Obama Federal Climate Advisory Committee Reconvenes

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

Do climate scientists require Federal Government funding? The answer surprisingly appears to be no; President Obama’s former Federal Climate Advisory Committee have secured other sources of funding, to enable them to continue work previously funded by the Obama administration.

Climate scientists exiled by Donald Trump to reconvene at Columbia University and continue research

Richard Moss of University of Maryland to reunite peers from disbanded federal advisory panel at New York institution to resume work into global warming

Eric Roston Friday 5 January 2018 14:57 GMT

The Trump administration disbanded a federal advisory committee on climate change last year but the scientists on the panel won’t be deterred. They’re taking their research elsewhere.

Columbia University’s Earth Institute has hired one of the committee’s researchers, Richard Moss of the University of Maryland, who will reconvene most of the former panel members and produce the same report.

The shadow panel, announced on Thursday, is the latest example of how President Donald Trump’s antipathy towards climate change research and policy is pushing scientists into internal exile.

As a visiting scientist, Moss and the panel will produce the report, which is an addendum to the quadrennial National Climate Assessment, released in early November, that focuses on local impacts of the warming world. The effort is expected to receive some financial backing from New York State as well as administrative support from the American Meteorological Society, a professional group based in Boston. The report will be available for public and peer review in June.

New York State wants the committee to “continue its critical work without political interference and provide the guidance needed to adapt to a changing climate,” it said in a statement.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/donald-trump-climate-change-scientists-columbia-university-earth-institute-research-environment-a8143696.html

This isn’t the only time climate scientists fired by a Federal Government have secured their own funding. Our old friend Tim Flannery formed the independently funded Climate Council when Flannery’s funding was withdrawn by the Abbott government.

As former Prime Minister Abbott said at the time;

… “I suspect we might find the particular position you refer to might go with them,” Mr Abbott told 2GB’s Ray Hadley when asked about Professor Flannery.

“It does sound like an unnecessary position given the gentlemen in question gives us the benefit of his views without needing taxpayer funding.” …

Read more: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/victoria-to-suffer-extreme-weather-warn-climate-scientists/news-story/f7c22ce273af651341fa437d5e95ae52

Talk about win / win. Taxpayers save some money, Climate Scientists get to continue their work without fear of Federal Government political interference. Everyone is happy.

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January 6, 2018 3:04 am

Yes but Tim Flimflam is a laughing stock in Australia now. Hopefully the same will happen to Mossy’s flossy’s in the US.

higley7
Reply to  Brent Walker
January 6, 2018 10:43 am

Yes, as their independent “research” continues to be vacuous and indefensible, the people donating the finding will start to question this use of their money.

Hopefully, this also means that they will not get the air time and free publicity through the government that they were getting before. Methinks their megaphone is broken or the batteries are finally petering out.

kaliforniakook
Reply to  higley7
January 6, 2018 11:35 am

Their money buys them propaganda. Further, standards may be even lower(if that’s possible) resulting in conclusions without any pretext of supporting evidence.
Nevertheless, the taxpayer wins, climate “science” loses Federal funds, while absorbing socialist funding that would be spent elsewhere – like trumped-up “dossiers”.

Rhoda R
Reply to  higley7
January 6, 2018 4:27 pm

The people funding them are not, generally, worried about research so much as pushing an agenda.

Rascal
Reply to  higley7
January 6, 2018 10:36 pm

Columbia gets a certain among of federal funding. Don’t be surprised if Trump cuts it by what is estimated to be spent on climate research.

January 6, 2018 3:41 am

Never been much up for schadenfreude but the prospect of dumb people pouring their own money into their own dumb religion is admittedly a satisfying concept. Particularly as their climate heroes gaze out through ice encrusted lab windows over the polar wastes beyond and their latest computer ‘result’ tells them we just screamed through yet another runaway global warming tipping point.

have to wonder as the World pays monotonically declining attention to their hysterical prophecies of Thermageddon doom and the planet obviously cools, will they ever begin to wonder if just maybe they got something wrong?

ozspeaksup
Reply to  cephus0
January 6, 2018 4:50 am

im wondering just WHO??? is funding it

lbeyeler
Reply to  ozspeaksup
January 6, 2018 5:52 am

oz:

“New York State wants the committee to “continue its critical work… ”

if I interpret this correctly, the good taxpayers of New York will be paying.

Sheri
Reply to  ozspeaksup
January 6, 2018 6:36 am

Billionaires determined to push everyone into eternal poverty under the guise of “climate science”. I think Marx had a term for those people.

Reply to  ozspeaksup
January 6, 2018 7:43 am

As a conservative I can understand how BIG GOVERNMENT can easily cut small slices ($10s of millions) from a variety of branches of government and send it in any direction to be stored for future use. The “Solyndra” debacle ($535 million) is a great example of where a lot of these scientists gained funding by insider government trading in order to subvert our economy with huge “BIG GOVERNMENT DONATIONS”. A simple “charity” foundation is another way to subvert the economy. The democrats (alarmists) are very good at tip-toeing around the free market system through BIG GOVERNMENT intervention (under-invention).

wws
Reply to  ozspeaksup
January 6, 2018 9:23 am

the funny thing about this “research” is that it’s just going to be some assistants sitting around an office, drinking coffee and writing political diatribes.

