Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org) The Science and Environmental Policy Project
THIS WEEK: By Ken Haapala, President
Major Climate Model Issues — Curry: In her paper: Climate Models for the layman” presented last week, Judith Curry discusses major issues with Global Climate Models (GMCs) and why the predictions / projections from them are not reliable. Some of these issues have been discussed by others, such as David Evans on Jo Nova’s blog, but the key points deserve repeating. In general, these issues occur in models used by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its followers such as the US Global Change Research Program, EPA, etc. The weaknesses in the procedures used are generally buried in details by the IPCC and largely ignored or dismissed by its followers. These weaknesses should be the center of discussion, if the models are being considered for government policy.
In her discussion “What is a global climate model?” Curry states: “While some of the equations in climate models are based on the laws of physics such as Newton’s laws of motion and the first law of thermodynamics, there are key processes in the model that are approximated and not based on physical laws.” [Boldface added.] In its finding that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare, the EPA emphasizes that models are based on physical laws and ignores that the models are also based on approximations – educated guesses.
Curry further explains:
“Because of the relatively coarse spatial and temporal resolutions of the models, there are many important processes that occur on scales that are smaller than the model resolution (such as clouds and rainfall; see inset in Figure 1). These subgrid-scale processes are represented using ‘parameterisations’, which are simple formulas that attempt to approximate the actual processes, based on observations or derivations from more de-tailed process models. These parameterisations are ‘calibrated’ or ‘tuned’ to improve the comparison of the climate model outputs against historical observations. [Boldface added.]
“The actual equations used in the GCM computer codes are only approximations of the physical processes that occur in the climate system. While some of these approximations are highly accurate, others are unavoidably crude. This is because the real processes they represent are either poorly understood or too complex to include n the model given the constraints of the computer system. Of the processes that are most important for climate change, parameterisations related to clouds and precipitation remain the most challenging, and are responsible for the biggest differences between the outputs of different GCMs [Boldface added.]
“GCMs are used for the following purposes:
• Understanding how the climate system works: sensitivity experiments are used to turn off, constrain or enhance certain physical processes or external forcings (for example, carbon dioxide, volcanoes, solar output) to see how the system responds
• Reproducing past climate states: understanding the causes of past climate variability and change (for example, how much of the change can be attributed to human causes, such as carbon dioxide, versus natural causes such as solar variations, volcanic eruptions, and slow circulations in the ocean).
• Global climate change: simulation of future climate states, from decades to centuries, for example simulations of future climate states under different emissions scenarios.
• Attributing extreme weather: prediction and attribution of the statistics of extreme weather events (for example, heat waves, droughts, hurricanes).
• Regional climate change: projections of future regional climate variations to support decision-making-related adaptation to climate change.
• Guidance for emissions reduction policies.
• Social cost of carbon: the output from GCMs provides the raw data used to calculate the social cost of carbon. [The boldface was italics in the original.]
The specific objectives of a GCM vary with purpose of the simulation. Generally, when simulating the past climate using a GCM, the objective is to correctly simulate the spatial variation of climate conditions in some average sense. When predicting future climate, the aim is not to simulate conditions in the climate system on any particular day, but to simulate conditions over a longer period – typically decades or more – in such a way that the statistics of the simulated climate will match the statistics of the actual future climate.
There are literally thousands of different choices made in the construction of a climate model (for example, resolution, complexity of the submodels, or the parameterisations). Each different set of choices produces a different model having different sensitivities. Further, different modelling groups have different focal interests, for ex- ample long paleoclimate simulations, details of ocean circulations, nuances of the inter actions between aerosol particles and clouds, or the carbon cycle. These different interests focus their limited computational resources on a particular aspect of simulating the climate system, at the expense of others.
Is it possible to select a ‘best’ model? Well, several models generally show a poorer performance overall when compared with observations. However, the best model depends on how you define ‘best’, and no single model is the best at everything.
It is certainly understandable that using models for better understanding how the climate system works and reproducing past climate states is a necessary first step. However: “Capturing the phenomena in hindcasts and previous forecasts is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the model to capture the phenomena in the future.”
The models have been “tuned” or “calibrated” to available 20th century surface data. As shown in the 2008 report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC, p. 9), even the available surface temperature data is very sparse and erratic. The only temperature data available of appropriate density are from satellites, which are largely ignored by the IPCC and its followers. There is no logical reason to assume that the projections / forecasts from global climate models are reliable. Taking an average of forecasts from unreliable models does not produce a reliable forecast.
When the results of these unreliable models, which have not been verified and validated, are applied to government policy, real economic harm occurs. The harm can be seen in carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reduction programs, the contrived “social cost of carbon”, exaggerated sea level rise, etc. Sharply increasing electricity costs in the U.K. and Germany are but one example. Upcoming TWTWs will discuss several other major issues concerning global climate modeling. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy – NIPCC, Challenging the Orthodoxy, and Questioning European Green.
