Climate change and other predictions of Imminent Doom

[Simple Minded]

well... it sure beats giving that money to the Greeks.... they would only waste it!

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/germa ... le/2525949

Europe is spending billions of tax dollars to delay global warming by less than two days because they’re “too proud” to stop subsidizing a non-competitive industry, Danish environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg said Saturday.

“We’re certainly paying a very large amount of money to have the bragging rights for Germany having the most solar and Denmark having the most wind,” Lomborg told Fox News’ John Stossel. “The Germans are paying about $110 billion on subsidies for these solar panels. The net effect for all of those investments will be to postpone global warming by 37 hours by the end of the century.”

Lomborg, a left-leaning environmentalist and author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” said the threat of global warming is real, but Europe isn’t addressing it the right way.......

[Doc]

The flash video at the end of the article is extremely informative.

http://a-sceptical-mind.com/the-hockey- ... ce-cores-2

In the past two decades the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) has undertaken a long program of work which has reconstructed past temperatures based on ice core samples taken from the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets. This very significant research programme can construct a very accurate temperature record for Greenland and Antarctica going going back hundreds of thousands of years.

The animation below shows this temperature reconstruction based on NOAA data stepping back in time. The animation places the current Hockey Stick graph in a progressively larger climate history.

You can judge for yourself if the warming in the 20th century is ‘unprecedented’

[Typhoon]

Dr. Ken Green: "Deeply Skeptical of current climate models."

Says Mr Green: "computer models never predicted an 18 year temperature pause"

Yes. Except that...



... There is no such thing as a "18 year temperature pause"...

Gone back to sleep. Nothing new about man-made climate heating... as usual.

Oh?

Even a journal as biased as Nature discusses the ‘global-warming hiatus’:

http://www.nature.com/news/climate-chan ... at-1.14525

And Trenberth's "missing heat hiding the in the deep oceans" just so story, promoted in the Nature article, on why the climate models disagree with reality
is likely not even wrong:

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10. ... 14-00550.1

Vertical Redistribution of Oceanic Heat Content

Xinfeng Liang*
Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139

Carl Wunsch
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02139

Patrick Heimbach and Gael Forget
Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139.



Abstract
Estimated values of recent oceanic heat uptake are of order of a few tenths of a W/m^2, and are a very small residual of air-sea exchanges with annual average regional magnitudes of hundreds of W/m2. Using a dynamically consistent state estimate, the redistribution of heat within the ocean is calculated over a 20-year period. The 20-year mean vertical heat flux shows strong variations in both the lateral and vertical directions, consistent with the ocean being a dynamically active and spatially complex heat exchanger. Between mixing and advection, the two processes determining the vertical heat transport in the deep ocean, advection plays a more important role in setting the spatial patterns of vertical heat exchange and its temporal variations. The global integral of vertical heat flux shows an upward heat transport in the deep ocean, suggesting a cooling trend in the deep ocean. These results support an inference that the near-surface thermal properties of the ocean are a consequence, at least in part, of internal redistributions of heat, some of which must reflect water that has undergone long trajectories since last exposure to the atmosphere. The small residual heat exchange with the atmosphere today is unlikely to represent the interaction with an ocean that was in thermal equilibrium at the start of global warming. An analogy is drawn with carbon-14 “reservoir ages” which range over hundreds to a thousand years.

[Doc]

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/05 ... n-a-guess/

Polar Temperature Recordings ‘Proving’ Climate Change Nothing More than a Guess

by Donna Rachel Edmunds15 May 2015563

Temperature readings from the Arctic and Antarctic used to estimate the effects of global warming are nothing more than guesswork, a climate researcher has said. Dr Benny Peiser heads up the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which last month announced its intention to launch a wide-ranging review of the data underpinning claims on global warming.

The review was launched primarily in response to interested parties flagging up major discrepancies between data gathered from weather stations, which marked 2014 out as the hottest year on record, and data gathered from satellites, which showed no warming for over 18 years. The scale of the discrepancy lead to accusations that weather station data had been “adjusted”, thereby exaggerating the effects of global warming, something which the Foundation is keen to investigate.

