Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org) The Science and Environmental Policy Project. THIS WEEK: By Ken Haapala, President,SEPP
False Precision – Hottest Year Ever? NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA-GISS) and NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) issued dramatic press releases that 2016 was the hottest year since instrument measurements began. Both organizations focus on surface data, which has far from comprehensive coverage. According to NOAA-NCEI, 2016 was 0.07ºF warmer than 2015.
David Whitehouse, Science Editor for the Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF), stated that “Peter Stott, Acting Director of the Met Office Hadley Centre, said in no uncertain terms that, ‘a particularly strong El Nino event contributed about 0.2°C [about 0.4 ºF] to the annual average for 2016.’” Thus, based on the comment by Stott, the contribution of the El Niño was about 5 times larger than the reported increase in global temperatures from 2015 to 2016. The tiny, calculated margin is hardly worthy of dramatic press releases.
The tiny, calculated margin does not account for lack of global coverage in surface measurements, questionable adjustments in the data, and limited accuracy of the instrumentation. As presented on page 9 of the 2008 NIPCC report, by 1997 the number of 5º by 5º global grid boxes with both minimum and maximum readings fell to about 100 out of more than 2500 possible.
Further, as discussed in TWTW in December 2015, Anthony Watts, et al. demonstrated at the Fall 2015 conference of the American Geophysical Union, high quality temperature stations, Class 1 and 2 compliant, show a 30-year warming trend less than what is calculated by NOAA’s U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN)for the continental US (not including Alaska and Hawaii). The nationwide warming for the compliant stations is +0.204, while the NOAA adjusted data shows a warming of +0.324. The adjusted warming trend is even greater than the warming trend for the raw data for the non-compliant stations of +0.319.
How such U.S. data adjustments influence global surface temperature data is not clear.
As discussed in the January 7 TWTW which focused on satellite temperature measurements: “The central issue is not that 2016 was slighter “hotter” than 1998, but what will happen in 2017 and beyond. Both 1998 and 2016 were strong El Niño years (Pacific Ocean warming). After the spike in 1998, the El Niño was followed by a brief La Niña cooling, but then temperatures rebounded to about 0.2ºC above the 38-year mean. Will temperatures return to the 1998 to 2015 plateau or be above or below it? Unfortunately, despite spending over $45 Billion on “climate science” since 1993, the US does not have the capability of predicting significant weather events such as El Niños and La Niñas.”
However, these weather events are important to the US. For example, by most measures the drought in central and northern California has ended. Wet and dry periods for California appear to be influenced by the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Better recognition of these events may be more important to citizens of California and the Southwest than forecasts from climate models that do not have the ability to forecast atmospheric temperatures.
WeatherBell Analytics, a private weather group, is suggesting that activity in the Indian Ocean indicates that there may be a mild El Niño in 2017. What will happen to global temperatures remains to be seen. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy – NIPCC, and Challenging the Orthodoxy.
Quote of the Week. All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man’s life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. – Albert Einstein (1937 & 1950)
Number of the Week: Plus or minus 1.8ºF
Sea Level Rise: The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) makes questionable projections of sea level rise (SLR) to 2100 based on various CO2 emissions scenarios (story lines). These have been repeated in reports by followers of the IPCC such as the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and various government agencies. Such reports can influence decisions by local planning boards who think they are using the best science available. For example, Tampa Bay Climate Science Advisory Panel (CSAP) reported that
“Based upon a thorough assessment of scientific data and literature on SLR, the CSAP concludes that the Tampa Bay region may experience SLR somewhere between 6 inches to 2.5 feet in 2050 and between 1 to 7 feet in 2100.”
The 1-foot rise is from extrapolation of readings from local tidal gages. The 7-foot rise is from NOAA high estimates from IPCC and USGCRP reports.
Retired NASA meteorologist Thomas Wysmuller explored the correlation between CO2 and sea level rise. He found no measurable linkage between Sea Level and CO2! “For the past 2,000 years, Sea Level rise was unchangingly linear, increasing between 1 & 1.5 mm/yr.” The maximum rise is about 6 inches per century. This has continued for the past 135 years, even though CO2 concentrations have increased by 38%.