Latitude
Reply to  ozspeaksup
January 6, 2018 9:56 am

“some financial backing from New York State”……

Did California….the epicenter of global warming…..pony up?

Reply to  ozspeaksup
January 6, 2018 11:23 am

According to Governor Cuomo’s announcement, https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-unveils-20th-proposal-2018-state-state-new-yorks-clean-energy-jobs-and-climate:

In June 2017, Governor Cuomo formed the U.S. Climate Alliance with the Governors of California and Washington State to ensure that New York State and other willing partners continue to meet or exceed the targets of the Paris Agreement on climate change. After announcing its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, the federal government took another misguided step by disbanding the Federal Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment, a group of leading scientists and stakeholders tasked with providing recommendations to the federal government on scientific information to support state and local governments, communities, and the private sector in planning for the effects of climate change. In the absence of guidance from the Advisory Committee, decision-makers will have limited ability to know how climate change will impact their organizations and communities, and what they can do to better plan for those impacts.

Therefore, Governor Cuomo, as co-chair of the U.S. Climate Alliance and in collaboration with partners, will reconvene the Advisory Committee to develop recommendations to navigate the challenges of climate change. As a result, the Advisory Committee will continue its critical work without political interference and provide the guidance needed to adapt to a changing climate.

Ron Clutz
Reply to  ozspeaksup
January 6, 2018 11:27 am

Not surprising since both New York State and City of New York are members of “We’re Still In”, referrring to the Paris Accord. Seems those taxpayers can also say: “We Still Have to Pay.”

http://icleiusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/We-are-still-in.jpg

kaliforniakook
Reply to  ozspeaksup
January 6, 2018 11:46 am

Ron (re: We Are Still In) – fine with me if New York and Kali want to fund this stupidity. As long as they don’t expect to be saved by tax loopholes that get around the loss of state income tax exemptions, they can continue to dig those deficits deeper. Anyone stupid enough to buy bonds for those states deserves the losses that will eventually occur. I feel sorry for the state pensioners, but then again, they helped dig that hole, so… hm, I guess my pity is pretty limited.

Reply to  ozspeaksup
January 6, 2018 2:26 pm

comment image
comment image

Barbara
Reply to  ozspeaksup
January 6, 2018 5:53 pm

Arnold Schwarzenegger | Issues

Archive

Re: Wind & solar, sustainable energy.

And other issues:
http://www.schwarzenegger.com/index.php/archive/issues/P30

Anne Ominous
Reply to  cephus0
January 6, 2018 5:07 am

@caphus0:

Well said.

Retreat to “private funding” means I’m not paying for it. And you can bet it will be less overall.

barryjo
Reply to  Anne Ominous
January 6, 2018 7:24 am

However, if the group is organized as a non-profit, contributions would be tax deductible and that money not taxed must be made up by someone else.

Latitude
Reply to  Anne Ominous
January 6, 2018 10:05 am

I’m sure the private funders will demand more “bomb” results….so expect the hype to magnitude

Earthling2
January 6, 2018 3:48 am

France is also calling looking for orphaned climate scientists. Perhaps if we took up a collection here, we could get rid of the ‘Distinguished’ Professor Michael Mann. Hell, i’ll even buy him a plane ticket myself if he promises not to return for at least 7 years.

Eric Simpson
January 6, 2018 3:50 am
Eric Simpson
Reply to  Eric Simpson
January 6, 2018 3:57 am

And here’s the chill map for right now.

Obama’s got to roll back that global warming immediately so the entire US doesn’t freeze up solid:

http://hp2.wright-weather.com/icons/us_chill.gif

Hocus Locus
Reply to  Eric Simpson
January 6, 2018 4:51 am

What a weird color bar. I have a color legend fetish.

COLD-black-brown-red-orange-white-HOT. Despite poor resolution, makes perfect sense in the exciting sense of excitation. A color scheme derived directly from the Anvil of Hephaestus.

COLD-white-grey20%-poiple-blue-green-yeller-arange-red-brown-grey80%-black-HOT. A departure from the Anvil, propping the range by putting a narrow neutral range on either end. Still somewhat compatible with Hell (because in Hell there is light from fire but it is dark in elevators), green-is-good middle just because, Earth (hug!), people shivering in blizzards and soft blue Winter moonlight, and various magic objects in Tolkien’s universe that were bereft of light and color because they only emitted invisible evil neutrons.

The image Frodo saw in the Mirror of Galadriel was colorized for the movie. It was actually a dull blue of Cherenkov radiation.

brians356
Reply to  Eric Simpson
January 6, 2018 9:33 am
January 6, 2018 3:54 am

I this is what we get for our money, it isn’t worth it.

