Climategate

Bitter cold records broken in Alaska – all time coldest record nearly broken, but Murphy’s Law intervenes

2012-02-01T20:34:00.000Z

WUWT
"Jim River, AK closed in on the all time record coldest temperature of -80°F set in 1971, which is not only the Alaska all-time record, but the record for the entire United States. Unfortunately, it seems the battery died in the weather station just at the critical moment."

Norway numbed: Mercury drops to -37 degrees

2012-01-31T21:47:00.000Z

TheLocal (Norway)
"Tore Larsen, who lives in a cottage on the shores of Møsvatn lake, decided to rethink his plans for the day after taking a look at his thermometer.

“Right now it’s -37 degrees here. I was actually supposed to travel to West Telemark today to install a satellite dish but I’ve put that off for now,” he said.

Meteorologists said the temperature was the lowest recorded in the country on Tuesday, as well as being the lowest in memory in the Telemark area. However, since it was recorded by an individual home owner it is not destined to enter the record books.

“We recorded -31.8 degrees at Møsstrond in Telemark in 1980. We haven’t had any colder measurements at our weather stations since then, so this is probably a new record cold level for Telemark,” Øyvind Johnsen from the Norwegian Meteorological Institute told national broadcaster NRK." (H/T Dr Richard North)

Global warming nonsense gets a true cold shoulder

2012-01-31T21:39:00.000Z

Andrew Bolt,Telegraph (Australia)
"LET'S take stock of the great global warming scare and see how it's panning out.

First, the planet hasn't actually warmed for a decade - or even 15 years - according to new temperature data released by Britain's Met Office.

Hmm. That's not what global warming scientists predicted.

Look out of your window. The rain that Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery said in 2007 "isn't actually going to fill our dams and river systems" any more has just flooded NSW and Queensland yet again.

The Bureau of Meteorology - which three years ago warned "we are just not going to have that sort of good rain again" - now admits last year was our third wettest on record.

The snowfalls that the University of East Anglia in 2000 said would soon become "a very rare and exciting event" are falling as hard as ever.

The monster hurricanes we were told to expect by Nobel Prize winner Al Gore are coming no more often.

The massive coral bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef that warmist Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg predicted would occur every second year from 2010 has not been seen in years.

Wherever you look it's the same wake-up-to-yourself story. Sea levels have recently dipped, the oceans have lately cooled, Arctic ice has not retreated since 2007, polar bears are increasing in numbers, global crop yields keep rising and now some solar scientists warn not of global warming, but cooling -- a far deadlier threat."

Obama's clean energy scorecard

2012-01-31T21:35:00.000Z

The Hockey Schtick
"In just the past week we’ve learned that three so-called “green energy” companies have either gone out of business or are laying off massive numbers of employees.

Evergreen Energy: This company received $5.3 million in government “stimulus.” That’s either your money or money we had to borrow from China. Evergreen has filed for bankruptcy.
Eneri. They manufacture batteries for electric vehicles. Bankrupt. Millions more in “stimulus” money.
Amonix, Inc. They make solar panels. $5.9 of your money --- now laying off two-thirds of its workforce; about 200 people.

And of course you remember Solyndra. About a half-billion shot to hell there."

Obama’s 22-car salute to gesture politics

2012-01-30T12:33:00.000Z

Andrew Bolt,Herald Sun (Australia)
"President Barack Obama goes to the UPS Depot in Las Vegas to promote clean energy:

President Obama proposed several federal initiatives favoring the use of natural gas for transportation, including getting more natural gas vehicles on the road using federal fleets ...

Here is the green-preaching Obama arriving at the UPS Depot in his fleet of 22 fossil-fueled cars: .."

A Rose on winter

2012-01-30T12:30:00.000Z

Bishop Hill
"Over the weekend there was quite a lot of interest in David Rose's article in the Mail, which addressed new figures from the Met Office which appeared to confirm a lack of any warming in the last 15 years. ......The Met Office have now responded, with a blog post that has a whiff of Bob Ward about it: "includes numerous errors in the reporting of published peer reviewed science". The argument seems to be that if you take decadal averages it is still possible to obscure the plateau in the temperatures.

Or words to that effect."

Spain Halts Renewable Subsidies to Curb $31 Billion of Debts

2012-01-30T12:27:00.000Z

Bloomberg
"Spain halted subsidies for renewable energy projects to help curb its budget deficit and rein in power-system borrowings backed by the state that reached 24 billion euros ($31 billion) at the end of 2011.

“What is today an energy problem could become a financial problem,” Industry Minister Jose Manuel Soria said in Madrid. The government passed a decree today stopping subsidies for new wind, solar, co-generation or waste incineration plants.

The system’s debts were racked up as revenue from state- controlled prices failed to cover the cost of delivering power. Costs have swollen in the past five years because of an increase in regulated payments for the power grid, support for Spanish coal mines and subsidies for renewable energy plants."

Headlines over solar cycle 25 and potential global cooling

2012-01-30T12:21:00.000Z

WUWT
"There’s a story about solar cycle 25, and a potential “mini ice age” in the UK Daily Mail by David Rose that is making headlines today, even hitting the Drudge Report. .....Readers may recall that WUWT had this story on January 25th via David Archibald: First Estimate of Solar Cycle 25 Amplitude – may be the smallest in over 300 years The graph he provided matches almost exactly. ....."

Sea Surface Salinity from Space

2012-01-30T12:16:00.000Z

Nasa
"As computer models evolve, Aquarius will provide the essential SSS data needed to link the two major components of the climate system: the water cycle and ocean circulation. ......Aquarius is a focused effort to measure Sea Surface Salinity and will provide the global view of salinity variability needed for climate studies." (Aquarius/SAC-D was launched, June 10, 2011)

Drenched Queensland braces for more rain

2012-01-29T21:05:00.000Z

ABC (Australia)
"More than 200 millimetres of rain has drenched parts of the Fraser Coast over the weekend, with Bundaberg having more than 150."

ED: Warmists predicted endless drought...

Children just aren't going to know what sun is

2012-01-29T18:13:00.000Z

Telegraph
"There's a great piece by David Rose in the Mail On Sunday nicely summing up what a lot of us here knew already: that the thing we really need to fear right now is not global warming but global cooling. And that, on current evidence, it's global cooling we're going to get. .....Rose's piece comes hot on the heels of an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal signed by 16 distinguished scientists (proper ones: not "climate" "scientists") noting the continuing absence of ManBearPig: ...The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections—suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.

The fact is that CO2 is not a pollutant. CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere's life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere."

Forget global warming - it's Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again)

2012-01-29T18:06:00.000Z

Daily Mail
Met Office releases new figures which show no warming in 15 years
"The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years. The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century. Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by the Met Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. It confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997."

How I woke up to the untruths of Barack Obama

2012-01-28T20:26:00.001Z

Christopher Booker of The Sunday Telegraph
"A later passage in Obama’s speech, when he hailed the way his country’s energy future has been transformed by the miracle of shale gas, met with a storm of applause. Not only would this give the US energy security for decades, creating 600,000 jobs, but it could now go all out to exploit its gas and oil reserves (more applause). Yet this was the man who in 2008 couldn’t stop talking about the threat of global warming, and was elected on a pledge to make the US only the second country in the world, after Britain, to commit to cutting its CO2 emissions from fossil fuels by 80 per cent within 40 years. ......But on no issue has this been more obvious than political America’s wholesale retreat from the great fantasy of global warming – which leaves Britain as the only country committed to the insanity of cutting “carbon emissions” by four-fifths in less than four decades. President Obama and the rest of the world have moved on."

