Links to documents follow.
Not so much fanfare now, since leaks pretty much revealed earlier that it’s alarmism on steroids. The always dependably worrisome Seth Borenstein, AP’s science reporter, sums up the alarmism quite well with this tweet:
IPCC report: Warming harms dialed up to new level as world in for wild climate ride, 'we're sitting ducks'; http://t.co/KRIgBFqRGT
— @borenbears (@borenbears) March 31, 2014
I note Dr. Richard Tol’s name is not on it, as he said it was too alarmist.
The Working Group II contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report considers the vulnerability and exposure of human and natural systems, the observed impacts and future risks of climate change, and the potential for and limits to adaptation. The chapters of the report assess risks and opportunities for societies, economies, and ecosystems around the world.
=============================================================
Headline Statements from the Summary for Policymakers *
Observed Changes in the Climate System
Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850. In the Northern Hemisphere, 1983–2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years (medium confidence).
Ocean warming dominates the increase in energy stored in the climate system, accounting for more than 90% of the energy accumulated between 1971 and 2010 (high confidence). It is virtually certain that the upper ocean (0–700 m) warmed from 1971 to 2010, and it likely warmed between the 1870s and 1971.
Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide, and Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease in extent (high confidence).
The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia
(high confidence). Over the period 1901 to 2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 [0.17 to 0.21] m.
The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased to levels unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years. Carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by 40% since pre-industrial times, primarily from fossil fuel emissions and secondarily from net land use change emissions. The ocean has absorbed about 30% of the emitted anthropogenic carbon dioxide, causing ocean acidification.
Drivers of Climate Change
Understanding the Climate System and its Recent Changes
Climate models have improved since the AR4. Models reproduce observed continental-scale surface temperature patterns and trends over many decades, including the more rapid warming since the mid-20th century and the cooling immediately following large volcanic eruptions (very high confidence).
Observational and model studies of temperature change, climate feedbacks and changes in the Earth’s energy budget together provide confidence in the magnitude of global warming in response to past and future forcing.
Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes. This evidence for human influence has grown since AR4. It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.
Future Global and Regional Climate Change
Global surface temperature change for the end of the 21st century is likely to exceed 1.5°C relative to 1850 to 1900 for all RCP scenarios except RCP2.6. It is likely to exceed 2°C for RCP6.0 and RCP8.5, and more likely than not to exceed 2°C for RCP4.5. Warming will continue beyond 2100 under all RCP scenarios except RCP2.6. Warming will continue to exhibit interannual-to-decadal variability and will not be regionally uniform.
Changes in the global water cycle in response to the warming over the 21st century will not be uniform. The contrast in precipitation between wet and dry regions and between wet and dry seasons will increase, although there may be regional exceptions.
The global ocean will continue to warm during the 21st century. Heat will penetrate from the surface to the deep ocean and affect ocean circulation.
It is very likely that the Arctic sea ice cover will continue to shrink and thin and that Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover will decrease during the 21st century as global mean surface temperature rises. Global glacier volume will further decrease.
Global mean sea level will continue to rise during the 21st century. Under all RCP scenarios, the rate of sea level rise will very likely exceed that observed during 1971 to 2010 due to increased ocean warming and increased loss of mass from glaciers and ice sheets.
Climate change will affect carbon cycle processes in a way that will exacerbate the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere (high confidence). Further uptake of carbon by the ocean will increase ocean acidification.
Cumulative emissions of CO2 largely determine global mean surface warming by the late 21st century and beyond. Most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries even if emissions of CO2 are stopped. This represents a substantial multi-century climate change commitment created by past, present and future emissions of CO2.
* Headline statements are the overarching highlighted conclusions of the approved Summary for Policymakers which, taken together, provide a concise narrative. The four statements in boxes here are those summarizing the assessment in the Summary for Policymakers, sections B-E.
=============================================================
The Summary for Policymakers is available here and the unedited accepted Final Draft Report is available here.
Lies, lies and more lies. These people are experts at avoiding the facts.
That headache you feel is either bits of the sky falling on your head, or a reaction to the overweening stupidity.
Borestein, personal gullibility dialled up to all time high.
Seth is a shoe-in for dissinformer of the year.
The IPCC simply cannot abandon their most cherished delusions.
Don’t they sound like some fake clairvoyant and astrologist. It has nothing but predictions like some Old Moore’s Almanack. Reduce their funding for not doing their jobs properly.
“We’re sitting ducks”
– was that a quack I heard?
From the report ” It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.”
This is, of course, the key issue. If you believe that this has been shown, then the rest of the report may be valid. However, since climate sensitivity has never been measured, CAGW remains an uncorroborated hypothesis. And it is wrong to base such conclusions on the basis of only a hypothesis.
When less is more, always more, more than more…
http://31.media.tumblr.com/9e2470ca39a177809025afe73b4dacc5/tumblr_mud2q6RYo91r8kiyko1_500.jpg
This reeks of desperation as all their apocalyptic predictions have failed thus far.
And yet, the actual report is to contain more cautious assessments of climate change impact (per Matt Ridley’s article)? They broadcast scary propaganda and then dial back the hype with the science, figuring the public will never see that information. I get it.
Let’s find out much more about everyone of the USA Authors. I am going to be busy the next few hours doing some internet research.
Northern Hemisphere SPRING snow cover has continued to DECREASE in extent (high confidence).
_____________________________
Yeah, but Northern Hemisphere WINTER snow cover has continued to INCREASE in extent (high confidence). Giving only half the data and half the story, is the same as lying.
This was the kind of USSR PRAVDA misinformation that we in the West used to laugh at in the 1980s, and now we have the same half-truth lies distributed by every media outlet in the West. What ever happened to truth, honesty and integrity? Whatever happened to the moral compass of the ‘enlightened’ West?
Ralph
Were they able to quantify the energy released from constantly moving the goalposts?
The answer is here – NIPCC Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts (1062 pgs)
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/
NIPCC Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts – Summary for Policy Makers
http://heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-IIb/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
“The human impact on global climate is small, and any warming that may occur as a result of human carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions is likely to have little effect on global temperatures, the cryosphere (ice-covered areas), hydrosphere (oceans, lakes, and rivers), or weather.
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts, the subject of this Summary for Policymakers, examines the scientific research on the impacts of rising temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels on the biological world. It finds no net harm to the global environment or to human health and often finds the opposite: net benefits to plants, including important food crops, and to animals and human health.“
The Northern Hemisphere is not the globe.
CO2 follows temperature.
Anthropogenic CO2 flux is 3 percent of natural CO2 flux.
CO2 never accumulates in the atmosphere, any more than water accumulates in a river.
Antarctica is gaining ice mass recently.
2014 global temperature (measured by satellite) is within 0.2 degrees of the 1980 value.
Adding CO2 to the atmosphere benefits plant/crop growth.
Global sea level is rising at about 1mm per year using all modern technology.
Sea level is about the same as 2000 years ago by historical accounts.
Current sea level is lower than 6000 years ago.
Arctic ice melt (if any) will not raise sea level.
They write what the policy makers want to see and expect that is all they will see. Feed their agenda, not facts.
Crystal ball gazers, the lot. Watch your deciduous trees, when they start to bud that will herald warmer weather as their sap starts to move upwards and the soil heats up. If it doesn’t then crops will suffer of course and there maybe not enough spring rain. Either way they think they will be proven correct. Gosh what a load of dispensable eunichs
But why didn’t they also inform their readers that there is nothing humans can do to mitigate CAGW for thousands of years?
This is the finding from the latest,joint RS and NAS report . Bloody eco-loons and numbskulls the lot of them..
I am hiding under the bed
“Carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by 40% since pre-industrial times, primarily from fossil fuel emissions and secondarily from net land use change emissions. The ocean has absorbed about 30% of the emitted anthropogenic carbon dioxide, causing ocean acidification.”
If the total CO2 concentration displays no correlation to anthropogenic emission rates how can anyone say they are the cause of the increase?
“Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes.”
I have not seen any credible data supporting any of this statement. These are all likely effected by human activity but the effects have not been measured or even proved to my knowledge.
“Changes in the global water cycle in response to the warming over the 21st century will not be uniform. The contrast in precipitation between wet and dry regions and between wet and dry seasons will increase, although there may be regional exceptions.”
I think this says ‘Some things will change and some won’t.’ but it sounds ominous.
My, what fast readers commenters here are. I’d be impressed, if I actually thought many of you had bothered read a single page…
[criticism is easy, anyone can do it. How many did you read in the same amount of time, anonymous person? – mod]
On the bright side, I realized that here in the US, I didn’t hear a single thing about “earth hour”. None of the papers I read mentioned it, none of the local news talked about it, it was a non event.
