By Allan M. R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., August 2019
CATASTROPHIC GLOBAL WARMING IS A FALSE CRISIS – THE NEXT GREAT EXTINCTION WILL BE GLOBAL COOLING
Forget all those falsehoods about scary global warming, deceptions contrived by wolves to stampede the sheep. The next great extinction event will not be global warming, it will be global cooling. Future extinction events are preponderantly cold: a glacial period, medium-size asteroid strike or supervolcano. Humanity barely survived the last glacial period that ended only 11,500 years ago, the blink-of–an-eye in geologic time.
Cold, not heat, is by far the greater killer of humanity. Today, cool and cold weather kills about 20 times as many people as warm and hot weather. Excess Winter Deaths, defined as more deaths in the four winter months than equivalent non-winter months, total over two million souls per year, in both cold and warm climates. Earth is colder-than-optimum for humanity, and currently-observed moderate global warming increases life spans.
“Cold Weather Kills 20 Times As Many People As Hot Weather”
By Joseph D’Aleo and Allan MacRae, September 4, 2015
However, Excess Winter Deaths are not the worst threats to humanity. The glacial cycle averages about 100,000 years, consisting of about 90,000 years of the glacial period, when mile-thick continental glaciers blanketed much of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres including Canada, Russia, Northern Europe and Northern USA, and about 10,000 years of interglacial, the warm period of the present. Earth is now 11,500 years into the current warm interglacial, and our planet may re-enter the glacial period at any time.
“Glacial-Interglacial Cycles”
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/Glacial-Interglacial%20Cycles

The re-entry into the glacial period will be a major extinction event for humanity, possibly the end of modern civilization. Not only will our land surface be devastated by glaciers, but CO2 concentrations will drop so low that C3 crop photosynthesis, the source of almost all our foods, will be barely sustainable.
GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISTS HAVE NEGATIVE CREDIBILITY – NOBODY SHOULD BELIEVE THEIR FALSEHOODS
One’s predictive track record is probably the best objective measure of scientific competence. The IPCC and its acolytes have been consistently wrong in their predictions of catastrophic global warming. Their climate computer models run too hot, and observed global warming has actually been moderate and beneficial. Global warming alarmists have proven negative scientific credibility – nobody should believe their wild exaggerations.
In fact, increasing atmospheric CO2 causes significantly improved crop yields due to enhanced photosynthesis, and may cause minor, beneficial global warming.
In 2002 we confidently published the following statements, which are still demonstrably correct:
“Climate science does not support the theory of catastrophic human-made global warming – the alleged warming crisis does not exist.”
“The ultimate agenda of pro-Kyoto advocates is to eliminate fossil fuels, but this would result in a catastrophic shortfall in global energy supply – the wasteful, inefficient energy solutions proposed by Kyoto advocates simply cannot replace fossil fuels.”
“Debate on the Kyoto Accord”
Published by APEGA in the PEGG, and in The Globe and Mail, La Presse, and professional journals.
By Sallie Baliunas, Tim Patterson and Allan MacRae, November 2002
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/KyotoAPEGA2002REV1.pdf
Increased atmospheric CO2, driven by fossil fuel combustion and/or other causes, will have little impact on the onset of future glaciation. Climate is not highly sensitive to increasing atmospheric CO2. Paradoxically, CO2 concentrations are not alarmingly high; in fact, atmospheric CO2 concentrations are alarmingly low – too low for the long-term survival of terrestrial life. Photosynthesis of C3 food crops ceases at 150ppm – CO2 starvation.
“CO2, Global Warming, Climate and Energy”
By Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., June 15, 2019
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/15/co2-global-warming-climate-and-energy-2/
“(Plant) Food for Thought”
By Allan MacRae, December 18, 2014 and January 31, 2009
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/new-and-cool/plant_food_for_thought2/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/30/co2-temperatures-and-ice-ages/#comment-70691
In the near term, there is a significant probability of moderate global cooling. Similar global cooling happened from about 1940 to 1977, even as fossil fuel consumption accelerated rapidly at the onset of WW2. Global warming did not occur as CO2 increased. In fact, Earth cooled significantly for over 30 years – strong evidence that increasing atmospheric CO2 does not cause catastrophic global warming.
Even moderate global cooling is harmful to humanity and the environment. We predicted the return of moderate global cooling in an article published September 1, 2002 in the Calgary Herald, as follows:
“If [as we believe] solar activity is the main driver of surface temperature rather than CO2, we should begin the next cooling period by 2020 to 2030.”
Our 2002 global cooling prediction is still probable. In the past five years, I’ve stated that moderate cooling will probably start closer to 2020, driven by the low activity of Solar Cycle 24. Humanity suffered during past cold periods that coincided with solar lows, such as the Maunder and Dalton Minimums circa 1700 and 1800.
Last year there was a very late, cold spring and crops were planted one-month late in the American Midwest, but warm summer weather resulted in a good grain crop. This year, cold wet weather in the Midwest reportedly prevented about 30% of the USA corn crop from being planted – the ground was too wet for farm equipment. Were the last two years of late planting in the North American grain belt early signs of global cooling? Hope not.
I predicted in 2013 that winter deaths would increase in the UK, where energy costs are much higher than in North America. Sadly, this has proved correct. Excess Winter Deaths in England and Wales in the winter of 2017-2018 totaled over 50,000 souls, the highest since 1976, as compared to an annual average of about 100,000 in the USA. The population of England and Wales is about one-sixth that of the USA, so the United Kingdom had an Excess Winter Death Rate three times the USA average – a terrible, preventable tragedy.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/31/blind-faith-in-climate-models/#comment-1130954
If the Sun does primarily drive temperature, as I believe, then foolish politicians have brewed the perfect storm. They have adopted dysfunctional climate-and-energy policies to “fight global warming” and have crippled energy systems with intermittent, expensive “green energy” schemes that destabilize the electric grid, at a time when catastrophic global warming is not happening and moderate global cooling may be imminent.
