Heartland documents: what's the big deal?

15 February, 2012 by

Heartland

UPDATE: Heartland indicates that the document discussed here is a fabrication:

“One document, titled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy,” is a total fake apparently intended to defame and discredit The Heartland Institute. It was not written by anyone associated with The Heartland Institute. It does not express Heartland’s goals, plans, or tactics. It contains several obvious and gross misstatements of fact.”

Heartland request in their press release that copies of this document be removed, and I am therefore complying with that request. My comments on it remain here.

See ACM’s further post on this here.

—

Having downloaded and perused the bundle of Heartland financial and strategy documents released on MeDog’sGlob today, I thought it may be instructive to summarise their nature and substance.

The “smoking gun” that the headbangers claim is a one-and-a-half page document entitled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy”. [link removed]. This, apparently, in all of its 58 lines, exposed the blackened “heart of climate change denial”, so let’s take a close look at it:

[readacted]

Dangerous policy actions is precisely correct, given that billions of dollars is being diverted away from the real urgent causes of fighting poverty and disease, and instead is being pissed up the wall on climate mitigation policies based on science that is compromised and in many cases corrupt.

[redacted]

As mentioned in the previous post, these sums are loose change compared to the billions that are funnelled to green groups, alarmist research establishments, smear blogs, propaganda organisations and the like. For alarmists to complain about such tiny sums is simply laughable.

[redacted]

The headbangers object to this because they want our children to be indoctrinated with the purest form of alarmist propaganda from an early age. Despite the fact that there is much uncertainty surrounding the magnitude of man’s effect on the climate (irrespective of how much The Cause try to suppress it), the curriculum of most schools is heavily weighted towards politically-correct climate alarmism. Realism is frowned upon and should, in their view, be eliminated.

Just wait, you’ll next hear them compare climate realism to creationism… ding, there is is! And we all know that creationism shouldn’t be given “equal weight” in the classroom – and rightly so. But there is no comparison, of course, as it is a tired and worn out straw man argument, but it is disappointingly successful at suppressing dissent. So any action that may redress the balance in the classroom must be encouraged.

UPDATE: The headbangers on Twitter, like George Monbiot, have focussed on that one sentence “two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science” as an attempt to promote an anti-science agenda. Moonbat tweets:

RTFM, pal

This is clearly nonsense. This document has a number of grammatical errors including in the previous line a missing “a” before curriculum. It is likely that the word “the” is missing, since it would be ludicrous for Heartland to suggest that it is attempting to “dissuade teachers from teaching science”.

And indeed, the Funding Plan at page 18 expands on this single paragraph and mentions nothing about such dissuasion. Indeed Wojick’s background is in environmental and science education – how likely is it that someone like him would advocate dissuading teachers from teaching science? The fact is, Monbiot skim-read the typo-filled summary reproduced here, and set off to smear before checking his facts, as usual. Plus ça change.

[redacted]

Why shouldn’t there be a rebuttal to the IPCC’s politically motivated tome (at a tiny fraction of the wasted billions of the UN)? $400k is, again, chicken feed. And any scientist with an ounce of integrity (of which there are virtually none in climate alarmist circles) would welcome the opportunity to consider opposing views as a way towards greater truth and understanding. But no, that will never do. The Cause must not be diluted by any possible challenges. Politics masquerading as science. Again.

[redacted]

Look at all those filthy deniers in the pay of Heartland. Disgraceful. I have already commented that these sums are loose change. Don’t mention Al Gore. Oops, I just did. For alarmists to complain about this is pure, undiluted hypocrisy.

[redacted]

Apart from their desire to keep opposing voices out, with which I sympathise but disagree with (despite the fact that The Cause regularly attempts to suppress opposing voices in the pal-review literature), the remainder is reasonable. Try to engage those who at least have demonstrated some degree of calm detachment. Judith Curry, certainly, but Revkin…? But again, the headbangers don’t want dialogue. They want their own way. All the time. And smear and ridicule anyone who dares question any aspect of The Cause.

The remainder of the documents are a Fundraising Plan and Budget for 2012 (both pretty much a yawn) and IRS Form 990 (Return of Organisation Exempt from Income Tax – MeDog’sGlob is making a number of potentially highly defamatory allegations about this document – I hope they’ve got their lawyers reviewing their rantings – but I will defer to other experts on this subject of US tax law) and various unremarkable agendas and minutes.

