Britain to be hit by “entirely typical weather”

22 November, 2013 by

Extremely average

Extremely average

The Daily Mash:

TEMPERATURES in the UK are going to fall sharply over the coming weeks because that is what happens at this time of year, it has been claimed.

Meteorologists believe that winter, a spell of short, cold days commonly defined as a season, will be more or less exactly what you would expect.

Professor Henry Brubaker of the Institute for Studies said: “Household fuel costs will rise considerably as families try to increase the temperature of their homes.

“People on the verge of death may die.

“Ice and snow will create icy, snowy conditions.

“Your car will refuse to start.

“Because it’s winter.”

Speaking of extreme weather, how long will it take for the headbangers at Skeptical Science to label Richard Muller a filthy denier for this:

It is wise to be cautious about the panic that sets in when a storm kills a large number of people. People search for reasons to believe the storms are worse than in the past, even if the numbers contradict them. Victims naturally wish to explain why loved ones died and they look for a villain — and they can find one in global warming.

But global warming does not obviously lead to increased or more violent tornadoes. It is possible, for instance, that the increased energy brought by the higher temperatures of global warming is less significant than global warming’s reduction in the north-south temperature difference (the poles warm more than the Equator). The latter could reduce the kind of hot-cold weather fronts that generate severe storms. The current climate models are simply unable to make a clear prediction, and reduced tornadoes from global warming are just as plausible as increased ones.

One thing is clear, however: The number of severe tornadoes has gone down. That is not a scientific hypothesis, but a scientific conclusion based on observation. Regardless of the limitations of climate theory, we can take some comfort in that fact. (source)

Throw another heretic on the barbecue.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Typhoon Haiyan: ABC’s hysteria vs realists’ calm

14 November, 2013 by

Yeb Sano: feeling a bit peckish by now, I imagine…

Yeb Sano: feeling a bit peckish by now, I imagine…

On the one hand, we have their ABC, breathlessly parroting the mindless hysteria of the UN in its hermetically sealed über-Gruppendenken bubble, like this:

The United Nations meteorological agency has found the effects of climate change are making the impact of severe storms like Typhoon Haiyan worse.

The World Meteorological Organisation’s Michel Jarraud says Australia’s record-breaking summer helped push average global temperatures higher this year, and rising sea levels worsened the situation in the Philippines.

“The impact of this cyclone was definitely significantly more than what it would have been 100 years ago because of the simple mechanical fact that the sea level is higher,” Mr Jarraud said.

“Storm surges have a much more devastating effect than they would have had decades ago.” (source)

and slathering the opinion pages with weepy articles like this:

Sano announced that he will be taking part in a solidarity hunger strike for those “who are now struggling for food back home”, and will continue to fast until the international gathering shows “real ambition on climate action”. The Assembly — with high-level political representations from around the world — met Sano’s speech with a standing ovation.

Abbott’s speech took place in Canberra just 36 hours later. On Wednesday morning our new Prime Minister stood before the freshly sworn-in Parliament and tabled a set of bills designed to repeal the carbon price and — perhaps even more significantly — remove Australia’s limit on carbon pollution.

And the best bit:

Tony Abbott’s voice was steady with resolve; Sano’s voice, on the other hand, shook with the raw emotion of a man witnessing the terrible price climate change is exacting on his country. (source)

Geez, pass the sick bag.

On the other hand, however, we have rational thought, careful analysis and calm reflection from Benny Peiser:

Climate activists claim that tropical cyclone activity, including the frequency and intensity of typhoons, has increased as the global temperature has gone up. Yet empirical observations published in scientific journals show that despite the moderate warming during the 20th century, the number of tropical cyclones making landfall in the Philippines did not increase and has remained unchanged for more than 100 years.

Hours before the typhoon hit the Philippines, authorities moved nearly 1 million people to evacuation centres. Many of these structures collapsed when the tropical storm hit coastal towns and villages, killing thousands. Much of the initial destruction that killed so many was caused by winds blowing at 235 kilometres per hour — and occasionally at speeds of up to 275 kph/h. But it didn’t have to be that way.

