Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The New York Times has taken the unusual step of publishing something factual about the relative risks of cold and hot weather.
Beware: Winter Is Coming
By JANE E. BRODY DEC. 19, 2016
Most of the Northern Hemisphere is now in the throes of the deadliest time of the year. Cold kills, and I don’t mean just extreme cold and crippling blizzards. I mean ordinary winter cold, like that typically experienced, chronically or episodically, by people in every state but Hawaii from late fall through early spring.
While casualties resulting from heat waves receive wide publicity, deaths from bouts of extreme cold rarely do, and those resulting from ordinary winter weather warrant virtually no attention. Yet an international study covering 384 locations in 13 countries, including the United States, found that cold weather is responsible, directly or indirectly, for 17 times as many deaths as hot weather.
Over time, as global temperatures rise, milder winter temperatures are likely to result in fewer cold-related deaths, a benefit that could outweigh a smaller rise in heat-caused mortality. In winter in the United States, mortality is generally 10 percent to 15 percent higher than on typical summer days.
The study, published in July 2015 in The Lancet, was based on an analysis of more than 74 million deaths and calculated mortality attributable to heat and cold in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Britain and the United States.
…
Furthermore, unlike what you might expect, the overwhelming majority of cold-weather casualties do not result from vehicular accidents, falls on ice or snow-related activities. Rather, they are attributable to leading killers like heart disease, stroke and respiratory disease, and are especially common among those aged 75 and older.
…
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/19/well/beware-winter-is-coming.html
The 2015 Lancet Study is even clearer about what kind of weather causes excess deaths;
Discussion
Our findings show that temperature is responsible for advancing a substantial fraction of deaths, corresponding to 7·71% of mortality in the selected countries within the study period. Most of this mortality burden was caused by days colder than the optimum temperature (7·29%), compared with days warmer than the optimum temperature (0·42%). Furthermore, most deaths were caused by exposure to moderately hot and cold temperatures, and the contribution of extreme days was comparatively low, despite increased RRs. The study was based on the largest dataset ever collected to assess temperature–health associations, and included more than 74 million deaths from 13 countries (panel). The analysis of data from 384 locations provides evidence for temperature-related mortality risk in a wide range of climates and populations with different demographic, socioeconomic, and infrastructural characteristics. A strength of the study was the application of new, flexible statistical models to characterise the temperature- mortality association and pool estimates across locations. In particular, while previous studies relied on simplification of the exposure-response or lag structure, the approach we used here enabled us to estimate and pool non-linear and delayed dependencies and to identify the temperature of minimum mortality.
…
We identified a substantial effect of heat and cold on mortality, with attributable figures that varied by country. The optimum temperature at which the risk is lowest was well above the median, and seemed to be increased in cold regions. Cold was responsible for a higher proportion of deaths than was heat, while moderate hot and cold temperatures represented most of the total health burden.
…
Our study also provides a platform to improve and extend predictions of the effects of climate change; our findings emphasise how a comprehensive assessment is needed to provide an appropriate estimate of the health consequences of various climate-change scenarios.
Read more: http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(14)62114-0.pdf
Looking at the graphs on page 371 of the Lancet Study, the optimum temperature varies significantly between different countries, but in all cases it is warm – around 25c (77F), warmer in countries which are used to hot weather.
While The Lancet stopped short of recommending more global warming, the message is pretty clear. A warmer world is a safer world for humans, especially older humans.
Cold certainly kills. That’s why the conservation of heat through good insulation is a critical factor. It also reduces the reliance on energy.
Both are important that is self evident, but good insulation is no substitute for affordable reliable base-load energy mostly available through fossil fuels.
Quite right Chris, there is no such thing as the perfect insulator so cheap 24/7 reliable energy is vital.
Indeed.
And with older house designs often there is no easy or cheap way of insulating the home. I have a property in Spain, and it is not at all easy to see how that house could be insulated. It has solid concrete floors, solid concrete ceilings, single terracotta brick walls. It is cold in Spain in the winter, rarely below 4 degress but since you want a room at 20 to 24 degrees, the house cools down very quickly (within hours) and requires a lot of heating to maintain an acceptable level.
The same is so in England which has very old housing stock. My wife is Norwegian and she often comments that she has never been so cold as when she is In England. Norwegian homes are far better insulated and are not damp, in contrast to the position in England.
The energy price in Spain (and the UK) is high compared to the US, and if it were possible to cheaply insulate the house I would do so, but there is no simple and cheap option. It would cost at least $20,000 to $30,000 to insulate and that is a long pay back time even with high energy prices.
Cheap and reliable energy is a basic need, and the greens and warmists have done a great dis-service in hiking energy prices to more than double that which they need to be (and it is getting worse unless there is a very quick roll back and reversal on European energy policy)
“richard verney January 2, 2017 at 3:02 am
The same is so in England which has very old housing stock.”
The standard 9″ cavity wall building in the UK is well suited to insulating (The air did the insulating before energy prices rose). Cavity wall, sub-floor and ceiling insulation options are partially (Well they were when I lived there) subsidised in the UK. Double or even triple glassing improves the situation. The issue is, no matter how much you insulate a building in a predominantly COLD climate, and new buildings (Whimpey (Sp?) for instance) are not made as well, it will cost to keep warm. Some buildings are listed and you can’t do a thing. Some have massive fireplaces which radiate heat in cold times.
During the 1970’s cold period, my family home had an open fireplace, with a backburner to warm water. We had a coal bunker, which at times (We were actually “poor”), was filled with coal. We had coal and wood fired heat in winter and it was great. Then, natural gas was discovered and we all installed central heating systems. Waking up in a UK winter was wonderful with automatic central heating systems warming the home.
Griff and Tony can return to those times as far as I am concerned.
The problem is that most housing built before the war does not have cavity walls. The UK was not that heavily bombed so there is a lot of old housing stock in the UK.
My house in London was built in the mid 1930s with single brick walls. It was one of just 3 detatched houses in the street, the rest being a mixture of 1930s semis and a few 1930s terraces. At least they had the benefit of party and party walls. The adjoining streets consisted entirely of Victorian terraces, Edwardian semis and 1 1950/60 detatched house. This composition is typical of London. Thus in an area of 3 or 400 houses there was just 1 house that could be fitted with cavity wall insulation!
I bought my house in 1992. It did not have central heating. Many houses even in the 1990s did not have central heating! I had to fit this. I got the floors up to do this, but there was insufficient crawl space under the house. If underfloor insulation was to be fitted, either one would have had to have dug out under the house to gain access, or every floor board would have to have been raised. That would have been an enormous task. It was not necessary to do this to run a few central heating pipes where just a few isolated board could be got up here and there.
I did not fit double glazing to my house as it would spoil the character of the 1930s metal crittal windows. Some of my neighbours did fit double glazing but with horrible consequences. Their houses always smell damp whereas this was not a problem in mine. The ill fitting windows and the chimneys (which people frequently remove or board up) are vital for air circulation and to avoid damp problems. However, they make heating expensive.
There are some subsidies but these are often restricted to redevelopment areas or for those on low income, or in assisted housing/local government council hosing etc. Wide spread subsidies is not available for most people.
Richard v
Some subsidies were open.
I added loft insulation to a (second) home – a late Victorian 2 bed terraced house I bought in Guelph Street, Liverpool, when I did a degree, after leaving the sea – but not shipping.
Certainly most of the cost was covered [possibly not all] – but that was late 1980s . . .
Auto
This study doesn’t adjust the number of deaths by age. Comparing the death of an 80year old to that of a 20 year old is comparing apples to monkeys.
You might consider explaining that to US EPA, which currently uses a single figure ($9 million) as “the societal cost of a life unnecessarily shortened” (regardless of the age of the individual whose life is unnecessarily shortened) to justify new and expanded regulations.
He might also try explaining that to the electorate. The last time I checked, there was officially one vote per adult person, whether they are young or old.
Of course, the EPA might like to regulate that, in order to improve the environment.
Unless there is a theory suggesting cold and heat kill age groups at different rates, then it is totally irrelevant to this study. Even if they did, the impact would be economic loss of productive years, or total man-years of life lost. Only an attorney seeking damages would be interested the the former, and no one I’m aware of in the latter.
Trebla
“We will SRKU U!” seems to be the rationale [Hah! Big word for a base motivation.].