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Quote of the Week. There’s a mighty big difference between good, sound reasons and reasons that sound good. – Burton Hillis (William Vaughn, American columnist)
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Number of the Week: Up 22%; while down 33% and 13%
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Sea Level Rise Forecasts – Compounding Unreliability: The February 25 TWTW linked to efforts in the City of Boston to prepare for sea level rise of up to 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) by 2100. Such an effort would cost billions of dollars. In January, NOAA’s Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS) released a report stating the basis of such claims: 1) it uses unreliable global climate models to speculate on future temperatures; 2) it uses these to project speculative estimates of future sea levels; then, 3) it uses the speculated “collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet” to top-off the speculation. The first two parts come from the IPCC, the third part is added on by CO-OPS.
As discussed in the January 22 TWTW, retired NASA meteorologist Thomas Wysmuller explored the correlation between CO2 and sea level rise and found no measurable linkage between sea level and CO2! “For the past 2,000 years, Sea Level rise was unchangingly linear, increasing between 1 & 1.5 mm/yr.” The maximum rise is about 6 inches per century. This has continued for the past 135 years, even though CO2 concentrations have increased by 38%.
As Wysmuller indicates on his web site, the high-end estimates of the IPCC, etc. exceed the average century sea level rise that occurred over the 7,000 years when the great ice sheets covering much of northern Eurasia and most of North America melted. The great Laurentide Ice Sheet is no more, except in Greenland and small parts of Canada.
In November 2016, Wysmuller gave presentations on the lack of linkage between CO2 and sea level rise at the 5th Annual World Congress of Ocean in Qingdao China and in January at NASA’s Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston (not to be confused with NASA-GISS in New York City on Broadway)
However, the IPCC and CO-OPS use a direct relationship between CO2 emissions and general mean sea level (GMSL), yet to be demonstrated. The CO-OPS report states: “The 0.3 m-2.5 m GMSL range for 2100 is discretized by 0.5-m increments and aligned with emissions-based, conditional probabilistic storylines and global model projections into six GMSL rise scenarios: a Low, Intermediate-Low, Intermediate, Intermediate-High, High and Extreme, which correspond to GMSL rise of 0.3 m, 0.5 m, 1.0 m, 1.5 m, 2.0 m and 2.5 m, respectively.” [Boldface added.]
The “conditional probabilistic storylines” have yet to be empirically demonstrated. Further, the extreme case for CO-OPS is based on the “collapse” of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which may take thousands of years and may be due to geothermal warming from the Antarctic fault-rift system underlying it, unrelated to CO2. Such details are ignored by CO-OPS.
Contrarily, the web site, CO2 Science, reports an August 2016 study by Phil Watson of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of New South Wales, Australia, which highly questions some claims of acceleration in sea level rise in the U.S, while recognizing regional differences in the data. The abstract states:
“The physics-based climate projection models are forecasting that the current global average rate of mean sea-level rise (≈3 mm/y) might climb to rates in the range of 10–20 mm/y by 2100. Most research in this area has centred on reconciling current rates of rise with the significant accelerations required to meet the forecast projections of climate models. The analysis in this paper is based on a recently developed analytical package titled “msltrend,” specifically designed to enhance estimates of trend, real-time velocity and acceleration in the relative mean sea-level signal derived from long annual average ocean-water-level time series. Key findings are that at the 95% confidence level, no consistent or substantial evidence (yet) exists that recent rates of rise are higher or abnormal in the context of the historical records available for the United States, nor does any evidence exist that geocentric rates of rise are above the global average. It is likely that a further 20 years of data will identify whether recent increases east of Galveston and along the east coast are evidence of the onset of climate change induced acceleration.” [Boldface added]
Watson has another study on European trends, for which the full text was available. He found no clear evidence of an acceleration trend in Europe as well. He cited studies claiming the rise and / or land subsidence will result in damage costing tens of billions of Euros by 2080. The various graphs of what may happen make Mr. Mann’s hockey-stick appear modest.
Future flooding from realistic sea level rise and land subsidence are serious issues. But, exaggeration of the problems leads to loss of credibility and scorn for the entities that exaggerate. See links under Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up and Review of Recent Scientific Articles by CO2 Science.
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The Mathematical Minister: Writing in The Telegraph, Rupert Darwall reports on an amazing comment concerning reliable electricity in the U.K. and how to stop price increases: “Greg Clark, the Business and Energy Secretary, is threatening government action whenever the markets are not working for consumers. As the Lords report makes clear, the real problem is government policy not working for consumers.
“In his evidence, Greg Clark claimed not to see conflict between security of supply, having more weather-dependent wind and solar, and cutting energy bills. Instead, he described it as an invitation “to see how we can solve them as simultaneous equations”. [Boldface added.]
“Pseudo-mathematical flannel can’t hide the fact that you can’t simultaneously maximise two variables, let alone three. You can’t maximise the amount of wind and solar while maintaining grid reliability and simultaneously drive electricity prices down. Something has to give – and it’s consumers who are picking up the rising bill for the Government’s Mission Impossible.”
