Walport the soothsayer

Bishop Hill
Listen to this interview with chief scientific adviser Sir Mark Walport in which he describes the relationship between extreme weather and climate change (link below).

...we know that, statistically, in those parts of the world where there is rain there will be more rain, we know that as water levels rise there will be more flooding...

This is, not to put too fine a point on it, unmitigated tosh. We "know" nothing about future rainfall. We have a hypothesis coming out of a very iffy set of computer models. This sort of claim, made without even the merest hint of uncertainty, is why people are so suspicious of the utterances of chief scientific advisers."

No Warming – Just Natural Cycles Masked By NOAA/NASA Data Tampering

Real Science
"By tampering with the data, NOAA and NASA destroy the ability of scientists to see what is actually going on with the climate."

Unsettling the “Settled Science” of Climate Change

Guido Fawkes

"The committee for Energy and Climate Change must be in line for an award. Its performance this week was exceptional.
The mental level of Yeo’s committee is – well, the climate debate is so rancorous let’s try for decorum.
Suffice it to say that John Robertson’s questioning would have been a credit to a clever dugong. Albert Owen nearly grasped the idea that that a Greenpeace activist in charge of an IPCC Chapter might lack objectivity. And Tim Yeo’s chairing was as good as a golf club captain in a Saturday night lock-in.
The committee had just received three mainstream climate workers and now, to say they had looked at all sides, they had three sceptics.
No doubt their sceptical remarks are contentious, their facts arguable and their conclusions unusual – but the three of them certainly gave the lie to the claim that “the science is settled”.

Weather expert accuses Met Office of 'warm bias' in getting annual predictions wrong 13 out of the last 14 years

Daily Mail
"The Met Office has got every annual global forecast so far this century wrong, bar one, a BBC weatherman said. Paul Hudson, a forecaster for BBC's regional programme Look North, said the Met Office's predictions had been wrong for 13 years out of the last 14, and said the incorrect predictions had all been 'on the warm side' rather than too cold. ....Climate change sceptic Professor Richard Lindzen yesterday told MPs that whatever they were doing to counteract 'climate change', the only difference it would make would be to the country's economy. He said: 'Whatever the UK is deciding to do vis-a-vis climate will have no impact on your climate. It will have a profound impact on your economy. 'So you are making a decision to take a problem which might not be a problem, take actions which you know will create problems and feel you have done the right thing.'

Global Sea Ice is 560,000 sq km above normal.

sunshine hours
"Global Sea Ice is 560,000 sq km above normal. Antarctic Sea Ice is at record levels for this day and on track to possibly break the record for highest minimum. Arctic Sea Ice has just crossed the one standard deviation line for the first time this year."

The ‘Pause’ of Global Warming Risks Destroying The Reputation Of Science

WUWT
"Global temperatures have not risen for 17 years. The pause now threatens to expose how much scientists sold their souls for cash and fame, warns emeritus professor Garth Paltridge, former chief research scientist with the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research."

NASA and NOAA Confirm Global Temperature Standstill Continues

GWPF
"In a joint press conference NOAA and NASA have just released data for the global surface temperature for 2013. In summary they both show that the ‘pause’ in global surface temperature that began in 1997, according to some estimates, continues.
Statistically speaking there has been no significant trend in global temperatures over this period. All these years fall within the error bars of 0.1 deg C. The trend is less than this and is statistically insignificant. There is no statistical case for representing the post-1997 data as anything other than a constant line. The graphs presented at the press conference omitted those error bars.
When asked for an explanation for the ‘pause’ by reporters Dr Gavin Schmidt of NASA and Dr Thomas Karl of NOAA spoke of contributions from volcanoes, pollution, a quiet Sun and natural variability. In other words, they don’t know.

