The Week That Was: 2021-08-21 (August 21, 2021)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “Can a man who’s warm understand one who’s freezing?”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Number of the Week: – 1.1°C (2°F)
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: TWTW continues with discussing some of the significant holes, scientific omissions, in the “Summary for Policymakers” of the Physical Science Basis of Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) is used to justify to political leaders drastic changes in the use of fossil fuels. Given the gravity of such changes, the document should be of the highest scientific standards and demonstrate the scientific integrity of the IPCC.
Specifically, additional comments by Steve McIntyre illustrate serious issues with the New Hockey-stick crucial to AR6 SPM. Second, there is a major controversy on solar variability among experts in the field, which is ignored by the IPCC, leading to highly biased estimates of minor solar influence on global temperatures. Further, Ross McKitrick discusses independent confirmation of a study he did with John Christy. Both studies show the growing divergence between what the models estimate to be atmospheric temperature trends and what is being observed.
The findings of a study by United Nations Children’s Fund, a United Nations agency responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide, will be presented. These findings demonstrate how perverse the reports of the IPCC are, particularly since the reports ignore the scientific method requiring examination of all the physical evidence available. See links under Defending the Orthodoxy.
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IPCC Magic? Statistician Steve McIntyre exposed the new IPCC hockey-stick that appears in the Summary for Policymakers, but not in the main report. The hockey-stick is cobbled together from various bits of data, few of which cover the entire period of 2000 years. Thousands of studies that may approximate changes in temperatures for specific locations. are available. In a series of reports identified as PAGES followed by year of publication, these studies are narrowed. In PAGES2017 thousands of studies are narrowed down using unknown after-the-fact criteria to 692 studies. Then in PAGES2019 using unknown criteria, the 692 are narrowed to 257 proxies. From this the new hockey-stick is created.
The procedure is similar to using increasingly fine screens to separate sand from stones and gravel, then declaring that all the source material is fine sand. McIntyre showed that many randomly selected studies do not give a unique “hockey-stick” shape. Many show no real trend and do not support the claims.
This week, McIntyre focused on a group of studies known as 50 Asian tree ring chronologies. He writes:
“About 20% of the PAGES 2019 proxies are 50 Asian tree ring chronologies, all of which were originally published as chronologies in PAGES (2013). At the time, none of these series (and certainly not in these digital versions, had ever been published in technical literature, peer reviewed or otherwise. Nothing in the Supplementary Information to any of these articles says who calculated these chronologies or how they were calculated. PAGES (2017) do cite a couple of academic articles (especially Cook et al 2013) for many of these series, but none of these chronologies actually appears in any of these academic articles or their supplementary information.
“PAGES (2013) was originally rejected by Science in 2012, because peer reviewers (including Michael Mann) objected to the introduction of so many new proxies in what was ostensibly a review paper; they sensibly recommended that components first be peer reviewed in relevant specialist journals. However, PAGES2K results had already been incorporated into a pending IPCC assessment (AR5), so the authors, now under a very short deadline, submitted to Nature, which was confronted by the same review problems that led to the rejection by Science. Keith Briffa had a clever, too clever, solution: publish the PAGES2K submission as a “Progress Article” – a classification that did not require the peer review procedure required for a Research Article. This would qualify the article for IPCC, and nobody would notice the sleight-of-hand. (Even I didn’t notice it at the time; someone told me.)
“One of the consequences of the 2013 manoeuvring was that several hundred Asian tree ring chronologies were introduced to paleoclimate archives with no technical publication or technical peer review, no information on how they were calculated or even who among the PAGES2K (2013) authors had calculated them.
“Having been introduced through the back door, so to speak, nearly all of the 200+ Asian tree ring chronologies were carried forward into the PAGES (2017) compilation, and then a subset of 50 chronologies (more or less the most hockey-stick shaped) was screened to become a substantial component of PAGES (2019) – the source of the IPCC Summary for Policy-makers Hockey Stick.
“In an earlier post, I had commented on the extreme closing uptick in one of these series (Asia_207). In 2013, despite PAGES2K’s professed insistence on using proxies with public archives, measurement data for this chronology was not available, so it was impossible to see what was going on at the time.”
The graph of Asia-207 shows a clear hockey-stick. It is from a tree in northern Pakistan, an area which McIntyre had visited in 1968. McIntyre then searches the very sparse data for the region to try to find what study supported Asia-207 and could not. He concludes:
So, who calculated the Asia_207 chronology? And how was it calculated?