I don’t think anyone is paying attention to any of this nonsense anymore, except for a handful of increasingly shrill ideologues.
Look at Figure SPM.4.(B) on page 38. Global temperatures look very flat to me. I guess that’s why this pretty picture is rendered small and buried in the back of the report…
Looking forward to Anthony and the WUWT expert contributors ripping into this.
I could almost fill the above summary with a red highlighter for lies and a green one for the unproved claims. Not much white except for the spaces.
On the other hand there are plenty of “likely”‘s and a “virtually certain” which provide some sort of backside protection when they are positively and transparently shown to be wrong.
Talk about “cognitive dissonance”!
“The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia” IPCC SPM
Since sea level was about a foot higher during the Medieval Warm Period, and eight inches lower during the Little Ice Age, the average during the previous millennia is meaningless, and as a result of Roman warm period and Dark Ages cooling, the average sea level change during the past two millennia tends to zero. However, the Holocene Highstand 7,000 to 4,000 years ago was up to two meters (roughly six feet) higher than now.
“Over the period 1901 to 2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 [0.17 to 0.21] m.” IPCC SPM
That’s about the same rate as 1801 to 1900. Prior to 1800, sea levels fell during the Little Ice Age, and atmospheric CO2 levels were the same throughout the period starting with the Medieval Warm Period 1350AD through the Little Ice Age and up to 1900. What tortured logic is in play here to build a theory that turns off and on the influence of atmospheric CO2 as the need for explanation of observations requires? Warming and cooling, sea levels rising and falling, atmospheric CO2 steady – the IPCC ignores. 20 years of the past 114 that warming coincided with increasing CO2 – damned for all time. And the longer the pause, and the greater the divergence of global climate models with observations, the higher the certainty of human cause. If the pause continues much longer, IPCC certainty will break the 100% barrier.
Plenty of ranting and screaming on the “The Conversation” forum “Climate change and health: IPCC reports emerging risks, emerging consensus” I’ve been banned from yet another alarmists’ group, simply for asking climate scammers’ most embarrassing question:
“In your own words, what is the EVIDENCE that man’s CO2 has caused any of the warming since the Little Ice Age ?”
—————————————————-
Your comment on ‘Climate change and health: IPCC reports emerging risks, emerging consensus ‘ has been removed.
There are several reasons why this may have occurred:
1) Your comment may have breached our community standards. For example it may have been a personal attack, or you might not have used your real name.
2) Your comment may have been entirely blameless but part of a thread that was removed because another comment had to be removed.
3) It might have been removed for another editorial reason, for example to avoid repetition or keep the conversation on topic.
For practical reasons we reserve the right to remove any comment and all decisions must be final, but please don’t take it personally.
If you’re playing by the rules it’s unlikely to happen again, so feel free to continue to post new comments and engage in polite and respectful discussion.
For your reference, the removed comment was:
Answer the most basic question:
In your own words, what is the EVIDENCE that man’s CO2 has caused any of the warming since the Little Ice Age ?
p.s. pretty funny to see that magma made his whiny comment directly beneath someone who is quoting word for word from the IPCC report.
p.p.s. TO DMA: I think that last quote you provided says “things will continue to change for the worse, except when they don’t.” Hard to argue with that one, really.
Rain will continue to fall, except when its dry.
Wind will continue to blow, except when it stops.
And the Earth will abide.
@Magma
“My, what fast readers commenters here are. I’d be impressed, if I actually thought many of you had bothered read a single page…”
When the Summary for Policy Makers is compared to the details of the report, it is obvious that the IPCC writers of the Summary didn’t read their own report. But rest assured, the details in the body of the report have been public knowledge for quite a while, and we read them even though the IPCC Summary writers didn’t.
Nothing can stop the destruction of the universe now.
We must pray.
And people should be required to pay a tithe to the church of warming and apocalypsial consequences and equality distribution (WAC’ED).
As an ex ad-man I was always aware of the brilliant media synchronisation employed by the Alarmists; the timing of events, press releases, linked articles and editorials has always been handled most professionally. The main drive of the campaign was always in Spring (N/H) and alarmist stories were always planted during a spell of warm or even hot weather.
You can see it happening again today, Earth Hour, IPCC report, squealing alarmists and the slightly less shrill voices of their allies in the MSM all in chorus…all singing from the same hymnal…or maybe not so much any more. There are dissonances Richard Tol, James Lovelock are sounding distinctly out of tune.
But what fascinates me is the idea that in spite of all this PR talent, the Alarmist’s momentum is fading. Facts are getting in the way, the public perceptions are changing. Like all fashions and trends Global Warming has a course course to run and to use the river analogy it is now meandering through the flood plain on its way to the delta. Or to put it another way, CAGW is a tired product which cannot be rebranded. You can’t scare people twice with the same old nonsense.
So let them howl…we know who they are now, (Seth) and we know that deep down they understand that no one is listening. (Except us ironically!)
As someone once said with regard to promotional activity…’you can’t push on a piece of string.’
IPPC find 11 on the speaker, news at at the top of the hour…
I’m convinced. Now I feel afraid and guilty.
Is there anything I can do to make up for my previous problem?
What would Joe or Gavin suggest?
I’m afraid to ask them. What to do?
What I ask them and they tell me to hurt myself?
Oh gosh………..
I was better off being a skeptic.
And here in Montana, it keeps snowing and snowing and snowing…
I can say, more likely than not, that it is very likely that, the latest IPCC report will very likely exceed the level of stupidity observed in all previous IPCC reports. I can say this with high confidence as the error bars are so large and getting larger.
The lies and half truths in the IPCC report remind me of the Pravda and Izvestia of the former USSR. The out-of-work architects of their daily misinformation have now taken up work at the IPCC and its affiliates.
I can say, more likely than not, that it is very likely that, the latest IPCC report will very likely exceed the level of stupidity observed in all previous IPCC reports. I can say this with high confidence as the error bars are so large and getting larger.
The lies and half truths in the IPCC report remind me of the Pravda and Izvestia of the former USSR. The out-of-work architects of their daily misinformation have now taken up work at the IPCC and its affiliates.
The more alarmist it is, the more it will be ignored by the reasonable majority.
We’re sure lucky.
Imagine how ballistic the IPCC would have been were there actual global warming going on. Whew!!!
The Earth has been warming for nearly 250 years. The IPCC does not know why, but has very high confidence that the last 60 years were do to humanity releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere from whence it came. They know that whatever was causing the warming before 1950 stopped, because….well, they couldn’t blame humanity if it didn’t. It is not a very scientific reason, but it is sufficient for a crusade.
Secondly, they proclaim that most of the warming of the atmosphere didn’t actually warm the atmosphere but mysteriously warmed the oceans instead. Which is kind of like turning on your oven in the kitchen which fails to warm up, but the bath tub water magically get hotter in the bathroom. Also, not a scientific analysis, but possibly sufficient to maintain the crusade.
For 25 years skeptics have been ridiculed for making the outrageous claim that the natural warming over the last several centuries was simply continuing in the late 20th Century, with CO2 increases having only minor effects. This idea was ridiculed because the skeptics did not have a specific theory (model) for such natural variability. Now the warmists cannot ‘model’ the cessation of warming! Scientists would have to ridicule their own theory or acknowledge that the skeptical argument is every bit as valid as their own. Crusaders, however, are under no such rational constrictions.
Notice how all the predictions used to be ten years, twenty years and so on for disaster. Now, since they were stone cold wrong, they make them “the end of the century”. Plenty of time to create panic without the pesky observation details getting in the way of the magical computer models.
Fake Nobelist lead author Dr Saleemul Huk
http://www.bcas.net/director-details.php?id=1&&name=Dr.%20Saleemul%20Huq
“In 2007, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize”
thisisnotgoodtogo says:
March 30, 2014 at 7:56 pm
Michael Mann’s teammate.
” This is the way we are setting the scene for mankind’s encounter with the planet. The opposition between the two ideologies that have dominated the 20th century has collapsed, forming their own vacuum and leaving nothing but crass materialism.
It is a law of Nature that any vacuum will be filled and therefore eliminated unless this is physically prevented. “Nature,” as the saying goes, “abhors a vacuum.” And people, as children of Nature, can only feel uncomfortable, even though they may not recognize that they are living in a vacuum. How then is the vacuum to be eliminated?
It would seem that humans need a common motivation, namely a common adversary, to organize and act together in the vacuum; such a motivation must be found to bring the divided nations together to face an outside enemy,
either a real one or else one invented for the purpose.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.
All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself. The old democracies have functioned reasonably well over the last 200 years, but they appear now to be in a phase of complacent stagnation with little evidence of real leadership and innovation.”
