Owen Paterson puts 'dry homes' before greens' 'wet lands'

Telegraph, Christopher Booker

"The shocking truth, as I have been reporting here since early January, is that those unprecedented floods were not just a freak of nature, brought on by what turned out to be only England’s 16th wettest winter in 250 years. They were deliberately brought about by a fundamental shift in management policy, shaped by EU directives and enforced by the Environment Agency, which in certain areas of the country, notably the Levels in my own county of Somerset, put the interests of wildlife and “biodiversity” above those of people and property.

Someone who grasped this when, at my instigation, he came down to Somerset in January to talk to practical local experts was the Environment Secretary Owen Paterson. After private meetings with those experts, whose pleas had long been ignored, he returned to London with a clear idea of what needed to be done.

The Environment Agency should be directed to dredge the rivers which had been horribly silting up ever since it took control of them in 1996. Management of the Levels should then be handed over to a “Somerset rivers authority”, including those local boards which previously kept the Levels effectively pumped and drained for generations. There should be a new sluice at the mouth of the River Parrett, to prevent silt being pushed back into it by the second highest tidal range in the world. And within six weeks the relevant local organisations should present him with an agreed plan to ensure that this winter’s disaster is not repeated.

On Thursday this was just what happened, when Mr Paterson was able to announce that these bodies had come up with just the proposals he had asked them for. But all through these recent weeks, a rival lobby has been desperately trying to divert attention from all this. “Environmentalists” have been battling to preserve their dream by hiding everything which made disaster inevitable. Their “useful idiots”, such as the BBC and the journalist George Monbiot, have repeatedly tried to blame the disaster on “climate change”, and on greedy farmers increasing the run-off of water from the hills by planting maize: two theories which no proper scientific evidence supports."

The Stealth Carbon Tax

American Thinker
"....We conclude that the historic increase of CO2 in the past 200 years has benefitted humanity and will continue to do so in future.

Outdated Climate Science
The most fundamental problem with the TSDs is the absence of any empirical evidence for significant climate effects of rising CO2 levels.  [We note in particular a lack of global warming over the past 17 years!]  The only 'evidence' comes from (so far) unvalidated climate models that disagree even with each other, and from unsubstantiated claims of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in successive UN-IPCC (Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change) reports.  [For details, see reports of the more credible NIPCC (Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change) at www.NIPCCreport.org .  A critique of the latest (2013) IPCC Summary can be accessed at http://heartland.org/sites/default/files/critique_of_ipcc_spm.pdf]  ............"...................

Conclusion

The use of fossil fuels, and the resultant rise in atmospheric CO2, yield benefits that far outweigh any conceivable estimate of social cost; hence using an SCC does not make economic sense.  The OMB should publicize this view and encourage reasoned debate.  Beyond a possible use in allowing rational regulation, establishing an SCC as a Carbon Tax is likely unconstitutional.

Great Lakes reaches second highest ice cover on record

WUWT
"The latest data just in from the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor Michigan indicates that as of today, total ice cover reached the second highest value on record 91%, beating the previous 2nd highest value set in 1994 of 90.7%."
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Niagara Falls comes to a halt AGAIN: Millions of gallons of cascading water is frozen in bitter temperatures (Daily Mail)

Statistics For Dummies — And Warmists

Quadrant Online
These breathless reports about the planet never being hotter, take them with a truckload of salt. How can anyone place the slightest credence in claims being advanced by people who fail to grasp, or refuse to grasp, the simple truth about trend lines and temperature.......  “Read all about it! Read all about it! It’s the hottest year on record — except for another five hotter years!” A new twist can be put on the aphorism attributed to Benjamin Disraeli. It is now clear that there are lies, damn lies, and the interpretation of climate statistics.  ..........
....Solutions which go, among other things, to research and development, across all forms of energy; to minimizing obstacles to the exploitation of gas and nuclear energy; and to adaptation might find common ground among rational warmists and sceptics alike and those in the middle; always provided environmental extremists like the Greens are excluded from the process. Is this optimistic? Probably it is.
Unfortunately the alternative is to continue the madness of trying to price carbon dioxide emissions in a world market which will inevitably reward massive rigging; of spending bucket loads of money on totally ineffective and impoverishing measures; of bribing poor countries to implement inefficient methods of power generation keeping them uncompetitive and dependent; and of regressing to a Dark Ages-collective state of mind which values and promotes cripplingly expensive tokenism over practical solutions."