Auto
The Lancet study is excellent, imo. Joe d’Aleo and I re-issued our paper on Excess Winter Mortality to include it. A few more thoughts below.
Happy New Year!
Best, Allan 🙂
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/19/claim-britain-leaving-the-eu-endangers-the-paris-climate-treaty/comment-page-1/#comment-2169772
Excess Winter Deaths total about 100.000 people per year in the USA, up to 50,000 per year in the United Kingdom and several million worldwide.
Why does the United Kingdom, with universal medical care and a population about 1/5th that of the USA, have an Excess Winter Mortality Rate up to 2.5 times that of the USA? I suggest the primary cause is poor adaptation to cold weather – and excessively high energy costs, thanks in large part to eco-loon hysteria and green energy nonsense.
References:
The Lancet study:
“Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient temperature: a multicountry observational study”
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)62114-0/abstract
“Cold Weather Kills 20 Times as Many People as Hot Weather”
September 4, 2015
By Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae
https://friendsofsciencecalgary.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/cold-weather-kills-macrae-daleo-4sept2015-final.pdf
[excerpts]
Cold weather kills. Throughout history and in modern times, many more people succumb to cold exposure than to hot weather, as evidenced in a wide range of cold and warm climates.
Evidence is provided from a study of 74 million deaths in thirteen cold and warm countries including Thailand and Brazil, and studies of the United Kingdom, Europe, the USA, Australia and Canada.
Contrary to popular belief, Earth is colder-than-optimum for human survival. A warmer world, such as was experienced during the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period, is expected to lower winter deaths and a colder world like the Little Ice Age will increase winter mortality, absent adaptive measures. These conclusions have been known for many decades, based on national mortality statistics.
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Canada has lower Excess Winter Mortality Rates than the USA (~100,000 Excess Winter Deaths per year) and much lower than the UK (up to ~50,000 Excess Winter Deaths per year). This is attributed to our better adaptation to cold weather, including better home insulation and home heating systems, and much lower energy costs than the UK, as a result of low-cost natural gas due to shale fracking and our lower implementation of inefficient and costly green energy schemes.
…
When misinformed politicians fool with energy systems, innocent people suffer and die.
****************
I suspect this is another case where reporting figures for an entire nation obscures highly significant regional differences. The places in the US with the most brutal winters are also those with the lowest populations (Alaska, Wyoming, North Dakota, Montana). When you lump their excess mortality figures in with the rest of the country, they don’t make a blip.
HI Alan,
Colder countries actually have lower Excess Winter Mortality Rates than warmer ones – take a look at the Lancet study and other good references.
The fact is colder countries often adapt better to winter, with good home insulation, central heating and (often) lower energy costs.
Excess Winter Mortality Rates range from about 0.10 (10%) in cold countries to as high as 0.30 in warmer countries.
The facts about Excess Winter Morality have been known for decades.
Driving up the cost of energy, a favorite conduct of green vandals, increases winter mortality, which especially targets the elderly and the poor. This is not just ignorance by our idiot politicians – it is criminal negligence.
Regards, Allan
Allan M.R. MacRae January 2, 2017 at 5:09 am
Excess Winter Deaths total about 100.000 people per year in the USA, up to 50,000 per year in the United Kingdom and several million worldwide.
Why does the United Kingdom, with universal medical care and a population about 1/5th that of the USA, have an Excess Winter Mortality Rate up to 2.5 times that of the USA? I suggest the primary cause is poor adaptation to cold weather – and excessively high energy costs, thanks in large part to eco-loon hysteria and green energy nonsense.
A much denser population with higher pollution in the winter leading to high levels of bronchitis (long a leading cause of winter deaths). All of the UK is further north than the lower 48.
Among older people in the UK the two highest causes of death are heart disease and dementia and Alzheimer’s, above 50 (-79) lung cancer is #2. From 35 -49 the leading cause of death is suicide!
Regarding excess winter deaths:
” Influenza infection is associated with potentially life threatening complications, such as bacterial pneumonia. The elderly and those with underlying health conditions are particularly at risk of developing complications (Public Health England, 2014b), which can result in hospitalisation and death (Public Health England, 2014c). Respiratory disease is known to be one of the main causes of excess winter deaths (EWDs); for example in 2014/15, respiratory diseases was listed the underlying cause of death for 36% of all excess winter deaths, with the majority of these deaths occurring in the 75 and over age group. Pneumonia was the underlying cause in 19% of all excess winter deaths in 2014/15.”
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/201415provisionaland201314final#excess-winter-mortality-ewm-and-temperature
So the “Old Grey Lady” speaks the truth. Shocking? Maybe not. Even an old blind sow finds an acorn once in a while.
Old grey lady =?
Old Grey Lady = New York Times
Thx.
“Old grAy Lady” I think.
SteveT
Insulation costs. Regardless, even with great insulation, it still takes energy to stay warm.
Something even you should be able to figure out.
MarkW
Agreed.
You are correct.
But insulation can be clothing, too.
#Note – keep woolly sleeves clear of gas rings, when lit!
Otherwise a nice cloak helps keep folk warm.
Two does so well.
Turn down your central heating and invest in warm clothes!!!!!
And heart-felt thanks to the NYT [‘Old Grey Lady’ – maybe] – Cold Kills!
I say again for visitor – Cold Kills.
Auto
2015 Lancet Study Ultimate Goal (we already knew older people need to keep warm — D-U-H): to to provide an appropriate estimate of the health consequences of various climate-change scenarios.
Response:
Why? There is not a THING humans can do to cause or to prevent ANY “climate-change scenario.” Nothing.
As for “mitigation,” AS IF WE NEEDED A STUDY for that.
1000% Janice? Not the slightest doubt in your mind?
Actually, there’s a fair chance we just geo-engineered the Arctic.
Sure Griff, link that evidence please.
You will be waiting a long time Craig.
@ tony mcleod
If so, we have been very clever. We can now open up some further useful resources and dramatically cut shipping times and expense.
What is the problem with a sea ice free Arctic? The decline of sea ice does not add to sea level rise, so wherein lies the problem? The polar bears lasted the Holocene Optimum when the Arctic was sea ice free, so where is the problem? As far as we are aware, there is no Arctic species that became extinct because of the sea ice free conditions of the Holocene Optimum, so where is the problem?
I am all for a sea ice free Arctic, but unfortunately this appears doubtful. the repeated predictions of doom have repeatedly proved false. It would appear that broadly speaking we have about the same amount of ice as we had in the early 1970s prior to global cooling scare which to a large extent was based upon the increase in sea ice during the 1970s. the warmists like to make a comparison with 19790 which was a high for sea ice, not with a comparison with the sea ice conditions seen in the early 1970s which were broadly similar to those seen today.
There is no chance at all that we just geo-engineered the Arctic.
Arctic warmings in the last century and the century before are entirely natural. The current one is no different. There has been no statistically significant change in the mass of the Greenland ice sheet.
An equally invalid assertion might be made that ‘we geo-engineered’ the cooling of the Antarctic and expansion of the sea ice around it.
Preemptive warning to Griff: you are not qualified to comment on this subject.
Tony,
There is zero evidence that humans have geo-engineered the Arctic. Or the Antarctic. Or any other place except for UHIs, local irrigation and deforestation effects.
But if we could cause less sea ice, that would be a boon, along with the benefits of more plant food in the air.
Unfortunately, nothing is happening in the Arctic that is the least bit out of the ordinary for the Holocene or previous interglacials, hence no human fingerprint. Unless you count the Alaska pipeline so beloved by caribou, grizzly bears, wolves and other Arctic fauna.
Janice,
the breasts of a woman are the better halves of a planet.
Best 2017
If you think global warming is bad, just try global cooling.
The whole pig slop of an article (above) — NOT YOU, ERIC, YOU DID GREAT! — was all for this one phrase:
The daily injection of brainwashing to drug the public
to try to keep wind, solar, and other climate hu$tle$ alive.
I think you’re being a bit harsh, Janice . . this is pretty mild stuff, and could have been written by a “lukewarmer”, it seems to me. No double back-flips to make harsh cold a product of global warming . . Language that invokes no eventual inferno or snow being extinct or anything . . This from the4 NYTs?