U.S. temperatures, 1973-2013: A alternative view

Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
"Steve Goddard recently posted some results from his analysis of the official U.S. surface temperatures (USHCN, from NOAA) suggesting spurious warming occurring around 1998. I also showed evidence of this back in 2012.
Steve’s post reminded me that it’s been over a year since I’ve updated the U.S.-average Integrated Surface Hourly (ISH) temperature data, using my Population Density Adjusted Temperature (PDAT) algorithm that corrects for changing urban heat island (UHI) effects. This is still an unpublished method, and so should be considered more of a sanity check on the official NOAA USHCN product. But it does support Steve’s contention that there’s something funny going on in the USHCN data."

Just Hit The NOAA Motherlode

Real Science
"Bottom line is that there is clearly a huge error in the USHCN adjustments which has added a non-existent one degree hockey stick warming to the official US temperature record, and I now know just where to look for it in their code. .............Bottom line is that the NCDC US temperature record is completely broken, and meaningless. Adjustments that used to go flat after 1990, now go up exponentially. Adjustments which are documented as positive, are implemented as negative."

CET, taking a dump

E.M.Smith
"About 1/3 to 1/4 C from the “normal” line and dropping like a stone. Looks like the “modern optimum” is rapidly headed back to “typical English weather” with the potential to overshoot into “Damn Cold” Real Soon Now. The recent ‘warm lobe’ is not significant in size or duration compared to the past ‘cold lobes’. All in all, normal random walk ranges, IMHO."

How the American Meteorological Society Justified Publishing Half Truths

WUWT
"It is absolutely appalling that you defend “omitting substantial amounts of information” by simply characterizing her work as a “review” paper. In fact her interpretation was not a review, but was the first time such an analyses was introduced into the peer reviewed literature. Based on false credibility, the manipulated sections of this “review” paper were then erroneously repeated in other papers by our top climate scientists."

If The Present Refuse To Get Warmer, Then The Past Must Become Cooler

Real Science
"In USHCN V1, older temperatures were considered good, but recent temperatures were adjusted upwards by about 0.5F. After 1990, no further adjustments were considered necessary. ......That wasn’t getting the global warming marketing job done, so in USHCN V2 they did the exact opposite. Older temperatures are now cooled, with a hockey stick of adjustments after 1996. The total adjustment is now about 1.5 degrees F, 300% of the V1 adjustments. ......"

Hiding The Decline With The NCDC Teeter-Totter

Real Science
"US daily temperature data shows cooling since 1920. ......The final adjusted data released by USHCN shows warming since 1920 .............The accomplish this marvelous feat through a series of adjustment steps, each one cooling the past. ......What could possibly go wrong with a group of global warming activists successively cooling the past to turn a cooling trend into a strong warming trend?"

Is a mini ice age on the way? Scientists warn the Sun has 'gone to sleep' and say it could cause temperatures to plunge

Daily Mail
"The Sun's activity is at its lowest for 100 years, scientists have warned. They say the conditions are eerily similar to those before the Maunder Minimum, a time in 1645 when a mini ice age hit, Freezing London's River Thames. Researcher believe the solar lull could cause major changes, and say there is a 20% chance it could lead to 'major changes' in temperatures. ..............Mike Lockwood University of Reading says that the lower temperatures could affect the global jetstream, causing weather systems to collapse. 'We estimate within 40 years there a 10-20% probability we will be back in Maunder Minimum territory,' he said. Last year Nasa warned 'something unexpected' is happening on the Sun' This year was supposed to be the year of 'solar maximum,' the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle. But as this image reveals, solar activity is relatively low. ..."

Obama Crony Capitalism and Green Tech Failures

ClimateChangeDispatch
"As part of President Obama’s “war on coal” and fossil fuels in general, his administration has provided more than $100 billion to so called “green tech” or “clean tech” companies, most of which have gone bankrupt or somehow “disappeared” the money. ......The money wasted on “green energy” could have been better spent on other things such as finding a cure for cancer. Or the government could have saved us all money by not spending it at all. The real question is “where did all that money go?” Is it parked in some off-shore bank accounts? "