UK: Record snow "doesn't undermine global warming science"

6 January, 2010 by

Brass monkeys

Just this morning I wondered how long it would be before some rent-a-quote scientist would come out and say that the record snow in the UK (plus record cold elsewhere in the Northern hemisphere) could not be used to question the religion of “global warming”. Well, it’s taken just a few hours:

Stephen Dorling, of the University of East Anglia’s school of environmental sciences, said it was not surprising the cold period raised questions over climate change – but the snowy weather should not be used as evidence against it.

He said: ”It’s no surprise that people look out of their window at the snow and find it hard to rationalise what’s going on with the longer term trend.”

But he said it was wrong to focus on single events – whether they were cold snaps or heat waves – which were the product of natural variability.

Instead they should look at the underlying, longer term trends for the climate which were more ”robust” evidence of the changes which are happening.

Dr Dorling said: ”There is no doubt we will continue to have unusually warm and unusually cold Decembers and Januarys but it will be superimposed on what the background climate is doing.” (source)

It cuts both ways: if record cold and snow don’t negate global warming theory (which they obviously don’t), then heatwaves and droughts don’t support it either. So I wait with bated breath for The Sydney Morning Herald or The Age to run the following headlines in the next hot spell: “Don’t jump to conclusions: heatwave does not prove global warming theory”, or “Drought ‘entirely consistent’ with global cooling, says scientist.” I think I’ll be waiting a very, very long time…

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UK: Heaviest snowfall in 50 years forecast

6 January, 2010 by

Global warming at work

From the Weather Isn’t Climate Department. This global warming sure is tricky. While the papers here are full to bursting about the last decade being the “hottest” on record (never “warmest” or “mildest”, you will note, but “hottest” – and we’re talking a few tenths of one degree here) I guess there will be some scientist, somewhere, who will attribute record snowfall in the UK to changing weather patterns caused by “global warming”. Here’s a recap from last year, when the UK had the worst snow for 30 years:

Even though this is quite a cold winter by recent standards it is still perfectly consistent with predictions for global warming,” said Dr Myles Allen, head of the Climate Dynamics group at Department of Physics, University of Oxford.

“If it wasn’t for global warming this cold snap would happen much more regularly. What is interesting is that we are now surprised by this kind of weather. I doubt we would have been in the 1950s because it was much more common. (source)

So there you have it. And again in 2010, my home country is frozen:

As the country was plunged into one of its worst winters for decades, the Met Office issued an emergency weather warning for all counties of the UK. The South, including London and the Home Counties, were expected to bear the brunt of the snowfall with emergency services warning they are already struggling to cope with the increasingly bitter conditions.

Forecasters predicted that more than one foot of snow could fall in less than 24 hours in most southern areas leading to widespread chaos and disruption for millions. The residents of Hampshire and Wiltshire were expected to be the worst hit, with as much as 16 inches likely to be dumped by the end of tomorrow. Residents and commuters in London, which ground to a halt last February following heavy falls, were warned to expect a covering of several inches by the morning rush hour.

On the roads drivers were advised not to venture out unless their journey was absolutely essential, as councils warned they could run out of grit if the conditions failed to improve.

The Met Office claimed the amount of snow forecast could be the biggest single fall since the notorious winter of 1962-63, when some areas of the country were blighted by snow and ice for more than three months. During that winter the south saw more than a foot of snow, while blizzards in some parts of Wales led to drifts of over 18 feet. (source)

And fuel will start running out pretty soon:

Figures obtained by the Tories suggested that if the icy weather conditions continue, storage supplies [of gas] could begin to run out early next week. Greg Clark, the Shadow Energy Secretary, accused the Government of negligence over the issue, claiming they had ignored repeated warnings over potential shortages. For only the second time ever, the National Grid on Monday issued a warning to energy providers that demand for gas is threatening to outstrip supply.

The ultimatum comes after a 30 per cent rise on normal seasonal demand as snow and freezing conditions continued their stranglehold on Britain. But the Conservatives claimed the Government had failed to put contingency plans in place for more than a decade.

Mr Clark said: ”This alert is just a taste of what’s to come as a result of Labour’s negligence. Gas supply shortages are already being predicted in the North West and East Midlands and at today’s level of demand we only have enough stored gas for another eight days worth of supply.

“I have repeatedly warned that Britain lacks the essential back-up plans needed for situations like this one. The Government has had its head in the sand on this issue for 12 years. (source)

Good job they don’t have an emissions trading scheme that will push up prices of fuel for the poorest in society. Oh, wait, they already have. They’ll have to start burning books soon. Oh, wait, they already are. (h/t Daily Bayonet)

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BoM: 2009 "second hottest year on record"

5 January, 2010 by

Good news for doom mongers

The warmenistas will love this – oh, well, can’t begrudge them a bit of fun – it’s been a shocking year for the poor blighters. The Bureau has come out and labelled 2009 the second hottest year on record:

“2009 ends Australia’s warmest decade on record, with a decadal mean temperature anomaly of +0.48C (above the 1961-90 average),” the Bureau of Meterology said.