Because I believe that the author’s main objective is to FOOL people into thinking that human CO2 emissions are bad, I used the language I felt appropriate for a deceiver. Was it “harsh?” Good.
I may be mistaken about Ms. Brody. She may herself be deceived. The article is still, nevertheless, “pig slop.” Maybe such a bucket of cold water will wake her up and she will look into the data and facts about human CO2.
*******************************************
A note re: “mild stuff” — Subtle, “lukewarmer”-style, error is much more liable to deceive than over-the-top, double back-flip (lol that’s what a clown does! 🙂 ), “planetary emergency,” hyperbole. The one is cunning and dangerous. The other is simple-minded and ridiculous.
****************************
And to YOU, JohnKnight, a HAPPY NEW YEAR! May God bless you richly for your generous-heartedness toward all.
Sigh.
Okay, okay. JohnKnight. I care what you think of me. So, I must add this.
On WUWT, I sometimes (SOME-times?? Ha! heh, heh) write much more firmly and “harshly” than I would ever write or speak if I were directly addressing the person. In case it matters, and I hope it does, even if just a little tiny bit, here is how I would say this to Ms. Brody in real life:
Ms. B.: Janice, what do you think of what I wrote here?
J: You write well and with a pleasant, readable, style, but, you’ve been misinformed about several significant things and this results in making your article misleading, I’m afraid.
*******************
Remember, JK, WUWT is ALSO a place for expressing healthy frustration at the data twisters and their dupes, too! We need an outlet! THIS IS IT for me! And boy, is it fun! 🙂
I’m not equating myself to any of the scientists or engineers or fine teachers of science or engineering, here, but, WUWT is like the faculty lounge for me. A place to be completely forthright, candid, and refreshingly unvarnished at times!
And, if it is a troll….. trying to keep the deceit going, often posing as an injenue (or an injenu), it is fun and good for science to blast ’em with both truth-filled barrels! Bwah, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaaa!
Yes, yes, and that sometimes that alienates those who really think the troll IS an ingenue/ingenu. I need to remember that….. (thank you for reminding me, JK)
Nice to speak with you again, Janice the lionessheart ; )
To me, it’s the globalism/elitism aspect that poses the great danger from the climate alarm campaign, so the lack blaring planetary alarm is not insignificant. I suspect a flow of funds drought is not just hitting the Clinton Foundation these days ; ) . and though of course I don’t suggest letting down our guards, I do suggest that what is presented here is not what the alarmists want us to see/hear.
“Over time, as global temperatures rise … ”
If that said; *Over time, if global temperatures rise…*, it’s essentially a mild hit-piece on climate alarmism, as I read it. Prerty clumsy brainwashing, if that’s what she’s up to ; )
” [ … ] published in July 2015 [ … ]”
Took for ages for this ‘journalist’ to come up with a story on killer cold. Will we see more of this trotting out ‘old’ research to divert attention from their popularist activism?
“populist”
@
Janice Moore
January 1, 2017 at 8:24 pm
The whole pig slop of an article: Bravo Janice, and Happy New Year to all, from NZ. Hope my Sis in Vic., BC got in plenty of firewood, they are feeling it too, now. Even on the Canadian Riviera!
I agree with you Janice. It’s insidious the way they gratuitously throw that “as temperatures rise” garbage in there in a way in which the reader is supposed to just assume that as the unquestionable truth. Of course that’s bs as we are likely to have cooling or steady temperatures (like the last 20 years) this century. Ultimately when you accept their climate change thesis they are saying that a reduction in deaths from cold is a minor benefit compared to the tremendous horrors that await us via global warming. And they’ve done their same little trick many times in previous winters. NEVER attribute noble motives to the inextricably leftist NY Times.
Janice,
Just thinking that the phrase is there simply to keep their funding. Maybe they are treading a fine line.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
The media, by and large, treat global warming as a historical fact. They have been brainwashed (and to borrow Eugene McCarthy’s great quip… “a light rinse would have been sufficient”).
@Janice Moore. “Over time, as global temperatures rise …”
Your comment is spot on. One only need watch the kids shows on TV. Makes no difference which network or age group. They are filled with comments, innuendo, actions and even themes on how the Earth is getting warmer, how they need to mitigate the effects, how they have to prepare for the effects and that it is their responsibility to help prevent Global Warming. Then there is NatGeo, Discover, and 99% of the “science” documentaries that include or end with a “plug” on global warming. The Propaganda machine is well oiled and functioning as planned to create a world of Envirowhacos that believe the Global Warming Ideology.
How right you are, usurbrain. I just read a long article in the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association magazine, full of scary stuff about global warming and sea level rise. Everything about what needs to be done about it, but never a word about the total lack of proof that CAGW even exists. The author was some sort of “scientist” who seemed not to have had any thought about questioning the science or the motives behind those promoting such nonsense. It is truly astonishing the depths to which this stupidity has permeated almost every section of our community – universal brainwashing indeed!
Janice, you’re letting them slide….
“as global temperatures rise, milder winter temperatures are likely to result in fewer cold-related deaths”
We were just told that global warming is causing the polar vortex
“The kind of extreme cold being experienced by much of the United States as we speak is a pattern we can expect to see with increasing frequency, as global warming continues.” -John Holdren, Obama’s Science Czar, 2014
Janice
Hu£t£e$
Fixed it for you! A bit. There is probably an old Escudo sign.
Auto
Elderly people in Minnesota already live almost forever, so global warming will make them live even longer? I’ll never get my inheritance.
Why should you?
Your elder relatives earned their money and are entitled to spend every nickel.
Perhaps you need to think of freezing cold temperatures as a preservation technique. The colder it gets, the longer your relatives will live.
Just saying….
Take heart, nevertheless, dear science realists!
Joe Public isn’t buying it.
“Who you talking to?? …..”
(youtube — “Truman Show”)
The only people fooled anymore are the true believers. And their candidates (all 3 of them) just lost the election (in the U.S.). Ignore them.
And MOOOOOOOVE ON!
19….. 18 …… 17 ….. !!
#(:))
“Cold is Deadlier than Heat: NY Times Warning About the Winter” .
What? Nooooo, I refuse to believe it….refuse refuse refuse…..
Error….error……recalibrate paradigm….recalibrate paradigm…..
We have always been at war with………….
Do people here realize how sad and bad it is to have information like this out there?
There was a time in the US when every kid over the age of 10 from coast to coast knew that cold could be dangerous if you were unprepared. Now days, such rare and exotic knowledge is worthy of publication in one of the country’s preeminent newspapers. Add this to the list of things we used to know, but no longer do.
Now a major international study pins down modes of death.
“Rather, they are attributable to leading killers like heart disease, stroke”
Yes, we used to know that too. If you are middle-aged or above, and not used to the exertion, shoveling your own driveway could cause the ultimate face-plant due to a heart attack.
That Is What Kids Are For!
I remember many times, waking up to a heavy snow, and wondering “Will it?”, “Will it?”.
Then the town siren would blare out, announcing No School!
Then we would dress for the snow, as would Roman Gladiators girding for battle. We would then descend on the townspeople looking for some spare spending cash, like a plague of locusts on the fields.
No elderly or frail ever had to worry about how they were going to get dug out.
A snowfall for us was Mana from the Heavens.
All things we used to know, and now do not even remember that we used to know.
“Study suggests” “Research indicates”
How sad.
I know that breaking the ice on winter puddles on the road caused me to have chilblains and chaps on my toes. Still can’t remember why I was walking to school in winter with no shoes.
G
It was your brother’s turn to wear the shoes that day.
It t’was when I was in the 1st or 2nd grade that I learned to avoid the “frosty patches” in the meadows and on the dirt roads when walking “barefoot” to our 1-room schoolhouse of a morning. Iffen you stepped on a “frosty” spot it would quickly melt underfoot and send “chill bumps” up to your kneecap.
I clearly remember (from childhood until I enlisted in the Army at age 20), the day when we had snow in my hometown of Houma, La. The only day. I was mesmerized. It melted before I could find a shovel. I resent you guys who became wealthy shoveling snow.
@ George + Martin
You Guys!
Did you, or did you not, hustle up the loot shoveling driveways and walkways with every snowstorm? We sure did. We had our own little cottage industry going.
I certainly did. I bought my Rupp minibike in 1970 with the proceeds of shoveling. Miss those days.