The First Global Revolution
Club of Rome report 1991
They keep going down this path and there will be no return to credibility…
“The rich are going to have to think about climate change, we’re seeing that in the UK, with the floods we had a few months ago, and the storms we had in the US and the drought in California,” said Dr Huq.
“These are multibillion dollar events that the rich are going to have to pay for, and there’s a limit to what they can pay”.
Climate impacts”Overwhelming”-UN, BBC march 30 2014, 20.20 pm ET,
I guess somebody better phone Al Gore for his contribution!
The real problem is that the public is too stupid to understand any of this. Our governments know that the public is too stupid too understand. MSN knows the public is too stupid too understand. So it continues….
The Sydney Morning Herald, had the warnings on the front page, and the On line ABC news had maps etc., bit of a turn around regarding Stern, eh?
Here comes the final bait and switch. It’s manmade climate change now, carbon dioxide isn’t necessary anymore. All the warming went in the deep ocean (where we can’t measure it) but trust us it’s there. If the planet runs hot or cold, rain or shine, stormy or calm the climate now needs to be regulated. The science is settled and the politicians don’t need the scientists anymore.
BBC http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26810559 leads with the following headline:
Climate impacts ‘overwhelming’ – UN
The word “carbon” does not occur in this summary article.
IPCC Drafting Authors – USA ( 16 )
Christopher B. Field (USA),
The world is staring down the barrel of climate change that is faster than at any time in the last 65 million years, says climate expert Chris Field. He will speak on the topic.
Michael D. Mastrandrea (USA),
Hans – Martin Füssel & Michael D. Mastrandrea, Integrated Assessment Modeling, in CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE AND POLICY 150, 150 – 61 (Stephen H. Schneider et al. eds., 2010).
Selected presentations : “’Dangerous’ Climate Change,” American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, San Francisco, CA, December, 2003.
Katharine J. Mach (USA),
Earth Day 2014 – confirmed speakers, Katharine Mach, Carnegie Institution, Co-Director of Science, IPCC Working Group II Technical Support Unit.
Douglas J. Arent (USA), Arent is on the Advisory Board of E+Co, a public-purpose investment company that supports sustainable development across the globe. He also serves on the Chancellor’s Committee on Energy, Environment, and Sustainability Carbon Neutrality Group at the University of Colorado. Arent was the chair of the Quantitative Work Group in support of the Clean and Diversified Energy Advisory Council of the Western Governors’ Association.
Virginia R. Burkett (USA),
Virginia R. Burkett is Chief of the Forest Ecology Branch of the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Wetlands Research Center at Lafayette Louisiana.
The Green Schools Alliance – Dr. Virginia Burkett, member of the IPCC and USGS climatologist, is a forum leader on our website.
Kirstin Dow (USA),
Kirstin Dow is a Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina.
Environmental Stewardship Award, School of the Environment, University of South Carolina. 2001.
David B. Lobell (USA),
Associate Professor – Department of Environmental Earth System Science.
Another Chapter 7 lead author is David Lobell. While he and Challinor were working closely together on the IPCC report, Challinor decided that a paper written by Lobell also merited publication in the journal he was guest-editing.
Bruce A. McCarl (USA),
University Distinguished Professor and Regents Professor of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University. Last year ( 2007 ) , McCarl, his fellow IPCC whizzes, and Gore shared a Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”
Michael Oppenheimer (USA),
a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton, was also a paid partisan of the environmental pressure group Environmental Defense. Michael Oppenheimer was the holder of the “Barbra Streisand Chair of Environmental Studies” at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Jonathan T. Overpeck (USA),
“WE KNOW THE EARTH IS WARMING. WE KNOW PEOPLE ARE CAUSING IT. ARIZONA IS GROUND ZERO FOR CLIMATE CHANGE.”
Jonathan Overpeck, PhD, Nobel Prize-winning climate scientist and co-director, Institute of the Environment, University of Arizona.
The Sierra Club supports cleaning up air pollution from the Navajo Generating Station and ultimately transitioning away from coal to clean, renewable energy as a future source of power and economic opportunity for the region.
For more information, contact Andy Bessler with theSierra Club in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Michael J. Prather (USA),
Department of Earth System Science University of California, Irvine, CA.
The sustained, collective work of the IPCC since 1988 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Congrats to all my colleagues who worked on these assessment reports, and helped save the planet, one chapter at a time.
Roger S. Pulwarty (USA),
Physical Scientist and Director, National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), Physical Sciences Division and OAR/Climate Program Office.
Joanne Rider, York University’s Chief Spokesman, has since informed that this ad “is no longer running” – and that related material describing Pulwarty as a Nobel laureate has been changed.
Kirk R. Smith (USA),
Professor of Global Environmental Health, Director of the Global Health and Environment Program, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA.
He participated along with many other scientists in the IPCC’s 3rd and 4th assessments and thus shared the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.
Research interests – Prof. Smith’s research focuses on environmental and health issues in developing countries, particularly those related to health-damaging and climate-changing air pollution from household energy use.
Petra Tschakert (USA),
Associate Professor of Geography and the Institutes of Energy and the Environment, Pennsylvania State University.
Tschakert works at the intersection of political ecology, climate change adaptation, social – ecological resilience, environmental justice, livelihood security, and participatory action research and learning within a development context.
Thomas J. Wilbanks (USA),
Environmental Sciences Division – Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
See Exhibit C – EarthJustice, On behalf of intervenors EarthReports, Inc. (dba Patuxent Riverkeeper); Potomac Riverkeeper, Inc.; Shenandoah Riverkeeper; Sierra Club; and Stewards of the Lower
Susquehanna, Inc. (collectively, “Intervenors”), we respectfully submit additional information relevant to Dominion Cove Point LNG, LP’s application to construct and operate a liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) facility and associated infrastructure being proposed under Docket No. CP-13-113.
Gary W. Yohe (USA)
The significance of IPCC errors has been greatly exaggerated by many sensationalist accounts, but that is no reason to avoid implementing procedures to make the assessment process even better.
Signed by: Gary W. Yohe, Wesleyan University and Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. March 10, 2010.
The BBC article starts with a photo of a pagoda in West Lake, Hangzhou, China (without a caption to explain that the photo does not show rising waters dues to global warming).
NY Times is already all-in:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/31/science/earth/panels-warning-on-climate-risk-worst-is-yet-to-come.html?hp&_r=0
Took them less than half a day. And among the comments already are gem quotes like this from Susan Anderson of Boston:
Have some curiosity. It takes real effort to stay blind and deaf. Every credible scientific agency in the world is trying everything they can to communicate and help us face the truth; they’re not hard to find. Don’t let WattsUpWithThat or other notable politicized secondary sources lead you away from the facts. Fake skeptics yelling about persecution are clever about creating smokescreens, but less clever about the rank foolishness of believing in those smokescreens.
Ugh.
Magma says:
March 30, 2014 at 6:56 pm
My, what fast readers commenters here are. I’d be impressed, if I actually thought many of you had bothered read a single page…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Have you?
For example, could you explain Figure RC-1 to me?
I’d like to really understand this. I have questions like:
Why do the model projections shown only start in the late 2000’s?
Is that because if they show them starting any earlier it becomes so painfully obvious that they diverge from observations and aren’t worth spit?
Why to the observations shown exclude satellite data?
Isn’t satellite data the most accurate data we have? Billions of dollars of satellites put in orbit for this very purpose and we’re ignoring them, because why?
Is it because their observations would embarrass the climate modelers even more?
And if the climate models are so completely useless that these kinds of deceptions need to be employed in order to hide their failures, does that not imply that the science they are based on is also suspect?
When you’re done answering those, I’m guessing that I will have by then read a few more pages and will have still more embarrassing questions.
If you are going to tell a lie, tell a big lie. They were faced with owning up to the facts that they got is spectacularly wrong or to ramp up the alarmism just one more time. They chose the latter when even their own flawed science does not support the message. As the world continues to fail to warm or even cool, this episode will mark their final shrill death call.
Coordinating lead author Saleemul Huq
was employed as Director (SCIENTIST) at GREENPEACE LIMITED from 14 November 2006 to 05 December 2009
resigned
Company address: GREENPEACE LIMITED
GREENPEACE HOUSE, CANONBURY VILLAS, LONDON, N1 2PN
A report on the post doc careers, of US PhD Physics graduates, was published, as I recall, in Physics Today, a free publication of the American Institute of Physics.
According to that study, 30% of USA Physics PhDs, got permanent jobs in Physics based on their specialty, presumably their thesis subject. 5% were able to get only temporary work, in their field, before having to change their careers.
65% of all USA Physics PhDs, never get a permanent job in their field of expertise, and are doomed to spend their careers, as post-doc fellows at some institution or other, and scramble for grant money, to pay for their upkeep.