GREEN ENERGY IS NOT GREEN; IT IS DESTRUCTIVE AND PRODUCES LITTLE USEFUL (DISPATCHABLE) ENERGY
Despite trillions of dollars in squandered subsidies, “green energy” has increased from 1% in 2008 to only 4% of global primary energy in 2018. Fossil fuels provide fully 85% of global primary energy, essentially unchanged in decades, and unlikely to change in decades to come. The remaining 11% is hydro and nuclear.
“Statistical Review of World Energy”
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
Eliminate fossil fuels tomorrow as radical green activists insist, and almost everyone in the developed world would be dead in a few months from starvation and exposure.
“Green energy” schemes are not green and produce little useful (dispatchable) energy, because they require almost 100% conventional backup from fossil fuels, nuclear or hydro when the wind does not blow and the Sun does not shine. Intermittent energy from wind and/or solar generation cannot supply the electric grid with reliable, uninterrupted power. There is no widely-available, cost-effective means of solving the fatal flaw of intermittency in grid-scale wind and solar power generation.
“Wind Report 2005” – note Figures 6 & 7 on intermittency.
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wp-content/uploads/eonwindreport2005.pdf
Vital electric grids have been destabilized, electricity costs have soared, and Excess Winter Deaths have increased due to grid-connected green energy schemes.
CONCLUSION
This paper discusses real threats, specifically global cooling, including imminent moderate global cooling and later re-entry into another glacial period, in order to shift the climate discussion from popular scary-fantasies of runaway global warming, to cold events that actually do threaten the future of humanity and the environment.
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Winter is coming
https://youtu.be/JmkXobNoMBY
The answer formal this is so simple. You can not put physical heat through the surface of water, due surface tension.
Then you’ve never boiled water, I take it?
Conduction heating from below causes convection mixing with heat increase. Conduction heating from above consumes heat for evaporation with little mixing.
rmb
Ooooh yes! Sure you are right, and all the people measuring ocean heat contents all are wrong, especially these:
http://www.data.jma.go.jp/gmd/kaiyou/english/ohc/ohc_global_en.html
It is so nice to look at so simple-minded comments!
Hi 2hotel9,
I feel your pain.
It is 10am in Calgary and it is a cold 12C, equal to 54F.
It has been a cold summer, almost “a summer that never happened”.
We used to say our climate was “July, August and Winter”. This year it was “”A few weeks in July, and Winter.”
I know, “It’s weather, not climate” and all that. It is just too damned cold.
If I really believed the IPCC’s CO2-drives-global warming nonsense, I’d buy a Peterbilt and leaving it running 24/7.
https://www.peterbilt.com/
🙂
When I first moved to Calgary I bitched about the summers to my boss who replied “that summer came on a Wednesday last year”.
It is now 1pm in Calgary and has warmed 1C, all the way up to 13C.
Think I’ll put on my swim trunks, lie in the Sun and get some colour – Blue.
Labor Day weekend is usually hot, not this year, or last year. Was not home for LDW the 2 years before, not sure where they fell temp wise. Trying to explain Co2 is plant food and that more means more plants and more food and more oxygen is like trying to explain to a toddler that jumping in the air doe not mean they are flying. Imagination trumps reality for far too many people, sadly.
Allan
Thank you for an excellent article. I sometimes think we are living in some sort of parallel dimension where people are ignoring the obvious dangers and barking at the moon hoping that if they believe hard enough unicorns will arrive and spread batteries at our feet when they close down all fossil fuel production.
I agree with those that describe the green ideology as a particularly insane religious cult that may yet do for us all.
We are living in a parallel dimension…. a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind…. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That’s the signpost up ahead – your next stop, the Twilight Zone! – Rod Serling, host of ‘The Twilight Zone’
So, when this next cold phase comes, will our consensus scientists be telling us to burn more fossil fuels to help warm the planet? I have my doubts, the last time they were saying that pollution was causing the ice age.
Great article, with very good comments …….
As Joe says ” Enjoy the Weather, it’s the Only Weather we’ve Got ”
As a young Englishman of 3 years old I walked on the FROZEN River Thames in the winter of 1963 with my parents and siblings ……. If this happens again this will be my forecast of Cold To Come.
Winter Draws On ….. I have mine in the top draw all ready, with my cashmere sweater .
“In the near term, there is a significant probability of moderate global cooling. Similar global cooling happened from about 1940 to 1977..”
That will happen from the mid 2030’s and through the 2040’s when the solar wind is strong enough to drive a cold AMO phase again. Low solar maintains a warm AMO phase, and increased El Nino conditions.
My argument is not with people using their money on nonsense, my argument is people using my money on nonsense. The Globe has not warmed and Co2 is not a pollutant, get a proper job, grow a cabbage and feed someone.
Except the winter of 2017/18 wasn’t especially cold. Certainly not as cold as say 2009/10 or 2010/11, which only say about half as many excess deaths. You really cannot make much sense of trends by looking at individual years, and there are many factors apart from the cold that determine EWD.
And I doubt you can make useful comparisons between the UK and USA, and especially not by looking at one individual year.
Bellman: You did not include a data source.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/2017to2018provisionaland2016to2017final
Reference:
Figure 1: Excess winter deaths and five-year central moving average
England and Wales, between 1950 to 1951 and 2017 to 2018
Individual-year statistics for Excess Winter Deaths (EWD) are highly variable and have many causes, including winter temperature and humidity, influenza, home insulation and heating systems and heating costs.