No Need to Panic About Global Warming

2012-01-27T21:04:00.001Z

WSJ
"There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy. ....Editor's Note: The following has been signed by the 16 scientists listed at the end of the article: .......Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job. .......Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.

Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically."
Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.

Alaska On The Rocks

2012-01-27T20:59:00.000Z

WUWT
"The Bering Sea ice this year is in early, and it’s thick. Not only that, it’s moving south fast. The crab fleet has some $8 million dollars of gear in the water, and the ice is moving south at twenty miles an hour. Usually ice comes in later and thinner, and moves south at three miles an hour. Boats are tied up to the Dutch Harbor docks. At St. Paul Island, out of the photo to the left, the crab boats usually sell their loads to the processor boats. It is also totally iced in. Millions of dollars have already been sunk into moving the crab boats and the processor boats and the crab pots to Dutch. If this cold continues, the season will likely be a total bust."

What in the world is going on with global temperatures?

2012-01-26T17:10:00.002Z

WUWT
"Multiple indicators show global temperatures headed down this month, and fast."

Brisbane floods redux

2012-01-26T16:58:00.000Z

Bishop Hill
"Remember last year's floods in Brisbane? There were some interesting exchanges in the comments on my posts on the subject, with some differences of opinion between those who thought that the dams had been mismanaged, perhaps in response to green-initiated concerns over droughts - and those who thought otherwise"

Isolated & Depressed: Greens Attack Obama For Promoting Fracking & Oil

2012-01-25T22:31:00.000Z

GWPF
"But global warming was barely a passing reference in the speech—quite unlike something that surely has many greens worried: a call to increase domestic oil and gas production.

In Obama’s words:

Nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy. Over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I’m directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Right now, American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years. That’s right – eight years. Not only that – last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years.

It’s true that the President went onto admit that the U.S. has only 2% of proven global oil reserves, and that there’s no way to drill ourselves out of the economic doldrums. But still, coming less than a week after the Administration blocked the oil sands Keystone XL pipeline, it was striking to see a President who had come to office promising to make clean energy and climate change a top priority."

Greenpeace's forest policy is unsustainable

2012-01-24T20:50:00.000Z

Telegraph
"Imagine a situation in which an activist group with certain political ambitions and close ties to a computer manufacturer engaged in a campaign of threats against specific UK retailers.

Targeted retailers were told that they must buy computers from only a select manufacturer (the one closely associated with the activist group) — and no other, to the detriment of the retailer, market competition, and consumers at large. If retailers dared to purchase from any other computer manufacturer, the activist group would continue a campaign to spread misinformation, harass and embarrass the retailer, and sully its name brand. If this fictional scenario were made real, it would likely be cause for an investigation. In the world of organized crime, this type of strategy has a name: racketeering."

Warmists washed out

2012-01-24T20:39:00.000Z

Andrew Bolt,Herald Sun (Australia)
"Meanwhile, the Bureau of Meteorology has confirmed 2011 was Australia’s third-wettest year on record and the wettest year since 1970. .....How strange. I mean, remember the claims that we faced a “permanent drought”, thanks to man-made global warming? Here’s just some of those warnings: ...."

A major FOI victory

2012-01-23T18:38:00.000Z

Bishop Hill
"So, the key outcome of this case is that a further precedent has been set. That precedent is that UEA’s refusal to release information on the grounds that under EIR Reg. 12(4)(a) – Information not held, is no longer valid. Backup servers have to be searched."

Newman blasts windfarms like his former staff won’t

2012-01-23T18:08:00.000Z

Andrew Bolt,Herald Sun (Australia)
"Even before they threatened my property, I was opposed to wind farms. They fail on all counts. They are grossly inefficient, extremely expensive, socially inequitable, a danger to human health, environmentally harmful, divisive for communities, a blot on the landscape, and don’t even achieve the purpose for which they were designed, namely the reliable generation of electricity and the reduction of CO2 emissions.

Even if you buy the anthropogenic global warming case, experience shows that wind energy is not the answer. How is it, then, that governments around the world have embraced this technology with abandon, in the process spending hundreds of billions of dollars of other people’s money in a shameless wealth transfer from the poor to the rich?"

Ready for Worst, New York Gets First Major Snowfall

2012-01-21T20:51:00.002Z

NYT
"By 1 p.m., 4.3 inches of snow had fallen in Central Park, said David Stark of the National Weather Service. The highest total on Long Island was at Orient, N.Y., where 6.3 inches were measured at 12:30 p.m., Mr. Stark said, while Hamden, Conn., saw 8.5 inches."

Alex Salmond plans to cheat the English of billions in a green power swap

2012-01-21T20:38:00.000Z

Christopher Booker,Telegraph
"As we all know, however, the problem with wind is that it doesn’t permanently blow at the right speed to generate the power needed. There might be times when Scotland could export large amounts of wind-generated electricity to England. But these would be counterbalanced by all the times when, to keep its own lights on, it needs to import even larger amounts of power from England – generated by the kind of conventional power stations that Mr Salmond so scorns.

As hypocrisy, this is bad enough. But Mr Salmond omits to mention the further anomaly arising from the ludicrous subsidy system for wind energy. Onshore wind farms receive a 100 per cent subsidy on top of the market rate for their electricity; for offshore this is doubled to 200 per cent. So Mr Salmond’s green dream implies that Scotland will sell large amounts of inordinately expensive electricity to England, at about two to three times the going rate, while to keep its own lights on it will buy very much cheaper power from England. In other words, he is hoping to pull off an astonishingly advantageous deal, which might soon net Scotland a profit amounting to billions of pounds.

We can already see the absurd situation such green dreams can bring about in the case of Denmark, which has more wind turbines per head than any country in the world, generating on paper the equivalent of 20 per cent of the power it uses. But, wind being so variable, as much as 80 per cent of the electricity produced has to be exported cheaply to Norway, forcing the Danes to import power from Germany at prices which have made Danish electricity the most expensive in Europe.

Mr Salmond hopes to get round this difficulty by selling his own “green electricity” at exorbitant rates to the hated English, while relying on them to supply cheap electricity whenever the wind fails him. Whether he can pull off such a trick is another of the questions that needs to be resolved before Scotland is allowed to float off into his dreamworld where it joins the euro and lives happily ever after, in a land made even more beautiful by 1,000 square miles of windmills. "

Warming Summers Not Causing Colder Winters

2012-01-21T20:36:00.000Z

NoTricksZone
"The colder winters are more likely due to changing spatial pattern of more cooler water in the North East Pacific than in the Central and North West Pacific Ocean, especially since 2007 (see PDO) and more recently the slow cooling of the Atlantic Ocean....."

Solar Stocks Plunge as Germany Vows to Quicken Subsidy Cuts

2012-01-20T20:33:00.000Z

Bloomberg
"Economy Minister Philipp Roesler has said spiraling costs linked to solar subsidies are a threat to the economy. Roettgen on Jan. 18 indicated concern that the funds are benefiting Chinese companies. “The increase in installations in the past few years has gone far beyond what we had targeted in our legislation,” Roettgen said yesterday. He said the subsidy overhaul would be handled “quickly.”

