For nearly two years now, Climate at a Glance and Climate Change Weekly have detailed the copious amounts of data and evidence that clearly demonstrate the Earth is not facing a climate crisis. (A new, print version of Climate at a Glance was published on Earth Day.)
Over the course of hundreds of reports and articles, many responding to alarming and false climate stories hyped in the corporate media, these sites have presented real-world data showing fewer people are losing their lives to extreme weather events and nonoptimal temperatures than ever before; hunger, malnutrition, and deaths from starvation have fallen more and faster than at any previous time in history, thanks primarily to record-setting crop growth assisted by increased carbon dioxide; and the lack of evidence that most types of extreme weather—hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, drought, etc.—have become more frequent or more intense because of human fossil fuel use.
The Heartland Institute and its associated researchers are hardly the only organization and group of scholars hammering this point home on a regular basis. Across the pond, in the United Kingdom, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has for years been doing yeoman’s work to bring the unalarming truth about present climate conditions to light.
Most recently, GWPF published its annual State of the Climate report, by Ole Humlum, Ph.D., emeritus professor at the University of Oslo. In this report, Humlum examined temperature records and trends for the atmosphere and oceans and for weather events. Humlum finds, among other things, there is no evidence of a dramatic change in snow cover, rates of sea level rise, or storm activity.
Some facts from Humlum’s report:
- Global tide gauge measurements suggest sea levels are rising on average between 1 and 2 mm per year, consistent with the historic rise of the past few hundred years, with no recent acceleration or deceleration in the rate of rise.
- Average snow cover for the Northern Hemisphere has been stable since the onset of satellite observations in 1979. Autumn snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has been slightly increasing, the midwinter cover has remained virtually unchanged in extent, and spring snow cover displays a slight decreasing trend.
- The most recent data on global tropical storms and hurricanes show accumulated cyclone energy is well within the range observed since 1970 and the number of hurricanes making landfall in the continental United States remains within the normal range for the entire observation period since 1851.
Humlum’s report provides much detail about how temperatures are measured on land and oceans, the problems with each of the measuring systems, why there is a discrepancy between the ground-based temperature measurements and satellite measurements, and the hows and whys of temperature trends and how they differ by latitude, altitude, ocean depth, and region and zone. Humlum writes, “All temperature records are affected by at least three sources of error, each of which differs among the individual station records used.” After discussing each source of error, he explains, “The margin of error … is probably at least ±0.1°C for surface air temperature records, … [making] it statistically impossible to classify any year as ‘record-breaking,’ as several other years may be within the margin of error.”
So much for the breathless claims made almost every year by politicians, government-funded researchers, environmental lobbyists, and the corporate media that new global average high temperature records have been set yet again, almost always citing land-based measuring systems compromised by a growing urban heat island bias. When each “new record high” temperature measured is within the margin of error, it’s hard to establish definitely any new record has been set.
“A year ago, I warned that there was great risk in using computer modelling and immature science to make extraordinary claims,” said Humlum in discussing the takeaway message of his report. “The empirical observations I have reviewed show very gentle warming and no evidence of a climate crisis.”
In the end, most of the alarming claims made about a looming human-caused climate apocalypse are based on flawed computer model projections, not physical measurements of changes in the climate. The general circulation models widely used by the climate alarm community grossly overestimate warming. As a result, they have been unable to portray past or present temperatures or temperature trends accurately. Commenting on this and Humlum’s study, GWPF director Benny Peiser, Ph.D., said,
It’s extraordinary that anyone should think there is a climate crisis. Year after year our annual assessment of climate trends documents just how little has been changing in the last 30 years. The habitual climate alarmism is mainly driven by scientists’ computer modelling rather than observational evidence.
SOURCES: Global Warming Policy Foundation; Climate Realism; Climate at a Glance
IN THIS ISSUE …
ARCTIC WAS WARMER, HAD LESS ICE 6,000 YEARS AGO … GLACIERS CONTAIN LESS ICE THAN PREVIOUSLY BELIEVED … CORAL BLEACHING MISUNDERSTOOD, MISREPRESENTED
ARCTIC WAS WARMER, HAD LESS ICE 6,000 YEARS AGO
Data from hundreds of temperature reconstructions show the Northern Hemisphere was significantly warmer for much of the past 10,000 years (Holocene) than it is today. A recent study published in Climate of the Past examined the sediment records from 66 glaciers and icecaps (GIC) from all over the Arctic, covering the past 12,000 years.