Five-year-moving-average EWD trends for England and Wales were much higher in the 1950’s, declined and bottomed out circa 2003-2004 and have trended higher since then. While influenza is probably the greatest single factor driving EWD’s, I suggest that rapidly increasing energy costs and the poor state of UK housing insulation and heating systems are the primary factors that make EWD rates so much higher in the UK than in the USA.
Note that colder Canada and the Nordic countries of Europe have lower EWD rates per capita than the USA, and much lower than the UK. Warmer countries like Portugal have EWD rates even higher than the UK. Adaptation to winter is the key – cheap energy, good home heating and good insulation.
For a fraction of the money squandered in the UK on nonsensical wind energy and solar power, the government could have retro-fitted every house in the country with modern heating systems and proper insulation. Had they allowed fracking of their abundant gassy shales near Blackpool , energy costs would be a fraction of their current high prices.
If I wanted to kill off the elderly and the poor in the UK, I would follow their current government policies – opposition to shale fracking, and excessive reliance on wind power that drives up energy costs. It’s working.
“I suggest that rapidly increasing energy costs and the poor state of UK housing insulation and heating systems are the primary factors that make EWD rates so much higher in the UK than in the USA.”
But you haven’t provided any evidence to that effect. As you say EWD are highly variable so pointing to one single year when there were other factors such as flu affecting that year. If energy costs, poor insulation etc where the main reason for the spike in 2017/18, why was EWD lower just a few years ago when the same conditions applied, and winters were much colder.
As I said before, I don’t think you can compare UK and US figures. The climates, populations, and economics are very different.
““For a fraction of the money squandered in the UK on nonsensical wind energy and solar power, the government could have retro-fitted every house in the country with modern heating systems and proper insulation…”
Governments can do all those things regardless of how much they spend on renewable energy. The government do do things to encourage people to insulate their homes and so forth, but we’ve also had almost a decade of austerity, and 3 years focused on Brexit. But I wouldn’t like to suggest there is any simple reason for rising winter deaths, or if this is anything other than a statistical blip.
“If I wanted to kill off the elderly and the poor in the UK, I would follow their current government policies – opposition to shale fracking, and excessive reliance on wind power that drives up energy costs. It’s working.”
Much as i might hate previous and current Tory governments, I wouldn’t suggest they have a policy to kill off the elderly. Apart from everything else wrong with this, that’s there core demographic.
Bellman wrote:
“Much as i might hate previous and current Tory governments, I wouldn’t suggest they have a policy to kill off the elderly.”
Your statement is the standard strawman fallacy. I am not saying the UK government is deliberately killing off its elderly and poor because of a policy of malice. I am saying they are doing so because of extreme incompetence. Labour would probably have been worse, trying to appear greener than the Tories. Extreme stupidity and incompetence cross party lines.
Extreme stupidity and incompetence also cross the Atlantic. In Canada, our Prime Minister seems to be brain-damaged, probably from smoking too much dope – on his bad days he cannot form a coherent sentence, and on his better days he is merely imbecilic. Trudeau-fils is controlled by an radical-green, extreme-left cabal within his cabinet and advisors. He is so dull-witted he may not even realize what is happening around him – Canada’s uber-green, socialist, sock-puppet PM.
The reality is that the climate change we are experiencing is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control. There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate. If CO2 were really the climate thermostat then considering the CO2 level in the atmosphere, it should by much warmer than it already is. Considering the paleoclimate record, it is most likely that the current interglacial period is slowly ending but it will take many thousands of years for the next ice age to take hold. We should all enjoy the relatively warm climate while if it is still here. Our ancestors and the ancestors of all animals living today made it through the last ice age and ice ages before that and most likely can make it through the next ice age. The real problem is not climate change but rather Mankind’s not leaving enough habitat for many animals to survive. Most animals on this planet do not change the habitat as much as Mankind does.
I find something very interesting in the graph provided in this paper. Note that for all 3 cycles the lower temperature ending the iceage was about -8C compared to the present. Note also the temperature is not asymptoting, it is a close to linear decrease which ends abruptly at -8C. Similarly the trigger starting the next iceage is about +2C above present in all 3 cases. Is it simply time related, unrelated to temperature? Possibly but the 3 time intervals between warm periods is not the same for all 3. The first is about 90,000Y the second more like 120,000Y and the third around 140,000Y. That’s quite a variation yet the temperature point for all 3 is almost exactly the same (less than 1C difference as far as I can tell). OK, 3 events is a very small data set, it could very well be a co-incidence of no significance but it is suggestive.
It makes wonder, is there some mechanism which triggers warming at 280K (-8C from present)? Similarly, is there something about a temperature of 290K (+2C from present) which triggers cooling but why is the cooling gradual after a small initial drop of about 2C whereas the warming is abrupt?
If only people would stop with the hysteria long enough to look at the data and so some real science we might actually get somewhere.
My analysis shows that average global temperature trend will remain approximately flat for as long as water vapor continues to increase at the rate which resulted in approximate 7 % increase in WV since 1960. If WV stops increasing, down goes the average global temperature.
There are comments above that interglacial periods end gradually. That is an urban legend.
The observations do not support that assertion.
We have no idea what is the large powerful physical cause of the cyclic glacial/interglacial cycle which is likely the same cause as the large cyclic abrupt climate changes, such as the Younger Dryas.
The discovery of cyclic abrupt climate change in the Greenland ice sheet, twenty years ago, was not expected. The specialists drilled another Greenland ice sheet core, at the top of a ridge where there was no ice flow, to confirm the cyclic abrupt climate change found in the proxy record ice data was real and not caused somehow by ice sheet flow.
The invention of the climate super amplification theory was an attempt to explain cyclic abrupt climate change. The recent finding that there is no CO2 warming of the tropical troposphere at 8 km and almost no warming of the tropical region, shows there is negative feedback and no amplification.
I agree that sudden abrupt cooling, is a greater threat than warming. There are a dozen observations and analysis results that support that the assertion that is almost no measurable AGW and hence no CAGW. The problem is that line of analysis did change minds.