The review panel, headed by Professor Terence Kealey, the former vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham, will be taking submissions for evidence until the 30th June, but Dr Peiser has said that questions and concerns have already been raised about how the discrepancy could have come about.


“There’s a lack of clarity, a lack of transparency and a growing concern about what is going on,” he told the Express. “Given these concerns, we thought there must be a better way of answering these questions.

“This is not about anthropogenic or man-made climate change, this is about whether the gatekeepers of the data, the meteorological agencies, are providing reliable information.”

Dr Peiser raised concerns that some researchers who contribute to the temperature records have been outspoken in their views on climate change, saying: “People ask why they are the gatekeepers of the data if they have such strong opinions. Should they really be the guardians of data quality and high standards?

“As in every scientific venture, there should be quality checks just to make sure people know exactly what is happening. In a way, this inquiry is a quality control exercise.”

Inevitably, some of those whose careers depend on global warming have hit back, accusing Dr Peiser and the research panel team of conducting nothing more than a “political stunt”.

Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science, admitted that some temperature records had been altered, but argued that the changes were insignificant.

“The adjustments make no significant difference to the obvious upward trend in global average temperature over the last century,” he said.

“The Foundation is a political lobby group, and funded by secret donors, not a transparent scientific organisation.

“I suspect that it simply wants to manufacture doubt about the temperature records to create a distraction while countries are negotiating a new international treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions, to be agreed at a summit in Paris at the end of this year.”

Ward insisted that the alterations were legitimate as they were monitored by outside bodies, amongst them Britain’s Met Office. But the Met Office has itself been unequivocal in its support for the belief that human activity is driving catastrophic climate change.

On its website, the Met Office states: “There’s overwhelming and growing evidence that the warming is due to vastly increased – and still increasing – quantities of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.”

On another page, entitled “Impacts of Climate Change”, the Met Office states: “Higher temperatures, fresh water shortages, higher sea levels and extreme weather events will each affect regions differently.

“The planet faces a range of scenarios depending on the level of continuing greenhouse gas emissions. Some change is inevitable but the extent and severity of long-term climate disruption depends on future emissions.”

Threats to food security, poverty and “disasters” are all listed as likely outcomes of climate change.

Data adjustments are not the only issue raised so far by the review. Dr Peiser also highlighted the practice of “infilling” data where a lack of weather stations means no real world readings are being taken. Without gathering real world data, these data points are nothing more than guesswork.

And he said there were problems both with the siting of weather stations, and with differences arising between technologies.

“In some areas there are hardly any weather stations so [the figures] have to be filled in, so they [meteorological agencies] kind of estimate. Particularly in the Arctic and Antarctic, there are very few weather stations so you have to make a lot of infilling.

“Then there are other problems. Obviously you have to adjust temperatures for growing cities and so therefore this will have an effect on local temperatures.

“Different technologies will also produce different readings, simply because the technology has changed and you have to take that into account.

“But all these adjustments, you would expect, should balance each other out. So you should expect that some of the adjustments will reduce the temperatures and some adjustments will make them warmer.

“The panel will look at whether the adjustments are all going in one direction or are they all balanced.”

Accompanying Professor Kealey on the panel are Petr Chylek, Richard McNider, Roman Mureika, Roger A Pielke Sr and William van Wijngaarden, all of whom are associated with North American universities. Their findings are expected to be released later this year.

[Doc]

Oldest Antarctic research station may have to be closed or moved....

......Because there is too much sea ice.

http://news.discovery.com/adventure/ant ... 150512.htm

Antarctic Sea Ice May Force Research Stations to Move

May 12, 2015 12:20 PM ET // by AFP

Growing sea ice surrounding Antarctica could prompt scientists to consider relocating research stations on the continent, according to the operations manager of the Australian Antarctic Division.