I’m guessing, they did their thesis on something nobody else thought of doing, and then discovered nobody else had any interest in that, or wanted to hire them into industry, to work on that.
Industry hires people who know how to make a profitable product that they can sell to willing buyers.
So how many of these unemployable Physicists, go into climate research, where you won’t know your results, till you are ready to retire on your possibly taxpayer funded gravy train ??
When I read Michael D’s list (above), of contributing authors it awakened my awareness of just how many, it must be many thousands of people who are sharing a part of the bottomless finance pit that funds the warmist movement. All carried away by the inertia of the IPCC propaganda.
As someone (?above) mentioned – who would dare, whatever they really thought, to go back against the tide, against the juggernaut, bite the hand that feeds, risk ostracisation, risk their livelihood?
All propping up a ‘house of cards’, built on sand instead of valid science, a political base without a doubt. They have the gall to charge the questioners (us), as politically motivated and industrially financed.
“Safe” in the knowledge that they have immense support and media promotion of their fiction that has no difficulty in brainwashing the public.
The more I read, the more comfortable I am that I am batting (unfunded), for the side of genuine science, truth and justice.
“It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century”
Why do bureaucracies become more certain with something over time, without reason? Just because things have warmed doesn’t mean humans are the main cause, that is what they used to think 20 years ago, not they are nearly certain is it humans that are dominant.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Uncertainty is a vacuum and some bureaucrats just cant handle it.
First impressions: less numbers and graphs, more write ups. Less alarmist, but bogey man RCP 8.5 is kept to scare the children and to feed liable politicians.
Useless chapter division by continents: Asia runs from the north pole till the southern tropics. At least they had to admit that India is not going to get less rainfall, so one scare story less. Coral bleaching has stopped a decade ago: not due to human influence alas, so you won’t read about it next report.
I have a question.
Global surface temperature change for the end of the 21st century is likely to exceed 1.5°C relative to 1850 to 1900 for all RCP scenarios except RCP2.6. It is likely to exceed 2°C for RCP6.0 and RCP8.5, and more likely than not to exceed 2°C for RCP4.5.
In this paragraph, which was also in the overall summary I believe, what does ‘relative to 1850 to 1900’ mean?
If it means ‘since’, well we have already had 0.8C of warming in the 20th century. So we get another 0.7C of warming this century in RCP2.6. Is that right? And ‘scary figure minus 0.8 to make it not scary at all’ for the other ‘scenarios’.
If so, it seems that warming continues pretty much as it has for the last 100-150 years, with no increase due to extra ‘carbon’.
I can’t believe they meant to say that, so have I read it wrong?
If not, why on earth is anyone worried about the same rise this century as the last? We seemed to cope fine, whilst increasing and feeding the population massively.
Human influence on the climate is clear because of the following evidence:
1. Increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere
2. Positive radiative forcing
3. Observed warming
4. Understanding of the Climate System
None of the above “evidence” points directly to human influence on the climate. Besides, what warming have they “observed” over the past decade and a half? And how can they claim an “understanding of the Climate System” when their forecasts are so wrong. They are continually revising what they know about the climate, which means they know very little. If they really did have an understanding, they would have predicted the “pause” AND when it will end. Instead, they predict what they think will happen by “the end of the 21st century.” That is such a cop-out. The accuracy for such predictions doesn’t matter because they’ll all be dead by then!
Not surprisingly NBC news is all in too, by way of Borenstein’s article:
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/massive-u-n-report-says-climate-risks-go-beyond-red-n67516
Note the picture that accompanies the article. Ugh(2).
I agree with almost everything stated in the report. (Yawn.)
However, what is in the report is actually quite reassuring. Read the actual words. They are complete ho-hum presented as apocalypse now.
It looks like we may be about to get another El Nino; assuming that happens just watch all the alarmists bleat “Told you so, this is just what the IPCC predicted”, as the global temperature temporarily rises circa 0.4 degrees C.
As for the report itself, its conclusions were utterly predictable and solely designed to keep gullible politicians funding the bloated Global Warming Industry.
There are reports in the UK that one of Davey’s minions was sent with a note to WGII complaining that the economic forecasts weren’t doom-laden enough. A clear case of bringing pressure to bear for “sexing up” the Policymaker’s summary. I have high confidence that Davey will not be the only Western Environment Minister who has brought undue pressure to bear on scientific opinion.
When you consider that China, India and the G 88 will continue to ignore what they see as neo-colonialist and racist attempts by the affluent West to prevent the modernisation of their own cultures, then what is the point of this report? Not the least of the warmist politico’s concerns will be that once their electorates realise how they have been despoiled for no reason, reaction will be savage and their political careers will be in ruins.
One is left with the conclusion that this report, purporting to be of global significance, will be used for picayune party-political purposes by the predominantly left-wing governments of the West.
It will certainly not have any material effect upon CO2 emissions, but will continue to beggar the first world.
I look forward with great anticipation and a giant bag of popcorn to the debunking of WGII by those who have far greater detailed knowledge that I. Let the Farce commence!
From the report:
“Further uptake of carbon by the ocean will increase ocean acidification.”
If by “carbon” they mean CO2, then this contradicts the earlier statement that the oceans are warming.
Warm water holds LESS CO2 than colder water.
Water leaches out CO2 as it warms. It does not take in more.
“… and it likely warmed between the 1870s and 1971.” Likely due to industrial activities, SUVs and air traffic, I guess.
“The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia”
Since the mid 19th century is 100 years before the increase in CO2, doesn’t this contradict the AGW hypothesis?
When the IPCC alarmists say ‘As the temperature continues to rise….’ they mean the temperatures on their simulations. In thereal world the temperature isn’t rising.
Had the IPCC ‘consciously uncoupled’ from reality?
Magma says:
March 30, 2014 at 6:56 pm
My, what fast readers commenters here are. I’d be impressed, if I actually thought many of you had bothered read a single page….
———————————————————————————————————————-
You do have a point, Magma, but (as evanmjones) points out, even the summary of the summary posted above doesn’t suggest much reason to be alarmed if you actually think for a second or two about what’s written. A few pointers to get you started:
Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850. In the Northern Hemisphere, 1983–2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years (medium confidence).
The fact they’re still relying on this fallacious “previous decade warmer than…” argument as evidence of continued warming is, frankly, a little bit mindblowing. I’m sure i don’t need to explain to you (again) just why it’s a meaniingless point?
Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide, and Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease in extent (high confidence).
Why “the last two decades”? Isn’t anything less than 30 years meaningless in terms of climate? I’m sure I’ve been told that rpeatedly by warmstas! I don’t care if “that’s all the data we’ve got” – if it’s less than 30 years it’s a short term variation according to their own rules. Remember,, for at least 17 of those 20 years there’s been no warming, but that apparently counts for nothing
The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia
(high confidence). Over the period 1901 to 2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 [0.17 to 0.21] m.
Some curious period-picking here. They fnd higher sea level rise since the “mid 19th century” – about 100 years before the 60 years or so that we’re meant to have had any real impact. Why???
Then they announce 0.19m (that’s less than 2/3rds of a classroom ruler – you couldn’t even bodyboard on a wave that low!) between 1901 and 2010. To even get that tiny rise they have to use 109 years rather than 100 (which is what they deal in for projections). 19cm over 109 years is about 17.5cm over a century – why not announce it like that seeing as they project interms of centuries?
I’ll leave you to think about the rest of the headlines because I have far better things to do today than act as a surrogate brain while yours is on vacation. The underlying point is that it doesn’t matter how many pages you read if you don’t also think critically about what’s written.
.
How much ocean warming would be needed to create the Keeling curve?
The IPCC and obviously many of its puerile contributing ‘scientists’ are becoming more and more like small children in a temper tantrum. The more the evidence is not there, the more they stamp their feet and shout louder. It is absolutely pathetic.
This is an old political strategy: repeat a big lie, repeat it often, repeat it with even more urgency, finally SHOUT IT TO THE MOUNTAINTOPS!!!! The more you repeat it, with sincerity, urgency, and with more urgency, then people will believe it.
Shout to Germans that the Reichstag fire was due to Communist perfidy. Shout to Russians that there were plotters against Stalin’s regime, that most of them were generals, doctors, and Jews. Shout to the world that Poland had committed atrocities on Germany’s border, justifying a world-war-starting invasion. Shout to the world that a video had provoked an attack on an American consulate in Benghazi. Shout to Americans that you will not lose your doctor or your health care plan, and that health care costs will go down due to Obamacare.
So the IPCC’s diatribe is nothing new. It is designed to expand the power of those who engage in UN/NGO/Socialist bureaucracies around the world.