Record snowfall in Scotland may allow skiing into summer

IceAgeNow
"A HIGHLAND snowports resort which enjoyed its busiest day in a decade this week has unveiled plans to “ski into summer” if conditions allow.
Earlier in the week Iain Sykes, the founder of Nevis Range Ski Resort claimed that the resort had more snow than ever in the history of skiing there.
The resort has now recorded snow fall for 59 consecutive days.
The snow cover was described as “wall-to-wall”.  Average snow depths are thought to be 1.6 metres on the lower slopes, 4.5 metres on the upper slopes, with some deep gully areas estimated as being over 18m (58 ft) deep. (More than 5 stories deep!)
The resort was not even able to operate all of its lifts at the weekend because some lifts are still buried under the unprecedented amounts of snow."

Ice Cover On Great Lakes 'Could Break Record'

Sky News

"Ice cover on North America’s Great Lakes reached almost 90% last month, the highest level observed in 20 years, and could break the all-time record.

"Persistently low temperatures across the Great Lakes region are responsible for the increased coverage of the ice," said Nathan Kurtz, a scientist with Nasa.
"Low temperatures are also the dominant mechanism for thickening the ice, while secondary factors like clouds, snow, and wind also play a role."
USA Today quoted a scientist as saying that the record of 95% - set in February 1979 - could be broken." ...."Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport broke a 141-year-old record low temperature for March, reaching 4F (-15C)."

John Podesta: The man behind President Obama’s new environmental push

Washington Post
“He said, ‘I want to protect the legacy of the president’ — not protect the overall welfare of the American people, but the legacy of the president,” Whitfield said. “He’s very aggressive, and he believes in pushing the envelope — if you’ve got the power, utilize it. That’s probably one of the reasons there’s a strong sentiment that this president is going way too far, way too fast and threatening the constitutional separation of powers.”

Climate Change Denial and the Holocaust allusion

JoNova (Australia)
Readers here will know that my problem with the term “denial” is with its misuse in English*. But the term “denier” is also used as a character slur to mark those who disagree in a science debate as being as odious as Holocaust deniers. The hope, apparently, is that dissenting views should be shunned and their arguments and evidence ignored. It’s a cheap debating tactic to shut down debate for those without evidence and reason, but it’s incredibly effective if you have the media on your side. What’s amazing is how many otherwise smart people don’t see through this babyish rhetorical stunt.
Last week Roy Spencer had had enough. In response to years of name-calling, he  protested at being called a “denier” and said

“Too many of us for too long have ignored the repulsive, extremist nature of the comparison. It’s time to push back.  I’m now going to start calling these people “global warming Nazis”.

Skeptics have been likened to Holocaust deniers for a decade, and the Anti-Defamation League have been pretty silent. They did once in 2007 tell off James Hansen. But otherwise, it’s been fair game to besmirch the memory of the holocaust in the name of climate alarm. So immediately after Roy blogged the Anti-Defamation League did the obvious thing (for irrational fans of alarming science) and jumped in to denounce Roy Spencer. To put it in perspective, Roy Spencer and John Christy developed the system that measures temperatures from satellites, and won a NASA medal for exceptional scientific achievement. Activists who failed science at high school have been calling both men “deniers”. The hypocrisy knows no bounds."