A superstorm of similar magnitude, Cyclone Yasi, hit Queensland, Australia, in February 2011. The cyclone hit Queensland with an eye of 100 km in diameter and wind speeds of up to 285 km/h. Yet local disaster management committees had initiated their plans long in advance. Evacuation, including of hospitals, was completed more than four hours before the cyclone struck. Because Australia is an advanced nation that can afford to implement highly effective disaster warning systems, not a single person died as a direct result of this destructive cyclone.

…

As a result of economic development and technological advancement, the world is getting increasingly better at coping with and adapting to the effects of extreme weather events. As Goklany concludes: ‘Currently many advocate spending trillions of dollars to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse gases, in part to forestall hypothetical future increases in mortality from global warming induced increases in extreme weather events.  Spending even a fraction of such sums on the numerous higher priority health and safety problems plaguing humanity would provide greater returns for human well-being.’ (source)

Which demonstrates even more clearly that wasting those trillions of dollars on pointless GHG reductions will simply make developing countries poorer and less able to adapt. Climate Madness, once again.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

Typhoon Haiyan in perspective

13 November, 2013 by

Typhoon Haiyan

Typhoon Haiyan

It goes without saying that Typhoon Haiyan is a terrible tragedy for the Philippines. But the hyperventilating that has followed, concerning the alleged “link” to climate change, has been frenzied and emotive.

We have all come to expect the climate change alarmists and green media to link any extreme weather event to AGW, despite the fact that such events happened in the past, when the planet had apparently “safe” levels of CO2.

Chip Knappenburger and Patrick Michaels put some much needed perspective on Haiyan:

Nowadays, in the aftermath of every weather-related disaster, proponents of restricting fossil fuel use in the name of halting climate change are quick to place the blame for the tragedy on human-caused climate change (i.e., industrialized nations like the U.S.). The calls to “do something” amplify.

This is happening right now in Warsaw, at the latest (19th) in a long string of U.N.-organized Climate Change Conferences aimed at getting countries to agree to some sort of action aimed at mitigating climate change.

On the conference’s opening day, an envoy form the Philippines, Yeb Sano, gave an emotional address to the delegates in which he vowed to stop eating until something was accomplished.

“I will now commence a voluntary fasting for the climate. This means I will voluntarily refrain from eating food during this (conference) until a meaningful outcome is in sight.” 

Adding,

“We can fix this. We can stop this madness. Right now, right here.”

Sano got a tear-filled standing ovation.

While the outpouring of sympathy was certainly deserved, an outpouring of action on climate change is certainly not. A story from the Associated Presscovering the events at the conference summed up the science on anthropogenic climate change and tropical cyclones pretty accurately:

Scientists say single weather events cannot conclusively be linked to global warming. Also, the link between man-made warming and hurricane activity is unclear, though rising sea levels are expected to make low-lying nations more vulnerable to storm surges.

In other words, limitations, even strict ones, on anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases—the very thing that Sano seeks—will have no detectable (at least based on our current scientific understanding) impact on the characteristics of future tropical cyclones, such as Haiyan, or Sandy, or Katrina, or any other infamous storm. And as for sea level rise, projections are far more lurid than observations.

The hard numbers (from Ryan Maue’s excellent compilation) show that global tropical cyclone activity for the last 40+ years—during the time of decent observations and the time with the greatest potential human impact from greenhouse gas emissions—while showing decadal ups and downs, show little overall change. In fact, global cyclone activity has been below average for the past 5 years.

The science on tropical cyclones is complicated and ultimately unclear in terms of the influence of greenhouse gas emissions, but is quite clear when it comes to the influence of demographics and wealth vs. climate change—the former grossly dominates the latter when it comes to future tropical cyclone disasters. So, no matter what this year’s U.N. climate confab does (forecast:  nothing significant), it will not result in any meaningful changes to damages from future tropical cyclones.

Category 5 storms like Haiyan, Andrew, and Camille will always pose a threat to coastal communities (and beyond) in tropical cyclone-prone areas of the globe. The best defense against them is resilient infrastructure and preparedness—characteristics surely better achieved through a free-market, than global governance. But no matter what actions are taken, more Category 5 monster storms are coming. When they arrive, the news ought to focus on where they hit, not that they hit.