What we need to do is re-look at the key observations which have been ignored up to this point, in an organized thoughtful manner, looking for logical connection between observations.
The geological observations are the place to start as it (geology) is a logical, simple constrained field (odd that is no summary of the physical constraints and problem overview in geological textbooks or geological papers) and there are dozens of geological observational paradoxes that should not exist and that can be explained to a general audience.
No math. Almost no graphs. And a logical subject with mature observations.
I am working away to make a formal presentation with pictures that would be interesting for a general audience.
Here are a couple of the key observational paradoxes to give you an idea of the path. Obviously the observations appear to be linked. There is an observation that requires a powerful force that can change almost in real time. There must be mechanism to create the force. There needs to be evidence of that mechanism. There is.
These are observational paradoxes, that correlate with the recent temperature change, that we do not discuss because there is no physical explanation and/or it the observation itself obviously disproves/threatens to disprove CAGW.
It is fact that there has been a 300% increase in the frequency of earthquakes (no increase in the magnitude, just an increase in the number of earthquakes per year which correlates linearly with the amount of energy that is required to cause the earthquakes and move the ocean plates) that occur at the edges of mid-ocean ridges, near where the ridge where ocean plates are pushed apart, all over the planet.
Oddly, the frequency of mid-ocean ridge earthquakes increases two years before the El Nino events.
What is interesting is geology does not have an explanation as to what generates the force to move the tectonic plates, before the observation that the frequency of mid-ocean earth quakes increased by 300% average for 20 years.
The lack of a forcing mechanism explains why the theory of plate tectonics took so long to be accepted. Sure the plates move, the problem is there is no force to move the plates.
Why would there be any tectonic plate movement? The mantel is just rock that gradually becomes less viscous with depth, that ends with a molten core.
http://www.davidpratt.info/tecto.htm
Nitecki et al. (1978) reported that in 1961 only 27% of western geologists accepted plate tectonics, but that during the mid-1960s a “chain reaction” took place, and by 1977 it was embraced by as many as 87%.
Some proponents of plate tectonics have admitted that a bandwagon atmosphere developed and that data that did not fit into the model were not given sufficient consideration (e.g., Wyllie, 1976), resulting in “a somewhat disturbing dogmatism” (Dott and Batten, 198 1, p. 15 1). McGeary and Plummer (1 998, p. 97) acknowledge that “geologists, like other people, are susceptible to fads.”
The driving force of plate movements was initially claimed to be mantle deep convection currents welling up beneath midocean ridges, with downwelling occurring beneath ocean trenches. Since the existence of layering in the mantle was considered to render whole-mantle convection unlikely, two layer convection models were also proposed.
Jeffreys (1974) argued that convection cannot take place because it is a self-damping process, as described by the Lomnitz law.
Plate tectonicists expected seismic tomography to provide clear evidence of a well-organized convection-cell pattern, but it has actually provided strong evidence against the existence of large, plate-propelling convection cells in the upper mantle (Anderson, Tanimoto, and Zhang, 1992).
Many geologists now think that mantle convection is a result of plate motion rather than its cause and that it is shallow rather than mantle deep (McGeary and Plummer, 1998).
There is no mechanism in the current geological paradigm to explain the sudden simultaneous increase in force at each ridge to cause the increase in mid-ocean ridge spreading.
In separate review papers, it has noted that there is evidence of massive concentrated compressive forces at the mid-ocean ridges that is roughly two orders of magnitude greater than the standard geological tectonic plate force paradigm can generate and more importantly requires something physical to be pumped into the location, to cause the compression fracturing.
Compression fracturing is the same mechanism as fracturing rock for petroleum and gas extraction. Compression fracturing requires a pump, a liquid that is pressurized by the pump, and something that functions as a pipe to transmit the force and the liquid to the end of the pipe which is where the fracturing would occur.
https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/have-global-temperatures-reached-a-tipping-point-2573-458X-1000149.pdf
Namely, increased seismic activity in the HGFA (i.e., the mid-ocean’s spreading zones) serves as a proxy indicator of higher geothermal flux in these regions. The HGFA include the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the East Pacific Rise, the West Chile Rise, the Ridges of the Indian Ocean, and the Ridges of the Antarctic/Southern Ocean. This additional mid-ocean heating causes an acceleration of oceanic overturning and thermobaric convection, resulting in higher ocean temperatures and greater heat transport into the Arctic [2,3]. This manifests itself as an anomaly known as the “Arctic Amplification,” where the Arctic warms to a much greater degree than the rest of the globe (Table 1) [4,5]
Roughly two years ago geologist discovered tubes in the mantel that connect to the crust and appear to connect to the core of the planet. It has known for sometime that there were unexplained reflection of seismic waves travelling through the earth. New computer analysis techniques of multiple seismic waves determined that reflections where from tube/pipe like structures in the mantel.
What is need is an explanation as to what created the tubes in the mantel.
So we have the tubes, what is need is a pump and a liquid that is pumped by the pump.
The pump, is the core of the planet as it crystallizes. The liquid is liquid methane that is extruded from the core of the earth when it crystallizes.
The heavy elements in the core bond with methane which explains why the core is saturated with methane and explains why the same group of heavy elements is found concentrated in liquid petroleum with the amount of heavy metals increasing with crude viscosity.
The three super heavy Alberta ‘heavy’ oil deposits, 1.5 trillion barrels (roughly the amount of all ‘conventional, oil on the planet, 60 to 80 meters thick covers an area roughly the size of the UK, have super concentrations of the same suite of metals.
This also explains why there is helium in oil and gas reservoirs. The heavy metals are dropped out below the oil and gas reservoirs. The uranium and thorium decay creating helium, the continued flow of methane provides a path for the helium to travel into the oil reserve.