At the time (2013), Briffa and Melvin of the University of East Anglia were hyping a method that they called “signal-free” tree ring chronology calculation, which, in the examples that they showed, resulted in a more HS-shaped [Hockey-stick-shaped] chronology than produced by ordinary chronology. It’s possible that the PAGES2K chronology was produced with some variation of this method. Melvin’s article does not provide a clear description of the mathematical procedure in their algorithm. They used ugly Fortran code that might be possible to figure out. But it takes time to parse this stuff and, without knowing for sure that this technique was used in PAGES2K, I’ve got other things to do.
But, even if the chronology calculation can be determined to be Melvin’s method (or some equivalent), this example ought to raise serious issues about the validity of the method- whatever it was. There is nothing in the actual ring width measurements that justifies the huge up-spike in the archived PAGES2K Asia_207 chronology. The implication is that there is something wrong with the chronology algorithm used by PAGES2K (2013) authors. If so, the defect would affect not just the Asia_207 chronology, but a vast swathe of other PAGES2K chronologies relied upon in the IPCC diagram. I checked a couple of others and was unable to replicate them either. [Boldface in original]
As a caveat, I’m not saying that “everything” in the IPCC diagram stands or falls with this particular issue. There are many issues with this diagram – I listed many in my first post on this topic and am aware of many. It’s possible that I’ve overlooked something. If a possible error in this analysis is identified, I’ll promptly evaluate and amend if required.
As with the old hockey-stick, a sizable portion of the new hockey-stick appeared in mathematical programming with no supporting physical evidence. One would have thought that, by now, those working on statistical techniques to “uncover signals in messy data” would employ experts who understand limitations in statistics to uncover errors in the work. Again, this is not the case. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy – IPCC.
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Solar Uncertainty: IPCC’s AR6 assumes a very modest influence from a varying sun. This assumption is in sharp contrast with a significant controversy within the community of solar scientists. There is no doubt that the Northern Hemisphere is warming more than the Southern Hemisphere. The issue is the extent to which changes in Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) has influenced the surface air temperature trends of the Northern Hemisphere.
Led by Ronan Connolly, Willie Soon, and Michael Connolly, a group of twenty-three solar scientists had a paper published in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics recognizing their differences and the importance that others, including the IPCC, recognize these differences. The abstract states:
“In order to evaluate how much Total Solar Irradiance (TSI) has influenced Northern Hemisphere surface air temperature trends, it is important to have reliable estimates of both quantities. Sixteen different estimates of the changes in TSI since at least the 19th century were compiled from the literature. Half of these estimates are “low variability,” and half are “high variability”. Meanwhile, five largely-independent methods for estimating Northern Hemisphere temperature trends were evaluated using: 1) only rural weather stations; 2) all available stations whether urban or rural (the standard approach); 3) only sea surface temperatures; 4) tree-ring widths as temperature proxies; 5) glacier length records as temperature proxies. The standard estimates which use urban as well as rural stations were somewhat anomalous as they implied a much greater warming in recent decades than the other estimates, suggesting that urbanization bias might still be a problem in current global temperature datasets – despite the conclusions of some earlier studies. Nonetheless, all five estimates confirm that it is currently warmer than the late 19th century, i.e., there has been some “global warming” since the 19th century. For each of the five estimates of Northern Hemisphere temperatures, the contribution from direct solar forcing for all sixteen estimates of TSI was evaluated using simple linear least-squares fitting. The role of human activity on recent warming was then calculated by fitting the residuals to the UN IPCC’s recommended “anthropogenic forcings” time series. For all five Northern Hemisphere temperature series, different TSI estimates suggest everything from no role for the Sun in recent decades (implying that recent global warming is mostly human-caused) to most of the recent global warming being due to changes in solar activity (that is, that recent global warming is mostly natural). It appears that previous studies (including the most recent IPCC reports) which had prematurely concluded the former, had done so because they failed to adequately consider all the relevant estimates of TSI and/or to satisfactorily address the uncertainties still associated with Northern Hemisphere temperature trend estimates. Therefore, several recommendations on how the scientific community can more satisfactorily resolve these issues are provided.”