Based on these records, they conclude the Arctic was warmer 6,000 years ago than it is today. This research suggests many glaciers and icecaps present today disappeared entirely during the summers 6,000 years ago, as they were warmer than at present. The study reports,
[T]he full Arctic compilation suggests that the majority (50% or more) of studied GICs were smaller than present or absent by ∼10 ka. We find the highest percentage (>90%) of Arctic GICs smaller than present or absent in the middle Holocene at ∼ 7-6 ka, probably reflecting more spatially ubiquitous and consistent summer warmth during this period than in the early Holocene. …
Our review finds that in the first half of the Holocene, most of the Arctic’s small GICs became significantly reduced or melted away completely in response to summer temperatures that, on average, were only moderately warmer than today.
SOURCE: Climate of the Past
GLACIERS CONTAIN LESS ICE THAN PREVIOUSLY BELIEVED
Research published in Nature Geoscience finds the world’s glaciers contain less ice than previously estimated.
The researchers involved in this study used new satellite imaging techniques to measure the thickness of more than 250,000 mountain glaciers around the world, for the first time, allowing them to calculate more accurately the volume of ice in different glaciers. The survey accounted for more than 98 percent of the world’s glaciers, including some in Europe, New Zealand, and South America that were never mapped before.
This research by scientists from universities and research institutes in Denmark, France, and the United States is important because millions of people around the world depend on freshwater in glaciers, as they melt seasonally, for drinking water, agriculture, and electric power generation. An accurate understanding of how much water glaciers contain is critical both for planning for glacier-dependent populations’ future water supplies and for glaciers’ possible contributions to sea level rise.
Among the findings are that the Himalayan glaciers contain approximately 37 percent more ice than previous surveys estimated. By contrast, Andean glaciers contain 27 percent less ice than formerly believed, if this research is correct.
Glaciologist Romain Millan, lead author of the study, told Bloomberg he “hopes scientists will use this new tool to model the future availability of glacial water. ‘It’s important for policymakers to anticipate the effects of climate change on glaciers and water supplies.’”
The research also indicates glacial melting is contributing 20 percent less to sea level rise than previously estimated, and that if all mountain glaciers melted—excluding those in in Greenland and Antarctica—ocean levels would increase by about 10 inches instead of the 13 inches previously projected.
Climate alarmists cannot claim the study results provide proof climate change is causing glaciers to melt faster than previously estimated. The authors make it clear the lower ice volume numbers derive solely from a correction in the way ice volumes are calculated, not that ice has melted faster and thereby decreased volumes.
SOURCES: Bloomberg; Nature Geoscience
CORAL BLEACHING MISUNDERSTOOD, MISREPRESENTED
In the April 16 edition of The Quadrant, marine biologist Walter Starck, Ph.D., writes much of the concern about coral bleaching is misplaced because of a misunderstanding on the part of journalists and the public about how coral reefs function and how they vary from location to location and at different depths.
Starck provides a bevy of facts about how various species interact with and move in and out of corals seasonally and in response to short-term perturbations from spikes or dips in ocean temperatures. Starck explains the following (quoted in part):
- Different strains of the algae are optimised to the differing seasonal temperatures and geographic regions.
- The strains of algae living in the tissues of corals change in accord with seasonal changes in water temperature. Such changes are usually gradual and the change in algae is not visually apparent.
- However, a more rapid change in temperature can result in the existing algal strain being expelled from the corals and appearing bleached. Such rapid changes in temperature are not rare. Atmospheric cold fronts can result in sudden cooling. Likewise, calm periods lasting a week or more in warmer months can result in several degrees of warming near the surface when wave-driven mixing and water flows across shallow reefs fade away.
