2014 hottest year on record

[MSimon]

Well if that is the course we are talking about the solution for that is easy. Partly due to the advances in hydroponics. And before Simon chimes in. Yes, the pot industry was a contributor to the growth and availability of supplies necessary to make this happen.

What is ironic about that contribution is the fact that they use high levels of CO2 to enhance growth.

[williatw]

Greenhouse gas warming will overcome the natural cooling due to volcanoes, reduced solar output and other factors in five to 10 years and end the pause in global warming, climate scientist tells press



NASA's Gavin Schmidt: the pause will not persist and in five to 10 years time - it is changes in greenhouse gases that will dominate. Courtesy: NASA

Global temperatures will resume their long term growth trend within five to 10 years ending the so called pause in global warming, a leading climate scientist has predicted.

The pause – which on some measures has gone on since the mid-1990s - continued into 2014 on the basis of global temperature data released last week by US space agency NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the US.

However, the warming effect of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide will grow sufficiently to overcome the combined impact of various natural climate cooling factors, journalists on a telephone news conference were told last week by Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies.

There is evidence that volcanoes and a slightly dimmer Sun have acted to cool the Earth recently and so offset the warming impact of greenhouse gases, according to Schmidt, widely seen as a strong advocate for the case that humans are causing climate change. But Schmidt said that he did not expect the global warming pause – which he referred to as the hiatus - to persist.

This is because the warming impact, or forcing, due to greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would keep growing with continuing emissions of greenhouse gases, Schmidt said, and "in five to ten years time it is changes in greenhouse gases that will dominate".

Pause continues

NASA and NOAA announced last week that 2014 was the warmest year recorded since measurements began but the fact is that the margin is so small as to be statistically meaningless. NASA itself ranks the probability that 2014 was the warmest year at 38 per cent while NOAA is slightly more confident putting the probability at 48 per cent.

The difference between global mean surface temperature in 2014 and the previous warmest years on record, 2010 and 2005, is measured in just hundredths of a degree on both the NASA and NOAA analyses. This is within the margin of error of the data which means that there is no statistical difference between global temperatures in 2005, 2010 and 2014.

Independent climate research institute Berkeley Earth, sometimes seen as sympathetic to climate sceptics, put it this way: “The global surface temperature average (land and sea) for 2014 was nominally the warmest since the global instrumental record began in 1850; however,within the margin of error, it is tied with 2005 and 2010 and so we can’t be certain it set a new record.”

Furthermore, satellite measurements of the temperature of the atmosphere do not rank rank 2014 as the warmest year. The analysis of satellite data performed by the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) puts 2014 in third place while an analysis of data provided by US firm Remote Sensing Systems places 2014 in sixth place. Both datasets report that 1998 was the warmest year since satellite measurements began in 1979.


Duration

The existence of the pause in global warming was acknowledged by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its most recent report published in 2013 but there has been significant debate about the actual duration of this hiatus with some commentators alleging that the length is exaggerated by cherry-picking the start date as 1998 – a particularly warm year due to a particularly strong El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event.

Schmidt himself alluded to this last week when he told the press conference that the “hiatus question is a complicated one”. He pointed out that the El Nino year of 1998 was a “stand out” year and that if a line is drawn from 1998 to 2014 then global surface temperature “doesn't look like it has changed very much”.

Schmidt went on to point out that “2014 is exactly where we would have expected to be before 1998”. There is no statistical evidence for a change in trends and no evidence of a break point between 1997 and 1998, he said. “There is no evidence that the long term trend is really much different to what it has been,” he added.

However, an analysis of global temperature data published last year uses statistics to avoid the charge of cherry picking and indicates that the pause dates back to 1995. Ross McKitrick from the Department of Economics at the University of Guelph in Canada, who analysed the data, is seen as sceptical about global warming but his research was published in the peer-reviewed Open Journal of Statistics and its findings have yet to be challenged.

McKitrick's analysis dating the start of the the pause in surface temperatures to 1995 agrees with the view of acknowledged climate sceptic physicist Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT who has written there has been “no statistically significant warming since 1995”.

Cause of the pause

A number of possible explanations have been put forward to explain the pause These include a build up of heat in the deep oceans, a weakening of solar activity and aerosols of volcanic ash in the atmosphere that reflect the sun’s rays back into space. However, the impact of solar activity and volcanoes does not appear sufficient to explain the problem and the accumulation of deep ocean heat appears to be somewhat elusive – the measured increase in ocean heat content being less than that required to explain the pause.

Recent research has implicated long term cycles in the oceans but there is no agreed mechanism with some papers attributing the pause to Pacific Ocean cycles, other research pointing to changes in the Atlantic and one recent paper saying that all the oceans are involved.