Source.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

Australia to UN: no more “socialism masquerading as environmentalism”

11 November, 2013 by

What the UN does best…

What the UN does best…

Watermelons: green on the outside, red on the inside. Environmental propaganda being used to implement another ideology is as old as the hills. So it’s about time the UN’s “climate aid” was called out for what it was. And no more syphoning of Aussie taxpayer dollars to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats at the UN:

FEDERAL cabinet has ruled that Australia will not sign up to any new contributions, taxes or charges at this week’s global summit on climate change, in a significant toughening of its stance as it plans to move within days to repeal the carbon tax.

Cabinet ministers have decided to reject any measures of “socialism masquerading as environmentalism” after meeting last week to consider a submission on the position the government would take to the Warsaw conference.

A further document was produced after the meeting that outlines the government’s position.

The Australian has seen part of the document and it declares that, while Australia will remain “a good international citizen” and remains “committed to achieving the 5 per cent reduction” by 2020 of the 2000 levels of emissions, it will not sign up to any new agreement that involves spending money or levying taxes.

This rules out Australia playing any role in a wealth transfer from rich countries to developing nations to pay them to decrease their carbon emissions.

The decision hardens the nation’s approach to the UN’s negotiations amid a renewed push from less-developed countries this week for $100 billion a year in finance to deal with climate change.

Cabinet decided that Australia would consider joining a new scheme after 2015, but only if all the major global economies did likewise.

Senior ministers believe there is absolutely no chance of that happening.

The Abbott government has explicitly decided that it will not agree to any payments or accept any liabilities as part of any carbon agreement.

The government’s document also says that Australia “will not support any measures which are socialism masquerading as environmentalism”. (source)

Tell it like it is.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,

Coalition to UN climate talks: F*** OFF!!

8 November, 2013 by

Shove it, bitch

Shove it, bitch

Bravo! The new Coalition government in Australia give the big finger to the latest UN climate gab-fest:

AUSTRALIA has downgraded its role in global climate change negotiations and will not send a minister to the UN conference being held in Poland from next week.

The federal government confirmed yesterday that Environment Minister Greg Hunt would not have a role at the international gathering, while Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who has responsibility for all international negotiations in the Abbott government, said she was too busy to attend.

…

Australia’s climate change ambassador Justin Lee left Australia yesterday for the Warsaw meeting, which is aiming to progress talks for a global agreement that includes China, India and the US by 2015.

Ms Bishop is scheduled to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting meeting in Sri Lanka next week but this is the week before ministers from other nations were due to attend the UNFCCC conference. Mr Hunt will be in Australia introducing legislation to scrap the carbon tax introduced by the former Labor government.

Neither Ms Bishop nor Mr Hunt appointed a parliamentary secretary to replace them, as has been done in the past.

Confirmation that Australia would not send a parliamentary representative followed a last-minute decision on Wednesday to scrap briefings with business and climate lobby groups to outline Australia’s position.

The warmenistas just can’t understand it:

Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said Australia’s decision not to send a minister sent “an unusual signal to the rest of the world”.

“Australia punches above its weight in international forums such as the UN conference and this can work in both a positive and negative way,” Mr Connor said.

Opposition climate spokesman Mark Butler said the “unprecedented decision by the Coalition sends a very strong message to the world that the Australian government doesn’t care about climate change”.

At last, the correct priorities are returning.

Source.

Filed Under: Aussie Politics, Climate Tagged With: ,

John Howard’s climate common sense

6 November, 2013 by

Uncommon sense

Uncommon sense

Former Australian PM, John Howard, writing in The Spectator, applies some (highly uncommon) common sense to the AGW hysteria:

1. First principles tell us never to accept that all of the science is in on any proposition; always remain open to the relevance of new research.

2. Keep a sense of proportion, especially when it comes to generational burden-sharing. Nigel Lawson’s compelling point in his book An Appeal to Reason, that the present generation should not carry too heavy a burden so that future generations are only 8.4 times better off rather than 9.4 times wealthier, should be heeded by all policy makers. Even the IPCC estimates that global GDP per capita will increase 14 fold over this century, and 24 fold in the developing world.