And so the great walk back begins at the NYT.
Next they will be running pieces about the environmental costs of renewables and mourning the deaths of eagles by wind towers.
The political wind has shifted. And this isn’t like the previous times.
This time a storm is coming.
I suspect that they are beginning to turn to the NEW ICE AGE! “We’re all going to DIE! From the cold. We need the Government to CONTROL production to make sure everyone has the same energy?” Or some such nonsense.
More food, warmer homes- remind us – what is all the catastrophism about?
Less funding?
Got it in one.
I know Griff will be here momentarily to further warn us about POLAR BEARS. It could soon be so warm (AKA un-cold) in the arctic that some POLAR BEARS may be forced further south to survive – into the frozen streets of NYC & Chicago!
I do miss Griff (sigh)
Griff is on holiday. He will be back at his TrollDesk in Climate Change Central in a few days.
What a way to make a living, eh?
tony mcleod is filling in for him – see above.
I agree.
Griff is a useless, whiny little troll, but he is our useless, whiny little troll.
😀
Griff and Tony are very important commenters. They clearly demonstrate they are followers of media. No science needed!
‘as global temperatures rise, milder winter temperatures are likely to result in fewer cold-related deaths, a benefit that could outweigh a smaller rise in heat-caused mortality.’ A 1-2 degree rise in temperature is not significant enough to offset winter deaths and if we could afford to use air conditioners we should not have to tolerate the higher temperatures in Summer. We are the only humans in all of history that can control how hot or cold we want to be. Unfortunately the Green fascination with renewables is making electricity too expensive for the poor to heat or cool their homes.
Are they beginning their brainwash of the masses by now preaching the end of this earth by catastrophic AGC?
Let the whale be the whale.
Whale oil be……..
This isn’t a leading question, I really do not know, but how could this be interpreted?
One such 🙂
Someone should tell Lena Dunham to get out of the water, no one wants to see that. And besides, the East River is dirty.
It’s certainly true that winter brings with it the spread of transmissible human diseases like influenza. Exactly why that is, I’m not sure is fully understood but it might be due to the longer persistence of water droplets in the air or on touched surfaces. Deaths due to heart disease, asthma and the like may in part be a consequence due to systems weakened by these diseases.
And it could be that diminishing reserves of Vit D in winter leave us more susceptible to all of the above as a little research makes clear. The interchange of vast numbers of tourists to opposite hemispheres does not seem to spread ‘flu for instance to those areas enjoying summer, sweaty palms notwithstanding 😉
Total truth. Dangerous complication of the flu is an inflammation of the heart muscle, even in young people. This may cause sudden death.
Consistent lower than optimal temperatures tax the body’s resources continuously. Heating from within takes energy. Diet is worse in winter. Stored energy is used. Toxins are liberated from fat cells. The sallow and the thin are less resistant to all sleeping infections.
Those who ‘eat with the seasons’ do better than those who consume an unvarying diet.
Eating the same all year in an artificial summer temperature is energy expensive. We are not, by nature, intended to do either.
Influenza needs cool conditions with low UV and greater time weighted average exposure to particulate viri in order for transmission. That we huddle inside during late autum and winter makes it ideal. Remember, one is contagious before they are symptomatic.
Other stressors are lower humidity effects on eyes, nose and throat, disruption in circadian rhythm and travel.
Root cause of influenza is zoonotic breeding grounds which favor formation of hybridized influenza.
Lowered relative humidity results in dried-out mucus membranes that less effective at trapping and removing infectious agents, particularly in the upper respiratory system.
“It’s certainly true that winter brings with it the spread of transmissible human diseases like influenza. Exactly why that is, I’m not sure is fully understood”
Viruses grow better in cold noses.
One thing winters are good for are the LOLs, like, and speaking of Montreal, this:
Special effects, don’t you know? It’s all dirty work of sceptic saboteurs. According to the Canadian PM, and governments always tell it as it is, Canada is in the grip of the polar heat-wave caused by the relentless global warming. /sc
Met les friens! Les friens! Tabarnac!
Thank goodness they all have winter tires as required in Quebec.
I think the NYT has faced some well deserved criticism for the bias it has foisted on it’s readers with respect to global warming (rebranded climate change ) . This was a safe article to publish and I think they deserve some credit for publishing it despite their strongly held views .
They have said they are revisiting their journalistic efforts and good on them . Guaranteed the LA times won’t be doing it .
Climate continues to change and a warming trend is certainly preferential to a cooling unless
population extermination is your goal or you want the government to subsidize your business on the basis of an overblown fraud .
I bought the NYT today as a small gesture of thanks and to support balanced journalism .
Will this (benefit) be included in the calculation of the net Social Cost of Carbon?
I don’t think we could expect much of warming from the sun in the next few years. For all means and purposes the solar cycle 24 is about done, it finished year down again, at the sunspot count just above 11 ( see SSN graph )
From now on for the next 3-4 years, barring a major miracle, it can be expected to creep at the low numbers towards zero.
Yep, cycle 24 certainly seems to be winding down towards it’s minima a little more quickly than expected/forecast. A spotless or nearly spotless solar disc and relatively quiet geomagnetic conditions seems to be the norm lately. But the real question is what will cycle 25 bring?
Now I have no doubt that cold weather results in more mortality than hot. As an SF medic that spent 8 1/2 years in the service on teams specializing in Alpine and winter warfare, I can attest to how tough winter can be and how deadly it can be especially when above the tree line when living in the rough or during the times when drenching rain turns to snow and the temp then drops below zero F quickly. But when one considers all the health hazards and threats of living in the rough in various climates, I will take the cold and snow over the tropical jungle with it’s myriad diseases, parasites, and potentially deadly fauna.
Perhaps it is all in what one gets used to. But I have seen people in Alaska walking around in shorts in temps approaching zero in windless conditions with no apparent ill effects while in Liberia there was no getting used to malaria for indigenous population or anyone else no matter what their age or status.
Interesting.
However, the only natural habitat for man is such tropical rain forests, or some isolated valleys in Africa, or perhaps Australia. This is where you find the lost tribes of the Amazon and the like.
The reason why we wear clothes is because the planet is way too cold for us. it is only our ability to adapt ourselves, with clothes, our environment with building houses, (ie the caves of old), and central heating (ie., the camp fires of the past), that we have been able to colonise this planet.
But for our skill of adaption, our natural habitat as an animal (without adapting ourselves/our environment) is very limited. This is because of cold, not heat.
“However, the only natural habitat for man is such tropical rain forests, or some isolated valleys in Africa, or perhaps Australia.”
Evidently, there was a migration of the great apes ( long before homo sapiens ) out of Africa to Europe ( and then back to Africa ). Most background evolution did take place in the tropics, but traits were evolved to cope with winters during times of poleward migrations also – and that may be part of the problem!
Traits evolved to cope with cold related viruses prove deadly in other ways.
On a side note, Richard Johnson provides evidence that migrations changed the way we deal with fructose. Tropical environments meant food available year round, but temperate environments meant storing fat to survive the winters. Pre human great apes evolved a response to fructose specifically to store fat during summer to survive winter. That same response which enabled short term survival also causes long term mortality from diabetes, heart disease, ( and perhaps other diseases ).
So things are not black and white, but shades of grey – factors which aided survival in some ways led to mortality in others. But cold does kill.
https://youtu.be/F1afyKN18S0
And yet the current theory is that the origin of the Neanderthals was in Africa and yet with their stockier and hairier bodies they were better physically adapted for the ice age conditions of Europe than homo sapiens. Why? Why would a species or subspecies that supposedly emerged from Africa have physical adaptations better suited for colder weather than is the norm for where they supposedly came from? I think there is a whole lot of critical information missing.
Recently I visited ‘Terra Amata’ Museum located just off the Port of Nice in France. Apparently this area used to be inhabited around 400,000 years ago. According to exhibits of implements and tools found there, these people may not be as primitive as it is often assumed. In contrast, the Homo sapiens seem to have appeared in East Africa around 200,000 years ago.
If these dates are anywhere near to accurate, it may be that the Homo sapiens have wiped out species just as advanced, if not more so than themselves.
(perhaps a lesson for the contemporary Europeans)
Rah, With all due respect i think your information about where H. neandertals evolved is incorrect. Homo neandertals are believed to have evolved between 300,000 to 400,000 years ago in Europe and western Asia from Homo heidelbergensis.