There is also a suggestion that the pause is an artefact of the way the data is analysed and that it only appears to exist because faster warming in the Arctic has been excluded from the various global temperature analyses. Another possibility is that the pause is an entirely natural variation in the climate cycle around an underlying upward trend in global temperatures.

None of these explanations has gained widespread acceptance.

http://www.reportingclimatescience.com/ ... hmidt.html

[JoeP]

All I know is that I'm burning tons of oil this winter keeping my house warm. It is frickin' cold!

So I'm doing my part not only keeping my family warm inside, but the CO2 has a nice preventive measure of adding to future global temp, so to save my kids and someday-grandkids heating cash.

Looks good all-around!

On another point, I was observing a Chickadee bird today at my bird feeder. It was seemingly unperturbed by the blasts of cold and snow as it munched on a few sunflower seeds that my kind wife made available to it in the feeder. A thought passed through my mind: how the hell does this little puffball of nothing not completely freeze in half a minute? Especially the naked little twig-like things it has for legs and feet? And then I realized how poorly I would fair in comparison to this little birdie out there should I be standing outside with him at the feeder with nothing but my skin to protect me! We humans aren't very well adapted to cold climates without our technology, are we?

[williatw]

We humans aren't very well adapted to cold climates without our technology, are we?

Well how did our ancestors stay warm living in Europe and North America during the Pleistocene ice ages (punctuated by rare interglacial periods)? Wore animal furs built lots of fires and constructed shelters...our lack generally of lots of thick body hair would indicate we have been relying on "technology" for 10's of thousands of years. Same reason we don't have claws and large incisor teeth (fangs); we have obviously been making using tools (like spears/stone knives/clubs etc.) for at least 100 thousand years. Probably why humans (even very physically fit ones) are so much weaker than much smaller primates like chimpanzees. My guess is that the muscle fibers that are used for gross physical strength which chimps probably have a preponderance of were sacrificed (selected against) in humans by the muscle fibers needed for fine motor skills; just what is needed for tool making/using.

[JoeP]

We humans aren't very well adapted to cold climates without our technology, are we?

Well how did our ancestors stay warm living in Europe and North America during the Pleistocene ice ages (punctuated by rare interglacial periods)? Wore animal furs built lots of fires and constructed shelters...our lack generally of lots of thick body hair would indicate we have been relying on "technology" for 10's of thousands of years. Same reason we don't have claws and large incisor teeth (fangs); we have obviously been making using tools (like spears/stone knives/clubs etc.) for at least 100 thousand years. Probably why humans (even very physically fit ones) are so much weaker than much smaller primates like chimpanzees. My guess is that the muscle fibers that are used for gross physical strength which chimps probably have a preponderance of were sacrificed (selected against) in humans by the muscle fibers needed for fine motor skills; just what is needed for tool making/using.

Well, of course, that was what I was thinking. But the weakness (and the strengths!) of that little bird is just what was so striking to me. Our nature is to be technological and to adapt to environments down that path. Thus, we can even survive in space, in a sense, given enough tech & brains. But I was also amazed that humans, particularly those with ancestors in Europe and Asia aren't at least a little more physically adapted (physically) to cold.

[DeltaV]

The bird is particularly impressive when you consider that smaller critters have a higher surface area-to-volume ratio than larger ones, increasing their heat loss rate. The secret must be the insulating air trapped by interlocking feathers combined with a fast metabolism.

[JoeP]

The bird is particularly impressive when you consider that smaller critters have a higher surface area-to-volume ratio than larger ones, increasing their heat loss rate. The secret must be the insulating air trapped by interlocking feathers combined with a fast metabolism.

Yeah, if you do the math then a massive creature such as myself with much smaller ratio of surface area to volume should be a big advantage. And yet, essentially this guy is a bad-ass for cold resistance!

Good article on all the Chickadee adaptations: http://tinyurl.com/kgja46b
I still want to know how the little legs don't freeze instantly. There must be some muscles and blood circulation in there, right?

[choff]

They're predicting an end to the pause in five years with a return to the warming trend. That's good, when the opposite happens their busted.

[mvanwink5]

Those folks will aways have an update to their prediction as long as the Gubermant keeps the edification standards set to pure propaganda, it will pass mustard.

[williatw]

They're predicting an end to the pause in five years with a return to the warming trend. That's good, when the opposite happens their busted.

You mean 5 to 10 years...in other words they can explain away the pause for the next decade while admitting nothing much until then.

[paperburn1]

The bird is particularly impressive when you consider that smaller critters have a higher surface area-to-volume ratio than larger ones, increasing their heat loss rate. The secret must be the insulating air trapped by interlocking feathers combined with a fast metabolism.