What is interesting is what is causing the core of the planet to crystallize.
Challenging core belief: Have we misunderstood how Earth’s solid center formed?
Scientists question long-held understanding in new paper
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180207151842.htm
Summary:
Researchers are posing an important question about the formation of planet Earth’s inner core, arguing that it’s time to consider the nucleation paradox at the heart of the issue.
It is widely accepted that the Earth’s inner core formed about a billion years ago when a solid, super-hot iron nugget spontaneously began to crystallize inside a 4,200-mile-wide ball of liquid metal at the planet’s center.
One problem: That’s not possible-or, at least, has never been easily explained-according to a new paper published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters from a team of scientists at Case Western Reserve University.
The research team-composed of post-doctoral student Ludovic Huguet; Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences professors James Van Orman and Steven Hauck II; and Materials Science and Engineering Professor Matthew Willard-refer to this enigma as the “inner-core nucleation paradox.”
That paradox goes like this: Scientists have known for more than 80 years that a crystallized inner core exists. But the Case Western Reserve team asserts that this widely accepted idea neglects one critical point-one that, once added, would suggest the inner core shouldn’t exist.
William,
HGFA Higher Geothermal Flux Areas ???
“Cold, not heat, is by far the greater killer of humanity. Today, cool and cold weather kills about 20 times as many people as warm and hot weather. Excess Winter Deaths, defined as more deaths in the four winter months than equivalent non-winter months, total over two million souls per year, in both cold and warm climates. ”
This ignores the fact that in most areas mortality increases faster due to extremes of heat than to extremes of cold, and it is the extremes that are the main worry. Even moderately cold weather kills, and that won’t end just because the Earth warms. Nor do the statistics account for indirect effects of warming, such as the possibility of an increase in the number and geographical extent of vector-borne diseases. For instance, mosquito larvae mature more quickly as temperature rises.
Kristi,
When excess deaths from heat occur, the death rate then drops below normal after the heat wave is over.
For cold no such drop in death rate effect is observed after the cold has gone.
Heat kills those about to die, cold kills indiscriminately.
Correct. Mortality increases during heat events, but decreases right after the event. Mortality over the entire period is near normal.
For cold events, mortality increases during AND after, with an increased rate over the entire period.
Also, the effects of illnesses brought on by increased cold linger after warming has occurred, especially in vulnerable categories of people such as elderly, the very young and those with chronic respiratory illnesses.
“This ignores the fact that in most areas mortality increases faster due to extremes of heat than to extremes of cold”, no it doesn’t. In the UK I only know of two years when there were sufficient summer deaths for this to even be recorded (usually the death rate is always lower in the summer). If there were a level of heat that were unacceptable then what we’d see is the planet would have a clear temperature line above which no one lives. That does not exist. In contrast we do see a sharp drop off in numbers as the temperature drops.
The reason for this, is that humanity evolved in central Africa and evolved through climate that at times was undoubtedly was warmer than today.
I guess that’s why more people live at the poles than in warmer regions. Oooops! Fail there Kristi.
Kristi wrote:
“This ignores the fact that in most areas mortality increases faster due to extremes of heat than to extremes of cold, and it is the extremes that are the main worry.”
Why no citations Kristi, and no quantification of your alleged observation?
The reason my statement “ignores” your allegation is because even if it were true, your allegation would be irrelevant. Cool and cold weather kills about 20 times as many people as warm and hot weather worldwide. Excess winter deaths total over 2 million souls per year. That is relevant.
Extreme-heat deaths are few, and are easily avoided by air conditioning, fan cooling, or drenching with water. Heat deaths often involve elderly people who are neglected, dehydrated and alone – they could easily have been saved with minimal care – but nobody cared.
In Muslim countries, hot deaths are associated with religions celebrations. In 2015, the media made a great fuss about 700 heat-related deaths in Pakistan. They failed to report that it happened during Ramadan, when no water is consumed from sunup to sundown. These people died of dehydration and heat stroke and their deaths were entirely avoidable. Temperatures in Pakistan reportedly reached 45C, certainly not a local record. I have experienced 50C in Luxor Egypt and we were fine.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/04/2c-or-not-2cthat-is-the-question/#comment-1558674
Allan,
I know there are more deaths attributable to cold. But global warming is not going to eliminate cold where it happens. It may make winters a little less cold, or there may be fewer cold days, but winter will still occur, and there will still be excess mortality from it.
I said mortality rises faster due to extreme heat than extreme cold. I had this article in mind: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)62114-0/fulltext . Look at figure 1. Imagine that the mortality curves remained where they were, while the exposure (the bars) shifted to the right 2 C. The tail end of the exposure to heat would lead to a greater effect on mortality than the tail end on the cold end. You would still get mortality from cold, but the hot end rises more steeply.
In Europe it is not common to have air conditioning, which is one reason the heat wave of 2003 was responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. Those who live in tropical areas are more accustomed to high temperatures, and can tolerate them better, but many people there have no A/C; potential mortality due to extreme heat is a particular concern in humid tropical regions.
I don’t know the statistics, but mortality due to cold is often indirect through its exacerbation of disease and increase in illness potential, or simply through staying indoors with other sick people, with little fresh air – thus the lag. It might be argued that if people took better precautions (vaccination, dressing more carefully when going outside, more hand-washing, etc.), mortality might decrease. While there are things one can do to deal with heat, not everyone has access to them, and once the body is subject to a certain combination of ambient temperature and humidity it can no longer cool itself, regardless of how much water is consumed. Heat makes it harder to breathe and can lower air quality; the elderly and those in poor health are more likely to die.
I’m not arguing that global warming will increase mortality overall. I have no idea; there are too many factors involved. By the same token, I think it’s hard to argue that it will lower overall mortality or that a colder world would raise it. People are adaptable, and they can migrate. (Whether other people will allow the “climate impaired” to migrate to their own countries is another question.)