In this post I will address Michael Mann’s assertion that record cold temperatures are the result of man-made CO2 as detailed in a recent Climate Reality Project article, mentioned by Al Gore in his “Tweet.” Before I go any further, without addressing any of his claims, the important take home is that even if Al Gore and Michael Mann are 100% correct in their analysis and conclusion, the solutions they offer will only make matters worse.

If CO2 causes more draught, biofuels like Ethanol are idiotic solutions as best.
If CO2 causes more rain, then solar is an idiotic solution at best.

Climate Crisis? Al Gore and Michael Mann Fail Science 101
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/01/05/climate-crisis-al-gore-and-michael-mann-fail-science-101/

Reply to  co2islife
January 6, 2018 4:05 am

Draught? Draught oxen? Draught beer? Window draught

I’ll go for global warming if it means more draught…

Eric Simpson
Reply to  Leo Smith
January 6, 2018 4:17 am

It’s global weirding.
No, global hotcausescold-ing.

Actually the only thing weird is the wacky theories of the fear-mongering Chicken Littles leading their leftist parade and clown show.

Reply to  Leo Smith
January 6, 2018 4:28 am

Thanks, got that fixed.

Sheri
Reply to  Leo Smith
January 6, 2018 6:39 am

Eric: I like that “global hotcausescold-ing”. A perfect name for the insanity of the idea!

noaaprogrammer
Reply to  Leo Smith
January 6, 2018 8:53 am

You can have both droughts and monsoons at the same time — just ask Schrödinger’s Cat!

Bruce Ploetz
Reply to  co2islife
January 6, 2018 5:48 am

I read the linked article, a good summary of the situation. What gets me is that Dr. Michael Mann points to highly variable data that is certainly in the category of “weather” (record high temperatures, more record highs than record lows, lake effect snow, nor’easters) to prove a point about climate. But he presents no information about climate.

Do the models predict extreme weather? No, they can’t, grid sizes are too coarse to capture weather phenomena. Storms and clouds are “parametrized” meaning they are modeled by making a WAG (Wild A**ed Guess) and matching it to observations.

Dr. Mann says that ocean sea surface temps are high than the 1970 to 2000 “normal” period, but this was a cooling period after high temperatures in the 30s. What is “normal”, Dr. Mann? The 1700s when they had ice fairs on the frozen Thames?

And did you really look at the “increasing water vapor” that you think is causing storms? Is it really higher? Or are you just forced to assume it is increasing because the models use water vapor feedback to create their doomsday scenarios? Real water vapor or computer game water vapor? Facts matter.

Reply to  Bruce Ploetz
January 6, 2018 5:50 am

Thanks for the comment. You are right in that they see what they want to see, and only care about pushing an agenda.

Bruce Cobb
January 6, 2018 3:55 am

The trouble is, they are still the Enemy, even though now privately funded. And even though we are winning, there is still very much an entrenched Climatist Establishment which is basically anti-US, anti-democrocy, anti-science, anti-truth, and anti-human.

Sheri
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
January 6, 2018 6:45 am

I don’t think there’s a belief that removing government funding means it’s all over. It means taxpayers aren’t paying for the lie now. Billionaires bent on world domination aren’t going to quit just because the tax money is cut off. They may even double-down. After all, if given the chance, some rational, caring human being might end up a new billionaire and we cannot have that. (Note the hatred for Trump. Assuming he has/had billions, he broke the rule about never letting others reach the godlike level these people see themselves at.)

R. Shearer
Reply to  Sheri
January 6, 2018 7:57 am

Yes, and if one followed the money, one would likely find that the funding taxpayer derived, at the very least from the State of New York. But most likely, federal funding is still involved, perhaps from the application of other research grants or funds.

Gary Pearse
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
January 6, 2018 8:19 am

Most ordinary folk aren’t particularly adaptable so they will be continuing to do the only thing they know how to do even though their anxiety is increasing. Max Planck revealed that even people a lot brighter than the run of the mill world famous climate scientists are similar in his axiom that science advances one funeral at a time.

Vis a vis the current endgame entered by woeful climate science warriors, I’m reminded of a phenomenon I observed in boiling up billies of bog water for tea in my geological survey years long ago. As the amber water began to heat up, the water bugs began to swim faster and faster seeking a safe spot in the convection cells in the water but unable to jump out to real safety. At top speed they suddenly expired and were then settled to the bottom with a hand measure of tea. All they knew how to do was swim.

davidgmillsatty
Reply to  Gary Pearse
January 6, 2018 9:40 am

The problem has always been scientists, not the government. Governments should do what scientists think it should do. Do we want governments to do what religions want them to do?

As the scientists die off, the government will change to what the scientists with the most clout convince it to do.

Same goes for the fossil fuel scientists. Can’t wait for them to be replaced with the nuclear fuel scientists.

PiperPaul
Reply to  Gary Pearse
January 6, 2018 1:33 pm

But did you drink the tea?

$tyria1
January 6, 2018 3:57 am

If it were true that “the sciences is settled,” then why is “continued research,” etc., needed? But at least these exiles are now admitting that adaptation to changing climate is needed.

noaaprogrammer
Reply to  $tyria1
January 6, 2018 9:03 am

Why is continued research needed? They need money! — because as Gary Pearse said above, all they know how to do is swim — until one by one, science advances.