Homo heidelbergenesis evolved about 600,000 years ago in Africa, possibly the Ethiopian area, and then migrated out of Africa. After migrating out of Africa, Homo heidelbergensis gave rise to both the Neandertals and the poorly understood Denisovans. Later (250,000 years ago?) the African version of H. heidelbergensis evolved into our own species Homo sapiens. Neandertals can be thought of as the cold adapted version of our common ancestor. As per the gentic evidence after Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa Homo sapiens interbred with both Homo neandertals and with the Denisovans.
Remember the migration from Africa that Johnson cites is the great apes – the ancestors of humans. This migration took place 25 million years ago, long before Neanderthals and homo sapiens. But the traits, in this case for the metabolism of fructose, persisted. Some traits were more suited to the tropics, others to temperate climates and some held benefit under certain circumstances and detriment in others, or for longer term ( like modern life expectancy ).
Turbulent Eddie,
Thanks for that video, it taught me a lot how lots of life forms survive w/o food and water
Thank you Marty for furthering my edification. So the current theory is that the emergence of the Neandertals was an adaptation to the colder northern latitudes from Homo heidelbergensis AFTER they migrated N. from Africa. And thus the remains of neandertals found in N. Africa and the middle east are a result of remigration back to those more southern latitudes of some of the Neandertal population AFTER their adaptation to the colder northern climate.
And yet we don’t find red heads in the more genetically pure indigenous populations of North Africa or the Middle East. Why?
richard verney,
You have to understand I’m relating my own experience and the information/data we gained from the incidence of noncombat casualties in the ground troops during WW II where US troops fought or sustained operations in every type of climate. Though during the Battle of the Bulge among US troops trench foot incidence was greater than any other type of battle casualty, there is no comparison to the attrition to disease and parasites suffered in the Tropics. And for the Japanese troops, with a much less developed medical system, it was many times worse. Disease and malnutrition took out far more Japanese troops on Guadalcanal and in New Guinea than Allied troops did. Just as Malaria and various other tropical maladies put more Allied troop out of action than the Japanese did in those same places. And many a veteran from all sides that survived returned home with debilitating diseases that could be managed but not cured.
I think when all factors are considered, the healthiest environment to fight a battle in is the desert. At least there it’s just lack of water and enemy action that are the two greatest threats.
“at some point in the future they will realise they left one critical input out of their models and CO2 actually causes Global Cooling, which is even WORSE than Global warming, so greater funding required” /sarc off
Actually
this could have been true, if this were someone political agenda
but it seems to me it is not
my story
Concerned to show that man made warming (AGW ) is correct and indeed happening, I thought that here [in Pretoria, South Africa} I could easily prove that. Namely the logic following from AGW theory is that more CO2 would trap heat on earth, hence we should find minimum temperature (T) rising pushing up the mean T. Here, in the winter months, we hardly have any rain but we have many people burning fossil fuels to keep warm at night. On any particular cold winter’s day that results in the town area being covered with a greyish layer of air, viewable on a high hill outside town in the early morning.
I figured that as the population increased over the past 40 years, the results of my analysis of the data [of a Pretoria weather station] must show minimum T rising, particularly in the winter months. Much to my surprise I found that the opposite was happening: minimum T here was falling, any month….I first thought that somebody must have made a mistake: the extra CO2 was cooling the atmosphere, ‘not warming it. As a chemist, that made sense to me as I knew that whilst there were absorptions of CO2 in the area of the spectrum where earth emits, there are also the areas of absorption in the 1-2 um and the 4-5 um range where the sun emits. Not convinced either way by my deliberations and discussions as on a number of websites, I first looked at a number of weather stations around me, to give me an indication of what was happening:
The results puzzled me even more. Somebody [God/Nature] was throwing a ball at me…..The speed of cooling followed a certain pattern, best described by a quadratic function.
I carefully looked at my earth globe and decided on a particular sampling procedure to find out what, if any, the global result would be. Here is my final result on that:
Hence, looking at my final Rsquare on that, I figured out that there is no AGW, at least not measurable.
Arguing with me that 99% of all scientists disagree with me is useless. You cannot have an “election” about science.
You only need one man to get it right.
@Henry
Your numbers are interesting. Are there any differences between your weather stations and those of the U.S, or in the sort of data taken?
I will answer you later. Gone to bed now.
@4kx3
the sample of 54 weather stations was random, but you have to have good average annual T for all years going back 30 or 40 years ago at each station, to be able to do 4 linear regressions at each station and determine the change in K/annum {the value before the x} for each of at least 4 periods at same station. {you need 4 points to define a function}
The sample included a few US stations, including Las Vegas, where the trend was opposite the global trend for minima. In LV they changed the desert into an oasis, no doubt trapping some heat …
In Tandil, Argentine, they cut the trees and here I found minima were dropping real fast…
All proof that vegetation as such produces some warming. Greening the earth & getting more trees and crops is what we all want?
However I don’t think that even that type of “AGW” is that much, as overall the +++ still cancel the —- so I still found the [natural] curve of K/annum against time.
Note that the ball is coming straight at you, in K/annum versus time, K/yr2, decelerating, hence we are cooling. Sorry, the reverse is the way it came out and it was sufficient for me to see what is happening.
Sampling procedure for global test:
= more than 50 weather stations
= No. of weather stations NH= No. of weather stations SH
= all stations to be balanced to zero latitude
= {longitude does not matter if you look at the change in the speed of warming}
= 70/30 @sea/inland [this is also important, to get an average weather factor]
= + special procedure for years with certain months of data missing at the station {ask me more when interested}
= looking at minima or maxima rather than means
Hope this answers your question and stirs your interest.
regards,
Henry
@Henry
Thank you for the explanation. I need to do some driving today, so I won’t get to look at it for a bit.
@Henry:
Thank for the work, and for letting us in on it.
There is something here I am not following. Without seeing all the actual data, it is hard to judge what is going on. Yes, I agree that the expectation would be that Tmin is stable or increasing.
Given the magnitude of the random fluctuations in weather, I am a bit surprised there should be any significant observable effect in a small sample, though yours is fairly large.
I would be reluctant to attribute your observations to CO2 when the predominant driver of the greenhouse effect, and particularly nighttime cooling, is H2O
MICRO6500 has an interesting cooling study. https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/author/micro6500/
A first order effect of CO2 (or any greenhouse gas GHG) is to provide a small radiative coupling between the air and the (gray body) surface. Simple theory has the surface warming more than the air, so the effect on air would be to warm it. But if the surface cools more rapidly because of “exogenous” events, the effect of GHG is to increase cooling of the air. Increased nighttime cooling could be from changes in emissivity or clouds or aerosols.
Have you considered doing one higher order regression rather than four linear ones?
I am a big believer in re-sampling to isolate “true” trends from random ones. In essence, you construct a regression, then randomly perturb the order of the data. “Significance” is the relative location in the cumulative distribution of random regression parameters. Re-sampling frees one from assumptions about distribution and correlations in the actual data.
Hope this helps.
Thanks again.
@4kx3
I had a look at my results again
bear in mind this was early in 2015, including 2014 results
Speed of warming in K/annum:
last 40 years, last 34 years, last 24 years, last 14 years
– in that order – results from each hemisphere [each with 27 weather stations, 40 years of daily data]
maxima SH
0.0416, 0.0326, 0.0197, 0.0042
maxima NH
0.0258, 0.0176, 0.0053, -0.0211
maxima global [54 stations]
0.034, 0.025, 0.013, -0.008
y=0.039 ln(x) – 0.0112
where y=speed of warming and x=years in the past
r square equal 0.9964
[on a random sample, you cannot expect to get much better than that]
minima SH
-0.0138, -0.0118, -0.0121, -0.0211
[no warming]
minima NH
0.0237, 0.0255, 0.0208, 0.0033
[some warming, still, but going downhill?]
minima global [54 stations]
0.004, 0.007, 0.004, -0.009
y=see graph on a previous comment
r square equal 1.0000
[on a random sample, you cannot get better than that]
go figure what these results mean?