Thank you Kristi,
The Lancet paper you cite is excellent – “Gasparrini et al 2015”.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)62114-0/fulltext
Just after Joe D’Aleo and I published our first 2015 paper on Excess Winter Mortality, Gasparrini et al 2015 appeared, and it was so good that we re-published our paper to include its results.
I see your point about the steeper tails on the warm side of the mortality curves in Figure 1.
My point is the tails are very small numbers – the most important data is depicted in Figure 2, wherein moderate cold is by far the greatest killer and extreme heat, moderate heat and extreme cold are small in comparison.
For public health policy, by far the greatest harm-reduction can be addressed by attacking the causes of death due to moderate cold. This is even true in warm countries like Thailand and Brazil.
Note in Figure 2 the very high Excess Winter Mortality rates in China, Italy, Japan and the UK.
Repeating from my paper:
“Excess Winter Deaths in England and Wales in the winter of 2017-2018 totaled over 50,000 souls, the highest since 1976, as compared to an annual average of about 100,000 in the USA. The population of England and Wales is about one-sixth that of the USA, so the United Kingdom had an Excess Winter Death Rate three times the USA average – a terrible, preventable tragedy.”
Regarding UK government policy:
For a fraction of the money squandered in the UK on nonsensical wind energy and solar power, the government could have retro-fitted every house in the country with modern heating systems and proper insulation. Had they allowed fracking of their abundant gassy shales near Blackpool , energy costs would be a fraction of their current high prices.
If I wanted to kill off the elderly and the poor in the UK, I would follow their current government policies – opposition to shale fracking, and excessive reliance on wind power that drives up energy costs. It’s working.
oh no the BBC give statistics for deaths from cold weather, exactly agreeing with you Allan,
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-46397891
“C3 crop photosynthesis, the source of almost all our foods, will be barely sustainable.”
If there’s a good and bad in climate, warm with lots of CO2 is good, and cool without CO2 is unequivocally bad.
I am just really glad the global cooling scare turned into a global warming scare … because there is absolutely nothing at all to worry about in terms of warming, so it’s a total no brainer that the alarmists are stark raving bonkers.
It’s my belief that what we’re actually seeing has almost nothing to do with the climate. Instead it is the dying days of the old fake media as the internet wins over. This old fake media is desperately increasing and increasing the fake news alarmist shrill content to try to manufacture a story to try to stave off economic collapse of their old fake news platforms. Global warming was just a convenient fake news scare story for them to be pushing in their dying days.
Global cooling? LMAO. Please send me a credible scientific paper that suggests we are headed for global cooling. And can it be a paper not published by Zharkova? If you don’t have science on your side, the majority will not listen to you.
NOAA is forecasting into 2020 (at least) La Nina conditions, which are associated with global cooling. NASA is forecasting a Dalton-level SC25 beginning in 2020; solar minimums of that magnitude are associated with global cooling. Are you able to step outside of the box that only global warming can happen?
“Global warming” is so out-of-favor . . . it’s now “climate change”, so all incoming data can support the call for panic no matter what. Heck, the meme is even evolving into a “climate change emergency” so anything happening after 2020 might just be too far into the future to worry about.
…What majority ? The fake 97% ? ROTFLMFAO…..
Global cooling?
Nino3/4 are cooling & will continue to cool in response to low solar, producing less CO2. The greater ocean and climate follow long-term Nino changes.
The next great [ongoing] extinction-level event is happening to CO2 climate theory
the increase in volcanic activity is a factor that could plunge the Earth into rapid global cooling…i noticed last week that a volcano in Russia called Shiveluch sent a plume of ash cloud 70,000ft into the atmosphere but they said it was an error and should have been 23,000ft..i doubt it was an error…also a later eruption went to 34,000ft,this will have a big impact on temperatures this coming winter in the northern countries from 50-60 degrees latitude
Thank you all for the many good, well-informed comments.
This is real peer review – not the fraudulent PAL-review that has characterized the scientific journals for decades, notably on the subjects of climate and energy..
I say publish online, include your data and calculations in a spreadsheet, and let everyone take potshots at your conclusions.
Regards to all, Allan
Hi Allan — the Guardian article you linked to for the high number of excess winter deaths in 2017-2018 attributes this primarily to an ineffective flu vaccine, not the temperature per se. IIRC, the main reason flu hits in winter is that it’s airborne and survives better in dry air than humid air.
Have to check for possible confounding factors before making a sweeping assertion.
b
Diogenes:
I covered your point previously when I wrote above:
“Individual-year statistics for Excess Winter Deaths (EWD) are highly variable and have many causes, including winter temperature and humidity, influenza, home insulation and heating systems and heating costs.
Five-year-moving-average EWD trends for England and Wales were much higher in the 1950’s, declined and bottomed out circa 2003-2004 and have trended higher since then. While influenza is probably the greatest single factor driving EWD’s, I suggest that rapidly increasing energy costs and the poor state of UK housing insulation and heating systems are the primary factors that make EWD rates so much higher in the UK than in the USA.”
Have to check what I already wrote before making a sweeping assertion.
Note the very strong wind fields at 10 hPa, and the area they are impacting. The SSW event is slowing down a bit. As the top wind speeds have dropped from a peak around 330 mph down to 275 mph today. Wind speeds in the smaller rotation have picked up quite a bit though as can be seen on the right side of earthnull. … https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=-313.87,-89.47,481/loc=-167.627,-74.150
Is it the speed of that wind interacting with the nearby counter rotation which caused that region of the atmosphere to warm?