Someday simultaneous equations may successfully describe and forecast the erratic nature of sunshine and wind, but they certainly do not cause the erratic nature. See link under Questioning European Green
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Number of the Week: Up 22%, down 33% and 13%. In the article mentioned above, Darwall reports that: “Between 2008 and 2015, the average electricity bill rose by 22pc [%]. Over the same period, the price of hydrocarbon fuels used by power stations fell sharply – coal down by 33pc and gas by 13pc. The rise in electricity prices is wholly attributable to government policies – and would be even higher if coal and gas prices had not fallen.”
According to the US Energy Information Administration, 2008 to 2015, the average residential price increased 12%.
In 2009, the Democrats controlled the US Senate, yet the Senate did not pass President Obama’s cap-and-trade bill as a means of controlling CO2 emissions. The stated purpose of the bill was to address the dangerous global warming proclaimed in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR-4, 2007). The Senators who stood up to the leadership should be thanked. Otherwise, American may be facing the same increasing electricity costs being faced by the consumers in the U.K., whose Parliament passed the Climate Change Act of 2008. See link under Questioning European Green, Article # 2, and http://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/html/epa_01_02.html
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NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
Solar Forcing Of Modern, Historic Arctic Sea Ice
Only Slightly Less Sea Ice Now Than Little Ice Age
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Mar 2, 2017
Link to paper: Holocene variability in sea ice cover, primary production, and Pacific-Water inflow and climate change in the Chukchi and East Siberian Seas (Arctic Ocean)
By Ruediger Stein, et al., Joural of Quaternary Science, Feb 27, 2017
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jqs.2929/abstract
[SEPP Comment: Based on two sediment cores using biomarker data.]
Link to 2005 paper: Multi-decadal variation of the East Greenland Sea-Ice
Extent: AD 1500-2000
By Lassen and Thejll, Danish Meteorological Institute, 2005
http://www.dmi.dk/fileadmin/Rapporter/SR/sr05-02.pdf
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Overcoming Chaotic Behavior of Climate Models
By S. Fred Singer, SEPP, July 2010
http://www.sepp.org/science_papers/Chaotic_Behavior_July_2011_Final.doc
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, 2013
https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-II/CCR-II-Full.pdf
Summary: http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/ccr2a/pdf/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, 2014
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/ccr2b/pdf/Full-Report.pdf
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-IIb/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, NIPCC, Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/
Download with no charge
https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming
Challenging the Orthodoxy
Climate Models for the Layman
By Judith Curry, GWPF, 2017
http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2017/02/Curry-2017.pdf
Prepared Testimony to House Committee on Science, Space & Technology
By John Christy, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Feb 2, 2016
Click to access HHRG-114-SY-WState-JChristy-20160202.pdf
On the Existence of a “Tropical Hotspot” & The Validity of EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding
By Wallace, Christy, and D’Aleo, Independent Researchers, August 2016
Click to access ef-cpp-sc-2016-data-ths-paper-ex-sum-090516v2.pdf
How Does One Justify One of the Most Expensive Regulations in American History?
By Patrick J. Michaels, CATO, Mar 2, 2016
https://www.cato.org/blog/how-does-one-justify-one-most-expensive-regulations-american-history
Why the Climate-Industrial Complex Needs to Be Publicly Attacked and Delegitimized
By Alan Carlin, Carlin Economics and Science, Mar 2, 2017
http://www.carlineconomics.com/archives/3429
Defending the Orthodoxy
How to Defeat Those Who are Waging War on Science
Here are five meaningful steps you can take [H/t Clyde Spencer]
By Jonathan Foley, Christine Arena, Scientific American, Feb 27, 2017
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/how-to-defeat-those-who-are-waging-war-on-science/
[SEPP Comment: Good to know that the tactics of the opponents include: declaring that “uncertainty in climate science” is a tactic used by the “deniers” rather than real.]
Questioning the Orthodoxy
An imperfect world
By Martin Livermore, The Scientific Alliance, Mar 3, 2017
http://scientific-alliance.org/node/1039
“So, perhaps it is time for a wakeup call to environmental policymakers. No longer should the precautionary principle be invoked to ride roughshod over common sense. Anyone who is in favour of using the scientific method and hard evidence to support their case should be prepared to do a wide-ranging benefit-cost analysis on proposals. In an imperfect world, we should be striving for the best solutions, not those that just meet the agenda of a particular lobby.”
Polar Bear Scare Unmasked: The Saga of a Toppled Global Warming Icon
By Susan Crockford, GWPF TV, Feb 27, 2017
http://www.thegwpf.com/polar-bear-scare-unmasked-the-saga-of-a-toppled-global-warming-icon/
After Paris!
American soft power, the Paris Agreement, and climate finance under Trump
By Timmons Roberts and Caroline Jones, Brookings, Feb 24, 2017 [H/t Timothy Wise]
[SEPP Comment: To be saved from climate refugees, send money.]