Appalling disinformation in Irish Times

2012-01-20T20:30:00.000Z

Bishop Hill
"The Irish Times has the most appalling piece by an environmental writer called John Gibbons. ......Quite, quite extraordinary."

Sahara Snow On January 17 2012 – Is It Unprecedented?

2012-01-20T20:28:00.000Z

Roger Pielke Sr.
"In the video, the NBC reporter adds that the snow and cold was considered by the local population to be a good thing as it kills parasites on the palm trees."

Solar tariffs to be cut 'in April at the latest'

2012-01-20T20:23:00.000Z

Telegraph
"Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary, said in a written statement that the tariff paid to customers who generate their own electricity will be cut from April 1 for all installations completed on or after March 3.

If the Government wins its appeal, however, the current December 12 cut-off date will stand. "We continue to stand by our original proposal," Mr Huhne said. "However, I know that the uncertainty while we await the court's decision is difficult for the industry.

"If the court finds in favour of the Government's appeal, we intend to stand by all our consultation proposals, including an earlier reference date, subject to the Parliamentary procedure and consideration of consultation responses."

Green policies are costing Britons the earth

2012-01-19T17:34:00.000Z

Telegraph
"Rather predictably, Ed Miliband blamed the cuts for making life tough for those on low and middle incomes this week. And he has heaped scorn on what he calls "rip-off Britain". Both he and Cameron, however, are missing a trick when it comes to making life easier for lower earners. It is in part the green agenda that is driving up living costs and making life harder for vast swathes of Britain.

People on low incomes spend 15 per cent of their total expenditure on food and non-alcoholic drinks, and between a third and a half on housing, fuel and power. Interference under the Labour Government in the form of taxes and subsidies pushed up the costs of these goods. The Coalition government has done nothing in policy terms to reverse this trend, indeed it is continuing with a policy that is pushing up the cost of living in the name of saving the environment: the so-called ”green agenda”.

We have seen the cost of energy rise substantially. A recent report by the Institute of Economic Affairs pointed out: “The government estimates that climate change policies, primarily the Renewables Obligation and the EU Emission Trading Scheme, will be adding 26% to domestic electricity prices in real terms by 2015 and 10% to domestic gas prices.”

Solar Subsidy Sinkhole – Germany’s Solar Debacle Is A “Massive Money Pit”

2012-01-18T21:02:00.001Z

NoTricksZone
"The costs of subsidizing solar electricity have exceeded the 100-billion-euro mark in Germany, but poor results are jeopardizing the country’s transition to renewable energy. The government is struggling to come up with a new concept to promote the inefficient technology in the future…"

Winter chill freezes North India

2012-01-17T21:13:00.000Z

ZeeNews (India)
"New Delhi: North India is reeling under intense cold wave condition that has lead to more than 140 deaths across the region. .....In Punjab, Amritsar was the coldest at 0.4 degree celsius, 3 degrees below normal. Punjab's largest city, Ludhiana recorded a minimum temperature of 4.3 degrees Celsius. Certain pockets of Pathankot received snowfall, first time in 40 years. " (H/T Dr Richard North)

Peanuts: Germany's Green Energy Shift To Cost 1.7 Trillion Euros

2012-01-17T20:55:00.000Z

GWPF
"Germany's exit from nuclear power could cost the country as much as 1.7 trillion euros ($2.15 trillion) by 2030, or two thirds of the country's GDP in 2011, according to Siemens, which built all of Germany's 17 nuclear plants. The estimate of 1.7 trillion euros assumes strong expansion of renewables, with feed-in tariffs as the biggest chunk of costs."

There are more charging points than electric cars in UK as sales slump

2012-01-17T18:19:00.000Z

Daily Mail
"Sales of electric cars have slumped so badly that there are now more charging points than vehicles on the road. Just 2,149 electric cars have been sold since 2006, despite a government scheme last year offering customers up to £5,000 towards the cost of a vehicle.The Department for Transport says that around 2,500 charging points have been installed, although their precise location is not known."

The behind the scenes bumbling of the hockey stick

2012-01-16T20:27:00.000Z

WUWT
"Mann oh Mann. Tom Nelson continues to wade through the 5000+ Climategate 2 emails. I’ve selected a few he’s highlighted in the vein of behind the scenes discussion of Dr. Michael Mann’s infamous “hockey stick” which claimed we were living in a period of unprecedented warmth."

Green Fraudsters: Carbon Trading Hits Europe’s Gangland

2012-01-15T18:10:00.000Z

GWPF
"At least four recent gangland killings are connected to a multibillion euro carbon trading fraud that has cost taxpayers about €5 billion in VAT.

It was a classic French gangland operation. The killers drew up alongside their victim on a scooter as he walked through an affluent district in west Paris, shot him dead with a 7.65 pistol and then disappeared into the traffic. Police originally assumed that the murder in September of Samy Souied, a French underworld boss, was linked to drugs, gambling or prostitution. Now, officers believe it was the result of a very different racket – one involving the fight against global warming.Detectives in the French capital are convinced that at least four recent unresolved killings are connected to a multibillion euro fraud that targeted the Europe Union’s carbon dioxide trading scheme."

The disclosure comes amid a flurry of court cases across Europe involving gangs who exploited Brussels’ environmental policy to make lucrative gains.

Europol, the European Police Office, estimates that they cost taxpayers about €5 billion in VAT.

The slow cooliong of our interglacial

2012-01-14T20:25:00.000Z

Matt Ridley
"..Still, it's striking that most interglacials begin with an abrupt warming, peak sharply, then begin a gradual descent into cooler conditions before plunging rather more rapidly toward the freezer. The last interglacial—which occurred 135,000 to 115,000 years ago (named the Eemian period after a Dutch river near which the fossils of warmth-loving shell creatures of that age were found)—saw temperatures slide erratically downward by about two degrees Celsius between 127,000 and 120,000 years ago, before a sharper fall began. See charts here and here.

Cyclical changes in the earth's orbit probably weakened sunlight in the northern hemisphere summer and thus caused this slow cooling. Since the northern hemisphere is mostly land, this change in the sun's strength meant gradually increased snow and ice cover, which in turn reflected light back into space. This would have further cooled the air and, gradually, the ocean too. Carbon-dioxide levels did not begin to fall much until about 112,000 years ago, as the cooling sea absorbed more of the gas.

Our current interglacial shows a similar pattern. Greenland ice cores and other proxy records show that temperatures peaked around 7,000 years ago, when the Arctic Ocean was several degrees warmer than today, trees grew farther north in Siberia and the Sahara was wet enough for hippos (Africa generally gets wetter in warm times). Data from the southern hemisphere reveal that this "Holocene Optimum" was global in extent."

On IPCCs exaggerated climate sensitivity and the emperor’s new clothes

2012-01-13T21:58:00.000Z

Professor Nir Shaviv
"Normal science progresses through the collection of observations (or measurements), the conjecture of hypotheses, the making of predictions, and then through the usage of new observations, the modification of the hypotheses accordingly (either ruling them out, or improving them). In the global warming “science”, this is not the case."