To link excess winter deaths in the UK to abnormally low winter temperatures would be absolute nonsense, as is shown by a temperature departure graph wrt mean of 1981-2010 for UK from 1979 till now:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YIuBzoCv7oYm8k9Uq2bZu3KB9e7tBrnN/view
We all see when looking at the 36 month running mean that no cooling even a bit greater than during the last 40 years has been at work. Compare the recent period with 1984-1987 or 2008-2011…
The problem is like everywhere: older people become more and more poor, because the ratio between their average monthly pension and their cost of living has been falling for decades.
And the increasing cost for energy supply is like everywhere by far not the highest factor. Linking that to increased costs for electricity, be it ‘renewable’ or not, is simply dishonest, as electricity itself is by far not the main energy supply source.
The main factors leading to poverty are
– the extremely rising apartment rents;
– the no less soaring health insurance costs.
Though Germany is on average ‘richer’ than UK, we see the same problem here.
This is due to the perverse perception that only the (heavily increasing) average wealth matters, instead of taking into consideration the median wealth which becomes since decades lower and lower.
Regards
J.-P. D.
Did you mis thishttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-46397891 you dont need abnormally cold temperatures you just need cold temperatures, for the vulnerable to suffer,in the recent past consumers had a choice of heating in cold weather,apart from rural areas,the choice now is very limited to electricity and or gas,were as in the recent past, coal,wood,oils of various types were used,and critically prices were not fixed as they are today, there is little choice and prices are a much for much,electricity is expensive if you are poor,infirm vulnerable, renewables will not supply the nation be it winter or summer,they are not a on demand generation, the last 7 days the UK has been burning coal contrary to popular belief,and importing nuclear generated power from France,apart from the weekend when demand dies down, when you are infirm,I’ll, poor, how much power should they use,what do you think? Sit in the cold till the kids come home,what a life A , I dont buy sit in your coat,put a jumper on,its demoralizing and has a negative effect on ones physical and mental health, in the past there was always one room warm were every one in the family could keep warm ,cast iron stoves kept the heat with very little fuel, the trend now is open plan living with high ceilings, yet another disaster for heating,at least folk in rural areas have a choice for now, but this might change with the green agendas,cold is going to become a increasing concern for UK residents ,if you dont have the means thermostats are going to be turned lower
I didn’t understand anything of what you wrote, with the xeception of your claim concerning coal-based electricity production in the UK.
I propose you to have a look at this:
https://gridwatch.co.uk/demand/percent
So you did not understand the link, thatfigures, as for coal power generation the demand drops in the evening ,try through the day,you did not understand what I wrote, how convenient for you, let’s hope you never become poor in your old age pal, did you understand that,
1. I’m all but rich.
2. All really poor people I know don’t have enough money for a computer, let alone for Internet communication.
Exactly so how are they supposed to pay there electricity Bill’s, on the other paw ,poor people in a social sense do have mobile internet,the social cost of not being connected is degrading, I notice you also hang out on Spencer’s blog,telling people the near 4 year trend of lower atmosheric cooling is wrong,the data shows you are wrong,the cyclic nature of temperature over the period is a downward trend, with last months data showing no increase or decrease,if co2 was major contributer the el Nino 2016 event would of seen no temp drop after 2016,we dont see this,,there is no linear trend to cooling the near 4 years worth of data shows the cyclic nature of temp variation ,with a downward trend.
Bindi wrote:
“To link excess winter deaths in the UK to abnormally low winter temperatures would be absolute nonsense…”
Another strawman fallacy – that is not what I said. That seems to be a standard tactic among those who try to dispute the observations in this paper. Not at all honest, btw.
I suggest that Excess Winter Deaths correlate with normally cold weather, severity of the flu, poor home insulation, high heating costs, and low incomes.
Have you ever heard of “Heat or Eat” in the UK? It is a dilemma that elderly UK pensioners face – they have to choose between heating their homes and having food. They choose food.
Read D’Aleo and MacRae 2015, cited above. See Figure 2 and think about what is shows. Compare different countries – figure it out.
Less sun, lower vitamin D3, less immunity, more death.
Not complicated enough to get a big grant to investigate speculation, is it?
February 2019 was the coldest February on the Canadian Prairies since 1979 and the second-coldest since 1950. I blame global warming!
Source: Ray Garnett, via Madhav Khandekar.
Year Feb
1950 -14.05
1951 -14.93
1952 -10.39
1953 -9.9
1954 -4.5
1955 -15.1
1956 -15.64
1957 -13.71
1958 -14.33
1959 -14.78
1960 -13.11
1961 -9.85
1962 -17.39
1963 -12.05
1964 -7.58
1965 -16.14
1966 -15.39
1967 -15.36
1968 -11.91
1969 -14.23
1970 -12.22
1971 -11.53
1972 -18.21
1973 -12.05
1974 -12.98
1975 -15.77
1976 -9.59
1977 -5.73
1978 -15.62
1979 -21.91
1980 -12.92
1981 -8.78
1982 -15.12
1983 -9.04
1984 -4.1
1985 -15.3
1986 -13.82
1987 -5.93
1988 -12.17
1989 -17.35
1990 -12.77
1991 -5.61
1992 -8.05
1993 -12.38
1994 -18.92
1995 -11.57
1996 -11.87
1997 -9.52
1998 -4.56
1999 -7.67
2000 -8.97
2001 -15.89
2002 -7.44
2003 -14.39
2004 -9.33
2005 -9.39
2006 -11.06
2007 -15.17
2008 -12.86
2009 -11.65
2010 -10.20
2011 -14.3
2012 -7.7
2013 -12.1
2014 -18.2
2015 -14.9
2016 -6.0
2017 -8.9
2018 -16.7
2019 -20.0
Allan McRae
I’m terrified!
Do you know
– that the GHCN daily station in Cotton, Minnesota, reported -48.9 °C at the beginning of February 2019
and
-that for the entire February, the Cotton station reported an average absolute temperature of -20.09 °C
BUT
– that the top ten of the ascending temperature sort for the station looks like this below?