Change in US Administrations
A new EPA approach for Pruitt
Climate science must be subjected to fair and open debate
By Tom Harris, Washington Times, Mar 1, 2017
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/1/scott-pruitt-will-take-epa-in-new-direction/
Perry rallies Energy Department on his first day: ‘Change the world’
By Timothy Cama, The Hill, Mar 3, 2017
New Interior secretary rides horse to first day at work
By Timothy Cama, The Hill, Mar 2, 2017
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/321962-new-interior-chief-rides-horse-to-work
Seeking a Common Ground
Brussel declaration on principles for science & policy making
By Judith Curry, Climate Etc. Feb 25, 2017
What’s wrong with ‘alternative facts’?
By Kip Hansen, Climate Etc. Feb 26, 2017
https://judithcurry.com/2017/02/26/whats-wrong-with-alternative-facts/#more-22861
Science, Policy, and Evidence
Most scientists ‘can’t replicate studies by their peers’
By Tom Fellden, BBC, Feb 22, 2017
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39054778
Link to an earlier report: Peer Review: Why skepticism is essential
By Donna Laframboise, GWPF, September, 2016
http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2016/10/PeerReview.pdf
As Polar Bear Numbers Continue To Increase, GWPF Calls For Re-assessment Of Endangered Species Status
By Staff Writers, GWPF, Feb 27, 2017
Review of Recent Scientific Articles by CO2 Science
A New Analysis of Sea Level Rise Along the Coast of the United States
Watson, P.J. 2016. Acceleration in U.S. mean sea level? A new insight using improved tools. Journal of Coastal Research 32: 1247-1261. Mar 2, 2017
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V20/mar/a2.php
Full Text: for U.S. Sea Levels
http://www.jcronline.org/doi/abs/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-16-00086.1?code=cerf-site
Full Text for European Sea Levels
http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.2112/JCOASTRES-D-16-00134.1
Past Warm Periods in China Helped to Sustain Dynastic Wellbeing
Yin, J., Fang, X. and Su, Y. 2016. Correlation between climate and grain harvest fluctuations and the dynastic transitions and prosperity in China over the past two millennia. The Holocene 26: 1914-1923. Mar 1, 2017
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V20/mar/a1.php
[SEPP Comment: Colder periods with declining grain harvests led to dynastic collapse.]
A 2000-Year Temperature History of China’s Animaqin Mountains
Chen, F., Zhang, Y., Shao, X., Li, M.Q. and Yin, Z.-Y. 2016. A 2000-year temperature reconstruction in the Animaqin Mountains of the Tibet Plateau, China. The Holocene 26: 1904-1913. Feb 27, 2017
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V20/feb/a15.php
“In addition, Chen et al. note ‘the results of wavelet analysis showed the occurrence of significant quasi-periodic patterns at a number of occurring periods (2-8 years, 20-30 years, 30-60 years, and 60-130 years,’ as well as ‘some long-term periods (more than 200 years),’ which they say were ‘consistent with those associated with ENSO [El Nino Southern Oscillation], PDO [the Pacific Decadal Oscillation], and solar activity.’”
Model Issues
Climate change computer model vindicated 30 years later by what has actually happened
By Ian Johnston, The Independent, Mar 3, 2017 [H/t Clyde Spencer]
https://www.yahoo.com/news/climate-change-computer-model-vindicated-152000589.html
[SEPP Comment: Partially right part of the time? Model skill or coincidence?]
Measurement Issues — Atmosphere
UAH Global Temperature Update for February, 2017: +0.35 deg. C.
By Roy Spencer, His Blog, Mar 2, 2017
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/03/uah-global-temperature-update-for-february-2017-0-35-deg-c/
Changing Weather
Antarctica hits record high temperature at balmy 63.5°F
By Staff Writers, Reuters, Mar 1, 2017
https://www.yahoo.com/news/antarctica-hits-record-high-temperature-balmy-17-5-133209804.html
[SEPP Comment: The coordinates of the station are: 63°24′S 56°59′W – outside the Antarctic Circle. Iceland is closer to the North Pole, and has a record temperature of 86 degrees. At plus 64 degrees North, Nome and Fairbanks Alaska are closer to the North Pole than the Antarctic location is to the South Pole. Inland, Fairbanks has a record temperature of 99 degrees F (1919); on the coast, Nome has a record temperature of 86 degrees (1977 & 2013).]
Changing Climate
2 Recent Papers Further Confirm That Natural Cycles Are Indisputable, Powerful Climate Drivers
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Mar 1, 2017
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Never Mind The Area, Feel The Thickness
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Feb 28, 2017
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/02/28/never-mind-the-area-feel-the-thickness/
[SEPP Comment: As if you can.]
Acidic Waters
How NOAA and Bad Modeling Invented an “Ocean Acidification” Icon: Part 1 – Sea Butterflies
Guest essay by Jim Steele, WUWT, Mar 1, 2017
How NOAA and Bad Modeling Invented an “Ocean Acidification” Icon: Part 2 – Bad Models
Guest essay by Jim Steele, WUWT, Mar 2, 2017
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States
By William V. Sweet, et al., NOAA Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services (CO-OPS), January 2017
More Fake News From The Guardian
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Mar 2, 2017
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/03/02/more-fake-news-from-the-guardian/
[SEPP Comment: Using the entire record, rather than cutting off the earlier part, results in different conclusions.]