Shale gas: the battle for Balcombe’s riches

2012-01-13T21:52:00.000Z

Telegraph
"At present, Cuadrilla is focused on the Blackpool area – one of the most deprived regions in the country – where, it says, it has found enough shale gas to meet national needs for decades. But much of Britain is believed to contain exploitable resources, with other hotspots including Scotland, South Wales, Somerset – as well as Kent, Surrey and Sussex. ......The shale phenomenon is worldwide and could – the International Energy Agency estimates – supply 250 years of gas, at present levels of consumption. Far cleaner than coal or oil, it gas has been widely hailed – including by many environmentalists – as a miraculous game-changer."

A Tale of Two Disciplines

2012-01-13T20:46:00.002Z

Quadrant Online
"Turning to the discovery of the Higgs, the estimated certainty for the discovery is 99%. This level of probability would qualify for “virtually certain” for the IPCC yet this is judged not to be sufficient proof for physicists.

Look at the claim that the use of fossil fuels explains the earth’s temperature rise since industrialization. The certainty is “estimated” (and this estimate includes expert opinions) to be 90% and styled “very likely” by the IPCC. Governments are taking action to protect the environment based on this level of certainty, urged on by climate scientists. But the same governments will not accept this level of certainty for the introduction of new drugs.

So we have two putative world ending actions. One has not occurred and may have enabled a remarkable discovery while the jury is still out on the other. But the contrast in the actions of the physicists compared to the climate scientists is remarkable.

The claims of climate scientists will take them into the realm of some astrophysicists who are judged “often wrong but never in doubt”.

Open letter: Radicals threaten resource development

2012-01-13T20:39:00.000Z

Financial Post (Canada)
"An open letter from the Honourable Joe Oliver, Minister of Natural Resources, on Canada’s commitment to diversify our energy markets and the need to further streamline the regulatory process in order to advance Canada’s national economic interest."

Please, Global Warming Alarmists, Stop Denying Climate Change - And Science

2012-01-13T20:32:00.000Z

Forbes
"Gleick, like so many of his alarmist colleagues, believes that anybody who disagrees with his scientific theories is “anti-science.” Yet it is hard to imagine objective tornado data compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to be “anti-science.” But Gleick apparently believes it so.

It is hard to imagine objective tropical cyclone data compiled by Florida State University Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies to be “anti-science,” but Gleick apparently believes it so.

It is hard to imagine objective soil moisture data compiled by several independent teams of scientists to be “anti-science,” but Gleick apparently believes it so.

The term “anti-science” most appropriately applies to those who refuse to consider competing evidence and scientific theories that raise doubts about their own theories. This term applies in spades to Gleick."
---------------
Climate Change Dispatch

Global warming: red-faced climatologist issues grovelling apology

2012-01-13T20:25:00.000Z

Telegraph
"But you'd never guess it from his high-handed tone when he was asked why he'd lost. "Just bad luck," Annan explained, going on to insist (contradicting most available real-world data, it must be said) that the trend for global warming remained "robustly positive." He then agreed to another four-year bet. If it went against him a second time would he change his mind, Annan was asked. At first he appeared to agree that it would but then he started backtracking, insisting that it wouldn't change in the slightest his view that carbon dioxide causes global warming….

This "Even though I was wrong I'm still right" syndrome afflicts a lot of people in the climate alarmist community. But then, you can hardly blame them for their wilful self-delusion and glib complacency for they seem to operate in a bubble in which there are no punishments for failure."

Trapped in ice: Alaska fuel convoy moves just 50 FEET in a day... and giant ice wall blocks harbour for crucial delivery

2012-01-12T11:45:00.000Z

Daily Mail

"The Coast Guard icebreaker should have no problem getting through the ice even if it becomes several feet thick, said Coast Guard Petty Officer First Class David Mosley. 'In the worst-case scenario, it might stop and back up and ram their way through the pressure ridges, where it gets really thick,' he said. However, conditions are so cold that the ice quickly freezes around the tanker, requiring the Healy to back up and free it.Additionally, maneuvering is a problem. The tanker must stay close enough to its Coast Guard escort that the lanes through the ice freeze back over. However, that distance puts the two vessels at risk of slamming into each other. This means that progress is exceptionally slow during the long, dark nights, which last most of the day close to the Article Circle."
---------------
A pathetic inadequacy (Dr Richard North)
"Thus we have chickens coming home to roost. After years of warmist propaganda, Alaska is suffering a ferocious winter, and the US government has been caught out, totally unprepared to deal with the conditions."

Proud To Be Canadian

2012-01-11T14:43:00.000Z

Donna Laframboise (Canada)
"It is a great moment to be a Canadian. Three weeks ago Peter Kent, our environment minister, announced that Canada will withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol. Failure to do so, he explained, would oblige us to purchase $14 billion worth of carbon credits from abroad.

As someone who thinks Kyoto was a mirage (even its proponents admit it would accomplish nothing meaningful) I’m thrilled that $14 billion worth of tax dollars will be spent on schools and hospitals instead."

Nick Grealy: Science At Last On UK Shale Gas

2012-01-11T14:37:00.001Z

GWPF
"Mike Stephenson of the British Geological Survey made an important and fairly definitive contribution to the shale debate yesterday. First the BBC report it is "extremely unlikely" shale gas drilling in Lancashire could contaminate ground water supplies, a leading geologist has said. Professor Mike Stephenson of the British Geological Survey said most experts thought the process, known as fracking, was a "pretty safe activity".

The Portland State University study of shrinking Mt. Adams glaciers—a good example of bad science.

2012-01-11T14:31:00.002Z

WUWT
"The recent Portland State University study of glaciers on Mt. Adams by is a good example of bad science, i.e., how a dogmatic bias and selectively leaving out contrary factual data can lead to bad conclusions. As an exercise in critical thinking, I used to have my graduate students take a paper like this apart, piece by piece, to show any scientific errors. Here is an analysis of bad assumptions and errors in the Mt. Adams study."

European ski resorts in 'lockdown' after freak snowfalls cut road, rail and air links

2012-01-11T11:04:00.000Z

Daily Mail

#1,000 British skiers trapped in Alps after severe snowfalls
#Falling trees and rocks blocking many routes
#Avalanche warning raised to stage three, or 'considerable risk'
#Holidaymakers advised to stay indoors

"Shrinking ice" stops tanker

2012-01-10T18:15:00.000Z

Dr Richard North
"It may be relatively mild in Britain, but not so in Alaska which is suffering an "exceptionally harsh" winter with snow at crisis point in some locations.Thick ice in the Bering Sea is also giving problems. The US coastguard's only functional icebreaker, the USS Healy, in the area is failing to get to grips with ice up to 2.5 feet thick in the approach to the seaboard town of Nome, which is running out of diesel and gasoline."

Wind power is expensive and ineffective at cutting CO2 say Civitas

2012-01-09T20:51:00.000Z

Telegraph

"A study in the Netherlands found that turning back-up gas power stations on and off to cover spells when there is little wind actually produces more carbon than a steady supply of energy from an efficient modern gas station.

The research is cited in a new report by the Civitas think tank which warns that Britain is in danger of producing more carbon dioxide (CO2) than necessary if the grid relies too much on wind.