I will give you my results for means just now…have to take a break
you can easily find average annual T on line
for example here for a New York weather station
http://www.tutiempo.net/clima/New_York_Kennedy_International_Airport/744860.htm
\in the case of 2002 and 2005 we have missing data there [click on the year to get all the months of that year]
simple rule:
e.g. 2002 if the daily data in a month with missing results is >15, take average in red as indicated
e.g. 2005 if the daily data in a month with missing results is <15, take average of same month in the year before (Nov. 2004) and in the year after (Nov. 2006) as November 2005
{i.e. since we are studying climate change, it is better not to fill in long term averages for missing results, as would be usual in stats, but rather do an 'interpolation' as indicated}
so, for each station, all you have to do is copy and paste in excel and do the regressions to determine the K/annum for each period
@henry
I don’t do Italian, but the web site looks (http://www.tutiempo.net) very useful.
Plotting the three T- columns vs. year in excel does not obviously show a trend.
Do you want a significance analysis?
Clearly
you have NOT yet learned NOT to trust anglo saxon station reporting, like, /BEST/BOM/ UK etc
….like I have….
I picked up on various problems of change and manipulation of data there!
The language is Spanish and I wonder how difficult it can be to learn the names of 12 months of the year?
I left the clues all over in my comments on how to get the result in K/annum
You have to do 4 linear regressions, like I did, [go back to previous comments]
e.g.
from 1973
from 1980
from 1990
from 2000
{cannot go further down than that because the length of SC is 11 years}
to get the average change of speed in warming in K/annum : this is the derivative, i.e. the slope of each equation.
If you did it right for New York Kennedy airport you should get {minima}
from 1973 0.0019
from 1980 -0.0099
from 1990 0.0160
from 2000 0.0953
[not including the result of 2015]
hence, the coast of the US is currently warming a bit, just like the coast of Norway, contrary to the actual global wave, perhaps also due to more greening/building up here the last few decades.
Remember, NY is only one result….
You have to take at least 50 samples
25 from each HS, balanced to 0 latitude,
going back to 1973
……
Bear in mind my rules of the sampling procedure as stated before/
You get the picture?
@Henry
I downloaded the Kennedy data, which looks like:
Año T TM Tm
1973 12.5 17.4 8.6
1974 12.3 17.7 7.6
1975 12.5 17.0 8.7
put it in Excel, deleting the 2002 and 2005 lines.
I started with 1973 in line 3, so “years” are a3:a43 and minima in d3:d43.
Starting with the function slope(d3:d$43,a3:a$43) in line 3 and filling down, I get all possible slopes ending in 2015 as (1973, .001511) (1980: -.00927),(1990: .01209), (2000:, .072019)
Starting with the function slope(D30:D43,A30:A43) (interval of about 15) and filling up, I get:
(1973, .095385) (1980: -.05253),(1990:-.03238), (2000:, .072019)
with a minimum at (1983, -.0167)
It is not impossible that the (almost) fixed interval data is showing decline, but neither is it beyond question.
I am suspicious that the variable sampling width strategy may give misleading results with red noise, which is expected in meteorological data. Koutsoyiannis has papers on data with large Hurst coefficients.
http://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/850/
Note that the plot of slope vs. year blows up as the interval gets smaller, and the width in time of the “explosion” will depend on the covariance of the data.
As I remember, variable width sampling of red noise can be used to generate a hockey stick or other artifacts.
For now the best thing I can think of is still to look at a single higher order regression across the data sets, but I need to consider how variation in the dates of maxima/minima should be handled.
All the best,
@Henry
Some work in progress – – –
The more I think about your truncated regressions the more mysterious I find it.
I don’t have my head around what statistic you are calculating, but because of the length variatIon it can include both long term trends and short term variation.
A common method of estimating the Hurst coefficient H is to plot
ln( Range/Sigma) vs. ln(length/2) and estimate the slope.
I expect that H will vary for different latitudes and geography.
To get the higher order coefficients without convolving in the time covariance effects
you can use the Excel linest function.
To get significance estimates, sort the raw data against a column of random numbers
and tabulate the resulting coefficients.
deleting the 2002 and 2005 lines.
NO
you have not understood my previous comments
there is a special procedure. Just click on the years 2002/2005 and find all the months of the year with [some] missing data and determine the average for the year as specified.[in a previous comment]
the slope is the average CHANGE from the average over the period measured in K/annum
It is the speed of warming / cooling as recorded in K/yr. When you set the speed of warming out against time you get acceleration / deceleration.
Although you determine the speed from linear regressions, the speed of warming is non linear, it follows a sine wave, like I found here
.
http://oi60.tinypic.com/2d7ja79.jpg
Generally speaking. one station is not enough to make any statement on acceleration or deceleration of warming. I was just lucky with the one from Alaska.
10 or 11 stations around you could give you a reasonable idea as to what is happening in the place you live.
[check rsquare]
a balanced sample of 50 stations should give you an indication of what is happening on earth
remember all points of the sampling procedure.
[scroll back to previous comments]
@Henry
I left my excel code previously. I believe it verifies that I am calculating your numbers.
You are looking at the slopes of linear regressions beginning at different years all ending in 2014 (or so) and referenced to the oldest year. I think we can call your method a “progressive smoothing slope”.
The resulting coefficients should be same as the (backwards, properly weighted) accumulating average of slopes taken at fixed intervals.
You are demonstrating once again that meteorological data is noisy. On various web sites you can look at worldwide temperature data and see that even with thousands of sites it is still noisy. But not only is station by station the data noisy, it is highly correlated in space and time with all manner of cycles and oscillations. Differentiating the time series to get slopes makes it even worse.
For highly correlated ( ~ 1/f) noise, the average variance does not converge with large samples but stays the same. Meteorological data has this property to varying extent.
I would be very cautious about mechanistic interpretations since you may be seeing filtered red noise.
Wikipedia and many web sites discuss time series. Older books, “Fractals” by Maldelbrot or Feder, are entertaining if you can find one. Again, check out Koutsoyiannis who has published extensively and informatively on Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics and applicability to climate data.
“I left the clues all over in my comments on how to get the result in K/annum”
You don’t get science points for creating puzzles; you get points for elucidating facts of nature using accepted methods. If you want to establish “progressive smoothing slope” as a statistical method, you need a separate publication that can be stand on its own merits.
Thanks again and good luck.
you might be on the right track
however, it seems to me you are giving up before you even started,
You must do at least 10 weather stations around you, like I did here,
http://oi60.tinypic.com/2d7ja79.jpg
to give you an indication of the accuracy of the procedure and that the procedure measures the rate of change in T above you, apparently differing by the specific composition of particles being created daily above you [to protect us from the most dangerous radiation coming from the sun]
Note that my procedure of determining the derivatives of anomalies minimizes error due to differences in measurement, calibration and recording procedures between stations.
I have no income from these investigations other than to satisfy my own curiosity that it is Ok for me to drive around in my big DC truck with my dogs in the back….
More carbon is OK!
sorry
that was the wrong graph with the story
here is the right graph
btw
you never asked me for the results of means [global]
interestingly enough. for the longest times [40-30] they correspond closely to RSS/UAH
ca. 0.012K/annum [warming]
for the past 14 years it has been cooling, though [ca.-0.015]
no worries?
until the lakes freeze over and snow is still at your front door in April?
Good luck with that!
Another primary school lesson solved, great.
As Janice pointed out, this NYT article is propaganda. It is very good propaganda in that it is mostly truth about cold being dangerous — bundle up kiddies! — while slipping in the main message of CO2 is warming the planet. Oops, I mean man-made CO2 is warming the planet. Only mankind can be at fault in the leftist religion.
I agree Mark & Janice too. They state:while moderate hot and cold temperatures represented most of the total health burden. yet cold to hot ratio, (7.29%) : (.42%) is over 17:1. ‘Hot’ is hardly a player.
man-made CO2 is warming the planet….
We were just told that MMGW was causing the polar vortex….which is going to make it colder
Latitude, things change except for “it is all mankind’s fault”. 🙂
After years of imposed “scientific consensus” on global warming, a number of skeptical climate scientists are hopeful that their views may finally get a hearing under the new administration http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/01/02/climate-change-skeptics-welcome-open-debate-trump-presidency/ Their Hope
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
Shock news. And to think even the eco-militant EPA’s own figures show that slashing America’s CO2 emissions, will prevent less than 0.03 degrees Fahrenheit of global warming 85 years from now!