MSN augments “Fake News” with photoshopped penguin photos
Guest post by Jim Steele, WUWT, Mar 1, 2017
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/03/01/msn-augments-fake-news-with-photoshopped-penguin-photos/
Questioning European Green
Rupert Darwall: It’s families who are footing bill for deluded energy policies
By Rupert Darwall, Telegraph, UK, Via GWPF, Mar 1, 2017
Germany’s “Silent Catastrophe” …330,000 Households See Power Turned Off In One Year!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Mar 3, 2017
German Electricity Price Projected To Quadruple By 2020, To Over 40 Cents Per Kilowatt-Hour!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Feb 28, 2017
Germany Facing Mass Blackouts Because The Wind And Sun Won’t Cooperate
By Andrew Follett, Daily Caller, Feb 28, 2017
Putin’s Russia Seen Dominating European Gas for Two Decades
By Elena Mazneva and Anna Shiryaevskaya, Bloomberg, Mar 1, 2017
“Gazprom PJSC, Russia’s state-run export monopoly, shipped a record amount of gas to the European Union last year and accounts for about 34 percent of the trading bloc’s use of the fuel.”
Questioning Green Elsewhere
Biofuel Madness: Another Disastrous Impact of Global Warming Deception
Guest opinion: Dr. Tim Ball, WUWT, Feb 28, 2017
The Political Games Continue
The phony ‘social cost of carbon’
The war on fossil fuels ignores carbon’s benefits
By Paul Driessen and Roger Bezdek, The Washington Times, Feb 28, 2017
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/28/war-on-fossil-fuels-depends-on-social-cost-of-carb/
Science Committee Spotlights Major Flaws in Calculating ‘Social Cost’ of Carbon Dioxide
By Marlo Lewis, CEI, Mar 1, 2017 [Cooler Heads]
https://cei.org/blog/science-committee-spotlights-major-flaws-calculating-social-cost-carbon-dioxide
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Pure idiocy! How spending billions on subsidising an efficient coal-burning power station to burn wood is actually WORSE for the planet than before
By Christopher Booker, Daily Mail, Feb 24, 2017
EPA and other Regulators on the March
EPA chief calls for ‘aggressive’ rollback of regulations at CPAC
B Max Greenwood, The Hill, Feb 24, 2017
“Managed liberty?”
Trump takes hatchet to EPA
By Devin Henry, The Hill, Mar 1, 2017
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/321684-trump-takes-hatchet-to-epa
Proposed EPA Budget Cuts Raise Serious Concerns
By William Yeatman, CEI – Open Market, Mar 3, 2017
https://cei.org/blog/proposed-epa-budget-cuts-raise-serious-concerns
[SEPP Comment: Sharp budget cuts face legal and political challenges.]
EPA pulls back methane request for drillers
By Devin Henry, The Hill, Mar 2, 2017
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/322090-epa-pulls-back-methane-request-for-drillers
Energy Issues — US
Annual Factbook Finds Natural Gas Has Helped Drive Energy Costs to Record Lows [in the US]
By Lily Emamian, Energy in Depth, Feb 9, 2016 [H/t GWPF]
White House: Keystone XL exempt from ‘Buy American’ push
By Devin Henry, The Hill, Mar 3, 2016
“Keystone developer TransCanada already owns the pipe it intends to use for the project.”
Editorial: Is pumped storage next big energy story?
Editorial, Fredericksburg Lance Star, VA, Mar 1, 2017 [H/t Timothy Wise]
[SEPP Comment: Through an old mining tunnel? If successful, many utilities in the Mid-West would be envious.]
Washington’s Control of Energy
With Shale Oil Production Like This, Who Needs Trump?
By Julian Lee, Bloomberg, Feb 26, 2017
[SEPP Comment: The author fails to mention the regulatory constraints the Obama administration used against shale oil and gas. Blocking pipelines is an example. Fortunately, what became the most important shale formations were not under direct federal control.]