“In Australia, each decade since the 1940s has been warmer than the preceding decade. In contrast, decadal temperature variations during the first few decades of Australia’s climate record do not display any specific trend. This suggests an apparent shift in Australia’s climate from one characterised by natural variability to one increasingly characterised also by a trend to warmer temperatures.”

In a statement, the bureau also noted that the World Meteorological Organisation stated that 2009 is expected to be the globe’s fifth warmest year on record (about 0.44C above the 1961-90 average).

And the moronic Peter “Where’s Penny” Garrett leaps on it as evidence of “global warming”:

Environment Minister Peter Garrett said today the finding that Australia’s annual mean temperature for 2009 was 0.9C above the 1961-90 average exposed Tony Abbott’s false climate change claim that global warming has stopped.

“This false and misleading claim is today shown to be completely at odds with the rigorous scientific findings of the independent experts at the Bureau of Meteorology,” Mr Garrett said.

“This is the latest Abbott climate-change clanger to be exposed by the independent experts and once again shows why Mr Abbott cannot be trusted when it comes to climate change.”

Mr Garrett said the weather records underlined the need for a carbon pollution reduction scheme to reduce global warming. (source)

Where’s Penny again? Where’s Kevin? When those two aren’t around, it’s left to the pea-brained rock-star to deal with climate matters. So what does this actually say? It actually says that the surface temperature in Australia is the second highest since 1850 [Update: actually, since 1910, which makes it even less relevant]. Big freaking deal. The planet was at the end of the Little Ice Age in 1850, so guess what, it’s getting warmer.

What doesn’t it say?

  • It doesn’t prove any link with CO2 emissions, so Garrett’s link to the CPRS is total nonsense
  • It doesn’t say that the satellite record shows far less warming (almost none) since 2001 (see below)
  • It doesn’t say the planet has been warmer previously – it has, many times – nor that the rate of warming is anything unusual.

In fact, Dr Roy Spencer has just posted the December anomaly from UAH:

Dr Spencer comments thus:

While the large amount of year-to-year variability in global temperatures seen in the above plot makes it difficult to provide meaningful statements about long-term temperature trends in the context of global warming, the running 25-month average suggests there has been no net warming in the last 11 years or so. (source)

Which would you trust? Satellite data, or thermometer records that are fudged and “adjusted” and “homogenized” by the likes of CRU?

UPDATE at 3 pm: And of course, every two-bit rag, newsletter and gossip sheet in Australia is now running the story. Stuffed full of alarmists, the editorial offices have had a pretty tough time, what with the climate not co-operating, and Climategate. But now they can breathe a collective sigh of relief as a big, copper-bottomed scare story finally breaks (except it isn’t if you actually stopped for five seconds to think about it).

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2009 Weblog Awards cancelled

5 January, 2010 by

Cancelled

Unfortunately, due to lack of computing resources, the Weblog awards have been cancelled this year.

A big thank you, however, to all of you who nominated this site – we had the highest number of nominations in the Best Australian or New Zealand Blog category.

Hopefully, they will get their act together for next year.

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Rally in Canberra for Peter Spencer

4 January, 2010 by

Supporters

Whilst Kevin Rudd sits and home and takes the credit for a children’s book about his pets written by someone else, Peter Spencer is into his 43rd day of hunger strike protesting against the confiscation of his land (without compensation) for use as a carbon sink, in order for Australia to meet its Kyoto obligations (see here for more stories on this).

More than 300 people have rallied outside Parliament House in Canberra in support of hunger-striking New South Wales farmer Peter Spencer.

Mr Spencer has spent 43 days without food on top of a tower on his property at Shannons Flat near Cooma, in protest against state laws which stop him from clearing vegetation on his land.

He wants the Commonwealth to compensate farmers whose land has been used as ‘carbon sinks’.

…

Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce also addressed the crowd, calling for a Royal Commission into vegetation laws.

He said farmers across Australia have been unjustly divested of their land.

“It might have been legally possible but it was totally unjust,” he said.

Read it here.

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Monckton offers "personal briefing" to Kevin Rudd

4 January, 2010 by

Viscount Monckton

Viscount Monckton writes to Kevin Rudd to offer a “personal briefing” on the non-problem of AGW:

Prime Minister,

Climate change: proposed personal briefing

Your speech on 6 November 2009 to the Lowy Institute, in which you publicly expressed some concern at my approach to the climate question, has prompted several leading Australian citizens to invite me come on tour to explain myself in a series of lectures in Australia later this month. I am writing to offer personal briefings on why “global warming” is a non-problem to you and other party leaders during my visit. For convenience, I am copying this letter to them, and to the Press.