All that pain – destroying jobs and impairing human welfare – for such little gain!
The eco-militant EPA’s own figures note that slashing America’s CO2 emissions, will prevent less than 0.03 degrees Fahrenheit of global warming 85 years from now!
All that pain – destroying jobs and impairing human welfare – for such little gain!
The eco-militant EPA’s own figures note that slashing America’s CO2 emissions, will prevent less than 0.03 degrees Fahrenheit of global warming 85 years from now!
All that pain – destroying jobs and impairing human welfare – for such little gain!
Virtue-signalling politicians “riding their eco-friendly flying pigs” – a far more dangerous threat to life on earth than any minuscule and arguably beneficial, ‘global warming’ could ever be!
Wow! The NYT printing facts will confuse their staff and all 12 subscribers
People here are probably aware of this, but just in case, this is an excellent book
http://www.moralcaseforfossilfuels.com/
I think Napoleon discovered this 200 years ago when his army invaded Russia.
Hitler most certainly didn’t learn the lessons that Napoleon should have made obvious. It seems the nature of man is to believe that they are superior to those that came before them. The antidotes for this natural tendency is a family structure that includes more than just the previous generation, and learning real history. Both of those are ever more lacking in our modern societies and thus we produce ever more arrogant and, in those respects, ignorant generations.
But when your “save the planet” Green “sustainable lie” intent is to depopulate the human species, well then… your means are justified as a noble cause.
Lots of juvenile anchovies off Peru = strong upwelling = La Nina = big coldy-coldy
https://www.undercurrentnews.com/2016/12/29/ending-peru-anchovy-fishing-now-would-lose-sector-900m/?utm_source=Undercurrent+News+Alerts&utm_campaign=bb9754ac2d-Fisheries_roundup_Jan_02_2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_feb55e2e23-bb9754ac2d-92440397
Here’s proof that it’s extremely dangerous to play golf when its too cold:
How come I could see that coming a mile away?
Bah! amateur meet the proffesional.
This guy just doesn’t believe in hypothermia. He must be some sort of den!er…
The answer to his immunity was shown at the end. VODKA!
wws
beautiful
@diggs The watermelons already tried that ploy in the 70’s. The reason I started reading
about climate was that my daughter came home from elementary school saying
that we must stop using hydrocarbons or the resulting CO2 would push us into the
next ice age.
My 1st grade daughter came home from school and at the dinner table said “You know what? We are running out of air.” Teacher is going to get an earful at the next conference.
Eric ==-> This is the same Jane Brody NY Times article that I covered here at WUWT in this essay: “Surprising Results From Study: Moderate Cold Kills More People Than Extreme Heat” on 20 Dec 2016. Is there some kind of Twilight Zone time warp thing going on here?
We used to have a saying in Sweden “If you make it through February, you will live another year.”
This was of course before central heating
The NYT may or may not be starting to change their position on climate change but as the change of regime in Washington approaches there will be those decide to switch sides, out of pure self-interest. People who will do this are the modern-day vicars of Bray – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vicar_of_Bray – and could be many.
The Fortune 1000 will not be changing sides.
It’s called a PR move, Chris, designed to placate the masses.
Apple claims that 93% of their energy comes from renewable resources. This makes their customers feel better and helps them overlook the fact that the iPhone they purchased was manufactured in a Chinese sweatshop that installed nets underneath its window to cut down on worker suicides.
Fortune 1000 maybe not – but the scientific community?
Meanwhile, here on the sunny, warm southwest coast of Florida, I just came in from power washing some stone borders. Even with shorts and a tank top, still sweated but it was a good sweat. Now to relax with some cold green tea, a nice tuna on rye and catch up on today’s football games. How you’all doin up North?
Go south
South is better…
Unless you are in the Southern Hemisphere
Go greater than I 30 I latitude
Ok?
-50 latitude is too far south..
Oh dear
I meant smaller than I 30 I
….
24 F and snowing in S.E. Washington State.
Grr. As you can see above, we are slipping on ice, crashing our motor vehicles into buses and police cars, shoveling snow until we have a heart attack, and hoping we make it through February because that means we’ll make it for the rest of the trip around the Sun.
And if a big snowball out of the sky lands in your dog’s water dish (splashing all over your sliding glass door) that was me. 🙂
Seriously, HAPPY NEW YEAR, Tom. Glad you are doing so well. Enjoy!
And a Happy New Year to you Janice and thanks for your hard work. But. I have a cat not a dog and my sliding glass doors are open, the weather is just too nice.
“…the optimum temperature varies significantly between different countries, but in all cases it is warm – around 25c (77F), warmer in countries which are used to hot weather.”
Add to that the thermal neutral point for humans is about 82F. Living in an ice age for 2.6 million years and we have not evolved in response. Think Hawaii and the tropics. To live elsewhere we must have technology.
If it weren’t for the Warmist idiocy, the fact that cold weather is more lethal than hot would as obvious as saying “water is wet”. But beyond that, they miss a more important, and far more obvious point: that it is our economic power which gives us the ability to withstand the elements. And it is in fact economic power which Warmunists have been striving to deprive mankind, by making energy far more expensive, and less available than it needs to be.
+1
Bruce,
Well put!,
Also if it is getting warmer as claimed, wouldn’t it be good that we need less fossil energy to keep warm, reducing CO 2 emissions?
If facts revealed in this study are true, the US EPA’s Endangerment Findings are bunkum.
It either gets significantly warmer with increasing carbon dioxide concentration of the atmosphere or not.
If it does not get warmer, because computational climate model projections are gravely exaggerated, it is obviously bunkum.
On the other hand, if it does get warmer, according to this study, much more lives are saved than threatened, so there is no endangerment whatsoever, quite the opposite, consequently it is even more bunkum.
Therefore the Endangerment Findings are bunkum, unconditionally, and carbon dioxide in ambient concentrations can’t possibly be considered a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.
Q.E.D.
Which is why the base load should be produced by a technology independent of the environment. Not technologies that literally follow the prevailing winds, which are suitable as supplements in specific contexts.
It’s just another seasonal story for seasonal thinkers, from seasonal thought manipulators. Tis the season.
The IPCC AR5 says warming up to 1.8C is generally beneficial. One of the few sensible things they’ve come up with, and that’s the one we’re supposed to ignore?
Unfortunately, CO2 shows no sign it can achieve anything like that.
Joe Bastardi stated in the weekend update that western Europe better get ready for lots of snow coming soon. If he’s right, the use of wind and solar become frot with complications. Lots of diesel fuel and gas will be needed for de-icing and back-up power.
When the New York Times takes the unusual (for them) step of publishing something factual about the climate, it tells us that they are sniffing some change in the wind. When we see the Grauniad following the same path, the change will be assured around the World.
From the Lancet study:
From their description, they’ve used a fancied up pig’s ear of smashing correlation combined with assumed deaths.
The Postmaster who hired me to do collection had a habit of being outside when the collection truck would buzz through emptying mailboxes.
During a multiple inch snowstorm, I performed the collection run and waved to my Postmaster when I emptied the mailbox near his house. He was out shoveling snow, by himself in a thick snowstorm in a quiet neighborhood.
Forty-five minutes later, I arrived back at the Post Office and learned our Postmaster had just been found face down in the snow. As I remember it, he was 58
.
His actual cause of death was heart attack.
This study statistically skews data while assuming all deaths, or all deaths of certain causes, are due to warm or cold. Brainless actions are not considered.
People who live in the hot latitudes learn to avoid or deal with excess heat.
Heat stroke, like sunburn tends to favor the inexperienced and unprepared; as does hypothermia and cold exposure.
I read an old article about rock collectors driving near Tonopah Nevada during the 1930s heat waves with temps over 100°F, (37.8°C)when they spotted a truck on the side of the road with a pair of feet sticking out underneath.
The driver and rider griped about another visitor to the desert getting overwhelmed by the heat.
So, they pulled over to the side of the road to see if they could still help the person underneath the truck. They reached down, each grabbing a foot and dragged the poor guy out from under his truck.
The man they pulled out from under the truck was quite alive, holding a sandwich and trying to yell through a mouthful of sandwich.
The two rock collectors apologized and told the man they had feared the worst.
The guy from under the truck accepted their apologies and suggested the rock collectors get their lunches and join him under the truck for lunch.