Local conditions, such as geological and human activity are more important to determine future local sea level rise than any projections from IPCC reports. For example, the Tampa Bay region is influenced by groundwater extraction, as is the Norfolk-Newport News area of Virginia. On the other extreme, the relative sea level of the Gulf of Bothnia is falling, because the land is geologically rising in rebounding from the mass ice sheets that once covered it. The Gulf of Bothnia is between Sweden and Finland.
As Wysmuller indicates on his web site, the high-end estimates of the IPCC, etc. exceed the average century sea level rise that occurred over 7,000 years when the great ice sheets covering much of northern Eurasia and most of North America melted. The great Laurentide Ice Sheet is no more except in Greenland and small parts of Canada.
Wysmuller gave presentations on the lack of linkage between CO2 and sea level rise at the 5th Annual World Congress of Ocean in Qingdao China in November 2016 and last week at NASA’s Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston (not really connected with NASA-GISS in New York on Broadway).
The findings of the IPCC and USGCRP are not supported by the empirical evidence. The bureaucratically calculated social cost of carbon using these findings is not supported as well. See links under Changing Seas.
UK Tidal Lagoons: Some officials in the UK are proposing using tidal lagoons to generate electricity from the tides. The lagoons will use barriers, walled-in structures, to hold water during high tide and release it through turbines to generate electricity as the tide falls. The reverse can be applied when the tide is rising. One such proposed structure at Swansea Bay in Wales is being reviewed for UK funding. Tides in many areas of Britain exceed those of most of the US except for the Northeast, such as the Maine coastline.
A Report by Charles Hendry, formerly a minister at the former Department of Energy and Climate Change, appears to be favorable to the Swansea Bay project. Commentator Martin Livermore of the Scientific Alliance is cautiously optimistic. The expected high initial cost can be averaged over the long, expected life of the project. The report recommends a subsidy life of 60 years. Given the corrosiveness of salt water, how long the turbines and other components will last is an issue.
Energy commentator Euan Mearns is not optimistic. Mears writes:
“I have for a long time been more positively disposed to tidal power than either wind, wave or solar. I have been told repeatedly that because high tides occur at different times around the coasts of Britain, that a geographically dispersed suite of tidal power stations may substantially mitigate for intermittency. The data presented here suggest that this is not only untrue, it is the exact opposite of the truth. Roger Andrews reached the same conclusion in May 2015.”
“In fact, UK tidal lagoons will produce more intermittent electricity than any other form of renewable generation providing four spikes separated by four periods of zero production each day. It is often claimed that the predictability of tides is a virtue. This also means we can predict with certainty that this energy source will be a disaster for the public as well as the environment.”
The quest for a reliable, affordable, non-nuclear replacement for fossil fuels continues. See links under Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Number of the Week: Plus or minus 1.8ºF. The January 7 TWTW presented Roy Spencer’s estimate that 2016 atmospheric temperatures “would have had to be 0.10 C [about 0.2ºF] warmer than 1998 to be significantly different at the 95% confidence level.” The NOAA-NCEI press release had the 2016 surface temperature 0.07ºF warmer than 2015, but with no estimate of statistical significance or error in measurement. The NASA-GISS had no estimate of error in measurement.
The most widely used instrument in US airports and other locations for temperature measurement is the Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS). The user’s guide for ASOS states the specifications for accuracy of the temperature measuring instruments in the form of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Maximum (MAX) Error. For an ambient temperature range of -58ºF to +122 ºF the RMSE is 0.9 ºF and the Maximum Error is plus or minus 1.8 ºF.
In the press releases, the appeared error in measurement is far less than the designed error of the instruments taking the measurements. How precision in measurement is significantly enhanced by numerical calculations is a mystery. See links under Measurement Issues – Surface, p. 12 for ASOS.