The lengthy paper goes through the difficulty of estimating changes in TSI (during both the Satellite Era and the pre-satellite era), the difference among certain regions of the globe, galactic cosmic ray-driven amplification, short-term orbital effects, etc. Much of what the IPCC claims is human-caused climate change may be solar-caused. We simply do not know. To exclude the possibility, as the IPCC does, is arrogant. Abbreviated, the conclusions and recommendations are:
“By reviewing the literature and available data, we identified 16 different estimates of how the TSI has varied since the 19th century (and earlier) – see Table 1 and Figures 2 and 3. Although some of these estimates are very similar to each other, others imply quite different trends and hence can lead to different conclusions. The IPCC AR5 appears to have tried to overcome this problem by ignoring those datasets that give conflicting results. … In terms of scientific objectivity, this seems to us to have been an approach that is not compatible with the results already published in the scientific literature and even unwise relative to the results highlighted by this paper and of other recently published works.
“Recommendation 1. We urge researchers who are genuinely interested in trying to answer the question posed by the title of this paper to consider a wide range of TSI estimates and not just ones that agree with the researchers’ prior beliefs or expectations….
“Even among these 20 different estimates, it appears that many of the underlying challenges and uncertainties involved in estimating how solar activity has varied over recent decades, let alone centuries, have not been satisfactorily addressed.
“Recommendation 2. We urge researchers to pay more attention to the scientific debate between the rival TSI satellite composites … and to consider the competing datasets when assessing solar trends during the satellite era. …
“For the pre-satellite era, many researchers appear to have become over-reliant on the use of simplistic TSI proxy models based on simple linear regression analysis between sunspots and faculae records or other proxies for describing solar activity during the pre-satellite era, while it is evident from multiple observations that solar luminosity variability is a much more complex phenomenon. …
“Recommendation 3. Therefore, we urge researchers to look more closely at the differences between the various estimates of Northern Hemisphere temperature trends. In particular, we caution that despite many claims to the contrary in the literature… the urbanization bias problem does not appear to have been satisfactorily resolved yet. Although our analysis was explicitly confined to the Northern Hemisphere because there are much less data available for the Southern Hemisphere, this recommendation is also relevant for those looking at global temperature trends.
“Recommendation 4. In this review, we have mostly focused on the simple hypothesis that there is a direct linear relationship between TSI and Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures. However, in Sections 2.5 and 2.6, [not included in this summary] we showed that there is considerable evidence that the Sun/climate relationships are more nuanced and complex. Therefore, we also encourage further research into the potential Sun/climate relationships reviewed in Sections 2.5–2.6.
“Recommendation 5. In this paper, we have focused on the role of the Sun in recent climate change and compared this with the role of anthropogenic factors. Therefore, other than in passing, we have not explicitly investigated the possible role of other non-solar driven natural factors such as internal changes in oceanic and/or atmospheric circulation. …
“Conclusion. In the title of this paper, we asked “How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends?” However, it should now be apparent that, despite the confidence with which many studies claim to have answered this question, it has not yet been satisfactorily answered. Given the many valid dissenting scientific opinions that remain on these issues, we argue that recent attempts to force an apparent scientific consensus (including the IPCC reports) on these scientific debates are premature and ultimately unhelpful for scientific progress. We hope that the analysis in this paper will encourage and stimulate further analysis and discussion. In the meantime, the debate is ongoing.”
See links under Science: Is the Sun Rising? and Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
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Independent Confirmation: John Christy and others have several papers in science journals showing the strong and growing divergence between global climate model results and atmospheric temperature measurements. Ross McKitrick was a co-author of one of these papers. Writing in Climate Etc., McKitrick discusses another paper from a distinctly different group using a different approach than he and Christy used, which comes to the same conclusions – a strong and growing divergence between global climate model results and atmospheric temperature measurements. This provides independent confirmation of the results. McKitrick expresses it well. He writes:
“Two new peer-reviewed papers from independent teams confirm that climate models overstate atmospheric warming and the problem has gotten worse over time, not better. The papers are Mitchell et al. (2020) ‘The vertical profile of recent tropical temperature trends: Persistent model biases in the context of internal variability’ Environmental Research Letters, and McKitrick and Christy (2020) ‘Pervasive warming bias in CMIP6 tropospheric layers’ Earth and Space Science. John and I didn’t know about the Mitchell team’s work until after their paper came out, and they likewise didn’t know about ours.