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
Fracking Becomes the Centerpiece
By William Balgord, Master Resource, Mar 1, 2017
https://www.masterresource.org/fracking-benefits/fracking-centerpiece/
Oil Spills, Gas Leaks, Earthquakes & Consequences
Oklahoma’s earthquake threat now equals California’s because of man-made temblors, USGS says
By Rong-Gong Lin II, LA Times, Mar 1, 2016 [H/t Bill Balgord]
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-oklahome-earthquake-20170301-story.html
Link to forecast: 2017 One‐Year Seismic‐Hazard Forecast for the Central and Eastern United States from Induced and Natural Earthquakes
By Mark Petersen, et al., Seismological Research Letters, Mar 1, 2017
http://srl.geoscienceworld.org/content/early/2017/02/24/0220170005
[SEPP Comment: Absurd headline. On the Richter Scale magnitude 5 is 1000 times as strong as a magnitude 3.]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
DOE: Breaking the Federal Arm of the Wind Industry (Part IV)
By Lisa Linowes, Master Resource, Feb 23, 2017
https://www.masterresource.org/department-of-energymoniz/doe-breaking-federal-wind-iv/
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
The CHP Shibboleth
By Donn Dears, Power For USA, Mar 3, 2017
https://dddusmma.wordpress.com/2017/03/03/the-chp-shibboleth/
The Hydrogen Economy – More Green Mythology
By Euan Mearns, Energy Matters, Feb 27, 2017
http://euanmearns.com/the-hydrogen-economy-more-green-mythology/
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
How Europe deliberately made air pollution worse
By Matt Ridley, Rational Optimist, Feb 26, 2017
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/the-diesel-scandal/
California Dreaming
California Snowpack 185% of normal, another big snow on the way
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Mar 3, 2017
Environmental Industry
The three ironies of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests
Guest post by David Middleton, WUWT, Mar 3, 2017
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/03/03/the-three-ironies-of-the-dakota-access-pipeline-protests/
Global hydropower boom will add to climate change
Reservoirs emit significant greenhouse gases planet-wide, study finds; researchers urge that new hydropower projects not be christened with green energy label
By Claire Salisbury, Asia Times, Feb 21, 2017 [H/t GWPF]
http://www.atimes.com/article/global-hydropower-boom-will-add-climate-change/
[SEPP Comment: According to greens, better to be without electricity than use non-green electricity – a luxury the green wealthy assert but not live by.]
Other Scientific News
First solar images from NOAA’s GOES-16 satellite
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Mar 1, 2017
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/03/01/first-solar-images-from-noaas-goes-16-satellite/
[SEPP Comment: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center should not be confused with NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA-GISS), which uses surface temperature data.]
Other News that May Be of Interest
Roger W Cohen, 1939-2016 RIP
By Martin P. Fricke, Laurence I. Gould and William Happer, GWPF, Feb 27, 2017
http://www.thegwpf.com/roger-w-cohen-1939-2016/
[SEPP Comment: Cohen led the Exxon research effort on CO2 caused global warming, and become a global warming “skeptic.” This change is seldom mentioned by those who demonize Exxon.]
In an ironic twist, a 1991 Shell ad contains a warning about climate change
By Maria Gallucci, Mashable, Feb 28, 2017
https://www.yahoo.com/news/ironic-twist-1991-shell-ad-215722348.html
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BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE:
Maryland Environmental Group In The Dark About Radiofrequencies And WiFi
By Josh Bloom, ACSH, Feb 28, 2017
[SEPP Comment: To protect children from electromagnetic radiation, keep the kids in the dark?]
Scared witless!
By Staff Writers, Climate Change Predictions.org, Feb 26, 2017
http://climatechangepredictions.org/uncategorized/7860
The next United Nations climate report will “scare the wits out of everyone” and should provide the impetus needed for the world to finally sign an agreement to tackle global warming, the former head of the UN negotiations said.
Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief during the 2009 Copenhagen climate change talks, said his conversations with scientists working on the next report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggested the findings would be shocking.
“That report is going to scare the wits out of everyone,” Mr de Boer said in the only scheduled interview of his visit to Australia. “I’m confident those scientific findings will create new political momentum.” Sydney Morning Herald, 7 Nov 2012
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ARTICLES:
1. Draining the Regulatory Swamp
The Congressional Review Act is even better than we thought.
Editorial, WSJ, Feb 28, 2017
https://www.wsj.com/articles/draining-the-regulatory-swamp-1488328398
SUMMARY: After mentioning that some have criticized the current Congress as “do nothing”, the editorial states: “the House has already voted to repeal 13 Obama-era regulations, and President Trump signed his third on Tuesday. Now the GOP should accelerate by fully utilizing the 1996 Congressional Review Act.
“Republicans chose the damaging 13 rules based on a conventional reading of the CRA, which allows Congress to override regulations published within 60 legislative days, with simple (50-vote) majorities in both chambers. Yet the more scholars examine the law, which had only been used successfully once before this year, the clearer it is that the CRA gives Congress far more regulatory oversight than previously supposed.
“Spearheading this review is the Pacific Legal Foundation’s Todd Gaziano—who helped write the 1996 act—and the Heritage Foundation’s Paul Larkin. Their legal findings, and a growing list of rules that might be subject to CRA, are on www.redtaperollback.com.
“The pair argue, first, that the CRA defines “rule” broadly. The law relies on the definition in the Administrative Procedure Act, which includes any “agency statement” that is “designed to implement, interpret, or prescribe law or policy.” This includes major and minor rules as well as “guidance”—letters that spell out an agency’s interpretation of a law.
“This matters because President Obama’s regulators often ducked the notice and comment of formal rule-making by issuing “guidance” to act as de facto regulation. Examples include the guidance requiring transgender bathrooms in public schools, which the Trump Administration recently withdrew, or the 2011 guidance dictating how universities must handle sexual assault. The latter is ripe for CRA repeal.