3. Renewable energy sources should always be used when it makes economic sense to do so. The less that governments intervene the more likely it is that this will happen.

4. Nuclear energy must be part of the long term response. It is a clean energy source, has the capacity to provide base load power as an alternative to fossil fuel, and modern nuclear power stations have a sophisticated level of safety.

5. Always bear in mind that technology will continue to surprise us. I doubt that the expression “fracking” was widely known, let alone used five years ago.

Read it all here.

(h/t Tom S)

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With:

Lewandowsky forgets who funds his university: the Aussie taxpayer

2 November, 2013 by

Cook 'n' Lew

Cook ‘n’ Lew

UPDATE: Another article in Psychological Science claims that critics of Lewandowsky’s work were:

“invited to submit a commentary for publication in Psychological Science, but never acted on that invitation.”

I for one have never been invited to make such a comment, and I’m still waiting… (h/t Geoff in the comments)

Astonishingly, Professor Stephan Lewandowsky appears to have completely forgotten that, being on the staff at the University of Western Australia (UWA), he was paid out of the public purse, contributed to by my (and all other Australians’) taxpayer dollars, and as a consequence must accept that his work is subject the Freedom of Information (FoI) regime in force in Australia.

If he wishes to avoid such scrutiny, he should find a job in the private sector, which is not subject to the same rules, but where he would have to compete in the market for funding for his peculiar brand of research. Yeah, right, good luck with that.

Clearly peeved at his last few papers being ripped to shreds by the blogosphere, Prof Stephan Lewandowsky jumps the shark (with the willing assistance of Michael Mann) in his latest screed, lashing out at sceptics in all directions like a cornered dog. You know you’re pushing the right buttons when they resort to these kinds of hysterical outbursts of paranoia.

Entitled The Subterranean War on Science, Lew and Mann whine and whinge about all those nasty bloggers and sceptics (like me) who act up because they are sick and tired of being labelled as mentally deranged. Here’s a hint – stop demonising your ideological opponents, and maybe you wouldn’t get so many complaints and FoI requests. But let’s face it – that isn’t going to happen in a hurry, so Lew digs himself in deeper, labelling FoI requests as “vexatious” and constituting “harassment”.

The paper states, in relation to such FoI requests (by ACM):

During the last 9 months, the first author has been subject to numerous requests for correspondence and other documents, including trivial pedantry such as the precise time and date stamps of blog posts. In a paradoxical twist, accusations of impropriety were launched against the first author when an FOI-release confirmed that inconvenient research (Lewandowsky, Oberauer, & Gignac, 2013) was conducted with ethics approval. The allegations — by bloggers unaccountable to any form of review or ethical scrutiny — cited the fact that ethics approval was granted expeditiously (for details, see Lewandowsky, Cook, et al., 2013). 

Taking those two claims in turn:

Trivial pedantry

The “trivial pedantry” which Lewandowsky casually brushes off was actually a perfectly valid attempt to work out whether Lewandowsky backdated a blog post on Shaping Tomorrow’s World in order to falsely claim priority on outing the identity of bloggers contacted as part of the research for the original “moon landing denier” paper. Steve McIntyre deals with this issue in great detail here. Personally, I wouldn’t call this either trivial or pedantic, when the claim to priority was not just published on a blog, but was then repeated in a second “academic” paper by Lewandowsky, the sole purpose of which was to prop up the conclusions of the first.

Ethics approval

As regards the ethical approval for the moon landing denier paper, I provide the documents released under the FoI which relate to this claim here (PDF, 4MB). These documents also contain the emails from Charles Hanich to various blogs.

Beginning on page 37 of the file is the original ethics approval submitted by Lewandowsky on 12 December 2009. That approval was for a project entitled “Understanding Statistical Trends”, the purpose of which was stated thus:

“The project seeks to explore people’s understanding of statistical trends in time-series data. If we are monitoring a stock price, what do we think will happen to it in the future?