“Mitchell et al. look at the surface, troposphere and stratosphere over the tropics (20N to 20S). John and I look at the tropical and global lower- and mid- troposphere. Both papers test large samples of the latest generation (‘Coupled Model Intercomparison Project version 6’ or CMIP6) climate models, i.e., the ones being used for the next IPCC report, and compare model outputs to post-1979 observations. John and I were able to examine 38 models while Mitchell et al. looked at 48 models. The sheer number makes one wonder why so many are needed, if the science is settled. Both papers looked at ‘hindcasts,’ which are reconstructions of recent historical temperatures in response to observed greenhouse gas emissions and other changes (e.g., aerosols and solar forcing). Across the two papers it emerges that the models overshoot historical warming from the near-surface through the upper troposphere, in the tropics and globally.”
A Canadian, McKitrick finds that the model used by Canadian climate scientists is the worst. He writes:
“I would be very surprised if the modelers at UVic ever put warning labels on their briefings to policy makers. The sticker should read: ‘WARNING! This model predicts atmospheric warming roughly 7 times larger than observed trends. Use of this model for anything other than entertainment purposes is not recommended.’” [Boldface added]
See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Next TWTW: The above emphasized significant deficiencies in IPCC AR6, particularly in the Summary for Policymakers. These include the use of data, the origin of which is not known and certainly not peer-reviewed, the suppression of controversy on the role of the sun in recent warming of the Northern Hemisphere in AR5 which continues in AR6, and independent confirmation that the global climate models overestimate the warming of the atmosphere, where the greenhouse effect occurs.
The next TWTW will continue on similar deficiencies such as: that many climate change attribution studies lack a theoretical basis; and significant misinterpretation of the greenhouse effect by the IPCC.
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Perverse Recommendations: A report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), a United Nations agency responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide, states that nearly half of world’s children are at ‘extremely high-risk’ of climate change impacts. In general, the accompanying map shows the countries classified as high-risk or extremely high-risk are in the tropics. These particularly include China, South Asia, and Africa.
As past climate change has shown, the temperature changes predominantly occur in the temperate and polar regions of the world, not in the tropics. Even the global maps shown in the Technical Summary of AR6, show that a +2°C warming will be, mostly, outside the tropics. (Fig TS.5, p TS-108). Thus, UNICEF is warning of dangers to children that live outside the regions of the globe that may be endangered by global warming. See links under Defending the Orthodoxy and Expanding the Orthodoxy
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Dangerous Reading? Walter Stark, a pioneer in the scientific investigation of coral reefs, who now lives in Australia, informed TWTW that the last issue arrived with a note from Google stating: “This message seems dangerous.” The note may have been triggered by the many links in TWTW. Let us hope it was not triggered by the quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn. This brings up the question: How many of those who write computer programs triggering such Google notes know who Alexander Solzhenitsyn was and what his great crime was?
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14th ICCC: The 14th International Conference on Climate Change presented by The Heartland Institute will be October 15 to 17, 2021, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. See https://climateconference.heartland.org/
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Number of the Week: – 1.1°C (2°F). As calculated by Roy Spencer, the linear trend for global atmospheric temperatures increase since January 1979 is 0.14 C/decade, or 0.25 F/decade. Assuming no change in the linear trend in temperature (which is doubtful) this would indicate that temperatures will increase by 1.1°C (2°F) by 2101. Over the 42-year period of atmospheric temperature increases, extreme poverty in China and South Asia diminished enormously, largely through the use of fossil fuels.
Given the modest increase in temperatures, why would any responsible leader in countries with significant extreme poverty respect Western leaders who urge abondoning fossil fuels? Would it not make more sense to follow China?
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Two Dozen Top Scientists: IPCC “Premature” Blaming CO2 Emissions…Warming Mostly From Natural Cycles
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Aug 18, 2021
Link to paper: How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debate
By R. Connolly, et al. Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics, June 2021
[SEPP Comment: Exposing more cherry-picking!]
Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
Challenging UN, Study Finds Sun—not CO2—May Be Behind Global Warming
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 16, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Refers to the Connolly et al. paper above.]
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-IIb/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels
By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019
http://store.heartland.org/shop/ccr-ii-fossil-fuels/
Download with no charge:
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/
Download with no charge:
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Global Sea-Level Rise: An Evaluation of the Data
By Craig D. Idso, David Legates, and S. Fred Singer, Heartland Policy Brief, May 20, 2019
Challenging the Orthodoxy
New Confirmation that Climate Models Overstate Atmospheric Warming
By Ross McKitrick, Climate Etc. Aug 17, 2021
“I would be very surprised if the modelers at UVic ever put warning labels on their briefings to policy makers. The sticker should read: ‘WARNING! This model predicts atmospheric warming roughly 7 times larger than observed trends. Use of this model for anything other than entertainment purposes is not recommended.’”