“The second discovery is the law’s definition of when the clock starts on Congress’s time to review rules. The CRA’s opening lines require any agency promulgating a rule to present a “report” containing the rule’s text and definition. The CRA explains that Congress’s review period begins either on the date the rule is published in the Federal Register, or the date Congress receives the report—whichever comes later.
“Thus any rule for which any Administration (going back to 1996) failed to submit a report is fair game for CRA review and repeal. The Trump Administration can begin the clock merely by submitting a report to Congress.
“Our own search suggests past Administrations were fairly diligent about presenting reports for major rules. But a 2014 study by the Administrative Conference of the United States found at least 43 ‘major’ or ‘significant’ rules that had never been reported to Congress.
“The study estimated a further 1,000 smaller rules a year that agencies had failed to report. The study focused only on formal rules—not “guidance” that also requires a report to Congress under the CRA. Redtaperollback.com is offering tools so citizens can examine whether past rules have reports.
“A third discovery could be the most important. The opening words of the CRA read: ‘Before a rule can take effect’ the federal agency in question must submit a Congressional report. No one has tested the legal limits of this provision, but a fair reading suggests the Trump Administration could declare any rule for which a report has not been submitted to be null and void.
“The White House would be wise to start by simply directing federal agencies to catalog which rules have reports—and then devise a strategy with Congress. Some rules might deserve to stay on the books. Some bad rules might get reported to Congress for repeal under the CRA. Others could be declared null and void—which saves the trouble of formally reversing them. This last approach might appeal to Congressional Republicans who are fretting that a CRA crush is diverting them from health-care and tax reform.
“Democrats will howl in response to an aggressive use of the CRA, but the law was designed to impose penalties on agencies that failed to keep Congress informed. As Mr. Gaziano says, ‘the entire point of the CRA was to restore some minimal level of constitutional accountability over agencies that take a broadly worded statute as license to run wild.’
“The CRA is the most immediate tool Republicans have to reimpose democratic accountability on a lawless bureaucracy, and they should use it to the fullest.”
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2. The Carbon Tax Chimera
The Shultz-Baker proposal sounds better than it would work.
Editorial, WSJ, Feb 24, 2017
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-carbon-tax-chimera-1487979109
SUMMARY: The editorial begins: “The climate may change but one thing that never does is the use of climate change as a political wedge against Republicans. Also never changing is the call from some Republicans to neutralize the issue by handing more economic power to the federal government through a tax on carbon. The risk is that Donald Trump takes up the idea, which would hurt the economy with little benefit to the environment.
“George Shultz and James Baker, the esteemed former secretaries of State, have joined a group of GOP worthies for a carbon tax and recently pressed the case in these pages. They propose a gradually increasing tax that would be redistributed to Americans as a “dividend.” This tax on fossil fuels would replace the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan and a crush of other punitive regulations. Energy imports from countries without a similar structure would face a tax at the border.
“A carbon tax would be better than bankrupting industries by regulation and more efficient than a “cap-and-trade” emissions credit scheme. Such a tax might be worth considering if traded for radically lower taxes on capital or income, or is narrowly targeted like a gasoline tax. But in the real world the Shultz-Baker tax is likely to be one more levy on the private economy. Even if a grand tax swap were politically possible, a future Congress might jack up rates or find ways to reinstate regulations.
“Another problem is the “dividend.” A carbon tax would be regressive, as the poor spend more of their income on gasoline and household energy. The plan purports to solve this in part by promising to return the tax to the American public. But the purpose of taxes is to fund government services, not shuffle money from one payer to another. No doubt politicians would take a cut to funnel into renewable energy or some other vote-buying program.
“The rebates would also become a new de facto entitlement with an uncertain funding future. A family of four would receive a $2,000 payout in the first year from a carbon tax, according to a report from the Climate Leadership Council, and that “amount would grow over time as the carbon tax rate increases.” But the point of taxing carbon is to emit less of it, and eventually revenues would decline as the tax rate rises. The public would then receive minimal or no help paying for energy the government made more expensive, and the progressives will try to make up the difference by raising other taxes.”
The editorial then discusses other alternatives, all of which raise the costs of energy to the consumer.
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3. Trump’s Clean Watershed
He orders the EPA to review Obama’s illegal waterways regulation.
Editorial, WSJ, Feb 28, 2017
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-clean-watershed-1488328077
SUMMARY: The editorial states: “Speaking of deregulation (see nearby) [Article # 1], President Trump on Tuesday ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider an Obama Administration rule that seized control over tens of millions of acres of private land under the pretext of protecting the nation’s waterways. EPA chief Scott Pruitt will now follow due process to rescind one of his predecessor’s lawless rule-makings.
In 2015 the Obama EPA reinterpreted the Clean Water Act with a rule extending its extraterritorial claims to any creek, muddy farm field, ditch or prairie pothole located within a “significant nexus” of a navigable waterway. EPA defined significance broadly to include any land within the 100-year floodplain and 4,000 feet of land already under its jurisdiction, among other arbitrary delimitations.