31 March: Conversation: IPCC expert wrap: costs of climate change mounting, time to adapt
(EXPERTS INCLUDE)
Jonathan Overpeck, University of Arizona; author, “Terrestrial and inland water systems”
Building on the previous IPCC reports, the new IPCC assessment report makes it clear that continued climate change will indeed create an increased extinction risk for a large fraction of terrestrial and freshwater species during and beyond the 21st century, especially as climate change interacts with other pressures on species, such as habitat modification, over-exploitation, pollution and invasive species. Although it is not possible to define the exact number of species at risk, we do know that this number could be large, and that it will increase with both the magnitude and rate of climate change.
Global species extinctions, many of them caused by human activities, are already occurring at rates that approach or exceed the upper limits of observed natural rates of extinction in the fossil record. Continued climate change will accelerate this rate of global extinction, perhaps dramatically…
Rachel Warren, University of East Anglia; author, “Emergent risks and key vulnerabilities”
We have already observed impacts of climate change on agriculture. We have assessed the amount of climate change we can adapt to. There’s a lot we can’t adapt to even at 2C. At 4C the impacts are very high and we cannot adapt to them.
Reducing emissions reduces global temperature rise, and also the rate of temperature rise. This makes it easier to the adapt to the remaining impacts. We’ve left it too late to reduce emissions enough to avoid all of the impacts of climate change, but we could still avoid a large proportion of them by reducing emissions soon, and fast…
http://theconversation.com/ipcc-expert-wrap-costs-of-climate-change-mounting-time-to-adapt-24939
Report following the advice given by Sir John Houghton, 1st chairman of IPCC and lead author on first 3 reports. “Unless we announce disasters, no one will listen”
Perhaps he forgot to add – and if there aren’t any, we can always make them up.
Noticed it’ no longer IPCC but the UN World Climate Council….
Nice career possibilities for derailed politicians and action scientists for a life of lying.
Nor close down the UN and get rid of the source of 80% of all the corruption in the world, wars, conflicts and mass murders.
The usual nonsense
The Sydney Moaning ( sorry Morning) Herald has the front page story headed ” Time Bomb ticks as the Earth heats,” and inside the story is headed ,” Climate could make Humans extinct,warns Health Expert.”
Meanwhile over on the Sports page…….
Nature,” as the saying goes, “abhors a vacuum.”
Naturally, Nature also abhors a bore, and the IPCC is a crashing bore.
Seriously, the IPCC should ask John Carmack to rewrite their virtual reality game.
C’mon, who wouldn’t want to have a go at IPCCDOOM3D, “knee deep in the carbon anomaly”, eh?
The editorial in today’s Daily Telegraph is surprisingly sceptical.
Chris
In german news, only hysterical one-liners from the IPCC along the line of: “Worse than ever!” – “We’re all doomed!” – “We will fry!” – are being aired and are in the press today. Some people seem to take the final chance to cover their sorry a**es by the indiscriminate IPCC-alarmism. I truly hope that this AR-5 assessment will be the final straw to break the camel’s back.
is this a smoking gun?
IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri knew what the 2014 report was going to say back in 2009
“Which brings us to yet another concern. Let us travel back to 2009. The individuals who would write the about-to-be-released climate report hadn’t yet been selected (that didn’t happen until the following year). They hadn’t yet attended any IPCC meetings. Much of the research it would be their duty to evaluate hadn’t yet been published.
Nevertheless, the IPCC chairman knew – all those years in advance – what their conclusions would be. In September 2009, he told religious leaders in New York: “When the IPCC’s fifth assessment comes out in 2013 or 2014, there will be a major revival of interest in action that has to be taken. People are going to say, ‘My God, we are going to have to take action much faster than we had planned.'”
Not only did Pachauri know the nature and direction of the IPCC report’s conclusions, he knew these conclusions would be alarming and dramatic.”
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/the_uns_climate_change_chief_puts_politics_first#sthash.pHLZwryM.dpuf
And don’t forget the movie, folks. It was rolled out even before the flurry of tweets of Press Releases, SPM and “headline” statements (for lazy journos)
WG II’s sequel to AR5 “The Movie”: More tick-tick, boom-boom, doom-doom
The IPCC has scribbled more graffiti on the walls of science.
Even the BBC ventured to raise the points with a scaremongering IPCC spokesman this morning that moderate warming benefited people, and CO2 increase benefited plants (and therefore people). Scientific sense seems to be emerging even in the most unlikely places!
A fellow on Twitter told me that you can not observe nature without a model and that the models are superior to observations of reality. I was astonished to read someone say it so plainly.
I wonder if these “great” computer games/modelers can tell me why the Little Ice Age ended two and a half centuries ago and why the earth has been steadily warming ever since. They could not even predict the piddly little 17+ year “pause” much less the larger turns in climate and yet they are supremely confident they can tell us the earth’s temperature 100 years from now to a tenth of a degree.
Climate science is pure quackery.
If IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri knew what this report was going to say back in 2009 and that it would be a call to action that would be both alarming and dramatic then the whole IPCC and their reports is just a show trial of co2 who stands convicted without any evidence and used to promote social ecology
Social ecology calls anyone who likes advanced society such as clean water, medicine as ego centric’. So what does their new man who is eco centric look like and what will be the new social ecology?
Pachauri has been calling on people to be vegetarians.
professor Kevin Anderson ‘cuts back on washing and showering’ to fight climate change’ and wants planned recession
http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/11/19/global-warming-professor-kevin-anderson-cuts-back-on-washing-and-showering-to-fight-climate-change-admits-at-un-climate-summit-that-is-why-i-smell/
The authors had the chance to do the right thing and they blew it.
All the main TV and radio channels in the UK have gone over the top on this, this morning. The UK Government has already announced that the UK will lead the way on fighting Climate Change:
“It’ll be expensive but worth it”,
but “fighting Climate change will not cost individuals that much, a slight increase in fuel costs …..”,
“… something has to be done, we must change our ways …”,
and so on.
Just heard on the radio this comment: “by the end of the Century the world will have warmed by 4 degrees – not a lot you might think, no more than a warm summers day, but that’s as much as the world has warmed since the last ice age!”
(as I was only half listening I missed who it was who said it – sorry!)
Is Dr. Tol an economist or a climate scientist?
It looks like total desperation to me. Their last throw of the dice.
Britain’s secret bid to ‘fix’ UN climate report:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2592992/Britains-secret-bid-fix-UN-climate-report-Impact-economy-ramped-up.html
The extraordinarily dangerous language that ties into the global ed reforms and Metropolitanism and that FuturICT vision I have been writing about recently are the last two paragraphs on page 23.
Coming in through the false perceptions and altered values and beliefs being deliberately cultivated via what I call obuchenie education. Nicely tucked into the middle of that report. Adaptation is a term that goes to using conscious cultural evolution. I explain it in detail in my book. It has been a hope of political radicals even before Marx. The ability of computers to grasp and manipulate unconscious mental processes based on Soviet research that UNESCO is very much aware of is precisely what those 2 paragraphs are getting at.
Magma says:
March 30, 2014 at 6:56 pm
My, what fast readers commenters here are. I’d be impressed, if I actually thought many of you had bothered read a single page…
________________
Well, aren’t you just the smartest little thing.
I’d be impressed if you ever showed up here and had something non-disparaging to say about the readership.
“Impacts assessed in this report are based on climate model projections…”
(Final Draft ch1,p2)
Donna Laframboise sums it up: “What happened to the scientific body delivering a scientific report based on scientific research?”
http://nofrakkingconsensus.blogspot.com.au/
I have just watched the BBC News on this ‘apocalypse’, I’m now feeling a bit nauseas. I wonder if some vulnerable members of the public will actually decide it is so bad that life is not worth living and commit suicide rather than look forward to being drowned, frozen, blown to ‘Munchkinland’ or slowly cooked to death.
Is it wrong to hope for a massive volcano to go off this year, in the middle of no where, just so that the temperatures start dropping significantly ?
Its like listening to a bloody end of the world, 4 horseman of the apocalypse scenario.
Its beginning to seriously sound like religion. The “predictions” are so wide ranging as to be meaningless. Expect more droughts AND flooding ? How the hell is that comparable.
Utter drivel. Absolute and utter drivel.
I notice the wide ranging caveats in all the statements such as “likely” “possibly” “might” “could”
Which is the IPCC’s back out if things start getting cooler…..
Its drivel of the worst kind.
Hilarious, in the daily mail a report on what will be effected, it says cities will become warmer than the surrounding countryside.
Some cites are up to 10f higher than the countryside anyway- utter madness.
I would have thought this alone would make most normal people see the whole report for the junk it is.