So in summary, if that’s all they’ve got, well BIG FREAKING DEAL. If there’s more, let’s see it.

Calling this an equivalent of Climategate is like comparing alarmist funding to sceptics funding… (little joke there). However, it does demonstrate how desperate The Cause is to smear and discredit those who are asking difficult questions – for which they often have no answer – except misrepresentation and spin.

UPDATE: Ben Pile at Climate Resistance has more here. And at Bishop Hill here, where he reveals all of Anthony Watts’ comments to the Guardian were left on the cutting room floor. Quelle surprise, encore…

UPDATE 2: I am totally unfunded by Big Oil or any other organisation, so I invite you all to click the Donate button above – to help pay for my flash new server which, I hope, has speeded up your reading experience no end over the last couple of weeks!

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Warmist headbangers go ape over Heartland finance leak

15 February, 2012 by

Seems fair, right?

UPDATE 3: See my latest post on this here.

UPDATE 2: Hilarious comment on MeDog’sGlob:

Hank_ – Tue, 2012-02-14 19:00

Could you guys write just one more article about this exposé? Somehow 4 articles in a row just doesn’t seem like enough. thanks…….

UPDATE: The only mainstream media outlet to even cover this non-story so far is The Guardian (natch). The others are the usual rancid Lefty/alarmist blogs, Puff Ho, StinkProgress, Climate Crocks, MeDog’sGlob – get the picture? Although you can bet that Fairfax and the ABC will lap it up if they get wind of it.

—

Hilarious to watch the ecotards wet themselves because some trivial documents have been released that show an organisation has not been funding alarmists! Shame on them.

The deluded fools think this is some kind of equivalent to Climategate (v1 and v2), which demonstrated widespread scientific fraud, manipulation of data, destruction of emails and avoidance of FOI requests on the part of the consensus boys.

The Cause has sucked up around $70 billion (that’s billion with a “b”) since the global warming gravy train set off about 20 years ago, but despite the obvious hypocrisy, the warm-mongers are outraged, outraged I tell you, that some “deniers” are getting, er, some small change.

Un-Skeptical Pseudo-Science attempts to coin the phrase “Denialgate”… LOL.

Headbanger site DeSmogBlog goes feral:

Internal Heartland Institute strategy and funding documents obtained by DeSmogBlog expose the heart of the climate denial machine – its current plans, many of its funders, and details that confirm what DeSmogBlog and others have reported for years. The heart of the climate denial machine relies on huge corporate and foundation funding from U.S. businesses including Microsoft, Koch Industries, Altria (parent company of Philip Morris) RJR Tobacco and more.

We are releasing the entire trove of documents now to allow crowd-sourcing of the material. Here are a few quick highlights, stay tuned for much more.

Ooh, you little tease! I can’t wait that long!

-Confirmation of exact amounts flowing to certain key climate contrarians.

“funding for high-profile individuals who regularly and publicly counter the alarmist AGW message. At the moment, this funding goes primarily to Craig Idso ($11,600 per month), Fred Singer ($5,000 per month, plus expenses), Robert Carter ($1,667 per month), and a number of other individuals, but we will consider expanding it, if funding can be found.” (link – Webcite)

Wow, $1,667 a month for Bob Carter. Totally outrageous! That’s less than the minimum wage (around $2,500 per month), and maybe pays for his electricity bill. Tom Nelson hits the nail on the head with this headline:

Gore launches $300 million campaign

Former Vice President Al Gore is launching a $300 million, bipartisan campaign to try to push climate change higher on the nation’s political agenda.

The three-year campaign by the Alliance for Climate Protection will begin Wednesday with network television advertising that will include “American Idol” and other non-traditional shows that reach a non-news audience. (source)

Naturally, the hypocrisy of this is totally lost on their addled brains, and the headbangers’ totalitarian mindset dictates that only those who agree with them should be funded, even if it’s a ludicrously tiny amount as revealed here.

Where’s my Big Oil cheque, that’s what I want to know.

By the way, interesting background on MeDog’sGlob here.