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
Overcoming Chaotic Behavior of Climate Models
By S. Fred Singer, SEPP, July 2010
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, 2013
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, 2014
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, NIPCC, Nov 23, 2015
Download with no charge
Challenging the Orthodoxy
2016 Global Temperature: The Pause Never Went Away
By David Whitehouse, GWPF, Jan 19, 2017
“According to NOAA 2016 was 0.07°F warmer than 2015, which is 0.04°C. Considering the error in the annual temperature is +/- 0.1°C this makes 2016 statistically indistinguishable from 2015, making any claim of a record using NOAA data specious.”
New study of NOAA’s U.S. Climate Network shows a lower 30-year temperature trend when high quality temperature stations unperturbed by urbanization are considered
By: Anthony Watts, et al. AGU Meeting, Dec 16, 2015
Because of the GISS and NOAA Press Conference about 2016 Global Surface Temperatures…A Reminder of How Horribly Climate Models Simulate the Surface Temperatures of Earth’s Oceans.
Guest Post by Bob Tisdale, WUWT, Jan 18, 2017
A Major Gap in the Climate Alarmist Narrative
By Alan Carlin, Carlin Economics and Science, Jan 20, 2017
Defending the Orthodoxy
Obama admin injects another $500M into global climate fund
By Devin Henry, The Hill, Jan 17, 2017
[SEPP Comment: Interesting to see the source of the money. As of Jan 21, 2017, The Daily Press Briefing for the State Department “Cannot be found.” https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2017/01/267068.htm. ]
President Obama’s climate change legacy
By Martin Livermore, The Scientific Alliance, Jan 20, 2017
“Rogue Scientists Race to Save Climate Data from Trump”(AKA”The Phantom Menace”)
Guest post by David Middleton, WUWT, Jan 20, 2017
Link to National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)
“We provide stewardship, products, and services for geophysical data from our Sun to Earth and Earth’s sea floor and solid earth environment, including Earth observations from space.” From NCEI web site.
Valuing Climate Changes:
Updating Estimation of the Social Cost of Carbon Dioxide (2017)
By National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; Board on Environmental Change and Society; Committee on Assessing Approaches to Updating the Social Cost of Carbon
The National Academies Press
“Under Executive Orders regarding regulatory impact analysis and as required by a court ruling, the U.S. government has since 2008 used estimates of the SC-CO2 in federal rulemakings to value the costs and benefits associated with changes in CO2 emissions.
“In 2010, the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases (IWG) developed a methodology for estimating the SC-CO2 across a range of assumptions about future socioeconomic and physical earth systems.”
Questioning the Orthodoxy
David Whitehouse: El Nino Warming Does Not Mean The End Of The ‘Pause’
By David Whitehouse, The Spectator, Via GWPF, Jan 9, 2017
New Paper: Predictions Of Polar Bear Population Crash Based On Flawed Assumption
By Susan Crockford, Univ. of Victoria, Via GWPF, Jan 19, 2017
Link to paper: Testing the hypothesis that routine sea ice coverage of 3-5 mkm2 results in a greater than 30% decline in population size of polar bears (Ursus maritimus)
By Susan Crockford, PeerJ Preprints, Jan 19, 2017
Change in US Administrations
President Trump Signals Big Shift On Energy And Climate Policies
US President Donald Trump signaled a sharp break on energy and the environment policy Friday, announcing plans to undo climate policies and promote domestic energy development as part of his “America First” agenda.
By Staff Writers, AFP, Via GWPF, Jan 21, 2017
Seeking a Common Ground
Rethinking the Social Cost of Carbon
By Judith Curry, Climate Etc. Jan 17, 2017
Review of Recent Scientific Articles by CO2 Science
The Behavioral Resilience of Juvenile European Sea Bass to Ocean Acidification
Duteil, M., Pope, E.C., Pérez-Escudero, A., de Polavieja, G.G., Fürtbauer, I., Brown, M.R. and King, A.J. 2016. European sea bass show behavioral resilience to near-future ocean acidification. Royal Society Open Science 3: 160656. Jan 20, 2017
The Impact of Reduced CO2 Concentrations on Agriculture
Cunniff, J., Jones, G., Charles, M. and Osborne, C. 2017. Yield responses of wild C3 and C4 crop progenitors to subambient CO2: a test for the role of CO2 limitation in the origin of agriculture. Global Change Biology 23: 380-393. Jan 18, 2017
[SEPP Comment: What would agriculture be like with significantly reduced CO2?]