I wouldn’t hold your breath. Kevin Rudd and his government have their fingers plugged firmly into their ears on this subject.

Read it all here (h/t WUWT)

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Christopher Booker: Met Office gives us the warmist weather

3 January, 2010 by

Alarmism

Christopher Booker lifts the lid on the alarmism at the UK Met Office:

The reason the Met Office so persistently gets its seasonal forecasts wrong is that it has been hi-jacked from the role for which we pay it nearly £200 million a year, to become one of the world’s major propaganda engines for the belief in man-made global warming. Over the past three years, it has become a laughing stock for forecasts which are invariably wrong in the same direction.

The year 2007, it predicted, would be “the warmest ever” – just before global tempratures plunged by more than the entire net warming of the 20th century, Three years running it predicted warmer than average winters – as large parts of the northern hemisphere endured record cold and snowfalls. Last year’s “barbecue summer” was the third time running that predictions of a summer drier and warmer than average prefaced weeks of rain and cold. Last week the Met Office was again predicting that 2010 will be the “warmest year” on record, while Europe and the US look to be facing further weeks of intense cold.

What is not generally realised is that the UK Met Office has been, since 1990, at the very centre of the campaign to convince the world that it faces catastrophe through global warming. (Its website now proclaims it to be “the Met Office for Weather and Climate Change”.) Its then-director, Dr John Houghton, was the single most influential figure in setting up the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as the chief driver of climate alarmism. Its Hadley Centre for Climate Change, along with the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU), was put in charge of the most prestigious of the four official global temperature records. In line with IPCC theory, its computers were programmed to predict that, as CO2 levels rose, temperatures would inevitably follow. From 1990 to 2007, the Department of the Environment gave the Met Office no less than £146 million for its “climate predictions programme”.

Read it here.

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Idiotic Comment of the Day: Clover Moore

1 January, 2010 by

If in doubt, say nowt

Sydney’s batty “Lord” mayor spoils the New Year celebrations by hijacking them to preach about climate change. It’s just so last year:

“I think it’s an incredibly important message. As I said last night, Aboriginal people believe that each year you awaken the spirit of the land, the sea, the sky and the people,” Ms Moore told reporters.

“I believe that at this time there is no more important message because we are facing catastrophic climate change and we indeed need to awaken our spirit to take action to address global warming.”

The celebrations were carbon neutral, Ms Moore said. (source)

Big freaking deal. Thanks for ruining people’s enjoyment of the New Year. Now go away.

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Quote of the Day: Catherine Deveny

1 January, 2010 by

Over the edge

Quite disturbing:

Like all people apart from politicians my hopes for 2010 are world peace and freedom from hunger, poverty, discrimination and oppression. Oh and the reintroduction of stoning for Channel Nine executives, religious fundamentalists, people who ask you to bring your own meat to their barbeques, parents with ‘gifted children’ and ‘climate change skeptics’.

(Climate Change Skeptics (also known as morons) are people who don’t believe in science purely because they a) can’t bear to admit they couldn’t see it coming or may have contributed to it b) don’t care because they assume by the time the real catastrophe happens they’ll be old, dead or rich enough to buy their way out and or c) refuse to accept the evidence because if they do they will have to admit that it God doesn’t exist. Because if God existed wouldn’t we be special enough for him to spare us?)

We’re really through the looking glass now. And the good old ABC gleefully publishes this kind of stuff.

Read the rest here – it’s even more bizarre.

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ETS: Electricity prices to double within two years

1 January, 2010 by

Minchin: stunned

… and treble by 2024. All thanks to the ETS. Fortunate, then, that it will never make it into law:

New modelling by the Government’s energy market operator reveals the wholesale price of electricity will rise from $30 per megawatt hour in 2010 to about $100 by 2024.

In a national transmission report released before Christmas, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) predicts the price will double to $60 per megawatt hour by 2012.

The wholesale price makes up less than half of the final bill that reaches each customer, who also pays distribution costs.

The AEMO modelling is based on Treasury’s carbon price estimates under the proposed emissions trading scheme, which from next year will force big polluters to pay for their emissions. [Er, well it would if it was actually law yet – Ed]

Opposition energy spokesman Nick Minchin yesterday accused the Rudd Government of trying to hide the real costs of tackling climate change.

“I think Australians will be stunned to learn that their power bills could more than triple as a result of Mr Rudd’s climate change policies,” Senator Minchin said.

Read it here.

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