Yeah, if you do the math then a massive creature such as myself with much smaller ratio of surface area to volume should be a big advantage. And yet, essentially this guy is a bad-ass for cold resistance!

Good article on all the Chickadee adaptations: http://tinyurl.com/kgja46b
I still want to know how the little legs don't freeze instantly. There must be some muscles and blood circulation in there, right?

Most birds have the ability to alter blood flow to their legs through the use of a counter-current system of blood vessels. When blood flows down a main arterial vessel in each leg, the venous blood that returns from the webbing/toes flows past the arteries but in the opposite direction (thus, the notion of the flow being counter-current). In this manner, arterial blood is cooled on the way down to the toes and venous blood is warmed on the way back up to the heart through the veins. This type of blood flow arrangement saves heat and actually helps the birds keep a fairly efficient insulation against the cold. There’s not a lot of active tissue in a bird foot. The muscles are mostly located in the thigh region, and so that leaves the mostly hollow bone, skin and some connective tissue. So, the bird feet do not require a high amount of blood flow. Nevertheless, this kind of blood flow pattern is argued to provide birds and mammals with the ideal solution: blood still flows and provides the tissues with nutrients and oxygen, while not dumping precious body heat to the environment. The tissues themselves can handle being cold, provided they do not actually reach temperatures below freezing.

[JoeP]

Most birds have the ability to alter blood flow to their legs through the use of a counter-current system of blood vessels. When blood flows down a main arterial vessel in each leg, the venous blood that returns from the webbing/toes flows past the arteries but in the opposite direction (thus, the notion of the flow being counter-current). In this manner, arterial blood is cooled on the way down to the toes and venous blood is warmed on the way back up to the heart through the veins. This type of blood flow arrangement saves heat and actually helps the birds keep a fairly efficient insulation against the cold. There’s not a lot of active tissue in a bird foot. The muscles are mostly located in the thigh region, and so that leaves the mostly hollow bone, skin and some connective tissue. So, the bird feet do not require a high amount of blood flow. Nevertheless, this kind of blood flow pattern is argued to provide birds and mammals with the ideal solution: blood still flows and provides the tissues with nutrients and oxygen, while not dumping precious body heat to the environment. The tissues themselves can handle being cold, provided they do not actually reach temperatures below freezing.

Thanks Paperburn. I find this fascinating. I guess that is also one reason why the legs and feet on this bird are also so tiny and thin. It seemed counterintuitive to me at first, thinking such tiny, exposed legs would freeze more easily, but now I see they are optimized for exposing a very tough, but also very limited mass (when compared to the main body of the bird) to harsh cold.

[williatw]

Is lying About Climate Change Okay?

Those of us who have chronicled the global warming hoax, now called “climate change”, know that it is based on decades of lies about carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gas” with predictions that the Earth will heat up and cause massive problems unless those emissions are drastically reduced by not using coal, oil and natural gas.


Two American think tanks, The Heartland Institute and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) have been among those exposing those lies for years. The lies have been generated and led by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).


“Despite the panel’s insistence that the Earth is getting hotter, five different datasets show that there have been no observable warming for 17 and a half years even as carbon dioxide levels have risen 12%,” notes Christopher Monckton, a science advisor to Britain’s former Prime Minister Thatcher. “The discrepancy between prediction and observation continues to grow.”


Recently, two Chinese assistant professors of economics, Fuhai Hong and Xiaojian Zhao, were published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. Their paper, “Information Manipulation and Climate Agreements”, openly advocated lying about global warming/climate change in order to get nations to sign on to the International Environmental Agreement.


“It appears that news media and some pro-environmental organizations,” they noted, “have the tendency to accentuate or even exaggerate the damage caused by climate change. This article provides a rationale for this tendency.”


Craig Rucker, CFACT’s Executive Director, responded to the Chinese authors saying “They’re shameless.” Theirs and others ends-justify-the-means tactics reflects the attitudes and actions of environmental organizations and serves as a warning to never accept anything they say on any aspect of this huge hoax.


CFACT’s President and co-founder, David Rothbard, noted that “Global warming skeptics have long charged that alarmists are over-hyping the dangers of climate change.” How long? Back in 1989, the late Stanford University professor, Stephen Schneider, said, “So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ which we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance between being effective and being honest.”


There is no “right balance” between telling lies and telling the truth when it comes to science or any other aspect of our lives. Suffice to say that thousands of scientists who participated in the IPCC reports over the years supported the lies, but many have since left and some have openly denounced the reports.


As the latest IPCC summary of its report has garnered the usual verbatim media coverage of its outlandish predictions, The Heartland Institute has released its own 1,062 page report from the “Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) called “Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts. An 18-page summery is available at http://climatechangereconsidered.org.


Among its findings:


– Atmospheric carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.