Rob Wooding said that resupplying Australia's Mawson Station -- the longest continuously operated outpost in Antarctica -- relied on access to a bay, a task increasingly complicated by sea ice blocking the way.


"We are noticing that the sea ice situation is becoming more difficult," Wooding told a media briefing on Monday ahead of two days of meetings between top Antarctic science and logistics experts in Hobart, the capital of Tasmania.

Wooding said that at Mawson, the ice typically only breaks up for one or two months of the summer, but in the last four to six years this has not happened every year, and some years only partially.


"In the 2013-4 season we couldn't get anywhere near Mawson due to the sea ice and we had to get fuel in there by helicopter which is inadequate for the long-term sustainability of the station," he said, adding that the French and Japanese had similar problems.

Wooding said Australia had not yet come close to shutting down a base because of sea ice, but had to look at "unusual measures" to keep operating.

Tony Worby, from an Australian centre studying Antarctic climate and ecosystems, said that in contrast to the Arctic where global warming is causing ice to melt and glaciers to shrink, sea ice around Antarcticawas increasing.

It hit a new record in September last year, with the US-based National Snow and Ice Data Center reporting that the ice averaged 20.0 million square kilometres (7.72 million square miles) during the month.

Scientists have struggled to predict sea ice conditions, which are believed to be affected by the strong winds of the Southern Ocean which can push the ice out from the continent of Antarctica.

This does not happen in the Arctic because the ocean is hemmed in by land masses.

"We know that the changing Antarctic sea ice extent is very largely driven by changes in wind," Worby said.

Local conditions can also have a dramatic effect, with icebergs sometimes unpredictably grounding themselves in inconvenient locations and staying there for years as more sea ice builds around them.

Wooding said potential solutions included using large aircraft to deliver crucial fuel and other supplies to the outposts, as well as hovercraft, or funding other ways to resupply stations.

"I think a lot of it really will revolve around perhaps shifting more to an over-ice approach, or to even thinking about where your stations are located -- I think (that) is something that will have to be looked at over time as well," he said.

"There are some spots that may become more difficult for operations."

Worby said he did not believe the ice would become so thick that operations would become impossible.

But he told the briefing: "It's almost an inevitability that we are going to get ships stuck occasionally -- it's just the nature of working down in Antarctica."

He said because the ice was thickest around the continent, sometimes several meters, logistics teams could unload heavy equipment such as tractors off ships and drive them ashore.

Worby added that while Antarctic sea ice was increasing, the overall net trend remained modest while a significant component of the increase seen recently could be natural variability.

[Typhoon]

Dr. Ken Green: "Deeply Skeptical of current climate models."

Says Mr Green: "computer models never predicted an 18 year temperature pause"

Yes. Except that...



... There is no such thing as a "18 year temperature pause"...

Gone back to sleep. Nothing new about man-made climate heating... as usual.

A certain fellow by the name Peter Thorne has this to say about the non-existence of the global warming pause/hiatus/slowdown/whatever as claimed by climate alarmists

As a contributor to the hiatus box in IPCC AR5 and an author and reviewer of several relevant papers frankly this whole thing is depressing and shows extreme naivety as to what constitutes the scientific process and the accrual and acceptance of scientific knowledge. Indeed the only relevant part is the final sentence. That as climate scientists we have to develop thick skins.

To maintain that as scientists we should not investigate the pause / hiatus / slowdown (there I used the phrase ...) is downright disingenuous and dangerous. It is important to understand all aspects of climate science and that includes recent and possible future decadal timescale variability and its causes. We all experience climatic variability so we should understand it. The large volume of papers on the hiatus will undoubtedly have served to improve our knowledge of climate variability and the climate system and will almost certainly lead to improved climate projections in future through improved climate modelling.