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If it's cold, it's "just weather"

15 February, 2012 by

Eighteen inches of solid global warming

But if it’s hot, it’s “global warming” or “climate change”. NASA and Scientific American manage, correctly, to avoid any mention of climate change in its explanation of why Europe is suffering one of its worst winter freezes in living memory:

Just how extraordinary has this winter been in Europe? The Danube river has frozen, for one.

Europeans have been shivering under a blanket of cold air that has sent temperatures plummeting and snows drifting. Across the continent, hundreds have died from exposure to the cold.

The Danube’s freezing is just one of many severe winter events in the continent this year. Heavy snowfall has blocked roads and stranded towns in central Italy. A train in Montenegro was stranded on the tracks for three days due to heavy snow. Even Venice’s famous canals froze, a rare feat.

At least four Balkan nations suspended shipping on the Danube today (Feb. 14) because of heavy ice on the river, according to news reports.

Keeping Europe frozen is a climate pattern called a “Russian Winter.” In this pattern, a strong Siberian anticyclone hovers over northern Russia and triggers intense cold and snow, according to a NASA statement. That cold has lingered long enough to freeze stretches of the Danube, the second longest river in Europe. (source)

Let’s contrast this with the hysteria over the Pakistani floods and Russian heatwave in 2010, which, because it occurred in Summer and was therefore related to heat, was immediately linked to climate change:

Climate scientists must urgently look into changes in atmospheric currents linked to devastating floods in Pakistan and wildfires in Russia, UN climate and weather bodies said on Wednesday.

Ghassem Asrar, director of the World Climate Research Program, told AFP that changes, known as blocking episodes, can prevent humidity or hot weather dispersing.

That intensified heavy rain or heatwaves and locked them over an area, he explained, potentially with a growing impact on extreme weather events that scientists expect to happen more frequently with global warming.

Asrar said that European researchers had modelled the blocking pattern in atmospheric currents and resulting weather behind the Pakistani rains and Russian heatwave a few weeks in advance.

They “clearly flagged this formation and kept track of it”, said Asrar, whose program is partly linked to the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

“We know for sure that the two events in Pakistan and Russia are linked,” he added.

So there you have it…

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"What if they are wrong?"

14 February, 2012 by

Mike Stopa

Mike Stopa, a physicist specialising in computation and nanoscience in the Physics Department at Harvard [cries of “not a climate scientist!” from the headbangers] writes at his blog:

Here I ask this. Suppose it turns out that CO2 has essentially nothing to do with the earth’s climate. How will the history of this colossal mistake be written?

They will say that a mechanism called the “greenhouse effect,” was postulated long ago (~1824 by Joseph Fourier) and gained adherents in the late 20th century. They will say that the theory was seemingly invalidated by the decrease in global temperatures from 1940-1975, but that the adherents patched this up by explaining the cooling with pollution, specifically sulfur, from industry

They will say that the theory was challenged by the noted vast gap between the amount of CO2 produced by civilization and the substantially smaller increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, but that the theory was patched up by examining the increased CO2 uptake by the hydrosphere and the biosphere.

They will say the theory was seemingly invalidated by the evidence that the atmosphere was already nearly opaque in the wavelengths that are absorbed by CO2 and so the additional CO2 could have, on its own, little effect, but that the theory was patched up by positing a feedback mechanism between the small temperature increases directly due to CO2 and the production of water vapor which is the main greenhouse gas.

They will note that the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) proceeded much like any scientific theory (cf. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) in that it was modified and patched up and adjusted to fit empirical challenges until it finally collapsed altogether under the weight of incontrovertible evidence. But, the scientific historians will have a new phenomenon to consider, and that is the social and political context of this particular scientific theory.

Kuhn describes very well the build-up of evidence that ultimately leads to the over-turning of accepted orthodoxy within the scientific community, of some particular theory. But AGW is intrinsically wrapped up with political ideology and, increasingly, with economics and government (cf. “Solyndra”). The only apt comparison I can think of is Lysenkoism, the anti-genetics theory of Trofim Lysenko that was bought wholesale by Stalin and ultimately hobbled the entire Soviet biological establishment for generations (to say nothing of its role in leading to the starvation of people who followed its tenets in regard to things like agriculture).