Wind turbines only produce energy around 30 per cent of the time. When the wind is not blowing - or even blowing too fast as in the recent storms - other sources of electricity have to be used, mostly gas and coal.

However it takes a surge of electricity to power up the fossil fuel stations every time they are needed, meaning more carbon emissions are released."
---------------
The cost of wind (Bishop Hill)

Global Warming To Save The Planet?

2012-01-09T20:47:00.000Z

GWPF
"That’s the inference from a study on climate variation being covered by the BBC this morning. According to the Beeb (not normally a source of comfort on the subject of climate change), an international team of scientists headed by Cambridge University researcher Luke Skinner projects that sometime in the next 1500 years a devastating new Ice Age will descend on Planet Earth. As in past Ice Ages, glaciers would cover much of the northern hemisphere, many species would face extinction and the productivity of the biosphere would diminish as fertile farmlands went under the ice.

But, the scientists say, that won’t happen now, thanks to man’s new best friend: greenhouse gasses. Rising levels of CO2 will offset the natural forces leading to a new Ice Age, saving civilization from its greatest test yet."

Scripps paper: Ocean acidification fears overhyped

2012-01-09T20:45:00.000Z

WUWT
"Scripps blockbuster: Ocean acidification happens all the time — naturally

There goes another scare campaign."

Chris Huhne is piling on the make-believe

2012-01-07T20:54:00.000Z

Christopher Booker,Telegraph
"What emerges from reading the DECC report in full is how heavily almost every page of it relies on wishful thinking and unproven assumptions. The report babbles on, for instance, about how we will have “zero carbon homes” and a “zero carbon waste economy” and how we will build “33 gigawatts” of zero carbon nuclear power and “45 gigawatts” of wind power (without, of course, pointing out that 45GW refers to the capacity of the windmills, not the 15GW or less they might actually produce, due to the intermittency of the wind).

The report does recognise that we would still need 28GW of the fossil-fuel electricity which currently supplies nearly 80 per cent of our needs. But this brings us to perhaps the most glaring example of wishful thinking that runs right through the report: its insistence that gas and coal-fired power stations can only be allowed if they are fitted with “carbon capture and storage” (CCS), the immensely costly equipment that is supposed to pipe away CO2 and bury it in the ground.

It cannot be stated too forcefully that, as yet, the technology to do this has not been commercially developed, for the simple reason that, as various scientific studies have shown, it cannot work. There is no way in which vast quantities of CO2 can be injected into rock at the high pressures necessary without fracturing the rock to the point where no more can be injected. Yet it is on this make-believe that the dreams of Cameron, Clegg and Huhne ultimately rest.

It is ironic that the shale gas bonanza, now offering the world its greatest energy revolution since nuclear power, depends on a rock-fracturing process that does work – indeed, it already provides 25 per cent of all America’s gas, cutting its cost to the lowest winter level in a decade. In Poland, the first homes will be heated by shale gas this winter."

Deep Freeze Maybe Headed For Western Europe

2012-01-07T20:50:00.000Z

NoTricksZone
"No doubt Europeans this year have been enjoying a relatively mild winter this year, unlike the previous 3 winters. But it may be too early to start planning for spring. Mother Nature has a way punishing the overly optimistic."

The wind turbines that can’t cope… with the WIND! Three more are blown to pieces in gales that swept across Britain

2012-01-06T14:59:00.000Z

Daily Mail
#Huge turbine blades flew off three structures in 112mph winds
#Concerned villagers fear someone could have been killed

CO2 shortage may flatten soft drink supplies

2012-01-06T12:50:00.001Z

ABC (Australia)
"The temporary closure of two key sources of carbon dioxide gas, including Orica's controversial explosives plant near Newcastle, is causing supply shortages of the essential ingredient that makes soft drinks bubble."
Audio here
ED: :-)

China to boycott EU airline carbon tax

2012-01-06T12:48:00.002Z

ABC (Australia)
"The European Union plans to charge foreign airlines for carbon (dioxide) emissions, as part of its efforts to combat global warning - but China is refusing to pay up." (Audio)

What Financial Meltdowns Teach Us About the IPCC

2012-01-06T11:41:00.000Z

Donna Laframboise,(Canada)

"In a sensible world, scientists who refuse to share the data and computer codes behind iconic climate graphs and important conclusions would be ostracized by the scientific community. Instead, they get showered with awards and accolades (see the bottom of this post for more detail).

In a sane universe, the fact that two-thirds of the chapters in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report were written by scientists known to be affiliated with the World Wildlife Fund lobby group would damage the IPCC’s reputation beyond repair. Instead, we collectively pretend it doesn’t matter.

When I describe the weird world of climate science to people who are strangers to that world I know it sounds fantastical. Yeah, right I imagine them thinking behind their polite smiles. Surely it can’t be that bad. Surely there’s a reasonable explanation."

Many consumers in the dark about dangers of CFL bulbs

2012-01-05T21:35:00.000Z

Examiner
"In a report last March, Fox News exposed the potentially dangerous health hazards of mercury-laced CFL bulbs: .....Mercury Instruments, a Littleton, Colo., firm that specializes in removing mercury contamination, states the following on its Web site:

“If you break a "CFL" Compact Fluorescent light bulb and attempt to clean it up yourself, there is absolutely no way to know that you have removed the mercury unless you screen the area with a mercury vapor monitor . . . Without the proper equipment, equipment you will never be able to locate where the mercury came to rest.

Concerned about mercury contamination, many environmental agencies have adopted strict regulations for the disposal and recycling of CFLs. In California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin, it is illegal to improperly dispose of florescent bulbs in trash or landfills. Consumers face stiff fines if they violate the law."

The bleak weather continues - just where has our summer gone?

2012-01-05T21:28:00.001Z

The Daily Telegraph (Australia)

"It's a good thing December is almost over - it's been the coldest for more than 50 years. With two days to go, it seems certain Sydney will record its coldest December since 1960, with the average daily maximum so far this month 2.2C below the long-term average. Sydney's average top temperature so far this month was a chilly 23C - only 0.2C more than in 1960. That isn't going to change much over the next two days, with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting showers and tops of just 24C. Not once has the temperature reached 30C in the city this month, the first time since 1999 the mercury has failed to reach that mark in December."

THE damage bill for the Christmas Day storms is expected to reach almost $700 million as repair claims continue to inundate insurers. (Herald Sun)

Lying With Numbers: Green Energy Edition

2012-01-05T21:12:00.003Z

Forbes
"And that’s where our lie is. They are not saying that producing the same amount of energy is going to be about the same price with the new technology. They’re saying that producing half the amount of energy is going to be about the same price."
--------------------
Ha ha Warmist losers. For you the war is over (Telegraph)
---------------------
Solyndra-Gate Opens Into A Large Den Of Corruption (IBD)
"Obama's green-technology program was infused with politics at every level," the Washington Post reported on Christmas Day after it had analyzed "thousands of memos, company records and internal e-mails."
--------------------
Modern-day climate change witch hunt (ABC, Australia)
"In the old witch-hunting era, it was a powerful sense of social uncertainty and fear of the future which led the priestly class to view mysterious individuals as being culpable for climate change. Today, too, a similarly profound social and moral malaise has led elite greens to claim that the throng, with its reckless ways and insatiable material desires, is causing dangerously freezing/hot conditions."