The guy who wrote that line must be the biggest idiot in history.
@ various… I didn’t comment on the content of WGII because I haven’t yet read through ~2600 pages of the summary for policymakers and the main report.
It seemed an obvious point. I’m just impressed so many of you have.
Mkelley says:
March 30, 2014 at 7:35 pm
And here in Montana, it keeps snowing and snowing and snowing…
And they will be holding a press conference in Bismarck, ND later today.
“It is very likely that the Arctic sea ice cover will continue to shrink and thin and that Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover will decrease during the 21st century as global mean surface temperature rises”
—————————–
http://www.arctic-info.com/ExpertOpinion/Page/-the-need-for-icebreakers-will-increase-after-the-year-2016-
“The need for icebreakers will increase after the year 2016……….. For this reason, especially in the summer, there has been an increase in the need for icebreakers on the Northern Sea Route.
The resources of the nuclear ship Sovetsky Soyuz are not currently in use because it has been held in reserve for 6 years. When put into operation, it will be able to work until 2024-2025. Speaking of the schedule for taking icebreakers out of service, we are not including the icebreaker 50 Let Pobedy, which only entered into service in 2007; it has long-term prospects, no earlier than 2030”
So we can’t foresee the weather next month, but we know as fact how the entire planet will develop over the next 86 years and that with computer models that can’t even confirm past development, despite having all the data?
If this nonsense wasn’t aimed at destroying human civilization, it would be actually quite funny.
charles nelson says:
“…alarmist stories were always planted during a spell of warm or even hot weather…
…in spite of all this PR talent, the Alarmist’s momentum is fading. Facts are getting in the way, the public perceptions are changing…CAGW is a tired product which cannot be rebranded. You can’t scare people twice with the same old nonsense…”
Exactly. The climate hysterics have lost the argument, despite having ALL the vast resources of western governments behind them.
One of the things I have noticed is the amazing drop in the level of Readers Comments about this subject in various online publications. Take today’s Guardian for example. In spite of this report being headlined everywhere, page after page of readers “recommends” (supporting AGW) total less than 8. There used to be hundreds, and sometimes thousands of recommends for pro-AGW items. Tellingly, one of the highest recommends (38, so far) was the comment that the Guardian should censor all the so-called “denier” comments. That’ll “save the planet” eh?
The stock radio news report this morning, source CNN I think, was:
“Worse than originally predicted. Global warming has resumed again, after a short hiatus, except in some places of cooling. It will get very hot and doom, death and destruction ….”
The IPCC mentions warming since 1850 AND the 1950s. Why not just mention 1850? For a little more insight see the the following previous thread.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/29/when-did-anthropogenic-global-warming-begin/
They mention that sea levels are rising! Sea levels have been on a rising trend for thousands of years. Why state the obvious? Because no acceleration in the rate of sea level rise has been adequately detected this century or late last century. But the glaciers are melting they say. That has been going on since the end of the Little Ice Age. Always look at each of their claims with an eye on the past.
UH-ho urban heat islands are predicted. Run for the hills!
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority doesn’t seem to think disaster is imminent……….
Environmental conditions
February 2014
Conditions on the Great Barrier Reef remain neutral according to the Bureau of Meteorology:
The El Niño-Southern Oscillation is within the neutral range, indicating neither drought nor wet season generally associated with El Niño or La Niña conditions. This is set to continue throughout autumn 2014.
Sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean have generally been near average.
A near average level of cyclone activity (four cyclones in eastern Australia) is forecast for this season. So far two tropical cyclones (tropical cyclone Dylan and tropical cyclone Edna) have occurred in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
An average rainfall season is forecast for most of eastern Australian from February to April 2014.
Flood plumes will be influenced by the level of rainfall received in the Great Barrier Reef catchment area – since October 2013 the catchment has experienced a low to average level of rainfall, a pattern set to continue until March 2014.
Our table of observations and forecasts provides more detailed information. Reef health monitoring is ramped up over this time to keep an eye on the marine environment.
Coral reef health reports
Together with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service and the Eye on the Reef monitoring network, we’ve carried out 489 reef health and impact surveys across 54 reefs on the Great Barrier Reef since 1 December 2013.
Most (79 per cent) of these surveys were completed in the Cairns-Cooktown region, and the majority of the remainder in the Mackay-Capricorn region.
Of all the surveys, 56 per cent recorded healthy coral reefs with no impacts, 30 per cent had one type of impact and another 14 per cent recorded more than one impact.
Predation (mainly by crown-of-thorns starfish) was seen in 34 per cent of the surveys.
Some signs of coral stress, such as low-level coral bleaching and disease, were also evident in three per cent of surveys. Signs of low level coral damage could be seen in approximately 19 per cent of surveys.
In most cases the damage was attributed to anchors, marine animals or adverse weather conditions.
Initial reports indicate only low levels of minor damage to coral reefs as a result of tropical cyclones Dylan and Edna.
We are continuing to assess the impact, however neither cyclone is expected to have caused any significant damage.
Anyone reading WUWT with an ability to be in Vienna in late April can attend emcsr 2014 http://emcsr.net/general-information/ and listen to the intentions of how to use cybernetics and a systems thinking focus in education as a “means for mastering the current transformation” and guiding history.
If physical science does not perform as policy makers wish, the social and behavioral sciences can still try to alter behavior so that we are all forced to adapt anyway. Especially our children.
This is how your frame the issue if you want to be alarmist – cherry pick to hell. Now here are a few things they left out.
• Glaciers have been shrinking BEFORE the “last two decades” (soot helps too)
• Greenland experienced faster rates of melt earlier in the 20th century.
• Antarctica is at near record sea ice extent according to NASA.
• Antarctica has been gaining surface ice mass over past 150 years.
• Winter snow extent in the Northern Hemisphere has been on an upward trend since 1967. Fall up too.
Here is an example of why you must look at alternative explanations to their desired claims.
Grrrrr. I meant.
“This is how you frame…”
We struggle to measure sea levels today with satellite and all but they manage to know the rates before the “mid-19th century”.
Is it just melting ice that causes contributes to sea level rise?
Groundwater abstraction is about “one fourth of the current rate of sea level rise of 3.3 mm per year.”
Here is the paper’s abstract [published in October 2010].
We can all cherry pick what we want. It is the season after all.
The IPCC needs to urgently get in touch with the authors of the following paper to correct their graphic which shows co2 at ~425 ppm around 12,750 years ago.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.02.003
http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0277379113000553-gr7.jpg
Hockey Schtick – March 19, 2013
“New paper finds CO2 spiked to levels higher than the present during termination of last ice age”
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/03/new-paper-finds-co2-levels-were-higher.html
Is there a trend in when these IPCC reports get published?
Are they all published at the onset of or during northern hemisphere summer?
sea level rise, one by one you can take these things apart.
“One hundred years ago, the region’s two big rivers—the Mississippi and the Atchafalaya—dumped some 500 million tons of land-replenishing sediments onto the Delta every year. Today about half the rivers’ sediment load never reaches the Delta. Instead, it settles behind thousands of dams and levees or is channeled by those levees far out into the Gulf of Mexico.
Jimbo says:
March 31, 2014 at 5:57 am
http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0277379113000553-gr7.jpg
——————-
and,Jimbo, do i read this correct , on the right hand side an increase in organic content at 425 ppm.
Admin Said:
[criticism is easy, anyone can do it. How many did you read in the same amount of time, anonymous person? – mod]
He isn’t telling everyone what he thinks about the new report without having read it properly. If he was, then you might have a point, but as it is, his point still stands.
Writing off a report you haven’t read is not a good example of scientific thinking.
Dr. Burns –
sadly, the heading re “EMERGING risks,EMERGING consensus” at The Conversation, wasn’t at all mirrored in the text by the three CAGW advocate authors:
31 March: The Conversation: Climate change and health: IPCC reports emerging risks, emerging consensus
Disclosure Statement
Anthony McMichael receives funding from The National Health and Medical Research Council. He is affiliated with The Climate Institute.
Colin Butler receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is co-director of the NGO Benevolent Organisation for Development, Health and Insight.
Helen Louise Berry receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Research Council. She is a member of the Australian Labor Party.
http://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-health-ipcc-reports-emerging-risks-emerging-consensus-24213
The oceans are alkaline.
While the contrast may decrease. Here are the all important OBSERVATIONS in our ever warming world. Remember they have told us that the warming last century was hot and alarming.
Observations V Speculation.
drumphil says:
March 31, 2014 at 6:10 am
Admin Said:
[criticism is easy, anyone can do it. How many did you read in the same amount of time, anonymous person? – mod]
He isn’t telling everyone what he thinks about the new report without having read it properly. If he was, then you might have a point, but as it is, his point still stands.