The IPCC’s GHG Attribution methodology Is Fundamentally Flawed
Checking for Model Consistency in Optimal fingerprinting: A Comment
By Ross McKitrick, His Blog, Aug 17, 2021
Link to paper: Checking for model consistency in optimal fingerprinting: a comment
By Ross McKitrick, Climate Dynamics, Aug 10, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Goes right to the incorrect claim by Michael Oppenheimer that a large body of attribution studies shows the harmful effects on increasing CO2 with great certainty.]
Unsettling the apple cart V: Koonin on Precipitation Perils
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Aug 18, 2021
“Continuing University of Guelph professor Ross McKitrick’s look at Steven E. Koonin’s landmark book Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What it Doesn’t, and Why it Matters.”
Challenging the Orthodoxy – IPCC
PAGES19 Asian Tree Ring Chronologies
By Stephen McIntyre, Climate Audit, Aug 15, 2021
The IPCC’s Latest PAGES 2k (2019) Temperature Hockey Stick Is Contradicted By . . . PAGES 2k (2015)
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Aug 16, 2021
How to Understand the New IPCC Report: Part 2, Extreme Events
Contrary to what you’ve been reading, the massive new IPCC report offers grounds for optimism on climate science and policy
By Roger Pielke Jr. The Honest Broker, Aug 11, 2021
‘Climate change is real – but it’s not the apocalypse’
Roger Pielke Jr on what the IPCC report actually tells us about the climate.
By Roger Pielke Jr. Spiked, Aug 13, 2021
“I would encourage scientists and activists to be careful with science. If you invoke science to support the agendas you are pursuing, then you must be certain that you are doing it with integrity.”
The UN IPCC buries two millennia of fluctuating temperatures
By Staff, Spectator, Australia, Via Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 16, 2021
Podcast with Nick Gillespie at Reason on IPCC and Climate
Why We Shouldn’t Fear a Climate Apocalypse,
With Roger Pielke Jr. Aug 17, 2021
Hide the Decline: 2021 IPCC Edition
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Aug 18, 2021
All these years later and IPCC still depends on Argument from Ignorance
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 19, 2021
“Thirty years later and the main two arguments of the IPCC are the Hockeystick and Ignorance Graph.”
[SEPP Comment: The Ignorance Graph may be better called the Arrogance Graph. It is one thing to admit you do not know. It is another thing to state you cannot think of anything else, implying you are all knowing, and others should accept what you suggest may be the cause.]
Another Round Of Anti-Science From The IPCC
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Aug 15, 2021
IPCC AR6: Extreme Rainfall, Unspun Edition
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Aug 18, 2021
Tilak Doshi: The IPCC’s “Code Red” versus the real world
By Tilak Doshi, Forbes, Via GWPF, Aug 14, 2021
Code Red Climate Hype
The United Nations is a hype machine. In the midst of pandemic anxiety, its adds more fear to the fire.
By Donna Laframboise, Big Picture News, Aug 16, 2021
“The UN is a hype machine. Since the early 1970s, its officials have repeatedly threatened us with environmental holocaust. Remember UN climate guru Christiana Figueres advising the BBC eleven years ago that if 2010’s climate talks failed ‘it will be tragic, it will be a holocaust’?”
The UN’s ‘code red’ on climate change
By Vijay Jayaraj, American Thinker, Aug 13, 2021
The UN IPCC science panel opts for extreme nuttiness
By David Wojick, CFACT, Aug 17, 2021
Code snooze
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Aug 18, 2021
Defending the Orthodoxy
IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers
In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
By Masson-Delmotte, V., P, et al. Cambridge University Press. In Press.
Link to Technical Support Document
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
One Hundred Authors Against Einstein
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Aug 20, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Includes statement by AAAS Board of Directors and 17 other science organizations sent to the US Senate on October 21, 2009, urging action on controlling greenhouse gas emissions – “based upon rigorous research that human-induced climate change is ongoing and will have broad impacts on society—including the global economy and the environment.”]
Code repetitive
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Aug 18, 2021
After Paris!
Prince Charles to address Cop26
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 14, 2021
“I’m sure that will impress the Chinese!!”
COP-in Red
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Aug 18, 2021
“And one could not find a better example of Santayana’s “Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim”. Or the process whereby diplomacy starts by seeking agreements to achieve goals and ends by seeking goals to achieve agreements.”