Sea Ice Update February 28 2014 – Antarctic Sea Ice Extent 24% above normal

Sunshine Hours
A quick update for sea ice extent:

• Global Sea Ice is only 50,000 sq km below the 1981-2010 mean.  That is 0.3% below the mean.
• Antarctic Sea Ice is  720,000 sq km above the 1981-2010 mean. That is 24% above the mean.  I’m pretty sure day 51 was minimum. Extent is 170,000 above what it was on Day 51. That would be the 4th highest minimum of all time!
• Arctic Sea Ice is 769,000 sq km below the 1981-2010 mean.  That is 5% below the mean .

February Was 33rd Warmest On Record In Central England

Real Science
"The two warmest Februaries were 1779 and 1869. During the current decade, February temperatures have averaged almost 0.4C cooler than they did during the 1730′s."

Confronting the exploitation of extreme weather events in global warming reporting

The Washington Post
"Like many of my colleagues in the climate dynamics community, I am not convinced that this winter’s extreme cold lies outside the range of internally generated variability of the climate system or that it was exacerbated by the recent reduction of summer Arctic sea ice coverage. The evidence linking Arctic amplification to the behavior of the wintertime polar vortex is not strong and it is not well supported by independent, peer-reviewed studies. I expressed similar reservations 50 years ago when my father asked me whether I thought that nuclear weapons tests were changing the weather."

Volcanoes And The ‘Pause’

GWPF
Another week and another explanation for the ‘pause’ in global surface/lower atmosphere temperatures. This time it’s the return of the ‘small volcanoes add up to big effect’ explanation in the form of a paper by Santer et al 2014 in Nature Geoscience. Could the cumulative effect from small volcanoes be causing a reduction in sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface, and hence a reduction in the rate of global surface warming?    .....
Overall this paper shows that volcanoes are having a minor to marginal effect, in many scenarios about the same effect as the noise in the global temperature dataset for the past 15 years. It concludes that the ratio of simulations of global surface temperatures to the actual observations is about 15% smaller, even though there are large uncertainties in the magnitude of the effect!
It is formally true that including volcanoes means the models are more able to match the observed temperature but not that usefully. There are so many other factors that have to be taken into account that have uncertain effects and that are adding to the inaccuracy of the models in explaining the ‘pause’. Despite this the Guardian says the models work, period."

Wild And Lethal Weather Extremes Gripped The Planet…80 Years Ago When Atmospheric CO2 Was Well Under 350 ppm!

NoTricksZone
Wild and crazy weather extremes really are nothing new. I got the following compilation from reader Jimbo:
================================
Hi Pierre,
Please consider putting up the following as a post. It concerns 1935 bad weather events. It’s intended to put things into perspective for younger folks.
Below is a small selection of newspaper headlines from 1935 reporting on ‘bad weather’ events and some consequences. Some reports overlap into 1934."

How the journal Nature plays fast & loose with the facts about the "pause" in global warming

The Hockey Schtick

"The recent paper offering excuse #8 for the "pause" in global warming has an accompanying editorial published in Nature Climate Change which plays fast & loose with the facts to cover-up the implications of the "pause." For example, the editorial mentions the "pause" could affect estimates of "climate sensitivity" to CO2, while conveniently leaving out the pause would suggest decreased climate sensitivity, i.e. less effect from man-made CO2. 

The editorial also says that for this excuse for the pause to be correct, sea level rise and ocean heat uptake should have accelerated since 2000, but conveniently fails to mention the data shows both have instead decelerated during the 21st century. "

Spiegel On 15-Year Pause: “Biggest Mystery In Climate Science” … Scientists Caught With Their Pants Down

NoTricksZone
Spiegel writes, quoting Ed Hawkins of the University of Reading:

Since 1990 in its 5 reports the UN IPCC failed somewhat to provide clear details over the possibilities of a slowdown in warming. Studies on this were ‘first published after the pause’.”

Bojanowski looks into why this is so. In a nutshell: That a slowdown in warming was possible never even occurred to the scientists. Reality caught them with their pants down.

He writes:

Climate models had never expected the pause: Only 3 of 114 climate simulations were able to reproduce the trend of the past years, the IPCC concludes in its latest report. The reason for the deviation between models and observations is unclear.”