Writing off a report you haven’t read is not a good example of scientific thinking.
____________________
He’s known to come here and take shots at the readership and got called on it, by several people, yet again. I think most here can figure out his point. What’s your point?
The IPCC was never about science, but rather was and is an ideology using just the appearance of science to fool people. They latched onto a 20-year warming period from the late 70’s to late 90’s, and conflated it with the warmup since the LIA. They had to build in convoluted excuses for the cooling period from roughly the 40’s through 70’s, aeorosols and volcanoes being their favorite fudge factors. Then reality threw a monkey wrench into the Alarmists’ works. What happened to the warming? Have no fear, they said, it will recommence soon with even more vigor, just you wait and see. Well, it’s been some 17 years or more now, and we’re still waiting. They had to double down on the excuses then, making up more and more bizarre ones, such as that it was hiding deep in the oceans. With reality now going more and more against them, showing they never really had science on their side to begin with, they had to double down on the “certainty” claim, as well as the alarmism about the future. That’s all they’ve done with this latest “report”, simply ramping up their “certainty” and their alarmism. Because, when the facts aren’t on your side, yell and scream louder. Well, it’s worked before anyway.
JustAnotherPoster says:
March 31, 2014 at 4:23 am
Is it wrong to hope for a massive volcano to go off this year, in the middle of no where, just so that the temperatures start dropping significantly ?
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Quote: “4.8 earthquake rocks US Yellowstone National Park”
“A 4.8 magnitude quake rocked Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming near the border with Montana, the US Geological Survey said. There were several aftershocks with a magnitude over 3. The earthquake occurred 37 kilometers northeast of West Yellowstone, Montana at 6:34 am local time (1234 GMT) Sunday. The quake was centered almost in the middle of Yellowstone National Park, near the Norris Geyser Basin, said Peter Cervelli, a spokesman for the USGS Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, NBC News reported.
(…)
Yellowstone National park, North America’s largest volcanic field, is the home to a caldera, sometimes referred to as the Yellowstone Supervolcano. Due to the volcanic and tectonic nature of the region, the caldera experiences 1 to 20 earthquakes every day, according to Yellowstone observatory. However they are very weak often measuring much less than magnitude 3.
The quake on Sunday was the most powerful to hit the park since 1985. In the fall of 1985 in the northwest rim of the caldera during a three-month period of increased earthquake activity over 3000 events of magnitude 0 to 4.9 were recorded by seismologists.
Geologists are closely monitoring the rise of the Yellowstone Plateau. The upward movement of the Yellowstone caldera floor between 2004 and 2008 was almost 3 inches (about 7 cm) each year, according to a University of Utah scientists report in the journal Science in November 2008. That was more than three times greater than ever observed since such measurements began in 1923.
“Our best evidence is that the crustal magma chamber is filling with molten rock,” said seismologist Robert B. Smith, lead author of the study and professor of geophysics at the University of Utah.”
http://rt.com/news/yellowstone-national-park-earthquake-225/
You may want to be careful what you wish for, JAP – because you might get it…
“Writing off a report you haven’t read is not a good example of scientific thinking.”
On the other hand, I don’t have to read Mein Kampf to know that it is a pernicious and wicked document.
“Climate models have improved since the AR4.”
At what? Not at prediction. Not at simulation of important phenomena such as ENSO. These people are shameless.
I had forgotten “Earth hour,” too, until Anthony mentioned it. I thought about turning on all the lights in the evening, as I had last year, but then got busy with something else and forgot all about it. As you say, there was no jabber in the media to remind me, either.
But if no ordinary folk are paying attention to the Climatists, the political class certainly are, and not just those in the Federal government. In our town there’s a motion before Town Meeting to divest from “fossil fuel companies.” All but one of the candidates for Selectman (i.e. the liberals in this left-wing region) are falling all over themselves to support the idea, in order to show how “green” they are and how opposed to “climate change.”
The hysterical reports in the press by the likes of the AP’s Seth Borenstein will only serve to validate the Climatist ideology and reinforce the desire of the faithful to pay obeisance to the Litany by proclaiming their devotion to politically correct, “Sustainable” policies, and fighting the nasty evil “carbon polluters.” In a state like ours (Massachusetts) these people control the political process, and all levels of town and state government, not to mention who goes to Washington, and they don’t read WUWT.
/Mr Lynn
drumphil says:March 31, 2014 at 6:10 am
Admin Said:
[criticism is easy, anyone can do it. How many did you read in the same amount of time, anonymous person? – mod]
He isn’t telling everyone what he thinks about the new report without having read it properly. If he was, then you might have a point, but as it is, his point still stands.
Writing off a report you haven’t read is not a good example of scientific thinking.
Except when it is the same drivel presented for a couple of decades with ever increasing confidence diametrically opposed to observations.
magma
there is a divergence between the evidence meetings where the caveats are mentioned and the final report for public consumption. If u been following the evidence reports then u know whats in the report. Also the chairman said in 2009 before the staff were appointed what was going to be in the report in 2014.So it was known back in 2009 it would be a show trial.
frankly sustainability and social ecology is not about any kind of climate evidence. its about social ecology and creating ‘a new man’ and new ecology based on eco centrism.
bbc have some some reactions to the report.these were the people they asked to give reaction.
Prof Corinne Le Quere, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Connie Hedegaard, EU Commissioner for Climate Action
John Kerry, US Secretary of State
Prof Nicholas Stern, chair of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy
Prof Sir Andy Haines, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Dr Rachel Warren, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia
Ed Davey, Energy and Climate Change Secretary
Sir Mark Walport, the Government’s chief scientific adviser
Caroline Flint, Labour’s Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary
Al Gore, 45th US Vice-President
Prof Sam Fankhauser, contributing author to the UN’s climate report (AR5) and co-director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment
Andy Atkins, Friends of the Earth executive director
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26814737
Think there is something missing?
Yes you’ve guessed -there is an unequal gender balance 🙂
If the current period is indeed warmer then anything of the last 1400 years as suggested per above then how come we can’t farm yet in Greenland which was well within that time frame?
Or did the Vikings have fossil fuel driven, CO2 belching, regional warmers with them. (In that case what did they do in England to get grapes to grow).
A bit further back to the RWP and Hannibal would still be stranded in what is now France as the glaciers would be blocking his path, I know that is further back so anything goes, it is fine if the temp was higher then, we only go back 1400 years (in this essay).
Perhaps someone can let me know which species became extinct during the MWP due to this warming, if it is going to happen now surely it must have happened then, that period lasted about 400 years not the 30 odd we are talking about so far.
There must have been some irreversible something that happened then.
From all I can gather the weather during both the RWP and the MWP was a lot less extreme leading to bigger crop yields, population explosion and one of the reasons for some of the great migrations taking place during these periods, in what one can now only describe as near shore vessels, and being successful.
In terms of the climate, if the past gives us a view of the future it looks pretty good.
One thing seems pretty certain though, the “warmers” will get their wish. In 150 years or so no one will be using fossil fuels any longer.
Sad that we need scare stories like these types of “scientific” reports, put together according to the time table of a model railway line, to justify funding the development of viable alternative energy sources.
Just for the record, Drudge has been headlining an AP story as…
Ladies hemlines have gone up substantially over the periods observed ( thank you very much ladies ) to the point where some skirts look more like a belt. I would, therefore, hypothicate that the true causal variable at work here in pushing temperatures up ( well, mine, at any rate ) is the length of women’s skirts. This would be a good data set for someone to statistically sledgehammer upon for a while. Graphs, running averages, smoothed, masticated, and regurgitated with confidence intervals, sigmas, R squared’s. Willis?
twojay54 says:
March 31, 2014 at 1:35 am
How much ocean warming would be needed to create the Keeling curve?
1°C gives about 17 ppmv extra in equilibrium between seawater and the atmosphere, but as vegetation in general acts opposite for CO2 with increasing temperature, the overall result is between 5 ppmv/°C (seasons to interannual) to 8 ppmv/°C (over the past 800,000 years). Thus the 80 ppmv over the past 55 years needed at least 10°C increase of the global ocean’s temperature if they were the cause of the increase… Seems that humans had somewhat more contribution to the increase…
Jimbo says:
March 31, 2014 at 5:57 am
The IPCC needs to urgently get in touch with the authors of the following paper to correct their graphic which shows co2 at ~425 ppm around 12,750 years ago.
Unfortunately stomata data are not that reliable: they are taken from leaves which grow by definition on land. As CO2 levels over land are positively biased compared to “background” CO2 levels, they are calibrated against direct measurements, firn and ice cores over the past century. But there is no knowledge how much the local/regional bias changed over previous centuries by land (use) changes over previous centuries, including rising/dropping seas, marsh forming, drying out, temperature, vegetation changes,… in the main wind direction. Even the main wind direction may have changed in certain periods.