- If a temperature change is only brief, as in the wind returning after a calm period, the expelled algal strain may just be re-established. If the change is seasonal, a new strain of algae may replace the previous one. Such recovery can be relatively quick. A few weeks after a bleaching event, corals usually appear normal again.
- Bleaching mostly affects shallow reef areas where it is also conspicuous. … The vulnerable shallow areas are also subject to occasional devastation from storms, floods or even just a good rain if it occurs when corals are exposed by a low tide.
Starck provides evidence the extent of bleaching in recent events on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR) was greatly overstated because of survey locations and methodologies, and that most of the bleached coral recovered. In 2021, just four years after the last major bleaching event, Australia’s survey of the GBR found the highest level of coral cover ever recorded in the three and a half decades of the survey record.
“[I]ncidents of coral bleaching are nothing new, unusual or threatening,” writes Starck. “They are common natural event[s] no more threatening than trees shedding their leaves with the changing seasons, or occasionally in response to a dry spell.”
SOURCE: The Quadrant
Climate Change Weekly #432
For nearly two years now, Climate at a Glance and Climate Change Weekly have detailed the copious amounts of data and evidence that clearly demonstrate the Earth is not facing a climate crisis. (A new, print version of Climate at a Glance was published on Earth Day.)
Over the course of hundreds of reports and articles, many responding to alarming and false climate stories hyped in the corporate media, these sites have presented real-world data showing fewer people are losing their lives to extreme weather events and nonoptimal temperatures than ever before; hunger, malnutrition, and deaths from starvation have fallen more and faster than at any previous time in history, thanks primarily to record-setting crop growth assisted by increased carbon dioxide; and the lack of evidence that most types of extreme weather—hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, drought, etc.—have become more frequent or more intense because of human fossil fuel use.
The Heartland Institute and its associated researchers are hardly the only organization and group of scholars hammering this point home on a regular basis. Across the pond, in the United Kingdom, the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) has for years been doing yeoman’s work to bring the unalarming truth about present climate conditions to light.
Most recently, GWPF published its annual State of the Climate report, by Ole Humlum, Ph.D., emeritus professor at the University of Oslo. In this report, Humlum examined temperature records and trends for the atmosphere and oceans and for weather events. Humlum finds, among other things, there is no evidence of a dramatic change in snow cover, rates of sea level rise, or storm activity.
Some facts from Humlum’s report:
- Global tide gauge measurements suggest sea levels are rising on average between 1 and 2 mm per year, consistent with the historic rise of the past few hundred years, with no recent acceleration or deceleration in the rate of rise.
- Average snow cover for the Northern Hemisphere has been stable since the onset of satellite observations in 1979. Autumn snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has been slightly increasing, the midwinter cover has remained virtually unchanged in extent, and spring snow cover displays a slight decreasing trend.
- The most recent data on global tropical storms and hurricanes show accumulated cyclone energy is well within the range observed since 1970 and the number of hurricanes making landfall in the continental United States remains within the normal range for the entire observation period since 1851.
Humlum’s report provides much detail about how temperatures are measured on land and oceans, the problems with each of the measuring systems, why there is a discrepancy between the ground-based temperature measurements and satellite measurements, and the hows and whys of temperature trends and how they differ by latitude, altitude, ocean depth, and region and zone. Humlum writes, “All temperature records are affected by at least three sources of error, each of which differs among the individual station records used.” After discussing each source of error, he explains, “The margin of error … is probably at least ±0.1°C for surface air temperature records, … [making] it statistically impossible to classify any year as ‘record-breaking,’ as several other years may be within the margin of error.”
So much for the breathless claims made almost every year by politicians, government-funded researchers, environmental lobbyists, and the corporate media that new global average high temperature records have been set yet again, almost always citing land-based measuring systems compromised by a growing urban heat island bias. When each “new record high” temperature measured is within the margin of error, it’s hard to establish definitely any new record has been set.
“A year ago, I warned that there was great risk in using computer modelling and immature science to make extraordinary claims,” said Humlum in discussing the takeaway message of his report. “The empirical observations I have reviewed show very gentle warming and no evidence of a climate crisis.”