Defund the IPCC Now

2012-01-05T21:06:00.000Z

WUWT
"It turns out that the GAO, the US General Accounting Office, says US has been secretly hiding their funding of the IPCC for the last decade. .....The latest 2011 GAO Report says the US government has not changed their ways. They have been clandestinely providing about half the operating funds for the IPCC for the last decade. ......The report says that the State Department provided $19 million dollars to the IPCC. .......I also found out that the IPCC got $12.1 million dollars from the US Global Change Research Program. That one really angrifies my blood. The IPCC flat out states that they do not do a single scrap of scientific research … so why is the US Global Change Research Program giving them a dime, much less twelve million, that was supposed to go for research? "

Media 101 – How to jump a shark

2012-01-05T13:17:00.001Z

WUWT
"The story about the hybrid sharks being a byproduct of climate change turns out to be an act of quote fabrication in some media outlets. This story by Dina Spector of the Business Insider, is a prime example of such quote fabrication:.......After I showed the original press release contained not one mention of “global warming” or “climate change”, one of our readers decided to ask the researcher about this statement attributed to to Jessica Morgan in that Business Insider story:

According to lead researcher Jess Morgan, the hybridization might be a sign that the animals are adapting to rising temperature levels as a result of climate change.

Here’s the answer. Bolding mine. ......
And I received this reply:
On 1/4/2012 7:34 PM, Morgan, Jessica wrote:

Quote not correct – I have now stated numerous times that it is extremely unlikely that climate change caused the hybridization event – however, the hybrid-Australian blacktips are now being seen further south of their known range (Australain blacktips have a tropical distribution) in cooler waters suggesting that the hybrids may have a wider temperature tolerance than their parents (ie the hybrids may be better adapted to handle changing water temperatures). That long statement is being condensed and printed as your quote below.

Jess

Taxpayers Take Hit As Solar Industry Implodes

2012-01-04T20:51:00.000Z

GWPF
"In a year where Solyndra became the face of the solar industry’s chronic failures, even the holiday season could not prevent one last flurry of layoffs in 2011."

The Windparks To Nowhere

2012-01-04T20:48:00.000Z

NoTricksZone
"With its nuclear power reactors in the process of being shut down by government decree (done in a hysterical state of mind in the wake of Fukushima), Germany now needs to find an alternative supply for electricity, and real soon. The answer was to build huge offshore wind parks in the windy North Sea, for example like the one now being completed by energy giant RWE. However,..."

Arctic Ice Extent Closes Out The Year Highest In The DMI Record

2012-01-03T20:30:00.000Z

Real Science
"It is time to end the denial."

Could Climate Change create deadly, mutant sharks which kill us all?

2012-01-03T18:38:00.000Z

Telegraph
"It had to happen. As if the plight of the polar bear wasn't punishment enough for our evil, selfish, refusing-to-change-our-lifestyle-because-we're-addicted-to-oil ways, it now seems that Mother Gaia may have a deadly new weapon up her sleeve: KILLER MUTANT SHARKS!!! .......In fact I wouldn't be at all surprised if "scientists" at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (and similar august institutions) haven't already prepared computer projects of what could so easily happen next."

Canadian Senate Testimony – Skeptic side now being heard in Canadian politics

2012-01-02T16:24:00.000Z

WUWT
"The presentations and follow-up questions are both excellent! Interesting to note the avoidance of some of the alarmist bullying seen in some of the U.S. Senate hearings from the likes of Clinton and Boxer. Of course, you’ll see the odd Liberal senator make the typical noxious commentary around thousands of scientists and ‘consensus’ but it doesn’t matter, they are only looking increasingly foolish."

ED: we carried this here in December,glad it is getting more views.

Europe cannot save the euro, nor save itself from the euro

2012-01-01T20:48:00.001Z

Christopher Booker,Telegraph
"....We are left in an equally insoluble mess by the ebbing away of what we can now see was the greatest and most damaging scare-story in history: the belief that the world was threatened with catastrophic warming by human emissions of carbon dioxide.

In the 20 years since the scare was launched, global man-made CO2 emissions have risen by 50 per cent. But at the end of 2011, global temperatures measured by Nasa satellites stood barely a tenth of a degree Celsius higher than their average throughout the 32 years since satellite measurements began – far lower than the projected warming. The computer models on which the scare relied have proved so wrong that it is incomprehensible how they were ever taken seriously.

Hardly surprisingly, in 2011 any attempt to get global agreement on drastic meaures to meet this supposed threat finally expired, as the third mammoth UN conference in as many years fizzled out in Durban. There is no chance that China, India, Brazil, Russia or even the US will agree to a replacement for the failed Kyoto Protocol – not when China alone, with its coal-fired power stations, is increasing its CO2 emissions each year by an amount greater than the UK’s entire annual output.

On all sides, mad schemes dreamed up to meet this imaginary crisis are falling apart. The EU’s carbon trading scheme is collapsing, The dream of solar power is disintegrating, as country after country slashes its subsidies, and firms set up to cash in on the bonanza close in droves (5,000 in Germany alone). Evaporating likewise is the fantasy of “carbon capture and storage” – CO2 from power stations being piped away, at vast expense, and buried in holes in the ground.

More and more, this leaves Britain isolated in a mad little bubble of its own, the only country in the world committed by law to the completely unrealisable goal of cutting CO2 emissions by 80 per cent within 40 years.

On this very day, January 1, the EU is imposing a tax on airline flights which, on top of the Air Passenger Duty, when George Osborne raises it yet again in April, will bring the tax for a British family of four flying to Florida to £344.

Next year, Mr Osborne is to impose a “carbon floor price” of £16 on every ton of CO2 emitted by British industry, when the price of “carbon” under the EU’s emissions trading scheme has collapsed to just £5.40. Not only will Osborne’s tax do serious damage to the competitiveness of British industry, it will add £3 billion a year to the cost of our electricity. This will rise within eight years to £5 billion, which alone will add 25 per cent to all our bills.

Meanwhile, utterly lost in his own green dreamworld, the man supposedly in charge of energy policy, Chris Huhne (below), babbles about chequering thousands of square miles of our countryside and our coastal waters with a further 32,000 crazily expensive and useless windmills. It is a vision so insane that one cannot imagine why men in white coats have not already hauled him off – rather more expeditiously than the Essex police who, we are told, wish to see him prosecuted for perverting the course of justice over an alleged traffic offence.

Even if Huhne’s pipedream could be achieved (it is technically out of the question), he still has not grasped that it would be necessary to pay billions of pounds more to build dozens of grown-up gas-fired power stations, as essential back-up for those still days that render the energy contributions of windmills all too frequently derisory. Something that we can predict with certainty is not going to happen in 2012 is any trace of sanity on these matters entering this absurdly dangerous man’s charmless head."

Shukman on windfarms

2012-01-01T16:57:00.000Z

Bishop Hill
"In these terms then, this was a rather unusual programme for the BBC in that for the most part it avoided most of the usual green propaganda. That said, Shukman did blot his copybook and in a very serious way. He reported that it would take 200 turbines to replace a conventional power station. He should probably have realised that his maths was going to be checked, and unfortunately for him it was. .......I don't know about you, but I think if Shukman had reported that it was going to take 600 turbines to replace a conventional power station viewers would have gained a remarkable insight into the sheer insanity of offshore wind. The conflating of installed capacity of windfarms with their actual output is an problem that has been repeated so often over the years that it is hard to accept it as an error any longer."