If it had been decided to ignore the hiatus then those benefits and insights would not have accrued. So what if some of those papers resulted from segments of society asking questions about this? First, its an entirely reasonable and policy relevant question because what has caused it has very real implications as to what we should do vis-a-vis short-term adaptation decisions. Second, even if it weren't a reasonable question, then it would still be entirely reasonable to address it to explicitly head off mis-conceptions.

So, this whole thing is a side-show and as such depressing.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... t-52286021

And whose is this woefully misguided MMGW a.k.a. MMCC denier might you ask?

Professor Peter Thorne

Lead Author on 5th Assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the 2014 US National Climate Assessment.
Lead Author on the US CCSP1.1 report on atmospheric temperature trends.

Of course, the MMGW zealots commenting at the Guardian did not take to kindly to having their faith questioned and eventually Prof. Thorne had had it

[Some zealot's name here] sorry but I have not misrepresented what Lewandowsky said. For example in the penultimate paragraph:

In climate science, we see a similar phenomenon of non-experts challenging an established body of evidence that has converged on the conclusion that global warming is unequivocal and in all likelihood due to human industrial and agricultural activity. But in this case we see scientists not only responding to these contrarian claims, but publishing a significant number of papers in peer-reviewed journals to try to explain them. In effect, scientists came to doubt their own conclusions, and felt compelled to do more work to further strengthen them, even if this meant discarding previously accepted standards of statistical practice.

Is impossible for me to reconcile this text as being anything other than direct criticism of the work of myself and more importantly very many other very well respected and extremely well qualified scientists (many of whom have published hundreds of papers on many areas of the science and I am proud to count as friends as well as colleagues) on recent global mean surface temperature trends and their causes and implications.

In particular the 'statistical practices' sentence is an assertion with precisely zero basis in reality. As such, it is highly offensive.

This paper and the resulting discussion is very definitely not a way to win friends or influence people. Bear in mind that the norm is to read the abstract then conclusions before deciding whether to read the remainder and frankly my take home has been that this paper is an unhelpful and unwarranted criticism of our significant work in the area. Work that I have no doubts has added substantially to the scientific knowledge basis. Sorry if that offends you somehow. My twitter feed says I am far from alone amongst my colleagues in concluding this.

I would also note that despite using both HadCRUT4 and GISTEMP in their figures I see no reference to Morice et al., 2012 or Hansen et al., 2010. Its hardly as if they seemed crushed for space on references. There is absolutely no excuse whatsoever for using datasets and not citing the papers underlying. None. Period. I would go as far as to assert that it is indicative of seepage of the worst of blog practices into the peer reviewed literature. A basic premise of the literature is to cite sources. Its kind of paper writing 101 here. Its not as if the references are not available on the same websites as the data is downloaded from.

Finally, and not directly in response to your comment here ... but having skimmed the comments as a whole I am also appalled by the treatment of Richard Betts on this thread. Richard is a climate scientist of considerable standing who has written many seminal papers and leads the EU Helix project which looks at possible high end climate impacts. He has also contributed to several IPCC products. When the commenters treat scientists like this the end result is to put vast swathes of the science community off engaging with the public and the end result is that society is the loser.

Some of the smarter climate scientists appear have had it with being told by Lysenko-type pseudo-scientists such as Mann, Cook, Lewandowsky, Oreskes, Plait, and others as to what questions they can ask, what research they can do, and what findings and conclusions they should report.

[Doc]

Global Sea Ice Back to 1979 Levels … Ice Has “Moved” from Arctic to Antarctic

Posted on May 21, 2015 by WashingtonsBlog


New charts from the University of Illinois’ Department of Atmospheric Sciences (based upon data provided by NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Prediction) show something odd.

Specifically, the new data shows that global sea ice is back to 1979 levels … but that that sea ice has “moved” from the Arctic to the Antarctic (in the sense that sea ice has increased in the Antarctic but decreased in the Arctic):

In fact the Antarctic has gained almost double the amount of ice the Arctic has lost sine 1979

Graphs at the link:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/05/ ... rctic.html

[Azrael]

Global Sea Ice Back to 1979 Levels … Ice Has “Moved” from Arctic to Antarctic

Posted on May 21, 2015 by WashingtonsBlog


New charts from the University of Illinois’ Department of Atmospheric Sciences (based upon data provided by NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Prediction) show something odd.