Participants will be shown simple graphs of time series (samples enclosed) and will make predictions about the future trends.”

Approval for this project was given on 21 December 2009 (p 35).

However, on 12 August 2010, Lewandowsky emails Kate Kirk in the UWA ethics department in the following terms (p29):

Dear Kate,

I am writing to seek approval for an amendment to the procedure for RA/4/1/4007. In a nutshell, I want to administer the survey not in person but via the internet using professional survey software (e.g., http://www.surveymonkey.com or equivalent.) [a]

As before, completion of the survey will be taken to constitute consent, and as before a variant of the approved information sheet will be shown before the survey commences.

The survey will be modified slightly as follows,

(1) The graphical extrapolation task is removed [b]

(2) In addition to the already-approved items, some further questions will be presented that are enclosed in this email. [c]

»Note that the scale “H&G&Kahan” already has UWA approval under a different project (RA/4/1/4054).

»The remaining two scales, “BCTI” and “Happ&Sat” have both been used extensively in previous research elsewhere.

»To satisfy constraints of the Web software, some items may need to be reworded or altered; however, the enclosures accurately describe the thrust of the questionnaires.

(3) In all other respects, the approved procedure remains unchanged [d] except that it is administered via internet, with consent again being expressed by completion of the electronic questionnaire.

(4) Participants will be recruited by posting links at relevant websites (e.g., http://www.uwa.edu.au/climatescience or science-oriented “biogs”).

[a] – It is highly disingenuous to suggest that merely using survey software was the amendment “in a nutshell”, as can be seen from the following.

[b] – The graphical extrapolation task comprised the core of the original project, a point which is clear from its name: Understanding statistical trends.

[c] – “Some further questions”, dropped in casually as almost an afterthought, essentially redefines the project to introduce the conspiracy ideation element which eventually caused the reaction it did when the moon landing denier paper was published.

[d] – Translation: Move along, nothing to see here.

Despite all these red flags, Kate Kirk approved these amendments within 24 hours, to the amazement of Lewandowsky himself, who clearly couldn’t believe his luck, writing back (p27):

“Wow, thanks for the quick approval.”

If that wasn’t enough, Lewandowsky slips in yet another sneaky request:

Would it be possible to mention only my assistant’s name, Charles Hanich, on the online survey (with full contact d etails, plus the usual HREC address of course}? The reason for this is that I have been writing on the climate issue in public (e.g., http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2980286.htm}, and my name alone routinely elicits frothing at the mouth by various people (e.g., http://joannenova.com.au/2010/05/name-calling-fairy-dust-conspiracy-theorist/), not to mention the hate mail I receive. Because I am interested in soliciting opinions also from those folks, I would like to withhold my name from the survey as I fear it might contaminate responding.

Lew is clearly aware that anyone seeing his name would realise that he would be attempting to stitch up the “deniers” so excludes his name from the survey. Once again, this was jokingly waved through by Kate Kirk in about five minutes:

Hi Steve, Yes, fine for you to leave your name off as long as the standard complaints paragraph and contact details are there. I look forward to receiving the hate mail. I’ll let you know if I get any. Kate

So the ethics department at the UWA saw no problems with any of the above. None. Despite the fact that the eventual project was entirely different from that for which ethics approval was originally sought, there was no requirement for a resubmission of the application, with significant amendments simply waved through. The irony is that none of this would have come to light had Lewandowsky not used the research to demean his ideological opponents and insinuate that they were suffering from some kind of psychological condition. Unfortunately, he did, and provoked the ire of a very large number of people. All of it on taxpayers’ money.

Given the above, Lewandowsky has no cause for complaint whatsoever at the FoI requests, which were anything but vexatious, all of which makes his latest paper all the more tragic and desperate.

I will leave readers to draw their own conclusions from the documents themselves – LINK HERE.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

UK heading for “mini Ice Age”?

29 October, 2013 by

Brass monkeys

Brass monkeys

From the It’s the sun, stupid Department. Michael Mann to tweet #KochMachine in 3, 2, 1…

According to Professor Lockwood the late 20th century was a period when the sun was unusually active and a so called ‘grand maximum’ occurred around 1985. Since then the sun has been getting quieter.