1. 1982 1 -21.95
2. 1996 1 -20.87
3. 1994 1 -20.66
4. 2019 1 -20.23
5. 2019 2 -20.09
6. 1963 1 -19.60
…
2018 2 -19.42
1979 1 -19.32
1966 1 -19.30
1971 1 -19.30
AND
– that the top ten of the ascending temperature sort for the whole Minnesota station average looks like this?
1887 1 -29.16
1888 1 -27.90
1912 1 -27.69
1936 2 -25.83
1982 1 -25.77
1886 1 -25.67
1937 1 -24.76
1979 1 -24.75
1929 1 -24.36
1994 1 -24.08
No, no! Don’t look for 2018/19 here, they are far far below, at positions
90. 2019 2 -19.77
and
107. 2018 2 -19.17
Do you understand what I mean?
You are cherry-picking the Canadian Plains and produce here in fact the same scary material as all what you are complaining about, but with the opposite sign.
I’ll never get tired to write that Warmistas aren’t good people, but that in turn Coolistas aren’t even a bit better.
It’s late now at UTC+2, good night.
Let me conclude that
– Minnesota’s Cotton Feb 2019 anomaly wrt the mean of 1981-2010 was, with -9.91 °C, even somewhat higher than Germany’s entire station anomaly average for Feb… 1956, namely -10.18 °C
and that
– Minnesota’s station anomaly average for Feb 2019 was… -5.22 °C.
Oh yes! The world is coooooooooooooling! But it is imho only for the Americanocentrists.
*
Data source:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/daily/
Bindi:
No I do not understand what your wrote, because you tend to write incoherent nonsense and I cannot be bothered trying to decipher it.
Also, when people get hysterical as you have above, I tend to dismiss them as loud-mouthed imbeciles.
Individual weather stations, as ably demonstrated by Anthony Watts and colleagues, can be severely flawed.
The data on the Canadian prairies was collected by an eminent climate scientist, Ray Garnett, who was introduced to me by another eminent climate scientist, my long-time friend Madhav Khandekar.
Ray just sent me a climate paper he co-authored with Madhav, and I read it tonight – it is a remarkable piece of scholarship. On the climate issue, I’ll side with Ray and Madhav, not with you.
Here is the subject paper:
Weather and Climate Extremes on the Canadian Prairies: An Assessment with a Focus on Grain Production
E. Ray Garnett 1,*, Madhav L. Khandekar 2
1 Agro-Climatic Consulting, Canada
2 Former Environment Canada Scientist, Expert Reviewer IPCC 2007, Climate Change Documents, Canada
http://www.hrpub.org/journals/article_info.php?aid=5939
Only a dozen weather stations go back before 1900 in the whole southern hemisphere and they show cooling since 1880:
https://notrickszone.com/2019/08/23/earth-surface-temperature-data-too-scant-no-certainty-southern-hemisphere-stations-show-cooling-since-1880/
Other cooling indicators ignored by the media:
https://notrickszone.com/2019/08/03/media-ignore-vast-summer-cold-across-northern-hemisphere-southern-usa-russia-see-record-lows-in-july/
https://notrickszone.com/2019/07/15/scientists-find-antarctica-is-rapidly-cooling-and-any-ice-sheet-melt-is-not-due-to-co2-but-natural/
https://notrickszone.com/2019/05/27/remote-sensing-data-indicate-a-2-44oc-summer-cooling-for-antarctica-sea-ice-regions-during-1982-2015/
https://notrickszone.com/2019/05/20/greenland-has-been-cooling-in-recent-years-26-of-its-47-largest-glaciers-now-stable-or-gaining-ice/
https://notrickszone.com/2019/07/09/ice-box-july-unusual-cold-surface-frost-sweep-across-central-europe-july-arctic-ice-volume-trend-now-increasing/
https://notrickszone.com/2019/05/01/data-from-german-mountain-stations-show-winters-have-been-getting-colder-over-past-30-years/
https://notrickszone.com/2019/06/24/coral-mortality-rates-higher-during-cold-periods-and-theres-been-recent-cooling-in-coral-environments/
Very interesting information – thank you Phil S.
Plenty of evidence of cooling – everyone here should read these references from Pierre Gosselin.
One more of our successful predictions to brag about, this one in Autumn 2014.
You may recall that winter, when Boston and much of the USA Northeast was snowed-in.
Score to date
IPCC and acolytes: 0 Us (“climate deniers”): Beaucoup.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/11/17/will-the-snowiest-decade-continue/#comment-2521694
Prior to the record snowfall in the winter of 2014–15, Joe d’Aleo and I sent a written warning to my friend at the EIA, stating that the NWS weather forecast that EIA used was extremely in error, and warning of a very cold and snowy winter to come, especially for the Northeast Coast.
The EIA reran their lower 48 USA energy demand for that winter using Joe’s forecast and calculated an additional 11% total energy required for the winter months. The actual energy consumption were one percent lower than Joe’s forecast and 10% higher in the NWS forecast. That is a huge amount of energy.
I do not know what contingency the EIA uses, so I don’t know if we saved any lives. Nevertheless, I believe we did a good deed and we may have indeed significantly reduced human suffering.
In summary, if you want an accurate weather forecast, go to WeatherBell, not NWS.
If anyone doubts it’s cooling or having some effect, please check out these links
https://www.iceagenow.info/us-growing-degree-days-plummet/
http://iceagefarmer.com/gdd/?zip=49814
“Growing degree days (GDD) are a measure of heat accumulation used by horticulturists, gardeners, and farmers to predict plant and animal development rates such as the date that a flower will bloom, an insect will emerge from dormancy, or a crop will reach maturity. “
h/t Robert Felix and iceagefarmer