Echinometra Sea Urchins Thriving on CO2 from Volcanic Vents
Uthicke, S., Ebert, T., Liddy, M., Johansson, C., Fabricius, K.E. and Lamare, M. 2016. Echinometra sea urchins acclimatized to elevated pCO2 at volcanic vents outperform those under present-day pCO2 conditions. Global Change Biology 22: 2451-2461, Jan 17, 2017
Models v. Observations
What they don’t say about “the hottest ever year” — 20 year warming trend is one third of what models predicted
By Jo Nova and David Evans, Her Blog, Jan 20, 2017
Five years after rain returns, climate modelers redo models and “predict” more, less, some, different or same rain
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Jan 18, 2017
Measurement Issues — Surface
Trump’s NOAA Administrator Must Address the Temperature Record Controversy
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, Jan 18, 2017
Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) — User’s Guide
By Staff Writers, NOAA, DOD, FAA, USN, March 1998 (p.12)
2016 marks three consecutive years of record warmth for the globe.
By Staff Writers, NOAA, January 2017
2016 was 2nd warmest year on record for U.S.
NOAA Press Release, Jan 9, 2017
[SEPP Comment: Interestingly, the record used for the US temperatures claims 122 years, but the record for extreme weather events goes back to 1980 – missing severe hurricanes such as the one in 1938.]
A case study of the Northern Colorado Front Range temperature history
By Monte Naylor, Climate Etc. Jan 20, 2017
All Temperature Adjustments Monotonically Increase
By Tony Heller, Real Climate Science, Accessed Jan 12, 2017
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
Satellite Records and Slopes Since 1998 are Not Statistically Significant. (Now Includes November and December Data)
Guest Post by Werner Brozek, Edited by Just The Facts, WUWT, Jan 12, 2017
California’s Drought is Over
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Jan 20, 2017
Satellite Reveals End of “Unending” N. California Drought
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, Jan 14, 2017
How the darkness and the cold killed the dinosaurs
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Jan 13, 2016
Link to paper: Baby, it’s cold outside: Climate model simulations of the effects of the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous
By Brugger, Feulner, and Petri, Geophysical Research Letters, Jan 13, 2017
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Airborne thermometer to measure Arctic temperatures
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Jan 12, 2017
An Ice Shelf Is Cracking In Antarctica, But Not For The Reason You Think
By Rae Ellen Bichell, NPR, Jan 16, 2017
Russian Icebreakers Stuck in the Arctic Global Warming
Guest essay by Eric Worrall, WUWT, Jan 19, 2017
[SEPP Comment: Based on an article from the Siberian Times.] CHECK
Natural catastrophe losses at their highest for four years
By Staff Writers, Munich RE, Jan 4, 2017
[SEPP Comment: Three costliest natural catastrophes, in order with estimated total losses (insured & uninsured): earthquakes in Japan ($31 billion), floods in China ($20 billion), and Hurricane Matthew in the Caribbean and US ($10.2 billion).]
The Inconvenient CO2/Sea Level Non-Linkage
By Thomas Wysmuller, The Colder Side of Global Warming, Accessed Jan 20, 2017
Recommended Projection of Sea Level Rise in the Tampa Bay Region
By Staff Writers, Tampa Bay Climate Science Advisory Panel, Aug 2015
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
2016’s Record Warmth Brought Record Crop Yields, Fewer Storms
By Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller, Jan 19, 2017
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
NOAA Jumps The Shark In Tampa Bay
Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, Jan 14, 2017
Link to paper: “Recommended Projection of Sea Level Rise in the Tampa Bay Region.”
By Tampa Bay Climate Science Advisory Panel, Aug 2015
EPA and other Regulators on the March
EPA says it isn’t allowed to pay for damage claims after mine spill
By Devin Henry, The Hill, Jan 13, 2017
[SEPP Comment: Government bureaucrats have long used “sovereign immunity” to escape accountability for their mistakes – even though they hold private enterprises accountable.]