Scientific revolutions are difficult and traumatic enough without the added inertia of government sponsorship. To put it more bluntly, scientists have difficulty enough admitting that they have egg on their faces. Throw in the Solyndras of the world and the United Nations and the entire anti-capitalist Global Left and the backing out of this theory will be nothing short of a fiasco.

If someone were, for instance, to come up with indisputable evidence tomorrow that CO2 has essentially no impact on earth’s climate, could the world accept it? With the development of frakking and the concomitant extension of carbon based energy resources hundreds of years into the future, what would they do with all the windmills?

Well, the truth of this issue should be apparent within about 15 years…at which point we may be allowed to buy incandescent light bulbs again. (source)

h/t Climate Depot

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Shark attack increase: AFP blames "global warming"

14 February, 2012 by

Now with added global warming

UPDATE: George Burgess responds to ACM (see below).

Crap Journalism Alert. This is the kind of nonsense the brainless media sucks up, like a demented vacuum cleaner:

Sharks killed twice as many swimmers and surfers last year than in 2010, with the increase due largely to a growth in tourism and changing shark patterns due to global warming.

There were 12 deaths in 46 shark attacks in 2011, a mortality rate of more than 25 percent compared to an average of under seven percent in the last 10 years, according to statistics from the University of Florida.

Countries that recorded shark attack deaths included Australia with three fatal out of a total of 11 attacks; South Africa, two fatal out of five; the French island of Reunion, two deaths in four attacks; and Seychelles with two attacks both of which ended in death.

Other countries with non-fatal shark attacks included Indonesia (3), Mexico (3), Russia (3) and Brazil (2).

Three locations not normally associated with high numbers of shark attacks — Reunion, Seychelles and New Caledonia — registered a total of seven attacks with five fatal outcomes, according to Burgess. “Those areas were not traditional area for tourism in recent years,” the scientist explained.

“Over the last decade, more and more tourists have been going there… So we are getting more people coming to places where there are sharks, and the local communities are not prepared for the number of people going into the water at this time.”

He added that medical facilities in these areas may not be developed enough to provide treatment in emergencies of this type.

In addition to the influx of tourists, the effects of global warming has meant sharks migrating to regions where they were not normally seen.

Last August, authorities even in the far east Russian reported three non-fatal shark attacks in the Primorye region — not a normal location for the predator. (source)

Yet when we check the original report, we find that there isn’t a single mention of climate change or global warming. In fact, they acknowledge (as they should) that this is more likely to be a statistical anomaly than any kind of trend:

Twelve fatalities resulted from unprovoked attacks in 2011, considerably higher than totals from recent years (the 2001-2010 yearly average was 4.3) and the highest yearly total since 1993 (also 12). These unprovoked fatalities were recorded from Australia (3), Costa Rica (1), Kenya (1), New Caledonia (1), Reunion (2), the Seychelles (2), and South Africa (2). The annual fatality rate was 16%, similar to the 1990’s average of 13%, but higher than the 6.7% average of the first decade of this century. The trend in fatality rate has been one of constant reduction over the past 11 decades, reflective of advances in beach safety practices and medical treatment, and increased public awareness of avoiding potentially dangerous situations. 

This year’s higher rate no doubt is a statistical anomaly based in part on where the serious attacks occurred geographically. The unusually low proportion of attacks occurring in the United States, particularly in Florida, and a jump in attacks in non-U.S. locales not blessed with as highly-developed safety and medical personnel and facilities lead to an unusually high number of deaths. The fatality rate in the U.S. was zero, elsewhere it was nearly 25%. This contrast highlights the need for increasing efforts to improve beach safety, including education of the public about the risk of sharks, providing well-trained lifeguards, and advancing emergency care and medical capabilities.  

In fact, shark-human interactions have declined in the last decade, and they cite a number of reasons for this:

  • less people in the water
  • less sharks in the water
  • humans getting smarter about dealing with sharks when they’re in the water,

and not a single mention of climate change or global warming.

The original article was written by AFP, an organisation that loves to plug climate alarmism, so they insert “global warming” into a story to sex it up, despite no mention of it being made by the scientist responsible. And because it is an agency piece, it is regurgitated the world over by all the national media organisations.