Specifically, the new data shows that global sea ice is back to 1979 levels … but that that sea ice has “moved” from the Arctic to the Antarctic (in the sense that sea ice has increased in the Antarctic but decreased in the Arctic):

In fact the Antarctic has gained almost double the amount of ice the Arctic has lost sine 1979

Graphs at the link:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/05/ ... rctic.html

It could be due to warmer temperatures in the Antarctic. The Antarctic is the coldest place in the world. Very cold places tend to be very dry. As the Antarctic gets warmer, it gets more snow, while still being below freezing.

[Typhoon]

Inside the war on coal

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/20 ... oal-000002

What really keeps the lights on

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/20 ... art-000009

[Doc]

Reports Of The Death Of The Global Warming Pause Are Greatly Exaggerated
Date: 04/06/15

Global Warming Policy Forum

The paper by Karl et al. (2015) published today in Science is an ‘express’ report and not up to the standards of a comprehensive paper. It is a highly speculative and slight paper that produces a statistically marginal result by cherry-picking time intervals, resulting in a global temperature graph that is at odds with all other surface temperature datasets, as well as those compiled via satellite.

Key pitfalls of the paper:


* The authors have produced adjustments that are at odds with all other surface temperature datasets, as well as those compiled via satellite.

* They do not include any data from the Argo array that is the world’s best coherent data set on ocean temperatures.

* Adjustments are largely to sea surface temperatures (SST) and appear to align ship measurements of SST with night marine air temperature (NMAT) estimates, which have their own data bias problems.

* The extend of the largest SST adjustment made over the hiatus period, supposedly to reflect a continuing change in ship observations (from buckets to engine intake thermometers) is not justified by any evidence as to the magnitude of the appropriate adjustment, which appears to be far smaller.


1. They make 11 changes (not all are explained) producing the ERSSTv4 Sea Surface Temperature (SST) dataset that includes new estimates for the different way SSTs are measured from ships (intake or buckets). They also add 0.12°C to each buoy to bring their measurements in line with those taken from ships. These issues have been raised before by the UK Met Office when compiling their HadSST3 ocean surface temperature dataset, see, ‘A review of uncertainty in in situ measurements and data sets of sea surface temperature’

2. The greatest changes are made since 1998, which is interesting because this is when we have the highest quality of data and global coverage using several methods. Only this analysis finds any increase in global annual average surface temperature over this “hiatus” period. The authors have produced a dataset that is at odds with other surface temperature datasets, as well as those compiled via satellite.

3. The authors start their trend estimates in 1998 and 2000. This has long been considered unwise as 1998 is a very strong El Nino year and 1999-2000 is a much cooler La Nina period. The difference between them distorts their trend estimates. For example, their 1998-2014 trend is 0.106+/- 0.058°C per decade. Starting two years later (during La Nina influenced years) yields a trend of 0.116 +/- 0.067°C per decade as one would expect from starting at a lower temperature. Ignoring these caveats the authors say their analysis produces twice as much warming for 1998-2014 than earlier estimates. Their conclusion is, ironically, based on inbuilt biases in their analysis.

Their Fig 1 shows that when using their updates it is only with the use of these inappropriate start and end points that the “hiatus” is reduced.



4. Even with the 11 changes to their SST database and the problem of start and end dates the authors admit that the statistical significance of their results is only significant at the 0.10 level, and in some cases not even that.

“I believe their estimates of the error in their decadal trend figures are far too small. They quote the error in a 15-year period to a precision of one thousandth of a degree C. In their report the authors admit that their error analysis is not definitive and that looking at them another way invalidates their trend conclusions,” said Dr David Whitehouse, science editor of the GWPF.