The World’s Slowest Learners

2011-12-31T20:33:00.000Z

Donna Laframboise (Canada)
".. In July 1997, five months prior to the fanfare in Kyoto, the US Senate had already passed the Byrd-Hagel resolution. The vote was 95-0. Let me repeat: the vote was unanimous. It was bi-partisan. This resolution made it clear that not a single Democrat or Republican senator was prepared to support an emissions agreement that would harm the US economy while ignoring the growing emissions of up-and-coming economies such as China and India (see here, here, and here).

Had US senators all danced naked on the dome of the Capitol Building while blaring the news through trumpets they could not have sent a clearer message that the Kyoto approach was a no-go.

That was 14 years ago.

So how have UN bureaucrats spent the past decade-and-a-half? According to these same people, climate change is a planetary emergency and time is running out. So did they abandon the idea of a global emissions treaty and pursue a Plan B? Did they move heaven and earth to find an approach that would be acceptable to US senators and would therefore enlist the participation of the world’s largest economy?

Uh, no. Instead, UN bureaucrats (and their close friends in the environmental movement) have spent the past 14 years pretending – against all evidence – that a Kyoto-style treaty was somehow achievable. Thousands of them have flown off to exotic locales at regular intervals to hold climate summit after climate summit. Again and again they’ve pretended for the TV cameras that reaching such an agreement was a realistic expectation.

What, exactly, have these people been smoking?

Or, to use a phrase from my undergraduate days in women’s studies – Which part of ‘no’ did they not understand?"

Moronic UK Green Power Policies.

2011-12-30T18:10:00.000Z

Climate Common Sense
"An analysis by the UK Dept of Energy and Climate Change should have men in white coats dispatched to Whitehall because their policies are looney tunes by any rational standards. The analysis says £5,000 a year per person needs to be spent up to 2050 to combat rampart global temperature increases as shown. The fact that the Guardian has treated this as a serious item without ridicule shows how far out of their trees their journalists actually are."

New Paper finds significant cooling of Atlantic Ocean over past millennium

2011-12-30T18:03:00.002Z

The Hockey Schtick
"A paper published today in the journal Paleoceanography finds that Atlantic Ocean surface temperatures have significantly cooled over the past millennium, since the Medieval Warming Period from about 950-1200 AD."

How DECC fiddled its figures

2011-12-30T18:01:00.002Z

Bishop Hill
"Tim Worstall has picked up on the DECC energy pathways report and notes something intriguing: although the costs of the individual elements of the energy mix in the new regime are acknowledged to be higher than at present, the overall cost is said to be lower! But Timmy has managed to work out how this particular piece of government mathematics works:"

Hansen Peering Into The ENSO Abyss

2011-12-30T17:57:00.002Z

Real Science
"Hansen’s 1988 temperature forecasts have failed miserably, with temperatures remaining below his zero-emissions scenario."

Feedback about feedbacks and suchlike fooleries

2011-12-30T17:54:00.000Z

WUWT
"A true-believer at the recent Los Alamos quinquennial climate conference at Santa Fe asked me, in a horrified voice, whether I was really willing to allow our grandchildren to pay for the consequences of our folly in emitting so much CO2. Since the warming we shall cause will be small and may well prove to be beneficial, one hopes future generations will be grateful to us.

Besides, as President Klaus of the Czech Republic has wisely pointed out, if we damage our grandchildren’s inheritance by blowing it on useless windmills, mercury-filled light-bulbs, solar panels, and a gallimaufry of suchlike costly, wasteful, environment-destroying fashion statements, our heirs will certainly not thank us."

2011 is UK's second warmest year on record - Met Office, BBC News: Updated with comments

2011-12-30T17:50:00.001Z

Climate Realists
"The following story from the Met Office/BBC seems to point to a lack of surface weather stations rather then a record warm year, see Surface Temperature Records: Policy Driven Deception written by Anthony Watts & Joe D'Aleo. See also, the graph that shows this issue A Graph to Debunk AGW - the less surface stations the more temperature increase!...GR"

Really.....according to the Met Office, 2011 was the second hottest year on record

2011-12-30T17:47:00.000Z

Channel4 News
"All of the UK's top seven warmest years have been in the last decade. Globally, 2011 was the 11th warmest year on record - cooler than 2010, which was noted for its scorching temperatures across the world."
ED: They don't give up feeding the lie

New Paper Shows Profound Urban Warming Impact

2011-12-29T17:51:00.000Z

NoTricksZone
"A new paper written by Maeng-Ki Kim, Department of Atmospheric Science, Kongju National University, and Seonae Kim of the Applied Meteorology Research Team, Environmental Prediction Research Inc. of Korea has been published by the Journal of Atmospheric Environment 45 (2011) 5778e5783. The two scientists examined cities in South Korea and the urban heat island effect. .......According to their results, that means well over a half of the warming is caused by urban warming."

Congress ends corn ethanol subsidy

2011-12-28T17:30:00.002Z

WUWT
"Interesting timing, especially when some biomass companies are switching from wood chips to corn, because they couldn’t turn a profit on wood chips. Looks like all the wheels are coming off the bus now."

You Are Paying Obama’s EPA To Lie To Your Kids

2011-12-28T17:29:00.000Z

Real Science
"There is zero evidence that droughts are getting longer, more frequent, or worse. The worst droughts (by far) were during the 1930s and 1950s."

£10m cost of turning off wind farms

2011-12-27T17:51:00.000Z

Telegraph
"Official figures disclosed that 17 operators were paid almost £7 million for shutting down their farms on almost 40 occasions between January and mid-September. Continuing to make payments at that rate would lead to householders paying out £9.9 million in 2011 for operators to disconnect their turbines from the National Grid. ....“Onshore wind generation requires a 100 per cent back-up of carbon-burning technology or nuclear energy, should the wind not blow, and in addition to the devastation of the visual environment there are the problems of noise and flicker. They are the wrong renewables choice.”

Oh, this is rich. BBC’s Harrabin asks CRU for programming advice

2011-12-27T17:46:00.000Z

WUWT
"If anyone ever needed any proof the the BBC is biased, then this is the prime example. It is the proverbial “tail wagging the dog”, there’s no journalism here, only obedience."

Shutting down power plants: Imaginary benefits, extensive harm

2011-12-26T21:57:00.002Z

WUWT
"Simply put, EPA grossly exaggerated the health benefits of its proposed mercury rules – and then claimed additional mercury benefits based on double counting of reductions in particulate matter. It also ignored the adverse effects that its rules will inflict. Not only is EPA’s anti-mercury campaign scaring mothers and children into not eating nutritious fish that is rich in Omega-3 fatty acids. It is also raising electricity heating, air conditioning and food costs, impairing electrical reliability, costing jobs, and thereby harming the health and welfare of countless Americans."

Now Brussels clobbers British holidaymakers with a green tax on flights: Family of four forced to pay £80 more to fly to America

2011-12-24T20:20:00.000Z

Daily Mail
"From January 1, all airlines will be required to buy a ‘permit to pollute’ to cover the cost of their carbon emissions plus extra costs if they exceed their emissions limit. The court yesterday rejected a challenge from the U.S. and other non-EU nations that the levy infringes their national sovereignty and violates international aviation treaties. The cost will almost inevitably be passed on to passengers, and the EU calculates the cost will be £10.50 on a one-way transatlantic flight – or £21 return. For many shorter flights it will be up to £1.75 each way."