UPDATE: I emailed George Burgess for his reaction to this story. He commented that the original headline was misleading on both counts (tourism and global warming) but asked the following comment to be published, set out below (emphasis his):

“My concern is over poor journalism, not whether or not global climate change is real.  From a scientific perspective, it is.  We are seeing lots of biological effects associated with warming water temperatures, including distributional changes in some sharks and many other marine species.  As some of these sharks move into higher latitudes they have and will continue to come in contact with more humans (which also are more likely to enter the water in these areas as water temperatures become more tolerable) and we might expect to see a small rise in attacks in some areas that formerly had none (as we saw this year in Russia).  No cause for panic, but check back in about ten years to see how the pattern goes, by then we’ll know better if there was a trend or simply normal variation that occurs in the natural system.”

We are not disputing that the climate is changing – we do dispute attribution, something not raised here. Furthermore AFP’s use of “global warming” in this article as a hook to lure the unsuspecting is, as Burgess states, simply poor journalism.

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Government's climate indoctrination exposed (again)

14 February, 2012 by

Corrupting young minds

The problem with adults is that they have mature and developed powers of reasoning and logical thought. This means that adults can easily see through the government’s deceit on the carbon tax, namely that it will be of some benefit to the climate – it won’t – or that the rest of the world is racing ahead to take action – it isn’t – or that the planet is headed for oblivion if we don’t send our economy back to the dark ages – it isn’t.

Therefore, because they have no standards of morality or decency whatsoever, they are prepared to bypass the grown-ups and go for the impressionable minds of children. This is nothing new, as ACM has reported on many such occasions (see here, for example, and the CSIRO’s Carbon Kids program, a disgraceful propaganda exercise by our national science body, on which there may be more at a later date).

So the following is simply the latest evidence of government attempts to brainwash and indoctrinate the next generation with climate alarmism before they have the capacity to question what they are being told:

SHE grows awesome tomatoes and has an orange tractor. And now dirtgirl, the lead character in the popular children’s television program dirtgirlworld, has been enlisted to the climate change fight by a Gillard government struggling to convince her viewers’ parents of the merits of the carbon tax package.

Senate estimates was told yesterday the ABC show had been awarded a $150,000 grant “to reach currently disengaged families through childhood activities focused on reducing energy use”.

The hearing was told the government had $10 million left for an advertising campaign to back the carbon tax. But no decision had been taken on the future of the campaign.

Other recipients of Climate Change Foundation grants included Green Cross Australia, which was awarded $200,000 for a primary school show-and-tell competition.

The $3m grants program was announced last June in conjunction with the government’s paid advertising campaign to promote the carbon package.

The $10m remaining in the government’s advertising allocation follows its controversial advertisement last year backing the clean energy future package, which was found to have largely failed to sway public opinion on carbon pricing.

The Climate Change Department told yesterday’s Senate estimates hearing the advertisements had sparked 7500 responses to a call centre on the Clean Energy Future package. (source)

Aided and abetted as usual by Their ABC.

H/t ABC News Watch

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German article: sceptics are "like viruses"

13 February, 2012 by

Fritz Vahrenholt

UPDATE: Un-Skeptical Pseudo-Science smears Vahrenholt with one of its usual smug cut-and-paste jobs from IPCC AR4,  dismissing any possible solar influence on climate other than TSI. See? The science is settled when you cover your eyes and shut your ears! Yawn. How they loathe it when one of their own turns on them. Link – Webcite only, not giving them any of my traffic.

Once again, I suppose we should be pleased that those who attack sceptics have no arguments whatsoever, and resort to name calling and bizarre explanations as to why anyone could possibly be a climate heretic. These poor souls are so brainwashed that they have lost the ability to reason logically, so instead they flail wildly around, searching for any possible excuse. So much less effort than responding to the sceptics’ points.

We have seen this before. Here, from 2009, is a response to the claim that sceptics were mentally ill:

The idea that ‘climate change denial’ is a psychological disorder – the product of a spiteful, wilful or simply in-built neural inability to face up to the catastrophe of global warming – is becoming more and more popular amongst green-leaning activists and academics. And nothing better sums up the elitism and authoritarianism of the environmentalist lobby than its psychologisation of dissent.