5. Note that trends that include 2014 and 2015 must be treated with caution due to a recently persistent very warm feature in the NE Pacific that is affecting global SST estimates.

6. In addition, they do not include any data from the Argo array that is our best coherent data set on ocean temperatures. The authors state this is because Argo temperature data is not surface data. However, ship-derived temperatures can be from as much as 15 m below the surface. The Argo array samples 5 m below the top of the ocean. From 2004 to 2013 it shows considerable variation and little trend. The non-ARGO data aptly demonstrates the problem of starting trend analysis in 1998 or 2000.

Source: ‘Unabated planetary warming and its ocean structure since 2006′ Nature Climate Change, 2 February 2015. Black line: 5 m optimally interpolated (OI) ARGO; red lines: NOAA OI SST v2


7. Their conclusions are also at odds with satellite data that shows no trend in the past 16-years or so.

Source: http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/index.html and http://www.remss.com/research/climate

8. Extending a change in ship observations (from buckets to engine intake thermometers) to the present time had the largest impact on the SST adjustments over the hiatus period, per Karl et al 2015:


“Second, there was a large change in ship observations (i.e., from buckets to engine intake thermometers) that peaked immediately prior to World War II. The previous version of ERSST assumed that no ship corrections were necessary after this time, but recently improved metadata (18) reveal that some ships continued to take bucket observations even up to the present day. Therefore, one of the improvements to ERSST version 4 is extending the ship-bias correction to the present, based on information derived from comparisons with night marine air temperatures. Of the 11 improvements in ERSST version 4 (13), the continuation of the ship correction had the largest impact on trends for the 2000-2014 time period, accounting for 0.030°C of the 0.064°C trend difference with version 3b.”


Ref (18) is a 2011 paper by Kennedy et al. It states (paragraph 3.1):


“Dating the switchover from uninsulated canvas buckets to insulated rubber buckets is problematic as it is not clear how quickly the practice of using insulated buckets was adopted. … Based on the literature reviewed here, the start of the general transition is likely to have occurred between 1954 and 1957 and the end between 1970 and 1980.”


A 2010 review article “Effects of instrumentation changes on SST measured in situ” by Kent, Kennedy, Berry and Smith states that “Models of corrections for wooden and uninsulated canvas buckets show the adjustments to be five to six times greater for the canvas buckets.”

So post 1980 adjustments to bucket measurements should be very small (under 0.1 C) Moreover, by 2000 ship measurements were a minority of total measurements and all types of bucket were a small proportion of ship measurements (see figs 2 and 3 of Kent et al. 2010). These facts imply that post 2000 adjustments warranted by use in some ships of bucket measurements should be negligible.


“The justification given for the change that had the largest impact on trends for the 2000-2014 time period – continuing to adjust ship SST measurements by reference to night marine air temperature (NMAT) data, ‘which have their own particular pervasive systematic errors’ (Kennedy 2014) – i.e. that some ships still continue to take bucket observations, appears to support only a very small adjustment,” said Nic Lewis, an independent climate scientist.


In summary


This is a highly speculative and slight paper that produces a statistically marginal result by cherry-picking time intervals, resulting in a global temperature graph that is at odds with those produced by the UK Met Office and NASA.

Caution and suitable caveats should be used in using this paper as evidence that the global annual average surface temperature “hiatus” of the past 18 years has been explained.

- See more at: http://www.thegwpf.com/reports-of-the-e ... aggerated/

[Typhoon]

What the fuss is about . . .



So after aggressive data reanalysis, this group has managed to slightly move the lower error bar away from zero.

I don't have access to original paper, but if those are anything less than 5 sigma error bars, then the new results are not significantly different from zero.

[Typhoon]

News Bust | FLASHBACK: ABC's ’08 Prediction: NYC Under Water from Climate Change By June 2015

I've long lost track of how many times I should have gone extinct . . .