Stomata data have the advantage of showing a higher resolution than ice core data. Ice core CO2 data are averaged over one decade (for the past 150 years) to 560 years (for the past 800 kyear). But an average isn’t changed by the averaging. If the stomata data show a different average over the same period of time, then the stomata data are certainly wrong. Which is the case for the ~425 ppmv around 12,750 years ago…
No doubt the IPCC is wrong in their projections. But, hypothetically, if they were right, and all that they project comes to pass, Mankind and Life Itself will benefit from a warmer planet.
But but but the seas will rise an astounding 2 mm per year! Well, that’s better than the alternative, which is that sea levels fall because of neo-glaciation and the return of continental ice sheets.
But but but it might rain more! Yes, well, that would be a good thing.
Etc. etc. Every dire prediction seems to be chock full of beneficial outcomes.
Warmer Is Better.
If burning fossil fuels fails to warm the planet, then we need to devise some other way to achieve that. For 99% of the last 250,000,000 years the Earth has been warmer than now. We don’t want it any colder than it is today, please.
Here is the reaction of some eminent, world renown CAGW scientists to the IPCC’s latest report:
“What The IPCC means is Old Testament, real wrath of God type stuff”. – Dr Ray Stantz
“Exactly” – Dr. Peter Venkman
“Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!” – Dr Ray Stantz
“Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes” – Dr. Egon Spengler
“The dead rising from the grave!” Winston Zeddemore
“Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!” – Dr. Peter Venkman
This stuff sounds so much like what I have read w/r/t the population bomb movement of the 60s and 70s – which has never really gone away. It’s just morphed into the global/cooling/global warming/climate/change movement – strip off the outer layer of the onion (and keep stripping off the layers and you’ll find the value – nothing) and there is no real difference. Just political activism disguised as real science, with the same misanthropic ideals behind all of these “scientific” movements. And for those that are waiting with glee for everything to be exposed – I’m afraid you’ll be very disappointed. Has Ehrlich ever been called to account for his idiocy? Nope. The politicians/media/entertainers/etc will cover for them all. If the earth starts slightly warming again, they will claim they were right all along. If the earth starts cooling a bit, they will claim that they were the ones responsible for it! And before you say – “but all the real scientific evidence will refute that ridiculous assertion” – well, so what?. Hasn’t stopped them before, has it?
Great site., I am learning quite a bit, thanks all.
Hope I am not violating any rules for posting some youtube embeds/links…
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onkbubwAqRQ?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360%5D
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWyCCJ6B2WE?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360%5D
Here’s how it played out on the RTE (Irish) evening news, complete with Polar Bear balanced on an ice cube. http://www.rte.ie/player/gb/show/10268488/
If anyone is interested in watching this, the bulletin leads off with the IPCC report, then you might want to skip forward to 24.00 where it returns to it again.
Very frustrating , but I’m sure this is typical of the nonsense that has been broadcast all over the world today. Problem is, even if the whole IPCC report was retracted with apologies and confessions to the lies, it would go unreported by the MSM who are either gullible, corrupt or deluded. Maybe even all three.
The reporter in the bulletin is a guy called George Lee. He is a failed economist, failed politician and now it looks like his career into the politics of Climate Change will come up to his usual standard.
They often have issues discussed on the evening news here, but usually they have balanced views with both sides represented. So I will ask why the Sceptics’ side of things were not represented in this bulletin, or if they intend to have the alternative view aired unchallenged in a subsequent broadcast this week. If I get a reply, I’ll post it here.
This has been up for a while, has nobody noticed that these are quotes from the WGI SPM and not the WGII SPM?
Hemlines, I remember ‘when’ we wore short hemlines, and had to be careful how we bent over. Yes you squatted and didn’t bend over. Those were the days my friend, and how we ridiculed heavy gals who insisted on showing off their large legs. High stilletto heels, and how I sprained and tore an ankle ligament while attempting a Scottish dance in them. How they were banned in some homes and buildings as they left dents in the flooring. Made a good weapon though in extreme circumstances. Anyone that didn’t turn up with stockings and makeup was sent home at my place a private employment service. Oh they were the days. Although a feminist liberal, I never threw my bra away, I was too big to not wear one. LOL I was continually sexually harassed, and one learned how to handle these idiots. I only hit two from what I remember in response, a man and would you believe a woman! She grabbed my boobs and I pushed her away, and she fell off her bar stool. I didn’t call the cops though. I went on ‘Reclaim the night’ protests, years ago. But that hasn’t helped women walking alone at night. Human nature doesn’t change. Oh I learned self defense, by an RAF officer who said, ‘Whatever you do don’t throw a guy with a judo throw. He’ll get up punching…” Oh those were the days gals, and guys. In someways I am more worried about my bag being snatched than being raped.
I’m sure the IPCC is correct and I am getting very depressed. These comments are adding to my frustration of getting my 4X4 dually farm truck stuck in my driveway in a white drift of frozen Climate Change; then feeding my horses knee deep in (not BS). So to make myself feel better, I am going to the mountains tomorrow to ski in a smattering of fresh Climate Change that I was told was going to be “a thing of the past”. (83 cm in the last week in Fernie) Whose past? After reading the whole of the last IPCC report, I think I will go skiing instead.
http://www.skifernie.com
Huffington Post, ruefully, sees some handwriting on the wall…
It’s a wild ride and we’re sitting ducks on the dotted line getting ready for the big sleep in this brave new world where we warm the bench just hoping for our boat to come in while we’re flying high on the gravy train.
[mixed metaphor alert]
Reblogged this on The GOLDEN RULE and commented:
Time to air my concerns over this IPCC “Headline Statements from the Summary for Policy Makers. Nearly every point categorized as “likely”, virtually certain”, “extremely likely” or whatever “statistical” probability they ignore, can be seriously challenged as unscientific and probably incorrect.
For example : “Global mean sea level will continue to rise during the 21st century. Under all RCP scenarios, the rate of sea level rise will very likely exceed that observed during 1971 to 2010 due to increased ocean warming and increased loss of mass from glaciers and ice sheets.” I suggest reading the following relevant and scientific article published by “Chiefio” and reblogged here.
Then there is “Climate change will affect carbon cycle processes in a way that will exacerbate the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere (high confidence). Further uptake of carbon by the ocean will increase ocean acidification.” This is clearly absurd because even if CO2 reduced the salinity of the ocean it certainly cannot increase acidity that doesn’t exist. Reference:
Technically, this report, if truly represented here, is basically a load of readily challenged, meaningless garbage.
@ Jim G says: March 31, 2014 at 10:45 am
Ladies hemlines have gone up substantially over the periods observed
That has already been studied … http://geology.campus.ad.csulb.edu/people/bperry/Geol303photos/global%20warming/ProofOfGlobalWarming.jpg … but without the statistical analysis.
That’s one idiot grin that I’m really getting tired of seeing.
Plot idea: 97% of the world’s scientists contrive an environmental crisis, but are exposed by a plucky band of billionaires & oil companies.
These are the backgrounds of the first 5 contributors from the US to the recent IPCC report. Impressive credentials don’t you think (go on, tie yourself into knots on this)
Christopher Field:
Director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology and Professor by Courtesy in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University. Trained as an ecologist, Chris has conducted environmental research from tropical rainforests to deserts to alpine tundra. He is a specialist in global-change research. An author or more than 100 scientific papers, Chris is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and a leader in several national and international efforts to provide the scientific foundation for a sustainable future. He is active in developing the international community of global change researchers, with involvement in organizations like SCOPE, IGBP, and the Global Carbon Project.
Michael D. Mastrandrea
an Assistant Consulting Professor at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.
Katharine Mach
Scientist, Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford University
See publications at http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HJxEu3cAAAAJ&hl=en
Doug Arent:
Executive Director of the Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory . He is also a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Virginia Burkett:
Virginia Burkett serves as Chief Scientist for Climate and Land Use Change at the U.S. Geological Survey. She was formerly Chief of the Forest Ecology Branch at the USGS National Wetlands Re- search Center in Lafayette, Louisiana. Burkett has also served as Secretary/Director of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, Director of the Louisiana Coastal Zone Management Program, and Assistant Director of the Louisiana Geological Survey. Burkett has published extensively on the topics of global change and low lying coastal zones
Since all of the “certainty” levels are reached by polling their in-house experts (as opposed to using, like accepted validation tests), I anticipate Loondumsky will succeed Choo-Choo as chief spokesperson and President shortly. (His grey literature and Himalayan melt-down initiatives seem to have come a cropper).