UK blame enfeebled Joe Biden for looming COP26 failure
By Staff, Telegraph UK, Via GWPF, Apr 16, 2021
Change in US Administrations
Biden’s America Last Energy Policy
By Adam Brandon, Real Clear Energy, Aug 18, 2021
Biden Climate change Policies Co-opting Private Sector
Is Chinese-style ‘authoritarian capitalism’ coming to the U.S.?
By Staff, CFACT, Via Real Clear Energy, Accessed Aug 20, 2021
Problems in the Orthodoxy
Climate Leadership Council on Defense (ExxonMobil caper hits the front group)
By Robert Bradley Jr, Master Resource, Aug 19, 2021
So what should we do?
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Aug 18, 2021
Seeking a Common Ground
Climate Hype Hurts the Environment and Undermines Our Society
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Aug 17, 2021
Measurement Issues — Surface
Worst Frosts Hit Brazil Adjusted Away!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 15, 2021
See links immediately below.
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, Aug 13, 2021
Link to report: It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record
By Staff, NOAA, Aug 13, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Pretend that global measurements date back 142 years.]
Hottest Month Ever
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Aug 18, 2021
See link immediately above
Hottest Month? Poppycock!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 14, 2021
Hottest Year Ever
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Aug 18, 2021
Changing Weather
Henri is the storm we have feared for decades
By Joe Bastardi, CFACT, Aug 20, 2021 [H/t WUWT]
A Potential La Nina for this Winter: What Does It Imply?
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Aug 19, 2021
UK Wildfire Trends
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 17, 2021
Changing Climate
AR6 and The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum or PETM
By Andy May, CO2 Science, Aug 19, 2021
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V24/aug/a1.php
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Thwaites glacier: Significant geothermal heat beneath the ice stream
By Staff Writers, Bremerhaven, Germany (SPX) Aug 19, 2021
Link to paper: High geothermal heat flow beneath Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica inferred from aeromagnetic data
By Ricarda Dziadek, Fausto Ferraccioli & Karsten Gohl, Communications Earth & Environment, Aug 18, 2021
Antarctic Sea Ice Recovery Surprises Scientists… Classic Disinformation Technique Of Not Reporting
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Aug 15, 2021
“Not informing the public about the most recent developments, but instead leaving them with a false impression based on carefully cherry-picked data two years earlier, is a classic disinformation technique that has long been perfected by the activist media.”
3000-Year-Old Trees Excavated Under Glacier
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 16, 2021
[SEPP Comment: From a 2017 report in Iceland Review.]
New Study: Retreating East Greenland Glaciers Uncover Plant Debris Dating To The 16th – 17th Centuries
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Aug 19, 2021
Link to paper; Holocene glacial history of Renland Ice Cap, East Greenland, reconstructed from lake sediments
By Aaron K. Medford, et al. Quaternary Science Reveiws, Apr 15, 2021
Polar bear habitat update at mid-August
By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, Aug 20, 2021
Changing Earth
Rise of oxygen on early Earth linked to planet’s rotation rate
Oxygen rise paved the way for the spectacular diversity of animal life
By Staff, NSF, Aug 19, 2021
Link to paper: Possible link between Earth’s rotation rate and oxygenation
By J. M. Klatt, et al. Nature Geoscience, Aug 2, 2021
[SEPP Comment: A benefit of warming? Longer days are warmer days.]
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
Study: Political violence, not climate change, to blame for rising hunger in Africa
By Brooks Hays, Washington DC (UPI) Aug 12, 2021
Link to paper: Violent conflict exacerbated drought-related food insecurity between 2009 and 2019 in sub-Saharan Africa
By Weston Anderson, et al. Nature Food, Aug 12, 2021
Un-Science or Non-Science?
Increased snowfall will offset sea level rise from melting Antarctic ice sheet
Press Release by University of Bristol, Aug 19, 2021 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]
Link to paper: Future Sea Level Change Under Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 and Phase 6 Scenarios From the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets
By Antony J. Payne, Geophysical Research Letters, May 4, 2021
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
Harrabin Wants You All To Pay Much More To Meet Climate Targets
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 14, 2021
“Why does the BBC hate ordinary British people so much?”
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
By chance, ozone treaty prevented ‘scorched Earth’ climate
By Marlowe Hood, Paris (AFP) Aug 18, 2021
Link to paper: The Montreal Protocol protects the terrestrial carbon sink
By Paul J. Young, et al. Nature, Aug 18, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Vegetation has difficulty growing where UV light is the greatest – in the tropics?]