January 6, 2018 4:01 am

Unfortunately, it will take stolen tax money to implement their insane “solutions.” Can’t force people to accept universal poverty and deteriorating living conditions without the force of government. Luckily, that seems less likely all the time. Well, unless you live in California. There, the force of government is never far from anyone or anything. Gov. Moonbeam is busy raising unicorns.

Gary Pearse
Reply to  MamaLiberty
January 6, 2018 8:47 am

Cali will become Republican. The left has blown the whole enterprise and has no clue which way to turn. Hillary came so close in her choice of title for her book “What Happened” just a punctuation mark away -a “?” or”!” or as one Wuwt commenter fixed “WTF Happened”.

Characteristically, they don’t have the capability to adapt so they double down, getting more hysterical and irrelevant. When the freed up offshore of California becomes oil boom territory and real Americans get good jobs and abundant cheap energy, the Dems, who had long ago cut themselves off from America (They got power locally but outsourced their constituency), will be out-voted in droves. Europe will once again have a model for prosperity and smaller government and it may not be too late to recover real European civilization.

Reply to  Gary Pearse
January 6, 2018 10:43 am

Gary, thanks for the beacon of hope you light in dark and troubled times.

Reply to  Gary Pearse
January 6, 2018 11:51 am

I hope to live long enough to see that happen. However, we are a one-party state now, and that party has its hands on the controls by offering free everything to an electorate that doesn’t understand the cost of “free”.

knr
January 6, 2018 4:10 am

Question if you were really working on a ‘world saving’ ideas, as often claimed. Would you carry-on regardless of pay or would you refuse to work unless you got paid ?
It seems ‘saving the planet’ is only possible if it comes with a paycheck.

January 6, 2018 4:11 am

99.999% of ‘climate science’ is of the form: “What will be the impact of [man made] global warming on [my specialist area of study].

That way the scientist gets to do his study, and provided he has a suitably lurid summary predicting Armageddon, he gets the funding.

0.0001% of unfunded ‘climate science’ is of the form ‘is global warming happening at all, and if it is, is any of it man made, and if it is, is there seriously anything we can do about it that won’t have a worse impact than the warming itself?’

The science of the last 0.0001% is relatively settled. The answer to all three questions is ‘not very much’

R. Shearer
Reply to  Leo Smith
January 6, 2018 7:59 am

And Michael Mann can explain everything after the fact and prove it with tree rings.

Gary Pearse
Reply to  Leo Smith
January 6, 2018 8:50 am

and if so will it be bad?

dennisambler
January 6, 2018 4:14 am

“Richard Moss of University of Maryland”

Scientist?

https://www.worldwildlife.org/press-releases/world-wildlife-fund-names-climate-expert-richard-moss-as-vice-president-and-managing-director-for-climate-change

He is a former Senior Director for Climate Change and Energy, United Nations Foundation. The UNF was founded in 1998 with $1billion from Ted Turner, by Timothy Wirth, who helped to launch James Hansen into global warming fame in 1988. http://www.unfoundation.org/who-we-are/board/

Moss has been a member of the IPCC since 1993. He was a Review editor for IPCC AR5 WGII Ch. 14, “Adaptation needs and options”. From 2000 to 2006, he served as director of the coordination office for the United States Climate Change Science Program.

His doctorate is in Public and International Affairs.

https://www.pnnl.gov/science/staff/staff_info.asp?staff_num=5688
https://geog.umd.edu/facultyprofile/Moss/Richard%20

Reply to  dennisambler
January 6, 2018 4:48 am

Former Advisory Committee:
Mr. Daniel Zarrilli – Biologist/Micro biology
Dr. Jessica Whitehead – BS Physics, MS meteorology, PhD geography
Dr. Kim Knowlton – MA environmental and occupational health sciences, PhD. in public health
Dr. Lucas Joppa – BA Wildlife Ecology, PhD ecology
Dr. Maria Carmen Lemos – BS economics, MS and PhD. D political science
Dr. Michael Prather – BA/BS Mathematics and Physics, PhD D Astronomy and Astrophysics
Dr. Richard Moss – MA Public Affairs, PhD Public and International Affairs
Dr. Riley Dunlap – B.A. M.S. and PhD in Sociology
Dr. Susan Avery – BS Physics, PhD atmospheric science
Mr. Daniel Zarrilli – BS in Civil Engineering, MS in Civil and Environmental Engineering
Mr. Paul Fleming – BA Economics, MBA
Ms. Ann Marie Chischilly – Lawyer
Ms. Jan Dell – Could only guess Petroleum Engineer or lawyer??? My guess is lawyer judging by work history
Ms. Kristen Poppleton – BA in Biology, MEd in Environmental Education, MS in Conservation Biology
Ms. Maxine Burkett – Lawyer

Don Perry
Reply to  Greg F
January 6, 2018 6:31 am

Two Mr. Daniel Zarrillis? ????

ossqss
Reply to  Greg F
January 6, 2018 7:33 am

A climate committee with no climatologist?