The labelling of any criticism of the politics of global warming, first as ‘denial’, and now as evidence of mass psychological instability, is an attempt to write off all critics and sceptics as deranged, and to lay the ground for inevitable authoritarian solutions to the problem of climate change.

Historically, only the most illiberal and misanthropic regimes have treated disagreement and debate as signs of mental ill-health.

And again from 2009, here:

CSIRO’s former climate director, Dr Graeme Pearman, suffered a personal crisis after confronting this question before deciding to study psychology, which he describes as the new frontier in climate change:

“Behavioural issues are likely to be much more important than the development of improved descriptions of exactly what happens or might happen to the climate. These are the main barriers to the actions that are needed.”

So we shouldn’t be surprised when a recent article in Germany likens sceptics, including Fritz Vahrenholt, author of The Cold Sun, to “viruses”. Petra Döll, lead author for IPCC AR5 WG2, Part A, Chapter 3, freshwater resources (see here – PDF), claims climate sceptics “should no longer be heard”. Vahrenholt responds:

The attitude of refusal by the IPCC with respect to open scientific discussion and debate is now conspicuous. This is demomstrated by IPCC lead author Dr. Petra Döll in the German online taz in claiming that “climate skeptics” no longer need to be heard. Indeed it is questionable just how long this weird scientific approach can be maintained. Should we not expect a professional demeanor from scientists who are paid and supported by German tax revenue? Döll’s dubious reasoning: The climate skeptics ”just keep repeating the same arguments”.  

Could it be that the so-called climate skeptics are forced to keep repeating because the current climate science establishment has yet to provide a satisfactory answer? There’s a lot that indicates this is the case. An assessment of the media one week after the launch of the book “Die kalte Sonne” has clearly shown: The media are relying on a hand-full of prominent experts whose arguments are showing to be everything but scientifically convincing. The statements of many experts and activist editors are characterized by misrepresentations, intentional omissions and errors.

There’s much more at No Tricks Zone.

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Frozen Europe

13 February, 2012 by

Heidelberg frozen solid

The Big Freeze in Europe continues. This clearly has nothing to do with climate change, it’s just weather. However, it does demonstrate the damaging power of extreme cold. Now imagine what it would be like surviving in these extreme weather conditions with astronomical energy prices as a results of pointless “climate change mitigation policies”:

You would be forgiven for thinking these stunning vistas lay deep in the heart of Antarctica.

But they are, in fact, what has become of the European landscape as temperatures plummet to nearly -40C – the coldest snap in decades.

Rivers, lakes, beaches and even seas have been iced over by a Siberian freeze, creating some incredible sights, but also more tales of tragedy.

Thousands enjoyed a day out on the frozen Lake Pfaeffikersee, near Zurich, Switzerland, today, while ice anglers looked more like Eskimos as they braved the conditions on a Polish reservoir.

But in southern Kosovo, nine people were killed when an avalanche hit the village of Restelica, officials said on Sunday, adding to more than 500 killed in snow and bitter cold across the Continent in the past two weeks.          

In Poland, the interior ministry said 20 people had died in the past 24 hours because of the freezing weather, bringing the toll there so far this year to at least 100.

A spokeswoman said the latest victims froze to death or were suffocated or killed by fires due to defective or improvised heaters. 

The Kosovo avalanche enveloped about 15 houses on Saturday, but only two were occupied at the time.   

One person was missing and a girl aged about six was found alive late on Saturday after residents and emergency services helped dig out the houses. She was taken to hospital.   

‘The number of dead people now is nine and we believe there is still one missing person,’ said Ibrahim Shala, a spokesperson from the Kosovo Security Force (KSF).           

Temperatures have plummeted in parts of Europe close to minus 40 degrees Celsius (minus 40 Fahrenheit) in the coldest February snap the region has seen in decades. Meteorologists say it could last till the end of the month.           

In Kosovo, three people died and two children were injured on Thursday when a gas can that a family was using for heating exploded.

Kosovo’s government ordered schools to remain closed for another week with more snow expected. Police said many inhabited areas were completely cut off.

In neighbouring Montenegro the government imposed a state of emergency late on Saturday after snow blocked roads and railways across most of the country. Three people have died so far.