Claim: 1987 Montreal Ozone Rules Held Back “Scorched Earth” Extreme Global Warming
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Aug 18, 2021
See link immediately above.
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
United Nations and Google Blame Global Warming for African Dictatorships’ Failures!
By Staff, ICECAP, Aug 20, 2021
Hockeysticks don’t die, they just get more corrupt
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 18, 2021
New Temperature Record Claimed In Spain
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 15, 2021
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Children for Propaganda
Greta Thunberg, youth climate activists slam adults over climate crisis
By Celine Castronuovo, The Hill, Aug 20, 2021
UNICEF: Nearly half of world’s children at ‘extremely high risk’ of climate change impacts
By Celine Castronuovo, The Hill, Aug 19, 2021
Link to latest UNICEF Report: The Climate Crisis is a Child Rights Crisis
Introducing the Children’s Climate Risk Index
By Staff, UNICEF, August 2021
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Infrastructure Bill Boosts China, While Reconciliation Proposals Pummel American Consumers
By Kevin Mooney, Real Clear Energy, Aug 16, 2021
Green Jobs
Claim: the job-creating potential of clean energy is “where we get stuck a bit”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Aug 18, 2021
Non-Green Jobs
Code blue for the energy industry
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Aug 18, 2021
Government suspends permit for controversial Louisiana plastics plant
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Aug 19, 2021
Funding Issues
Biden administration releases guidance limiting international financing for fossil fuels
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Aug 16, 2021
“The Biden administration on Monday said it would vote against decisions by the World Bank and other multilateral development banks to fund most projects that would develop fossil fuels.”
[SEPP Comment: Promoting poverty!]
The Political Games Continue
Senate Republicans Revive Kyoto Lite
By Marlo Lewis, Jr., CEI, Aug 16, 2021
Energy Issues – Non-US
Fact Checking The BBC–John Redwood
MP John Redwood highlights some perverse behaviour by the BBC:
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 18, 2021
“Of course, as Redwood correctly comments, the whole of the UN’s decarbonisation strategy revolves around the output of emissions by individual countries, not their consumption. If Germany or China want to carry on exporting their goods, they must do so in a low carbon fashion, just as our industries are being forced to.”
Energy Issues – Australia
Globalists Queuing to Smack Australia for Unambitious Climate Targets
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Aug 19, 2021
Energy Issues — US
Book Review: Angwin’s ‘Shorting the Grid’
By Michael Giberson, Master Resource, Aug 12, 2021
“Still, by the end of the book, I could no longer shake the feeling she just might be right on the big thing. RTOs may be producing an increasingly fragile grid. Angwin’s Shorting the Grid should not be the only book you read on modern power systems, but it is not a bad place to start.”
Clash of the Titans: Wind Power vs Coal Power
By Geoffrey Pohanka, Real Clear Energy, Aug 19, 2021
Link to: U.S. Energy Mapping System
By Staff, EIA
Power Hungry Podcast with Robert Bryce
With Roger Pielke Jr. Aug 17. 2021
Washington’s Control of Energy
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Use of the Social Cost of Carbon
By Roger Caiazza, WUWT, Aug 19, 2021
“Energy Facism” (Rothbard 1974 speaks to us today)
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Aug 16, 2021
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
Fracking linked to surface water quality for first time in new study
By Sharon Udasin, The Hill, Aug 19, 2021
Link to paper: Large-sample evidence on the impact of unconventional oil and gas development on surface waters
By Pietro Bonetti, Christian Leuz, & Giovanna Michelon, Science, Aug 20, 2021
From the abstract: “We found very small concentration increases associated with new HF wells for barium, chloride, and strontium but not bromide. All ions showed larger, but still small-in-magnitude, increases 91 to 180 days after well spudding. Our estimates were most pronounced for wells with larger amounts of produced water, wells located over high-salinity formations, and wells closer and likely upstream from water monitors.”
[SEPP Comment: It is not from hydraulic fracturing per se, but from water released that came from ancient seas.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Energy bills could soar under ‘green gas’ hydrogen homes plan
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 17, 2021
Hydrogen Ready Boilers & The Cost Of EV Infrastructure
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 17, 2021
“I have not seen any figures like this before, but a total of £93.9bn just for infrastructure for EVs is truly horrifying. Forget about the DT’s silly “in comparisons”, amounts to £3500 for every home in the country. And most of this will have to spent in the coming few years, ready for the surge in new electric cars.