HDHoese
Reply to  Greg F
January 6, 2018 8:42 am

Is there no chemist or geologist, two of the most important scientific disciplines? I first learned (and taught) about “Biogeochemical cycles.” Don’t see that term much anymore. Probably too complicated.

Doug
Reply to  Greg F
January 6, 2018 11:34 am

But they are backed by the esteemed atmospheric physicist, Mario Cuomo. He recently took time in their emergency management press conference to blame the cold and snow on global warming.

Gary Pearse
Reply to  dennisambler
January 6, 2018 8:54 am

so Moss is a wifty poofty social signtist.

cedarhill
January 6, 2018 5:03 am

Whose not good with Soroa and friends being bled dry by the global warmist?

michael hart
January 6, 2018 5:16 am

“They’re taking their research elsewhere.”

Excellent. Alpha Centauri?

Rob
January 6, 2018 5:55 am

The climate manifesto. I think they’ve left some out. Like destroy the meat industry, which now includes beef, pork, chicken and fish. I think we need to start focusing on more on the results of their agenda, which is to destroy destroy civilization its self.

Tactics:

Raise the price of fossil fuels

Force the power grid to use expensive, unreliable renewables

Demonize Nuclear energy

Spread fear of extraction technologies such as fracking

Increase regulatory costs on energy production

Scare investors away from carbon energy companies

Stop pipelines because they are too safe and efficient

Force all companies to account for carbon usage and risk

https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2017/02/01/climatist-manifesto/

January 6, 2018 5:57 am

I wish you’d make it clear which publication you’re excerpting from before the excerpt instead of afterwards, e.g….

“as published in yesterday’s Independent (link at bottom):”

The only indication we have that it is an excerpt is the italics. It could be from anywhere from J Curry to the Washington Post to a University press release. After a few paragraphs, I clicked on the hyperlink in the first non-italicised paragraph (because I didn’t know how far the excerpt would go on for) but that linked to something else. That seemed like the most obvious source but it wasn’t. Only then did I scroll to the bottom. It leaves the reader all at sea, not knowing the potential quality of the source.

Reply to  Eric Worrall
January 6, 2018 7:54 am

Thanks for the reply. It was on a mobile device but I suspect many of your readers are looking at WUWT posts on the move. I often make these small gripes but only to get WUWT from 99% to 100%.

Sara
January 6, 2018 6:32 am

I was going to say something about weather vs. climate, but everyone hear seems to have that down pat. I do long for the day when weather cycles such as the drought that caused the Dust Bowl (plenty of skepticism about it until it blew into Washington while Congress was in session) and the 19th century blizzards (1878, 1887) in the Great Plains that blew eastward and buried New York and other parts of the East Coast are seen for what they are: cycles which are repeated on an irregular recurring basis.

Someone (I think it was Mann) stated in 2005 on Real Climate that rivers don’t get growlers. They only get pancake ice. This was in the process of disputing the weather of the Little Ice Age and the claims of frost fairs on a frozen Thames River, as well as that famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware River in a rowboat. Growlers (ice chunks) everywhere! Oh My Dog! The Horreur! The photo THEY used as reference was disc ice on the Hudson, which is caused by specific current conditions, NOT just cold weather. And pancake ice also requires specific current and temperature conditions, but this was completely ignored by these so-called scientists.

If you’ve ever been around a river, you know they get growlers when the ice breaks up. And when ice dams form, and the pressure to break the dam makes it give way, there is a huge lot of damage. I can go down to the Kankakee River in the spring when the ice begins to break up and gets lots of still photos of effing growlers to rebut what those dorks said.

My point is that what they said was a bald-faced lie and I knew it, because I know the history of that winter, when people at Valley Forge were simply trying to avoid freezing to death from exposure. It was even worse at Morristown, NJ. And those cretins Mann, et al., refused then and probably still refuse to acknowledge real history, real records.

They are just disgusting in their greed and self-serving positions, but they won’t stop until people stop paying them. It’s nothing but a scam.

R. Shearer
Reply to  Sara
January 6, 2018 9:52 am

At least we are seeing them break ranks. The consensus is not quite so strong, in fact it’s weakening. http://dailycaller.com/2018/01/05/scientists-global-warming-is-not-causing-harsh-winter-weather/

noaaprogrammer
Reply to  Sara
January 6, 2018 9:57 am

Sara: Have you ever seen river ice tumbled down to the size of peas and small marbles?

One spring during the early 1960s I witnessed miles of banks of such ice that were pushed up along the highway east of Lewiston, Idaho. The Clearwater River and all of its tributaries had frozen over during subzero temperatures, which were then quickly followed by a very warm Chinook Wind and rain. The resulting turbulent flood waters tumbled the ice chunks down to small, spherical, clear pieces of ice, which were floated up to the highway during flood stage and left there as the waters subsided. I’ve never seen anything like it since.

Sara
Reply to  noaaprogrammer
January 6, 2018 1:53 pm

I haven’t seen that around here. There are sometimes snow rollers that go through thaw-freeze-thaw on the shores of Lake Michigan and Superior and become ice boulders, and they’re rather large. If you ever see something like that pea gravel-sized ice, get photos of it!

The worst things I’ve seen were videos of icebergs on the Des Plaines River floating past someone’s house in the early Spring of 2005. And that would be the result of a massive ice dam further north on that river.

But the Kankakee River frequently freezes in the winter, then develops an ice dam, and when that breaks up at the earliest thaw, it is solid with growlers.

McLovin'
Reply to  Sara
January 6, 2018 6:37 pm

Sara: I do believe you’ll enjoy this 1891 publication. I’m in the Boston area and just posted snippets of the Dec 1786 snow storm with associated tidal flooding on Facebook (it’s found on page 124.) The book, discusses a variety of severe events from the 1630s to the then present (@1890). It’s a FREE download on Google, so enjoy:
https://books.google.com/books/about/Historic_Storms_of_New_England.html?id=twkAAAAAMAAJ

Reply to  McLovin'
January 7, 2018 1:51 pm

Dunno about Sara, but I appreciate the link. This paragraph reminds me of the “no more skiing” threat for the Northeast a few years ago:

The winter of 1666—67 was unseasonably warm. The ground was but slightly frozen, and very little snow fell in any portion of New England. It was one of those winters that gave the inhabitants the notion that the climate was changing, and that they would not again experience such severe seasons as they had passed through since the settlement of the country. Each mild winter has brought into men’s minds the same thoughts, which would be dissipated when the succeeding winter with its cold and snow came upon them.

In those days a warm winter was not a harbinger of impending doom.

ScienceABC123
January 6, 2018 6:38 am

No longer a “federal advisory committee” they reconvene as a “shadow panel.” Or as I call them “the die hard warmists” who exists to consume while telling others to stop consuming.

Tom in Florida
January 6, 2018 6:49 am

“… the latest example of how President Donald Trump’s antipathy towards climate change research and policy is pushing scientists into internal exile.”

So not having any more federal tax payer money is considered exile? Goes to their mindset.
As with many, I have no problem with them doing their “research” with private money. But now they will have to put up or shut up because unlike government grants private money isn’t a bottomless pit.

Grant
Reply to  Tom in Florida
January 6, 2018 7:10 am

IDK. If you’re going to be exiled, internal sort is the best.

Gary Pearse
Reply to  Tom in Florida
January 6, 2018 9:26 am

Private money from elitists won’t be available.They are good at getting even their own cash from connections with government. Is there a way to sell the Clinton Foundation short, or Steyer who has blown millions on lost elections, or the Rockefeller anti American enterprise? These ugly entities are soon to be moribund. The safest thing for all these creeps is to retire and keep quiet. Why hasn’t Hillary’s million dollar speech to Wall St boffins been leaked. It would be a juicy bit. People haven’t yet begun to see the certain fall of these corrupt anti-US projects. I m sure the insiders are scared though.

Rhoda R
Reply to  Tom in Florida
January 6, 2018 4:38 pm

The expected product of their ‘research’ is going to be propaganda not science so I expect the donors will be happy with the result.

January 6, 2018 7:52 am

$535 million from “2011 Solyndra Scam” might still be paying 200 scientists at least $50,000.00 per year. 6 years x $50K x 200 is only $60 million. $475 million should last those scientists another 47 years, if they aren’t greedy about spending it.

R. Shearer
Reply to  Patrick
January 6, 2018 9:58 am

The going rate for a government scientist in the U.S. is well over $200K with benefits. For those, such as double dipping Jagdish Shula, it’s closer to $1 million/year (including payments transferred to family).

Grey Mouser
January 6, 2018 7:57 am

l think when this group [the former Federal Climate Advisory Committee (FCAC)] issues its report the proprietors of the NCA should issue a statement to the effect of: “This report by the former FCAC does not represent the views of the current administration and has no official status. The views expressed in their report are solely their own.”

January 6, 2018 8:24 am

What an exhilarating approach!

An approach that clearly identifies to the Federal Government that giving funds to anti-science snowflake SJW coddling universities should immediately end!

A yahoo 2013 article:

“Columbia University
> Total federal R&D grant money: $645 million
> Pct. R&D spending from government: 73.4%
> 2012 endowment: $7.65 billion

Federal funding accounted for the majority of the total $878 million research and development budget at Columbia University in 2011. Of the $645 million received in federal funding, close to $91 million came from the National Science Foundation, and more than $18 million came from NASA. But the federal government was not the school’s only major source of funds. Columbia received nearly $36 million in research funding from businesses and more than $65 million from nonprofit organizations, both among the highest totals in the nation.”

A more recent number from “National Science Foundation”

“Federal obligations, all agencies, (funds to Columbia University”, 2016; $515.5 million”

USA Federal Government should freeze all federal funds to Columbia University immediately.

January 6, 2018 8:31 am

One may as well agonize over the internal exile of astrologers, with their Stellar Portents Federal Advisory Panel disbanded after removal of government funding. Federal officials now deny mathematical predictions of future crises. Horror and dismay!

The only practical difference between the two cases, one imagined (astrologers) and one real (consensus climatologists), is that most astrologers are astute enough to know their vocation is a fraud.

The AGW consensus climatologists are benighted enough to think their work has physical meaning and predictive relevance, and so can power their loss of funding with the emotional perpetuum mobile of offended moral righteousness.

Over the last 30 years, these people have made climatology into pseudoscience. They should be never forgiven that offense.

McLovin'
Reply to  Pat Frank
January 6, 2018 6:41 pm

Amen.

JBom
January 6, 2018 8:34 am

Cancel all Federal funding and all federal student loan programs to all students attending Columbia University and private banks under righting Federal loan programs and cancel 501 (c) (3) organizations tax exempt status who are doing business with Columbia University.

Gary Pearse
Reply to  JBom
January 6, 2018 9:40 am

disallow expenses on this corrupt science for tax purposes. Delist Rockefeller foundation and others that work against the wellbeing of America as charitable institutions. require taxes paid on interest on their accounts. Treat donations to them as non deductible. Some form of accountancy DDT should be emplaced to assure activities are unequivocally charitable and nonharmful to American interests. Perhaps a panel of Deplorables should be struck to oversee it.

GW
January 6, 2018 8:38 am

The big picture behind this move is that the globalist powers and the AGW crowd believe Trump will be nothing more than a four year speed-bump in their quest, if that – (if Dems regain the house they will impeach).
This way they can resume under a new Dem administration without losing a step !
The only way this farce can be contained (perhaps eventually stamped out) is for Republicans to maintain control of the congress and Trump is reelected with strong majorities. Republicans need to have strong majorities in the state governments as well.
At least 4 Republican presidential terms are needed to root out all this corruption.
Remember, in the 1970’s Reagan was thought to be a joke, and later a short-lived president. Of course it was later lamented (in the 2000’s) that the Reagan administration set back the environmental movement’s goals (& what was to become Agenda 21) by at least 20 years.
Don’t revel in the notion that these fradsters are now getting private instead of taxpayer dollars. Instead, fear them, for they are festering like a deep absyss, waiting to reexplode their diseased, puss-riddled concept of the world upon us.
Eternal vigilance is necessary.

markl
Reply to  GW
January 6, 2018 9:15 am

+1 There’s too much money invested in AGW for them to stop now, or ever. Only a prolonged …. 10 + years …. of cooling will silence this narrative. In the meantime they are searching for new ways to demonize fossil fuels and the Capitalism they support. “Eternal vigilance is necessary.”

Reply to  markl
January 6, 2018 10:21 am

markl wrote:
“Only a prolonged …. 10 + years …. of cooling will silence this narrative.”

Note that Earth already experienced ~35 years of global cooling from ~1940 to ~1975, while the consumption of fossil fuels strongly accelerated. This fact alone proved that atmospheric temperature is not strongly driven by increasing atmospheric CO2 – that climate sensitivity to increasing CO2 is very low – and there is NO real global warming crisis.

That is why the climate fraudsters try to minimize this ~35-year period of global cooling – because it disproves their false narrative.comment image

Global surface temperatures (ST’s) are repeatedly “adjusted” frauds that have no credibility. More evidence of ST data tampering:
https://realclimatescience.com/all-temperature-adjustments-monotonically-increase/

McLovin'
Reply to  GW
January 6, 2018 6:45 pm

“The big picture behind this move is that the globalist powers and the AGW crowd believe Trump will be nothing more than a four year speed-bump in their quest,…”

I think I agree with this. This happening is a stop gap designed to keep them afloat until this (no doubt AGW induced) storm has passed over them and their funding source re-emerges from behind the clouds.

RAH
January 6, 2018 9:31 am

Title misleading. The Climate Advisory Committee is no longer “Federal” since it is no longer funded or sanctioned by the Federal Government. And exactly who is it going to “advise” now?

Bruce Cobb
Reply to  RAH
January 6, 2018 9:40 am

It will advise those who are “Still In” the climatescam. Because an ideology is such a terrible thing to waste.

Bryan A
January 6, 2018 9:33 am

The shadow panel, announced on Thursday, is the latest example of how President Donald Trump’s antipathy towards climate change research and policy is pushing scientists into internal exile.

President Trump didn’t “Push Scientists into Internal Exile” he merely took away the Publicly Funded Government Feed Trough

Gary Pearse
Reply to  Bryan A
January 6, 2018 12:13 pm

It’s not research per se Donald Trump is against. It’s its corruption and perversion. Moss, the head, is a sociologist and isn’t qualified to even notice.