– There is little or no risk of increasing food insecurity due to global warming or rising atmospheric CO2 levels.


– Rising temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels do not pose a significant threat to aquatic life.

- A modest warming of the planet will result in a net reduction of human mortality from temperature-related events.
Based on hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, the NIPCC report is free of the lies that are found in the IPCC report whose studies have been, at best, dubious, and at worst, deliberately deceptive.In light of the natural cooling cycle the Earth has been in that is good news and it will be even better news when the planet emerges from the cycle that reflects the lower levels of radiation from the Sun.


On March 31, CNS News reported that “The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report estimates it will cost developed nations an additional $100 billion each year to help poorer nations adapt to the devastating effects of ‘unequivocal’ global warming, including food shortages, infrastructure breakdown, and civil violence. But that figure was deleted from the report’s executive summary after industrial nations, including the United States, objected to the high price tag.”


The price tag reveals the IPCC’s real agenda, the transfer of funds from industrial nations to those less developed. It’s about the money and always has been. It’s not global warming the planet needs to survive, it is the costly lies about it.

http://blog.heartland.org/2014/04/is-ly ... ange-okay/

[choff]

Alarmists are so over.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/04/i ... f-iceberg/

[williatw]

Top scientists start to examine fiddled global warming figures

The Global Warming Policy Foundation has enlisted an international team of five distinguished scientists to carry out a full inquiry




The Yavari Valley rainforest, Peru Photo: Alamy

Last month, we are told, the world enjoyed “its hottest March since records began in 1880”. This year, according to “US government scientists”, already bids to outrank 2014 as “the hottest ever”. The figures from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were based, like all the other three official surface temperature records on which the world’s scientists and politicians rely, on data compiled from a network of weather stations by NOAA’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN).


But here there is a puzzle. These temperature records are not the only ones with official status. The other two, Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and the University of Alabama (UAH), are based on a quite different method of measuring temperature data, by satellites. And these, as they have increasingly done in recent years, give a strikingly different picture. Neither shows last month as anything like the hottest March on record, any more than they showed 2014 as “the hottest year ever”.


An adjusted graph from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies





Back in January and February, two items in this column attracted more than 42,000 comments to the Telegraph website from all over the world. The provocative headings given to them were “Climategate the sequel: how we are still being tricked by flawed data on global warming” and “The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest scientific scandal”.


My cue for those pieces was the evidence multiplying from across the world that something very odd has been going on with those official surface temperature records, all of which ultimately rely on data compiled by NOAA’s GHCN. Careful analysts have come up with hundreds of examples of how the original data recorded by 3,000-odd weather stations has been “adjusted”, to exaggerate the degree to which the Earth has actually been warming. Figures from earlier decades have repeatedly been adjusted downwards and more recent data adjusted upwards, to show the Earth having warmed much more dramatically than the original data justified.

So strong is the evidence that all this calls for proper investigation that my articles have now brought a heavyweight response. The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has enlisted an international team of five distinguished scientists to carry out a full inquiry into just how far these manipulations of the data may have distorted our picture of what is really happening to global temperatures.

The panel is chaired by Terence Kealey, until recently vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham. His team, all respected experts in their field with many peer-reviewed papers to their name, includes Dr Peter Chylek, a physicist from the National Los Alamos Laboratory; Richard McNider, an emeritus professor who founded the Atmospheric Sciences Programme at the University of Alabama; Professor Roman Mureika from Canada, an expert in identifying errors in statistical methodology; Professor Roger Pielke Sr, a noted climatologist from the University of Colorado, and Professor William van Wijngaarden, a physicist whose many papers on climatology have included studies in the use of “homogenisation” in data records.

Their inquiry’s central aim will be to establish a comprehensive view of just how far the original data has been “adjusted” by the three main surface records: those published by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss), the US National Climate Data Center and Hadcrut, that compiled by the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (Cru), in conjunction with the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction. All of them are run by committed believers in man-made global warming.

Below, the raw data in graph form




For this the GWPF panel is initially inviting input from all those analysts across the world who have already shown their expertise in comparing the originally recorded data with that finally published. In particular, they will be wanting to establish a full and accurate picture of just how much of the published record has been adjusted in a way which gives the impression that temperatures have been rising faster and further than was indicated by the raw measured data.

Already studies based on the US, Australia, New Zealand, the Arctic and South America have suggested that this is far too often the case.

But only when the full picture is in will it be possible to see just how far the scare over global warming has been driven by manipulation of figures accepted as reliable by the politicians who shape our energy policy, and much else besides. If the panel’s findings eventually confirm what we have seen so far, this really will be the “smoking gun”, in a scandal the scale and significance of which for all of us can scarcely be exaggerated.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/1156 ... gures.html