“These and all the other costs of Net Zero truly are the elephant in the room, that the Rachel Millards of the world don’t want to discuss. Instead, all they do is whittle on about carbon dioxide.”
1.2-GW Dedicated Hydrogen-Fired Power Plant Starts Taking Shape in Texas
By Sonal Patel, Power Mag, Aug 3, 2021
“Entergy Texas will seek approval for a 1.2-GW hydrogen and natural gas–fired combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power facility in Orange County, Texas.”
What Is the Potential of Wood for Renewable Energy?
By Jane Marsh, Real Clear Energy, Aug 12, 2021
[SEPP Comment: By the 1880s the east coast of the US was denuded. Fortunately, coal replaced wood as the primary fuel. The Vanderbilts spent a fortune planting trees in the southern Appalachians. Now, we are to cut down the trees to replace coal? This absurd proposal is based on shoddy science that is more fiction than fact.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
Electric Vehicles Will Tax the Electric Grid
By Duggan Flanakin, Real Clear Energy, Aug 17, 2021
Electric vehicles will run on empty Green New Deal pipe dreams
By Larry Bell, CFACT, Aug 16, 2021
Other News that May Be of Interest
Do 5.3 Billion Cell Phone Users Need To Worry?
By Susan Goldhaber, ACSH, Aug 11, 2021
Foxe Basin polar bear attack victim recalls repeated attacks and being bitten on the neck
By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, Aug 17, 2021
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
A linen shroud for your horny crab?
By John Robson, Climate Change Nexus, Aug 18, 2021
Looby Loo Feels Guilty About Flying
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 17, 2021
“Why is the BBC offering publicity to eco-loons like this one?”
ARTICLES
1. Alaska Oil Permits Blocked by Federal Judge
The ConocoPhillips Willow project’s impact on climate change and polar bears wasn’t fully accounted for, judge says
By Timothy Puko, WSJ, Aug 19, 2021
TWTW Summary: The article illustrates how courts use vague laws for ideological preferences:
A federal judge on Wednesday threw out federal approval of a multibillion-dollar oil project planned for Alaska, saying the government failed to properly assess the project’s impact on climate change and its potential harm to polar bears.
The ConocoPhillips Willow project in a federal oil reserve in the North Slope had been backed by both the Biden and Trump administrations, and comes with wide support from Alaskan political leaders. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy criticized the decision Wednesday night, saying it put thousands of potential jobs at risk.
U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason agreed with challengers who argued that the Bureau of Land Management didn’t fully account for the greenhouse gases that would come from burning the oil Willow would produce, among other issues. The plaintiffs, led by the Center for Biological Diversity, included several environmental and Alaskan groups.
‘As to the errors found by the Court, they are serious,’ Judge Gleason, an Obama appointee seated in Anchorage, wrote in her 110-page decision.
ConocoPhillips will be reviewing the decision and evaluating its options, a spokesman said. The company declined to answer further questions.
Company leaders had been encouraged this spring when the Biden administration decided to defend the Trump-era decision to permit the project. But Conoco’s final investment was always dependent upon whether the company could navigate tricky and potentially lengthy court challenges at a time when oil markets aren’t particularly friendly to major spending in Alaska.
Willow is planned as a 160,000-barrel-of-oil-a-day, 30-year project, drilling from on top of permafrost in the federal government’s National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
The Trump administration gave it final approval in October, but the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals halted the project this year, siding with challengers who said Willow was approved without proper analysis of environmental impacts.
Judge Gleason Wednesday again ruled that the Bureau of Land Management hadn’t given the full consideration to alternatives to Conoco’s plans that the law requires.
The article concludes with usual posturing by opposing groups
Not much going on on our star. After the last 3-4 months of reasonable activity (for this part of the new cycle) during August things have been relatively quiet. It looks like as the August SSN count may end at around 10 points on the old scale or 15 counted with the new revised metric.
They’re going to need a new creative modelling team.
Cold winter coming, then. La Niña.
They’re going to need more fossil fuelled power stations.
No strong flares. Weak increase in high-energy UV radiation.
I would have used a semi-colon and not a hyphen for the number of the week. Just sayin’
A dangerous tropical storm is forming in the central tropical Atlantic that could reach the east coast of North America. The jet stream over the Atlantic will be latitudinal as geomagnetic activity increases (solar wind from coronal holes will arrive).