Mr. Trump summed it up well, if not eloquently, when he said “it’s a horrible, horrible rule” and “massive power grab” that has “sort of a nice name, but everything else is bad.”
The rule would force farmers, contractors and manufacturers to obtain federal permits to put their property to productive use. After recent flooding in California, millions of more acres could come under EPA’s jurisdiction. Green groups could use the rule to block pipelines, housing projects or any development they don’t like. Farmers might be prohibited from using fertilizers that could flow downstream.
The Clean Water Act applies only to navigable waterways, but the EPA seized on the opening created by Justice Anthony Kennedy in the unfortunate 2006 Supreme Court case Rapanos v. U.S. that split 4-1-4. His controlling opinion invented the “significant nexus” standard that is a classic in judicial ambiguity and which the EPA used to expand government control over private property development.
The editorial then discusses the many lawsuits filed by states and other affected parties against the EPA and concludes: “EPA even acknowledged that the ‘science available today’ doesn’t support the regulation. Mr. Pruitt will be doing a national public service if he advises the Justice Department to withdraw the rule as an abuse of administrative power.”
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In engineering nearly everything is an approximation. Engineering students are taught about significant digits very early in their education. Numbers in designs and specifications are stated with tolerances. Furthermore, every equation is an approximation of reality. Properly understood approximations are a good thing. Anyway, they are unavoidable.
On the other hand, without talking about approximations I am at a loss to know how to communicate what Dr. Curry is trying to say. 🙂
If the models were a driving test you would be on the wrong side of the road and have a head on collision.
Exactly so. That’s a great example.
You normally drive with a tolerance of +/- one foot and stay in your lane. If your tolerance slips to +/- fifteen feet, you will be in the ditch or in the path of oncoming traffic.
As an example of improved tolerances, and for amusement, here’s a video of Jean Claude Van Damme doing the splits between semi-trailer trucks moving backwards.
re: (2) The Carbon Tax Chimera
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Thought-provoking plan from highly respected conservatives to both strengthen the economy & confront climate risks: https://t.co/U6kmrQTPth
— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) Feb. 8, 2017
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Late last year, just after Trump won the election, he invited Mitt “Never Trump” Romney out for a meal of frogs legs (in vol-au-vents). Drew Angerer of Getty Images was there to take a fantastic photo, in case anyone missed it:
Best press photo of 2016, in my opinion. 🙂
Every illiterate man and a farmer knows that the environment and the environment can contaminate the human factor, but it’s all temporary and local character.
Global warming planet and the climate change it cycles that have not yet been deciphered, neither by time nor by causes of change and development.
WHY IS IT SO ?
Because the science in this field behaves like old Jews when they fled from slavery in Egypt. When they entered the impasse, then poured himself a golden calf, their Idol to whom they pray to help them to get rid of the unknown condition.
So today’s science “estuary” their idols as models, which are asked to help them find out what they do not know anything.
At the planets climate is changing under the influence of the mutual relations of the planets and the sun, and the main “culprit” of all these changes is magnetism,
It amazes me that so many scientists “blurred” certain “doctrines” and are not able to understand the laws of nature by which they “designed”, they just about do not want to think.
Quote of the Week. There’s a mighty big difference between good, sound reasons and reasons that sound good. – Burton Hillis (William Vaughn, American columnist)
This is a restatement of Charley the Tuna’s “if I can’t taste good, at least I have good taste.”
Andy and Ken wrote: “As discussed in the January 22 TWTW, retired NASA meteorologist Thomas Wysmuller explored the correlation between CO2 and sea level rise and found no measurable linkage between sea level and CO2! “For the past 2,000 years, Sea Level rise was unchangingly linear, increasing between 1 & 1.5 mm/yr.” The maximum rise is about 6 inches per century. This has continued for the past 135 years, even though CO2 concentrations have increased by 38%.
I suggest that you find a more reliable source of information than this for long-term sea level rise. 1.25 mm/yr * 2000 yr = 2500 mm = 2.5 m (about 8 ft). This hasn’t happened! Standard source (such as the one below) show that millennial sea level rise has been negligible for the past 4 millennia – at most 20% of your rate and possibly zero.
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Sea level rise is NOT a normal state of affairs, but it took a long time to stop after the end of the last ice age. It slowed dramatically about 7 millennia ago and was clearly below the rate of 20th-century sea level rise about 4 millennia ago. The planet has generally been cooling since the Holocene Climate Optimum, but it did start to warm at the end of the LIA. That is when sea level began to rise again.
A 50-year tide gauge record can detect SLR of about 1 cm/decade, but that is averaged over a 50-year period. It is worthless for telling us what happened in the last decade because the signal is too noisy. The geological record can detect SLR of about 1 m/millennium, but can’t tell us anything about what happened over a few centuries, such as the LIA and MWP. If today’s SLR lasted for millennia, it would be abnormal for perhaps the last 7 millennia.