In the end, most of the alarming claims made about a looming human-caused climate apocalypse are based on flawed computer model projections, not physical measurements of changes in the climate. The general circulation models widely used by the climate alarm community grossly overestimate warming. As a result, they have been unable to portray past or present temperatures or temperature trends accurately. Commenting on this and Humlum’s study, GWPF director Benny Peiser, Ph.D., said,
It’s extraordinary that anyone should think there is a climate crisis. Year after year our annual assessment of climate trends documents just how little has been changing in the last 30 years. The habitual climate alarmism is mainly driven by scientists’ computer modelling rather than observational evidence.
SOURCES: Global Warming Policy Foundation; Climate Realism; Climate at a Glance
IN THIS ISSUE …
ARCTIC WAS WARMER, HAD LESS ICE 6,000 YEARS AGO … GLACIERS CONTAIN LESS ICE THAN PREVIOUSLY BELIEVED … CORAL BLEACHING MISUNDERSTOOD, MISREPRESENTED
ARCTIC WAS WARMER, HAD LESS ICE 6,000 YEARS AGO
Data from hundreds of temperature reconstructions show the Northern Hemisphere was significantly warmer for much of the past 10,000 years (Holocene) than it is today. A recent study published in Climate of the Past examined the sediment records from 66 glaciers and icecaps (GIC) from all over the Arctic, covering the past 12,000 years.
Based on these records, they conclude the Arctic was warmer 6,000 years ago than it is today. This research suggests many glaciers and icecaps present today disappeared entirely during the summers 6,000 years ago, as they were warmer than at present. The study reports,
[T]he full Arctic compilation suggests that the majority (50% or more) of studied GICs were smaller than present or absent by ∼10 ka. We find the highest percentage (>90%) of Arctic GICs smaller than present or absent in the middle Holocene at ∼ 7-6 ka, probably reflecting more spatially ubiquitous and consistent summer warmth during this period than in the early Holocene. …
Our review finds that in the first half of the Holocene, most of the Arctic’s small GICs became significantly reduced or melted away completely in response to summer temperatures that, on average, were only moderately warmer than today.
SOURCE: Climate of the Past
GLACIERS CONTAIN LESS ICE THAN PREVIOUSLY BELIEVED
Research published in Nature Geoscience finds the world’s glaciers contain less ice than previously estimated.
The researchers involved in this study used new satellite imaging techniques to measure the thickness of more than 250,000 mountain glaciers around the world, for the first time, allowing them to calculate more accurately the volume of ice in different glaciers. The survey accounted for more than 98 percent of the world’s glaciers, including some in Europe, New Zealand, and South America that were never mapped before.
This research by scientists from universities and research institutes in Denmark, France, and the United States is important because millions of people around the world depend on freshwater in glaciers, as they melt seasonally, for drinking water, agriculture, and electric power generation. An accurate understanding of how much water glaciers contain is critical both for planning for glacier-dependent populations’ future water supplies and for glaciers’ possible contributions to sea level rise.
Among the findings are that the Himalayan glaciers contain approximately 37 percent more ice than previous surveys estimated. By contrast, Andean glaciers contain 27 percent less ice than formerly believed, if this research is correct.
Glaciologist Romain Millan, lead author of the study, told Bloomberg he “hopes scientists will use this new tool to model the future availability of glacial water. ‘It’s important for policymakers to anticipate the effects of climate change on glaciers and water supplies.’”
The research also indicates glacial melting is contributing 20 percent less to sea level rise than previously estimated, and that if all mountain glaciers melted—excluding those in in Greenland and Antarctica—ocean levels would increase by about 10 inches instead of the 13 inches previously projected.
Climate alarmists cannot claim the study results provide proof climate change is causing glaciers to melt faster than previously estimated. The authors make it clear the lower ice volume numbers derive solely from a correction in the way ice volumes are calculated, not that ice has melted faster and thereby decreased volumes.
SOURCES: Bloomberg; Nature Geoscience
CORAL BLEACHING MISUNDERSTOOD, MISREPRESENTED
In the April 16 edition of The Quadrant, marine biologist Walter Starck, Ph.D., writes much of the concern about coral bleaching is misplaced because of a misunderstanding on the part of journalists and the public about how coral reefs function and how they vary from location to location and at different depths.