[Simple Minded]

News Bust | FLASHBACK: ABC's ’08 Prediction: NYC Under Water from Climate Change By June 2015

I've long lost track of how many times I should have gone extinct . . .

Me too, unfortunately, we have no proof...

And considering there are still 16 days left in June, you sound pretty confident. Don't get cocky & jump to conclusions. Wait for the data.

[Simple Minded]

"Clearly" this is not good!

86/1000 of a degree per decade is "clearly" much, MUCH worse than 39/1000 of a degree per decade! At this rate, in only 116 years, the Earth will be one degree hotter.
Doesn't anyone care about our great-great grandchildren?

When are people going to wake up, get whipped up into a frenzy, and act! Screw getting yer kid breakfast! The whole world is in jeopardy (parody?)!!!!!!

"NOAA found that from 1998 to 2012 there was “more than twice as much warming as the old analysis at the global scale,” at 0.086 degrees Celsius per decade compared to 0.039 degrees per decade.

“This is clearly attributable to the new [Sea Surface Temperature] analysis, which itself has much higher trends,” scientists wrote. “In contrast, trends in the new [land surface temperature] analysis are only slightly higher.”


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/06/15/ameri ... z3dDlpeY00

[Typhoon]

Every time it appears that "climate science" has hit a new permanent low, they go and lower the bar once again.

Now, ahead of the Paris meeting, some are fudging the numbers just to generate the correct headlines.

[Simple Minded]

Every time it appears that "climate science" has hit a new permanent low, they go and lower the bar once again.

Now, ahead of the Paris meeting, some are fudging the numbers just to generate the correct headlines.

Ya gotta admire them for their faith & dogmatic devotion.

"I can measure the temperature of the Earth to within 1/10 of a degree!"

"Oh yeah! I can measure it to within 1/1000 of a degree!"

To the clueless politician spending OPM, obviously you give the grant money to the dude who claims greater accuracy.

I remember a seminar in which the speaker warned 'You must be careful to try to not win the liar's contest! If you do, you might get the contract and actually have to produce a result."

Meanwhile... Zack has only 16 days left to flee NYC...... I hope he gets out before the rats take over the high rises!

[Heracleum Persicum]

.


Record May temperatures

Global temperatures for the January-May period were 1.53 degrees above the long-term average, and the highest on record, as land and ocean temperatures both rose to records at 2.56 degrees and 1.13 degrees, respectively, above trend, the NOAA said.

Puzzles why Francis suddenly excited about this thing ? ?

.

[Endovelico]

Importing camels to California might be good business...

[Simple Minded]

.


Record May temperatures

Global temperatures for the January-May period were 1.53 degrees above the long-term average, and the highest on record, as land and ocean temperatures both rose to records at 2.56 degrees and 1.13 degrees, respectively, above trend, the NOAA said.

Puzzles why Francis suddenly excited about this thing ? ?

.

One of the most important duty of the leaders of all established religions is to either destroy or absorb the upstart religions.

God hates competition.

[Simple Minded]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general ... s-all.html

If we need the Pope to teach us about science, then God help us all
It’s a funny old world. Environmentalists are dancing with glee after Pope Francis issued a statement calling on every man, woman and child to stand together to tackle the issue of climate change.

The Pope, after all, is the highly influential leader of 1.2 billion Roman Catholics around the world and a man who can bend the ear of any president or prime minister he wants at any time.

Getting him on board the green bandwagon is an undoubted coup for the eco-lobby.
His statement came in the form of an encyclical, a papal letter to bishops usually aimed at ending debate on a theological issue, to be formally published today, and it represents the Pope’s views on the God-given responsibility of humans to act as custodians of the earth.

Not only does he warn of the “unprecedented destruction of the ecosystem” but, in a less than subtle reference to so-called climate change deniers, the Pope argues that “the attitudes that stand in the way of a solution, even among believers, range from negation of the problem, to indifference, to convenient resignation or blind faith in technical solutions.”

Which is weird, because belief and blind faith are precisely what the Pope usually demands of his many followers when it comes to deciding pretty much every area of their lives from the cradle to the grave.