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Entergy agrees to Indian Point closure
By Staff Writers, WNN, Jan 9, 2017
New York Aims to Replace Nuclear Power With Clean Energy
Gov. Cuomo promises declining carbon emissions even as the state closes the Indian Point nuclear power plant.
By Jeremy Deaton, Nexus Media, Jan 12, 2017 [H/t WUWT]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Turning the tide for renewable energy?
By Martin Livermore, The Scientific Alliance, Jan 13, 2017
Link to report: The Role of Tidal Lagoons
By Charles Hendry, Dec 6, 2016
Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon and Baseload Tidal Generation in the UK
By Euan Mearns, Energy Matters, Jan 16, 2017 [H/t Paul Homewood]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
Latest on Electric Vehicle Sales
By Donn Dears, Power For USA, Jan 19, 2017
Millions wasted on failed carbon capture and storage fiasco [UK]
By Staff Writers, The Construction Index, Jan 20, 2017
California proposes ambitious new climate goals
By Timothy Cama, The Hill, Jan 20, 2017
[SEPP Comment: Complete with photo of a dried lakebed – no doubt taken before the rains came.]
Other Scientific News
World’s First Weather-Cracking Wind Satellite Aeolus to Improve Future Forecasts
By Staff Writers, Moscow (Sputnik), Jan 20, 2017
Other News that May Be of Interest
Beyond Physics: Advanced Biology and Climate Change
By Clive Hambler, Climate Etc. Jan 15, 2017
Why Lyme disease is common in the north, rare in the south
By Staff Writers, Washington DC (SPX), Jan 13, 2017
Link to paper: Environmental Factors Affecting Survival of Immature Ixodes scapularis and Implications for Geographical Distribution of Lyme Disease: The Climate/Behavior Hypothesis
By Howard Ginsberg, et al. Plos One, Jan 11, 2017
Zooplankton rapidly evolve tolerance to road salt
By Staff Writers, Troy NY (SPX), Jan 10, 2017
Link to paper, Rapid evolution of tolerance to road salt in zooplankton
By Kayla Coldsnow, et al. Environmental Pollution, Jan 6, 2017
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE:
‘Race Against Time’ to Protect Climate Science Data From Trump
By Sarah Tory, Newsweek, Jan 15, 2017 [H/t Clyde Spencer]
If only they’d known about climate change in 1787!
By Staff Writers, Climate Change Predictions, Jan 15, 2017
“[David] Brearley plays a critical, and entirely accidental, role in climate change because of his position as the chair of the Committee on Postponed Parts within the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
“The committee opted for a middle ground solution – an electoral college that would vote on behalf of the citizens, but which would be populated based on the number of congressional seats assigned to each State in the Union.
“It is this solution, brilliant at the time, that leads us to Brearley’s legacy on climate change. Because over the course of the last 200 plus years, the electoral college, which provides for stronger voting power per person in more rural and less populated states, has elected four U.S. presidents who clearly lost the popular vote (1876, 1888, 2000 and 2016).
“Two of those elections have occurred during the period in which we have known about the causes and impacts of carbon dioxide emissions and climate change and in both cases, the impacts of those elections have very likely had profound impacts on our actions to address the challenge. Washington Post, 19 Dec 2016
[SEPP Comment: Cherry picking, President Lincoln was elected with 40% of the vote.]
Barack Obama, in Late Flourish, Steps Up Preservation
Designations of monuments in the West stirs debate between environmentalists, ranchers
By Jim Carlton, WSJ, Jan 11, 2017
SUMMARY: The reporter produces an interesting table compiled from data from the National Park Service biggest monument creators. Presidents Reagan and G.H.W. Bush created none. J. Carter created 15 monuments encompassing 56 million acres; B. Clinton created 19 monuments encompassing 5.7 million acres; G.W. Bush created 6 monuments encompassing 218.8 million acres (mostly marine sanctuaries in the Pacific); and Obama created 26 monuments encompassing 550.7 million acres.
Some monuments may be underwater (marine). Often such monuments are created without major consideration of local residents and remove resources from productive use. The Antiquities Act in 1906 is often used and the act has no legal language for rescinding a national monument designation.