More bad news for the anti-energy, green greed brigade

2011-12-22T20:53:00.001Z

James Delingpole,Telegraph
"..In Germany, especially, the attrition rate has been amazing. According to Reuters, no fewer than 5,000 German solar companies have gone bust in the last year, shedding around 20,000 jobs. .......Let me explain, once more for their benefit, in very simple language why I have a problem with the man-made global warming industry: on the basis of little hard scientific evidence (only computer projections), trillions of pounds, dollars and euros are being pumped into projects which make energy needlessly more expensive, cause tremendous environmental damage, slow down economic growth, stifle liberty and destroy jobs."

Climate craziness of the week – the last one, really!

2011-12-22T20:50:00.000Z

WUWT
"The Telegraph goes full stupid with this headline. The craziness is that this photo essay has to be done every year, a point apparently lost on both the Telegraph and the photographer."

Cold Australian summer sees swimwear profits plummet

2011-12-21T23:06:00.000Z

Telegraph
"Australia's coldest summer in decades has dampened the mood for Christmas shopping and led to plummeting profits for swimwear and clothing stores. "
-----------------------
A Curiousity In Australia (E.M. Smith)
"So there was / is a cold summer in Australia (especially up around Brisbane). When you look at a map of Australia, Brisbane is just about in the middle of the country on the coast on the right (east) side. What’s a bit curious, is that while the locals are saying it is Way Cold, GIStemp is just not seeing it. In fact, even looking back into the PAST cold, it isn’t there. It is as though the extremes are simply erased. (I’ve suspected this from what we’ve seen in the “QA Process” where stations must be ‘close enough’ to nearby airports or their data are rejected). "

Climate realists testify before the Canadian Senate

2011-12-21T22:34:00.000Z

Climate Realists
Must See YouTube:International Climate Science Coalition, www.climatescienceinternational.org, has uploaded the December 15, 2011 climate science hearing before the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, Environment and Natural Resources."

Global Warming and Walnut Trees: a Case Study in Deception

2011-12-20T20:56:00.000Z

WUWT
"It is not difficult to understand why people and institutions exaggerate the potential dangers of global warming and omit any mention of the probable benefits. There are billions of dollars available for climate change research. Obama’s 2011 budget allocated $2.6 billion for the “global change research program.” This stream of cash has created a monstrous industry that produces junk science that feeds demands for even more money. It is a scam."

Her Royal Hydropowered-ness: Queen goes green as second 40-ton turbine is moved into position on the Thames to power Windsor Castle

2011-12-20T20:35:00.000Z

Daily Mail
"The Queen will be green in just over a month when a hydropower station on the River Thames is finally completed. The second of two custom-built turbines - the largest in the UK - was lifted into place by a crane on a water barge during a delicate 30-minute operation today.The 40-ton turbines form part of a £1.7million scheme to provide hydro-electric power to Windsor Castle."

ED: Taxpayer Funded ..???

Radical environmentalism, not Wall Street, sabotaging the American Dream

2011-12-19T21:17:00.000Z

Climate Change Dispatch
"What if, the voiceover asks, everything ran on gas?...This beautiful lie, however, is sullied by the ugly fact that, in reality, almost everything does. Americans obtain about 86 percent of our power from gas- and coal-fired sources. This means that the Leaf’s lithium batteries are ultimately charged by fossil fuel, or another form of non-renewable energy, nuclear fission. It also means that electric vehicle owners’ claim to green chest-thumping rights is really so much smoke up a distant stack."

Lies, Damned Lies & Enviro-Fraud

2011-12-19T21:12:00.000Z

GWPF
“The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. The late science writer Michael Crichton certainly put his finger on the spirit of our age."

Tallbloke: a Christmas Appeal

2011-12-18T20:50:00.000Z

Telegraph
"Tallbloke – the blogger whose computers were confiscated during a nocturnal visitation from Norfolk's finest – is appealing for funds. Here's a letter from his solicitor: .......This blog urges all readers to think of the Spirit of Christmas and give generously."
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Tallbloke to take to torts (WUWT)

Climategate's Smoking Gun

2011-12-18T20:46:00.000Z

GWPF
"Last time I googled 2526.txt to see if this email had been commented upon I did not find any. This is as near the smoking gun proof as we will get, that Professor Phil Jones’ instruction to delete all emails “re AR4” was complied with – at least using the team definition of the word “delete”. Note that on 29 May 2008 Jones had emailed,...."

Post COP 17 – The Road to Nowhere

2011-12-17T20:52:00.000Z

WUWT,Professor Will Alexander
"Returning to the real world, I firmly believe that there are few if any scientists in southern Africa who have a wider, longer, and more scientific experience in the interfaces between the climatological, hydrological, environmental and sociological sciences than I have.

Equally, I believe that this whole global warming/climate change issue is no more than a monumental scam perpetrated by the affluent nations to protect their economic supremacy, regardless of the effects on the many millions of poor and disadvantaged populations of Africa and elsewhere.

I do not for one moment believe that the nations of the world will abide by the nebulous decisions reached by COP17 in Durban, with legal ratification by 2015, and implementation by 2020. It is not going to happen."

The BBC's myth-makers serve up a double helping of propaganda

2011-12-17T20:48:00.000Z

Christopher Booker,Telegraph
"There was much excitement over the revelation that David Attenborough’s Frozen Planet had “faked” a scene where polar bear cubs, actually born in a Dutch zoo, seemed to be in Arctic wilderness. Yet no interest at all was aroused by a much more serious misrepresentation – of the speed at which ice is melting at the poles.

I was criticised for pointing this out last week, but as anyone can see, from satellite-based charts on the Cryosphere Today website, the extent of polar sea ice was last year 1.6 million square kilometres greater than its average over the last 30 years – something which could never have been guessed from Attenborough’s dramatic film sequences, carefully chosen to convey the very different message the BBC wanted us to believe."

Britain wakes to snowfall as bookies slash odds of a White Christmas

2011-12-16T22:00:00.000Z

Daily Mail
*London and the Home Counties experience their first snow of the winter
*Snow hits Wales, the Midlands and South East England
*Heavy rain in other parts leads to 33 flood alerts

Climategate Bombshell: Did U.S. Gov't Help Hide Climate Data?

2011-12-16T21:01:00.002Z

Fox News
"Are your tax dollars helping hide global warming data from the public? Internal emails leaked as part of “Climategate 2.0” indicate the answer may be "Yes."

The original Climategate emails -- correspondence stolen from servers at a research facility in the U.K. and released on the Internet in late 2009 -- shook up the field of climate research. Now a new batch posted in late November to a Russian server shows that scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit refused to share their U.S. government-funded data with anyone they thought would disagree with them." (H/T Climate Depot)

Climategate: Obama's boot boys strike back

2011-12-16T20:59:00.000Z

Telegraph
"But no: it seems the true instigator of this vexatious abuse of power by arbitrary authority may be none other than President Obama. Here's Chris Horner with the lowdown in the Washington Examiner:"