The truck bed was high enough to lay under and eat comfortably while providing the densest shade around with enough room for a breeze.
Under the truck was far cooler than trying to sit in the truck’s cab or even the car seats. In those days, there was very little insulation in the ceilings of cars.
The truck driver told them that he would often nap after lunch while the heat of the day passed, siesta if you will.
As dear sweet fragile Janice points out; another waste of money study alleging things, but finding very little new.
(That was mean of me Janice. 🙂 )
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GcgrIcfmzUI/TeVlUp4LwtI/AAAAAAAAAHw/DzyTLzutWbQ/s1600/tea-party.jpg
Janice: “That’s okay, Theo. I understand……….
Now, Aphan, this is your cup of boiling water…..
Shhh.
The troll is walking up the sidewalk. I can hear the squish of its brains……..
Down, get down. We’ll hide under the table. When it starts to steal the cookies, dump your water on it!”
Both: (giggling — but, very, very quietly)
(being a little girl is the BEST! — and yes, J. Wonder Sammer, some of us have never grown up (and do not plan to))
♫ Thank Heaven, for little girls ♫
I couldn’t agree more, Janice. And a happy New Year to you.
Thanks, Luc! 🙂
Oops. And HAPPY NEW YEAR, to YOU!
Talk about a guilt inducing photograph…
I never understood the whole tea party thing; nor the repeated wedding ceremonies.
Three years younger than my older Sister pretty well guaranteed that I couldn’t outrun her or her friends until I reached approximately twelve years old. The following year, I outran my Father, which ended my twice a year fuzzy haircuts.
My Sister and her friends caught me often enough, that I believe I married every young girl in the neighborhood and in my Sister’s sphere of friends. Every one some form of a shotgun wedding.
It’s a good thing none of them had cleric’s license or Justice of the Peace stamp.
Not terribly odd that most of my family participated in some form of track, at least temporarily.
During “Red Dwarf’s” run, there was an episode where Kryten crashed a “Pride or Prejudice” virtual reality game where the rest of Red Dwarf’s crew were enjoying a tea party or garden party with the young ladies.
I cheered when Kryten used a flimsy looking German Panther tank and blasted the tea party set to “_ell and gone”.
*>———————-<*
For shame Janice!
You know trolls cannot walk. Walking generally requires biped or higher life forms for ambulation.
When the troll has squelched close enough and tries to steal a cookie, then comes the hot water!
Unless the cookies are dirt with rocks painted black and the brownies are will packed manure mix. Then let the troll have them all.
It does sound like griffiepoo doesn't like the warmist research published in the article.
Instead griffiepoo conflates their list of deaths as being from influenza.
Making the great Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 that from 50 million for 100 million people easily any alarmist claims that death from things warm is more severe.
griffiepoo trollop:
People live in every range of temperatures around the plane. They not only live in blistering hot temperatures, they function quite well in the hottest temperatures.
So long as they are sensible during the hottest periods.
Life in a brick row-home can be miserable during temperature inversions when heat waves peak without NOAA twiddling.
People who succumb, tend to be older people who refuse to cut back their activities nor do they keep up their necessary hydration when it is hot.
My Father, when younger, worked until he fainted in very hot temperatures (roof and attic work). He blamed it on his South Pacific stint in the Navy where he learned to work until one faints. The Navy is considerate, they prop the man upright in the shade while the Naval intern would stuff salt pills into the incoherent man and then dump a canteen of water down his throat.
When the hydration and salts (electrolytes) works the man would get a brief rest; too severe a heat stroke and he gets carried to a bunk or hammock and draped with wet towels.
Anyway, most people living I the row homes, especially brick homes would all be out on their front and back porches as soon as the sun nears the horizon. From 3-4PM into dark, the house is hotter than outside. It's a terrific time to visit with neighbors.
Without sufficient electrolytes or water, the body temperature regulating system breaks down, allowing the internal body temperature to climb. Above 104°F (40.5°C).
That Tonopah, Nevada area I mentioned above? Tonopah and surrounding area is quite near Death Valley. With temperatures averaging around 100°F (37.8°C) on flat surfaces; small canyons with dark rock walls easily reach above 110°F (43.3°C).
Hiking or just collecting rocks requires the buddy system for maximum safety during the heat of the day.
We carried a garden sprayer filled with plain water to keep our clothes damp. That was in addition to the forty gallons of potable water in the back of the truck and our canteens.
My Brother carried two spares for these trips. Flats are not uncommon. Shortly after fixing the flat tire one day, he got another flat inside of fifteen – twenty yards.
The second tire turned out to have a slow leak, requiring more than just changing tires.
We put two tires on the rood of the truck to boost the shade alongside of the vehicle. It also allowed the tire to heat up some.
We dug out a long put away and forgotten where tire patch kit.
Then we searched our preferred tire for possible cuts, taking turns on the tire pump till we found bubbles.
Mark the hole, put the tire in the sun and rest for awhile. Actually we rested and hydrated in between each activity.
When the tire was good and hot, we set up the patch kit; the drive a notched spike through the hole kind, lit the patch and waited till is was hot and gooey then jammed the spike through the tire hole.
Pumped some air into the tire, no leak! It took a long time to pump plenty of air into the tire.
Fun for the day was over. Two flat tires, one weak spare serving as one replacement, miles to get back out of the desert, carefully.
We were back the following weekend, with newer tires, but no cold front.
Within sight of the Altamont bird choppers is an area called 12 Palms. Twelve Palms is surrounded by old attempts to sell sun washed acreage as suburbia.
A lot of the people are still there, living in shacks and unfinished homes.
I do not recommend stopping and knocking on their doors.
Most natives in severely hot country understand the dangers and deal with them.
According to Noel Coward "Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun".
Perhaps better phrased as People who are spoiled by Urban nanny state living, need to take personal responsibility when challenging Mother Nature.
This nonsense again?
The study does not adequately distinguish between deaths caused directly by cols and deaths which occur in cold weather…
Which is important, because the internationally recorded ‘excess winter mortality’ figures are for the most part attributable to winter flu outbreaks.
This study just maps the impact of flu.
In addition, heatwaves do cause deaths: extreme heatwaves in Europe have definitely caused deaths and there is sadly every expectation these will increase. Plus there’s the effects of more frequent 40C plus temps in (e.g) the Middle East.
Oops! typo – for ‘cols’ read of course ‘cold’
Poor Griff, still trying to pretend it’s relevant.
First off, heat doesn’t kill. Heat waves do.
Heat waves are defined as an excursion above the average for an area. Even if the world were to warm up as much as you science deniers claim it will, heat waves themselves will be no more common than they are now.
Secondly, the reason why flu is more of a problem in the winter is first off, because people stay inside and around each other more. Secondly because cold has stressed their bodies making them more vulnerable.
“This nonsense again?”
So “The Lancet” is nonsense now is it, you poisonous little chancre?
You really are an utterly inhumane little troll, aren’t you? The poor, sick and elderly don’t matter a damn to you, do they? Eichmann would have loved you…
Gave you apologised to Dr. Crockford yet for personally insulting her and attempting to trash her professional reputation?
v’
Posted by Eric Worrall
Beware: Winter Is Coming
By JANE E. BRODY DEC. 19, 2016
Most of the Northern Hemisphere is now in the throes of the deadliest time of the year. Cold kills, and I don’t mean just extreme cold and crippling blizzards. I mean ordinary winter cold, like that typically experienced, chronically or episodically, by people in every state but Hawaii from late fall through early spring.
While casualties resulting from heat waves receive wide publicity, deaths from bouts of extreme cold rarely do, and those resulting from ordinary winter weather warrant virtually no attention. Yet an international study covering 384 locations in 13 countries, including the United States, found that cold weather is responsible, directly or indirectly, for 17 times as many deaths as hot weather.
Over time, as global temperatures rise, milder winter temperatures are likely to result in fewer cold-related deaths, a benefit that could outweigh a smaller rise in heat-caused mortality. In winter in the United States, mortality is generally 10 percent to 15 percent higher than on typical summer days.
_____________________________________________
Doesn’t include falling from rooftops or breaking the bones when freeing pavements from ice and snow;
nor accidents on roads, railways and airports – especially since the greens forbid use of salt and ethanol to free roads and airport runways.