More than 50 people have been stranded on a train in Montenegro’s north for more than two days as emergency crews struggle to rescue them.
In the mountain town of Zabljak in Montenegro’s north, snow was 2.3 metres deep, while authorities have banned all private traffic in the capital Podgorica, where snow is almost a metre (three feet) deep and more is forecast on Sunday.

In Serbia, which declared a state of emergency last week, 19 people have died in the cold snap so far.

Economists said damage from the cold weather may cost the country more than 500 million euros ($660 million).

More than 2,000 industrial businesses have been idled to limit the strain on coal-fired power plants and hydropower plants, which were struggling because of the buildup of ice.

The government also ordered the closure of all schools and non-essential businesses until February 20.

Port authorities for Serbian sections of the Danube, Sava and Tisa rivers halted navigation due to a heavy buildup of ice.

For the first time in decades, parts of the Black Sea has frozen near its shores, while the Kerch Strait that links the Azov Sea and the Black Sea has been closed to navigation.

Some great photos at the link.

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Adelaide cold snap "not seen before since at least 1977"

12 February, 2012 by

City of churches (and brass monkeys)

From the Weather Isn’t Climate department:

Adelaide has remained at least seven degrees cooler than average for the past six days, which is a February feat not seen before since at least 1977.

From Sunday 5th February to Friday 10th, Adelaide failed to climb above 22.5 degrees, well below the long term February average of 29.4.

The unusually cool conditions are the result of a persistent flow of southerly air over the city during the past week and lingering cloud cover, which has restricted solar heating from the sun.

The city only managed to reach 20 degrees on Friday, nine degrees cooler than usual and the coldest February day in seven years.

Adelaide’s run of cool days is expected to end next week, when temperatures return to more familiar territory. The city can expect to reach the high 20’s by the end of the weekend and from Tuesday the mercury is set to climb into the 30s for the first time in 11 days.

Looking ahead, a weak change will affect Adelaide in the middle of next week, although temperatures are unlikely to stay as low as they have over the past six days.

(Weatherzone)

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IPCC "ignores an entire field of science"

12 February, 2012 by

Rotten to the core

Why should that surprise anyone? The IPCC isn’t a scientific organisation, impartially sifting through and collating the current state of climate research to seek the truth, it is a political one, established for the sole purpose of finding evidence to support a pre-determined conclusion reached back in the 1980s, namely that man-made CO2 was causing dangerous climate change.

Why else would the IPCC include acres of grey literature, the majority of it from environmental advocacy groups, and the majority of it tending to make the case against CO2 stronger, yet exclude much peer-reviewed (for what that’s worth) research which questions the influence of CO2 relative to other factors? Why else would virtually every error discovered in the IPCC reports tend to exaggerate the seriousness of the crisis? Why else would many lead authors be permitted to be closely involved with environmental organisations like WWF and Friends of the Earth whilst carrying out their duties for the IPCC? Why else would Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the IPCC, be seen regularly advocating particular policy outcomes, such as reduction of emissions, which assume a particular scientific conclusion?

When one stops deluding oneself that the IPCC is a scientific organisation and appreciates that it is a political organisation, rotten to the core, all the above make perfect sense.

In Germany, where the sceptic movement has received considerable publicity over the past week or so, thanks to Fritz Vahrenholt’s new book, The Cold Sun, newspaper Die Welt publishes a damning indictment of the IPCC, in an editorial entitled Climate science is the new replacement religion:

Very few people have recognised that in the research that Vahrenholt und Lüning are referring to has nothing to do with the irradiative heating of the sun, which indeed does not fluctuate much, but with the solar winds which are increasingly shown to have an indirect impact on cloud formation, and thus influence the climate.

The IPCC has looked at this on the fringes and have determined that this research – which the renwoned CERN institute and others are carrying out -– is not far enough to allow conclusions to be drawn.

That may or may not be the case. But the fact remains that the IPCC, which is responsible for bringing the scientists together, still has not gotten the idea to invite these scientists for its large climate reports. Why not? After all it’s the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and not the Intergovernmental Panel on CO2.”

As No Tricks Zone goes on to say:

The positive feedbacks ASSUMED for CO2 with respect to water vapour are also very poorly understood. Yet the IPCC has no problems inflating those and including them in their climate reports.

Source link from No Tricks Zone.

Google Translate version of Die Welt editorial is here.

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , ,
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