persistently towards the pole all summer. Most of the Arctic saw a huge expansion in ice.

Next they quote Wadhams saying the Arctic will be ice free in 2015.

His credibility melted away quite suddenly in 2013.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013′

Then they claim that the ice used to be five metres thick

Unfortunately for these crooks, we have actual records showing that the ice was only two metres thick in 1940 – the same as it is now according to numbers derived from PIOMAS and UIUC.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/

The whole Arctic scam is a complete fraud. There has been a massive increase in extent, area, thickness and age of the ice over the past three years. The loss of ice from 1988 was due to winter winds which pushed huge volumes of ice out in the North Atlantic, and have since reversed – and the ice is growing back. These scientists are either incompetent, dishonest or both.

Temperatures near the North Pole were below normal every single day of the melt season this year, and first or second coldest on record.

 COI | Centre for Ocean and Ice | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut

Naive activists

Click on the link below to see this nonsense in context. 

“The turnout for the march included communists, anarchists, socialists”

Posted on September 26, 2014by stevengoddard

“The turnout for the march included communists, anarchists, socialists, democrats, unions, feminists, children, etc,” Chu said

“College students are the first generation of humans affected by climate change and the last generation who can change it,“ Chu said

U.N. Summit heats up climate change debate | The Daily Helmsman

All of the frozen Greenland Vikings and extinct Anasazi will be thrilled to learn that they weren’t affected by climate change. Apparently Steinbeck isn’t on the college curriculum any more, either.

"Climate change" baseline and adjustments

The "data" on "climate change" are critical elements of the debate, so it is critical for people to understand what is going on here.

1. Historical temperature data has been "adjusted" downward. There are explanations for this that make some sense, but the explanations don't hold up to examination in most cases. For example, the Federal Government has reduced historical global temperatures even during periods when the Arctic ice was melting, we had heat waves and drought, etc.

2. The Government is "filling the gaps" with interpolated data. In some cases, weather stations have been moved or terminated. In other cases, we don't have weather stations (such as much of Antarctica and Africa). In both situations, the Federal Government has filled these gaps with higher temperatures than surrounding areas, thereby raising the global average temperatures.

3. The 1979 baseline for Arctic ice is a peak in both ice extent and cold temperatures. This means that the trend after 1979 would be downward (for ice) and upward (for temperature) just to reach any sort of average. Climate alarmists have used these trends to extrapolate the future. It's a nonsensical approach, but one that President Obama and other government officials have embraced.

Here's a repost of some helpful analysis and charts that I recommend. The original links are embedded in the headlines.

Understanding How To Commit Fraud As A Government Climate Scientist

Posted on September 25, 2014by stevengoddard

Government climate scientists typically start their graphs in 1979 – the year of peak Arctic sea ice, which was up two million km² from 1974.

 

1979 was the coldest year on record in the eastern Arctic. By cherry picking 1979, they turn a long term cooling trend into a sharp warming trend.

 

1979 was also the coldest winter on record in the US

Scientists use 1979 satellite launches as an excuse, but there was plenty of other data available.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Understanding NASA Press Releases

Posted on September 25, 2014by stevengoddard

NASA announced a day or two ago that Arctic sea ice was “the sixth lowest on record”

What they meant by this is that Arctic sea ice is second highest of the past decade, and the minimum was up 60% from two years ago.

COI | Centre for Ocean and Ice | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut

Green shows the gain in ice over the past week.

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

What Makes Alarmists So Stupid?

Posted on September 24, 2014by stevengoddard

One of the things which makes alarmists stupid is that several climate monitoring satellites were launched in 1979 – the coldest year on record in the US and the much of the Arctic. Then these geniuses draw straight lines beginning in 1979, and come to idiotic conclusions which would fail a middle school science exam.

Posted in Uncategorized | 32 Comments

More Confused Thermometers

Posted on September 24, 2014by stevengoddard

Last night WTOP said “upper 50’s downtown, and upper 40’s in outlying areas.“

We know that is impossible, because NCDC says that UHI is only 0.1ºF. NCDC couldn’t possibly be off by a factor of 100. The thermometers must be wrong.

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Glaciers Were Disappearing During NASA’s Coldest Years Ever

Posted on September 24, 2014by stevengoddard

Gavin and his crack team of scientists tell us that the decade prior to 1922 was the coldest on record.

Fig.A2.gif (658×474)

The people who lived at the time reported something completely different.  Unheard of heat and disappearing Arctic glaciers.

docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/050/mwr-050-11-0589a.pdf

1921 was the hottest year on record in Illinois.

One might come to the conclusion that NASA temperature data is propaganda, rather than science.

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Scientists Weren’t Always As Stupid As They Are Now

Posted on September 24, 2014by stevengoddard

In 1951, scientists blamed shrinking glaciers, disappearing lakes, and frightened birds – on increased solar output. The Great Salt Lake lost half of its volume between 1850 and 1950.

15 Oct 1951 – WORLD IS WARMER Glaciers Melting

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Arctic Sea Ice Has Grown 300 Miles In The Beaufort Sea Since 2012

Posted on September 24, 2014by stevengoddard

Green shows ice gain since 2012. Red shows ice loss.

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Arctic Sea Ice Extent Is Second Highest In A Decade, And Highest In Nine Years

Posted on September 24, 2014by stevengoddard

 COI | Centre for Ocean and Ice | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments