By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian
The failure of the atmosphere to warm in accordance with alarmist predictions is making it harder and harder to come up with a bona fide story that can scare you.
In a post a few days ago, I noted that “the whole climate issue seems to have mostly disappeared from the news lately.” Commenter niceguyeddie responded by giving me a link to the Washington Post (eddie called it “the ‘other’ Pravda”), and an article of July 5 by a guy named Jason Samenow headlined “Red-hot planet: All-time heat records have been set all over the world during the past week.” In the intervening week since this article, a few people on the internet have been busy making mincemeat of Samenow’s rather pitiful effort. For MC readers who don’t go out searching the internet regularly for real information on climate to combat the propaganda from the various Pravdas out there, I thought I would do the public service of presenting some of this real information here.
First, some basic background is needed to develop appropriate bullshit radar on this subject. If you follow climate or weather information even a little, you will already know that on any given day, somewhere in the world, some weather station, or more likely multiple stations, is recording an “all time high” temperature for the particular day in question, while some other weather station, or maybe multiple stations, is recording an “all time low.” It follows that the fact that multiple “all time high” records were set during the course of a week tells you nothing about climate change. There could have been even more all time lows, and the overall average could have gone down, no matter how many “all time highs” were recorded. Any reader of any intelligence whatsoever will immediately be asking, don’t just tell me about “all time highs,” but tell me what is the overall picture? How many all time lows were there? What is happening with the “average” temperature? You will not be surprised to learn that Samenow does not provide the answers to those questions. In other words, his article is not intended to provide useful information to the intelligent reader, but rather to propagandize those lacking in either basic background information or critical thinking ability or both.
There is an obvious source for the answer to the last question as to what is happening with the “average,” and that is the easily-available UAH global lower troposphere record, derived from satellite sensors. That record exists from 1979 to present. Here is the latest chart from UAH going through the end of June 2018:
So with that simple first step, we know that the “average” world temperature for June 2018 was +0.21 deg C above the 1981 – 2010 mean. That represented a decline of about 0.65 deg C from the all time high of this 39-year record, which was reached in early 2016. The 0.65 deg C decline represented more than 75% of the amount by which the average temperature had exceeded the 1981 – 2010 mean at the highest point. Suddenly the fact that some large number of “all time highs” was being set at the end of June does not seem very significant.
But it’s still fun to look at what Samenow claims for his “all time highs,” to see how real they are, or whether we are dealing with more of the usual “fake news.” This gets pretty bad. […]
As you can see, the failure of the atmosphere to warm in accordance with alarmist predictions is making it harder and harder to come up with a bona fide story that can scare you. They are reduced to cherry-picking some unrepresentative data points and leaving out all of the relevant context. It’s no wonder the reporting on this is becoming increasingly scarce. For you, the moral of the story is, if you want some real information as to whether the world is warming or cooling, and by how much, skip the propaganda at the various Pravdas, and go for the UAH lower troposphere satellite record. It is available in the form at the top of this post, at drroyspencer.com, updated monthly.
For the Party faithful, they don’t let facts get in the way of belief. ” a few eggs must be broken to make an omelet, wink, wink” The agenda isn’t to ” save the world from climate change”, it’s to establish a communist people’s dictatorship. As if any place that has had a communist/socialist government things got better. “Red Hot Planet ” Indeed ! All Red .
The Guardian goes on about climate change incessantly. An otherwise excellent newspaper, which has been in the vanguard of exposing corruption, misgovernance, institutional racism, governmental and corporate chauvinism and violence, has to keep banging on about climate change ad nauseum. Fortunately, for a short period, with the Dotard-in-Chief’s official visit, we might be spared some of the drivel.
An otherwise excellent newspaper?? It’s a disgraceful rag read only by Left liberals for its consistent anti Semitism , pathetic defence of Islam and tedious virtue signalling. I long for its demise.
It’s anti-Semitism? That is completely unfounded and shows the level of miserable bigotism displayed by most of the right-wing chauvinists on this site, with whom I unfortunately agree on the issue of AGW
It has a readership of 600,000, worldwide.
Real class if you are a hammer and sickle, which ye evidently are, strange to find a lefty denier, you are the first one i have come across, the guardian climate page is the print arm of skeptical science.
So what if it has a readership of 600,000? Is that how you judge quality, by quantity? And don’t ever call me a communist again. I’m an anarchist.
Well, at least part of it is the hysterical ‘hate Trump’ messaging. They can’t really concentrate on anything else until they get him.
Australia’s BOM… any body!?
Do these guys there still arbitrary, for not saying fraudulently still do limit the temp low ranges there???
Anybody at all…..Nick perhaps!!!
cheers
Where is the line between journalism and propagandist activism?
I was taught that good reporter sticks to who, what, where and when and leaves why up to the reader. that’s the difference between good reporting and just ‘spinning stories’.
I was taught the same thing – that’s why modern ‘spin-and-suppress’ media is so frickin’ obvious.
Yes, I forgot to include the ‘suppress’ part, thanks. These days it’s what the media chooses NOT to include in reporting that forms most public opinion. Journalism was never meant to form public opinion, just to inform public awareness.
If only they still taught critical thought in colleges…
I’ve always said people show the most by what they try to hide – it’s like a shadow puppet on the wall.
You can answer this question by reflected in over the last two years there have been a number of elections across the world including France , USA , UK and Germany and within all those elections AGW was a ‘none-issue’. Given that the first rule of politics is get elected and the second stay elected this is only possible because the voters simply do not give it much interest.
It was never goign to end with a bang , but with a very long drawn out whimper , if for no other reason than there is far to many professional careers built on it .
I don’t know where you get your news…. I only use a car once or – at most – twice a week, and that’s for less than 20 minutes each time. I have the radio set to my local NPR station and I’ve never – once, ever – had a drive that didn’t include a climate change story. Even when it was their bi-quarterly begging for money week. Just this week I heard the claim that “heat kills more people than any other climate event”. Then they go on to tell stories about people dying of heat stroke whilst hiking around Phoenix during summer. I seriously think this whole “climate change” thing is NPR’s “more cowbell” moment.
Anthropogenic Climate change isn’t dead.
It just smells that way.
The parrot of Anthropogenic Global Warming isn’t dead, it’s just resting.
(apologies to Monty Python -:)
“zazove
Ever been outside the US?”
I live in the UK and what happens in the US affects everything so keep it up over there…please.
The water melons have found another “just cause” now. One that is more visible and therefore easier to demonstrate to the public. It is plastic waste and especially plastics in the ocean. The new polar bears are turtles, tangled in plastic detritus and starving. The evidence is plain for all to see, on the beaches, in the rivers, and increasingly on tv, as it gives presenters the opportunity to take trips to exotic parts of the world to show us all how bad we are for discarding single use plastic products.
There are plenty of opportunities for funded research, involving boat trips and walks along the shoreline (oh, an academic’s life can be so hard!).
There is also the opportunity to lambaste big business for creating all these demon products that do pointless things like improving hygiene and reducing food waste, and demand action now. Suddenly the products that we have been wrapping our food in and drinking our drinks from has become toxic waste, just like CO2 became a pollutant.
I am afraid I think the only thing that pollutes this planet are virtue signalers and environmental activists.
There are 5 trillion pieces of plastic in the ocean. We all have plastic in our stomachs. THIS IS A REAL ISSUE UNLIKE THE CO2 scam.
And the overall majority of that plastic is doing absolutely nothing as it is inert. Goes in one end and out the other. Exposing the plastic to the ultraviolet rays from the sun is the best way to recycle these elements. Show me a picture of a giant floating island of plastic in the Pacific Ocean. Haven’t seen one yet but everyone tells me it is there. So why no pics?
I suggest a survey asking a cross-section of city dwellers to point to the direction of north (without their smart phone). Why the heck would they care about climate change?
Regards
M
I wish someone could explain what contributes to the differences between the 1979-present satellite-based time series and the NOAA Global Land and Ocean time series that appears at noaa.gov. They measure global anomalies based on the 20th century average. But the average is just a constant. Should not the features of the two graphs be similar? They sure do not look similar.
Andy wrote: “As you can see, the failure of the atmosphere to warm in accordance with alarmist predictions is making it harder and harder to come up with a bona fide story that can scare you. They are reduced to cherry-picking some unrepresentative data points and leaving out all of the relevant context. It’s no wonder the reporting on this is becoming increasingly scarce. For you, the moral of the story is, if you want some real information as to whether the world is warming or cooling, and by how much, skip the propaganda at the various Pravdas, and go for the UAH lower troposphere satellite record. ”
Andy: Respectfully, the full UAH record shows warming of 0.13 +/- 0.04 degC/decade. Is that inconsistent with alarmist projections? Over the same period, most global surface records show roughly 0.17 +/- 0.02 degC/decade. (El Ninos produce less variation in the surface records.) And most land records show 0.2-0.3 degC/decade.) Are they also inconsistent?
In truth, you have cherry-picked the record that shows the least warming. (I’m not saying it isn’t the best record, but it is a record that requires significant reprocessing to deal with satellite drift. UAH has chosen to make their adjustments agree with radiosonde data, which has been reprocessed by numerous groups to get different answers.)
The crucial question is: What warming trend did the alarmists predict or hindcast for this forcing change? It would be appropriate to cite some value.
One thing we can be sure of is that the warming trend has not be zero. The observed trends are inconsistent with the hypothesis that an enhanced GHE from rising GHGs doesn’t exist.
Since the UAH data started in 1979, which happened to be at the bottom end of a long slight cooling period, it is the best accidental start date for the alarmists. Since all the other dats sets have been tampered with so much, UAH is about the only one that everyone trusts even though it isnt perfect for the reasons you mention. However I dont see how AGW can be a problem for anyone. If anyone ends up damaged by AGW then I would put that into CAGW category. In other words only CAGW should be legislated or taxed against; not AGW. Living in Canada I wouldnt mind a couple of degrees warmer even in the summer. So the present warming trend is certainly in the AGW realm. Unless/until it starts to accelerate, I contend that the whole thing is a scam. Everyone would be scared of CAGW but there is no evidence of it. Yes 1.3C per century is inconsistent with CAGW.
Alan: You are correct about the long cooling period. If you started in 1949, the record would be 30 years longer and the global trend would 0.12 degC/decade. From 1959-1979, the increase in CO2 averaged slightly less than 1 ppm/yr. From 1979 until today, the average increase has been almost 2 ppm/yr. So when you go back further in time, you do expect the average warming trend to diminish – and natural variability (the cooling period) to make it more difficult to see whatever GHG-mediated warming wasn’t suppressed by rising aerosols.
The total tampering in the global land record allegedly amounts to only 0.2 degC and most of that occurred before 1979, so I can’t dismiss the warming land record as mere “tampering”> And BEST asserts that UHI is not to blame. And poorly sited stations with a constant warm bias doesn’t produce an artificial warming trend; only a GROWING warm bias can bias trends. Many of the problems with the SST record were resolved before 1979. The change from ERSST3 to ERSST4 increased warming during the Pause, but only by slowing earlier warming. Overall SST warming since 1979 didn’t increase.
I’m happy to agree that AGW doesn’t imply CAGW. For Canadians, AGW is likely to be beneficial. If CO2 kept growing at 2 ppm/yr and the 40-year global trend continued until 2100, CO2 would be 570 ppm and it would be 1.4 degC warmer than today and 2.0 degC warmer than 1980. With more warming to come as heat gradual stops flowing into the deep ocean. (ARGO says about 30% of total forcing is currently flowing into the deep ocean.)
I must complain that I cannot post any graphs or link’s that have graphs, that I want to make comments on to prove a point. What’s up wattsup?
not in the uk. the bbc are again repeating the claim extreme weather is on the increase. no point contacting them to point out they are flat out lying,you get a load of waffle in response. when it comes to denying science there is no other single msm outlet on the planet that does it as blatantly as the bbc.
It hasn’t faded from the Guardian…
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jul/13/heatwave-sees-record-high-temperatures-set-around-world-this-week
Nor the BBC, obligatory climate change reinforcement messages infect all their output, especially news, weather, gardening, natural world, farming. Relentless and not watchable much of the time. Countryfile (evolved from a farming community program remember) is now often a succession of ‘anti-farming’, ‘anti-chem’, ‘anti-meat’, ‘bemoaning lack of diversity in farming/using the countryside’ and ‘climate change’ articles.
It may have faded from the News…. But it hasn’t faded from the permanent Bureaucracy, their taxes, levies and regulations.
And…are we not in an interglacial period? During which the earth warms and warms and…until it doesn’t, then back into another ice age. Right?
Anthony, a song to relax you by Michael Franks (if you haven’t already heard it).
It sounds like he wrote it about the current situation in science.
Yes climate change fear mongering has diminished . Thirteen years of chicken little will do that .
I wondered what eco porn was going to be served up next and didn’t have to wait too long to find
out . Heard a politician on the radio sounding very self righteous announcing plastics are ending up in our oceans like it’s the town dump . Well some do but I prefer to bury them in my neighbors yard .
So there you go this years eco fear rebrand is PLASTICS . Can a new tax be far off . How about a plastics trading exchange ? Stay tuned it’s coming folks .
MSM media are eye balls driven and the earth having a fever fear mongering has just run it’s course .
They did have a good run though . Too bad tens of thousands of people died prematurely from fuel poverty as a result of the overblown scam but hey as long as the clean energy crime syndicate made billions and the media flogged their stuff … well that’s the way it goes .
Expect plastic hyperventilation to take over . Maybe a Polar Bear with its head stuck in plastic sand bucket .or another round of exploding kids if they use a straw .
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plastic-tide-10-rivers-contribute-most-of-the-plastic-in-the-oceans/
Stemming the Plastic Tide: 10 Rivers Contribute Most of the Plastic in the Oceans
“Our seas are choking on plastic. A staggering eight million metric tons wind up in oceans every year, and unraveling exactly how it gets there is critical. A recent study estimates that more than a quarter of all that waste could be pouring in from just 10 rivers, eight of them in Asia. . .
The 10 rivers that carry 93 percent of that trash are the Yangtze, Yellow, Hai, Pearl, Amur, Mekong, Indus and Ganges Delta in Asia, and the Niger and Nile in Africa. The Yangtze alone dumps up to an estimated 1.5 million metric tons of plastic waste into the Yellow Sea.”
end excerpts
Activists should be focusing on the sources of the problem.
An article on this subject recently appeared on the Discover Magazine blog, with the curious theory that viewers are turning to other sources than the tv networks because they’re not getting enough climate change malarkey every night
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/2018/07/13/major-tv-networks-derelict-in-duty-to-providevital-climate-change-context-on-heat-waves/#.W0w3q9VKjIU