Now, I’m sure Pope Francis is a perfectly decent and moral man who means well and wants nothing but the best for mankind and our planet. But - and it’s quite a bit “but” - I’m afraid the Catholic Church lost its right to hand out moral lectures to the rest of the world some time ago.

Whether you are a card-carrying eco-alarmist who worries daily about your carbon footprint or whether you are Jeremy Clarkson, what the Pope has to say about humans tackling climate change as a moral issue is about as relevant as Kim Kardashian’s views on the future of the eurozone.

First, like pretty much all political leaders who put their tuppence worth in on this issue, the Pope knows next to nothing about climate science, which makes his opinion worth as little as mine (which I'm regularly informed by the likes of eco-worriers like George Monbiot is absolutely zilch).

Secondly, popes don’t have a particularly strong track record when it comes to tackling matters of fact and science over the years.

It did, after all, take until 1992 for the Roman Catholic Church to formally acknowledge that it was wrong to persecute Galileo for proving in the 17th century that the Earth moves around the Sun rather than the other way round.

And as recently as 2009, Pope Benedict XVI was busy telling Africans facing the deadly threat of AIDS that condoms would not protect them from HIV, despite all the clear medical evidence to the contrary.

But it’s not just matters of science on which Popes have time and again been wrong. It’s on matters of basic morality too.

When it comes to all of the great moral debates of our time, the Catholic Church has been on the wrong side on every one.

Whether it's opposition to contraception, to abortion, the right to die, divorce, gay marriage or women priests, the Catholic Church is clinging onto viewpoints that are stuck in the dark ages and is wrong on every issue.

And on most (but admittedly not all) of those issues, the Church is even out of touch with its own congregations. Last year, an international survey of Catholics found that most disagree with Church teachings on contraception, divorce and abortion – three of the Church’s key “moral” stances.

But where popes really come a cropper is when they tell others to get their own houses in order when we all know that the Church has been responsible for one of the most shocking and evil cover-ups of industrial scale child sex abuse by its own priests.

Of course the Church's legions of abusive priests are not the only people who have harmed children over the years. But since they used their unique access and position of trust in the Church to commit that abuse and, when found out, the Church chose at the highest levels to cover up those crimes, the Church has a unique moral culpability for what has happened to thousands of innocent children.

Even today, the Vatican is still dragging its feet over the attempts to uncover how high up the cover-up went and failing to open up its records to enable the guilty to be prosecuted.

So, for all those reasons, forgive me if I don't think the Pope is in a position to lecture anyone – let alone the entire world – on this issue or anything else.

If we are going to rely on the Catholic Church to teach us about science or morality, then God help us all.

[noddy]

yeh, this popey seems focused on bringing all the progressives back into the fold.

will be interesting to see how it pans out, civilisational insecurity is rampant, maybe catholicism will end up with that original authenticity coolness.

[Simple Minded]

yeh, this popey seems focused on bringing all the progressives back into the fold.

will be interesting to see how it pans out, civilisational insecurity is rampant, maybe catholicism will end up with that original authenticity coolness.

I thinketh the culture of "us" is always under attack from the culture of "them."

At least when one is in either campaign or sales mode.......... and I'm not sure how to tell those two modes apart...

[noddy]

it didnt help the protestants having the leader go all progressive - the anglicans became a joke.

At least when one is in either campaign or sales mode.......... and I'm not sure how to tell those two modes apart...

product doesnt sell itself... well, barring sex, drugs and rock n roll.

[Simple Minded]

it didnt help the protestants having the leader go all progressive - the anglicans became a joke.

At least when one is in either campaign or sales mode.......... and I'm not sure how to tell those two modes apart...

product doesnt sell itself... well, barring sex, drugs and rock n roll.

ignorance also needs no sales staff.......

[noddy]

ignorance also needs no sales staff.......

ignorance is hard work, constant vigilance is required.