By looking back at certain isotopes in ice cores, he has been able to determine how active the sun has been over thousands of years.

Following analysis of the data, Professor Lockwood believes solar activity is now falling more rapidly than at any time in the last 10,000 years.

He found 24 different occasions in the last 10,000 years when the sun was in exactly the same state as it is now – and the present decline is faster than any of those 24.

Based on his findings he’s raised the risk of a new Maunder minimum from less than 10% just a few years ago to 25-30%.

And a repeat of the Dalton solar minimum which occurred in the early 1800s, which also had its fair share of cold winters and poor summers, is, according to him, ‘more likely than not’ to happen.

He believes that we are already beginning to see a change in our climate – witness the colder winters and poor summers of recent years – and that over the next few decades there could be a slide to a new Maunder minimum.

But don’t worry, warming from CO2 will save the alarmists’ careers:

Any global cooling caused by this natural phenomenon would ultimately be temporary, and if projections are correct, the long term warming caused by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases would eventually swamp this solar-driven cooling.

Phew.

Source.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

US: Conservatives “more open-minded” on climate

25 October, 2013 by

Which one wears the blinkers?

Which one wears the blinkers?

Hang on a minute – we all know that it’s the Right that are the ideological climate “deniers”? Stephan Lewandowsky has made an entire career out of claiming that free marketeers are more likely to be conspiracy theorists, correct?*

Well hold on to your hats, folks, because guess what, a study in the US has found precisely the opposite, namely that Democrats and liberals (i.e. the Left) are the blinkered ones. Who’d’a thunk it?

While politics affects both parties’ prescriptions for energy and the environment, a look at the data suggests that Democrats and liberals are far more likely to have their ideological blinders on. In our poll of 1,000 Californians, Democrats and liberals were more likely to give incorrect, highly unlikely, or intensely ideological responses to a set of basic questions about energy and environmental policy than were independents, conservatives, and Republicans.

Such a result should not be entirely surprising. The Democratic party’s electoral majority is currently sustained by low-information voters and people who are unlikely to be persuaded by data that contradicts their own political narrative. In the Golden State Poll, which had both internal and external question reviewers to minimize bias, several interesting results emerged that reinforced the idea of a liberal information gap.

…

Taken as a whole, the Golden State poll suggests that many liberals have a deeply ideological view of energy and climate and policy, one in which certain “truths” must be accepted to show one’s moral virtue while genuinely inconvenient truths are ignored. Conservatives, always appropriately skeptical of liberal utopianism, have reacted against that by redoubling their skepticism. While the media and liberal politicians attack them, conservatives know that it is hard to have a rational argument with a fanatic about the subject of his fanaticism.

On energy and climate, the Democrats’ political and policy ignorance needs to be exposed for what it is: self-contradictory, incoherent, and yes, unscientific.

Read it all. h/t Judith Curry

 

* Actually, check out Michael Mann’s twitter feed, and you’ll see the name Koch appear a remarkable number of times. Who’s the conspiracy theorist now, Mike?

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,

UN: NSW fires are “paying the price” for carbon

22 October, 2013 by

Hysterical

Hysterical

UPDATE: It is pointed out, quite correctly, that a 0.8 degree increase in global temperature isn’t going to make the slightest bit of difference to bushfire frequency or intensity. Any such change would be swamped by the effects of ongoing failures to properly manage bushfire risk and draconian restrictions on clearing imposed by, er, the Greens.

More utter nonsense about the NSW bushfires, this time from the UN’s Christiana Figueres:

The executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, says the fires prove the world is “already paying the price of carbon”.

“The World Meteorological Organisation has not established the direct link between this wildfire and climate change yet, but what is absolutely clear is that the science is telling us there are increasing heatwaves in Asia, Europe and Australia,” she told CNN.

“These [heatwaves] will continue. They will continue in their intensity and in their frequency.” (source)

Steve Goddard shows the idiocy of this kind of claim:

UPDATE 2: A couple of Tweets to La Figueres:

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: ,
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