Michael Jankowski
January 6, 2018 9:35 am

“Internal exile”…lol..

dennisambler
January 6, 2018 9:59 am

Columbia is a hotbed of warmists, including economist Jeffrey Sachs, Earth Institute, recipient of largess from George Soros, climate advisor to the UN (and the Pope: http://www.climatedepot.com/2015/09/24/special-report-unholy-alliance-exposing-the-radicals-advising-pope-francis-on-climate/)

One of his UN treatises here: http://unsdsn.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/130316-Development-and-Climate-Finance.pdf

“Financing for development and climate change post-2015 – Background paper for the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda”

“Prepared by the Secretariat of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network: Jeffrey D. Sachs
Director, The Earth Institute, Columbia University. Director, The Sustainable Development Solutions Network
Special Advisor to Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on the Millennium Development Goals.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/07/sachs200707
“One of Sachs’s biggest supporters is the financier and philanthropist George Soros, who recently donated $50 million to the Millennium Villages Project.”

However, https://psmag.com/social-justice/smart-guy-jeffrey-sachs-nina-munk-idealist-poverty-failure-africa-65348

James Hansen is now domiciled at Columbia: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/

As is socialist economist Joesph Stiglitz since 2001 and a former chairman of President Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisers: https://sipa.columbia.edu/faculty-research/faculty-directory/joseph-e-stiglitz
Stiglitz has been chairman of the Socialist International Commission on Global Financial Issues.

It seems Columbia is the place to be.

Peta of Newark
January 6, 2018 10:26 am

and what *are* they going to do if not ‘Talk about the weather’

I’m sorry lads & lasses but you do not have any sort of monopoly on that, such conversations happen at least 30 million times, per day and *every* day here in the UK alone..

and have any of those craics had anything more than a diddly squat effect on the weather? Any of them?
No. None.
No more than your talking will have an effect.

(Its really awful bursting the bubbles of infants but someone’s got to do it or they simply become Spoiled Brats)

Linda Goodman
January 6, 2018 10:50 am

I wish this fraud were just about profit. Without the demonization of C02, the draconian world government they imagine can’t happen. This bunch worships ‘Lucifer’ – power and control. No surprise the number for carbon is 6 protons, 6 neutrons, 6 electrons – man is mostly carbon and if their intention to replace cash with a carbon chip were to succeed….

Linda Goodman
Reply to  Linda Goodman
January 6, 2018 11:04 am

It’s been reported that B.O. still has a citizen army, propped up by $oro$ as ANTIFA. Also reported is that B.O. is slotted to become president of the U.N.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/05/us/climate-change-mayors-chicago.html
 “The gathering, in which more than 45 American mayors…was the latest display of hostility by some of the nation’s Democratic mayors toward Mr. Trump’s policies.
Barack Obama, who was president when the Paris accord was negotiated, also appeared, calling the mayors’ newly signed agreement “a powerful symbol to the world” and saying that local governments were part of “the new face of American leadership on climate change.”

Bruce Cobb
January 6, 2018 10:56 am

Anything to make the climate scoundrels aka “scientists” look like victims and martyrs for the Cause.

Tom Bjorklund
January 6, 2018 11:12 am

Follow the money. A third party will divert funds to climate studies. Federal money will go to the third party to replace the funds diverted to climate studies. I liken the process to a shell came, an accounting sleight of hand. In the end, the Federal money going to Columbia for climate studies just comes from a different pocket. Nothing has changed.

January 6, 2018 11:14 am

Well of course they secured funding — that what the liberals’ money-laundering is all about.

J Mac
January 6, 2018 11:26 am

We have a real problem with feral hogs (domesticated hogs that have gone ‘wild’) in areas of the US. These ‘climate scientists’ are analogous. Our domestic climate science funding hogs are finding less and less slop in the public trough so they are going feral, consuming AGW funding slop where ever they can find it. ‘Rescue’ organizations are trying to save the feral AGW funding hogs from this cruel abuse and potential extinction. The ASPCAGWH (American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Anthropogenic Global Warming Hogs) is already raising funds……

BrianE
January 6, 2018 11:36 am

“Talk about win / win. Taxpayers save some money, Climate Scientists get to continue their work without fear of Federal Government political interference. Everyone is happy.”

A bit short sighted. The promoters of costly hysteria have, on the ticket of special interests, simply gone into hibernation – until the inevitable change of political climate. They will then reemerge, restoring circumstances in their favor with renewed vigor and, as always, against little scientific opposition. Unless Trump and Co introduce scientific balance and lay to rest the EPA’s endangerment finding, the current disruption to special interests will be little more than a temporary inconvenience.

Greg
January 6, 2018 1:28 pm

Tim Flannery’s expertise like so many climate experts is not in climate science but rather in megafauna, in particular giant wombat fossils.

He is Wombat Man

January 6, 2018 1:30 pm

It’s great news, the Federal Climate Advisory Committee goes the same way as Tim Flummery in Australia. They take on self-funding so that you can still hear them burbling away, but you don’t have to pay for them anymore. They will continue to pump out their political diatribes and gibberish, but now it’s for free!

Mickey Reno
January 6, 2018 6:59 pm

The problem with the newly reconstructed panel is that it requires funding to come from the host universities, which in turn, require government research grants to fund the salaries and pensions of these alarmists. Without that money coming in, this new recon is just not sustainable.

ha ha ha ha ha ha I loved saying that.