Starck provides a bevy of facts about how various species interact with and move in and out of corals seasonally and in response to short-term perturbations from spikes or dips in ocean temperatures. Starck explains the following (quoted in part):
- Different strains of the algae are optimised to the differing seasonal temperatures and geographic regions.
- The strains of algae living in the tissues of corals change in accord with seasonal changes in water temperature. Such changes are usually gradual and the change in algae is not visually apparent.
- However, a more rapid change in temperature can result in the existing algal strain being expelled from the corals and appearing bleached. Such rapid changes in temperature are not rare. Atmospheric cold fronts can result in sudden cooling. Likewise, calm periods lasting a week or more in warmer months can result in several degrees of warming near the surface when wave-driven mixing and water flows across shallow reefs fade away.
- If a temperature change is only brief, as in the wind returning after a calm period, the expelled algal strain may just be re-established. If the change is seasonal, a new strain of algae may replace the previous one. Such recovery can be relatively quick. A few weeks after a bleaching event, corals usually appear normal again.
- Bleaching mostly affects shallow reef areas where it is also conspicuous. … The vulnerable shallow areas are also subject to occasional devastation from storms, floods or even just a good rain if it occurs when corals are exposed by a low tide.
Starck provides evidence the extent of bleaching in recent events on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (GBR) was greatly overstated because of survey locations and methodologies, and that most of the bleached coral recovered. In 2021, just four years after the last major bleaching event, Australia’s survey of the GBR found the highest level of coral cover ever recorded in the three and a half decades of the survey record.
“[I]ncidents of coral bleaching are nothing new, unusual or threatening,” writes Starck. “They are common natural event[s] no more threatening than trees shedding their leaves with the changing seasons, or occasionally in response to a dry spell.”
SOURCE: The Quadrant
Ohhh no it isn’t!
We’re up to our 6th climate related hyper rain event within a year
And that’s your fault for not restricting your use of fossil fuels to Zero, not Net Zero just zero.
But before you go into regurgitate nonsense do some research.
How are you differentiating, between climate induced events and weather induced events, griff?
Just curious?
Oh come on, you know how that works.
‘Good’ weather = “weather.”
‘Bad’ weather = “Climate Change (TM).”
Same as for every propaganda pushing nitwit pimping the nonexistent “crisis.”
It p!ssed it down in England. Who woulda thought ……?
Actually it p!ssed it down here in N. California yesterday. Our griff-brained nitwits who were California droughtists last year are rapidly rebooting themselves as California floodists.
Being scared of the weather?? Yikes, aren’t there better things to do with your life?
Yeah, thanks for the weather report, Griff.
Are you actually learning sarcasm? Or are you now totally insane?
Ohhh no we’re not!
Stop making false claims, Griff mate, or show us your data for evaluation
Not got any? Thought not
Are they going to start giving names to rain now? They started calling winter cold fronts “polar vortexes” as if this was some new thing.
Rain cloud Charlie inbound!
Sunny Day Silvia!
Overcast Day Oscar
Yes, they’re predicting lots of “named storms” for the Atlantic Hurricane Season again this year.
Of course, when you keep “naming” more storms based on ever more reduced ‘bars,’ that’s pretty meaningless!
….and there is a blizzard warning in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming and it is predicted to be 80 degrees F in Las Vegas, NV tomorrow. What’s your point?
Griffter is unaware that there are no temperatures or rainfall recods being broken today because all the earth has been both hotter and colder at some time in the past…wetter and dryer too.
Yay, Griff; it’s hard to find the edge of stupid until I see Griff comments. He is wrong, consistently, which seems to be the only constant I see in the climate loony world.
I’ve been following the global temperature for the past two years.
https://woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/from:2020/to/plot/uah6/from:2020/to/trend
From what I can tell it appears the planet is cooling. How would warming from increased CO2 be causing “hyper rain” when the planet is actually cooling? Simple question. Let’s hear your scientific assessment.
You’ll have to wait a bit while griff goes and asks his mom, Richard.
Very windy in Colorado today. It’s worse than we thought.
If it had been anyone else but you, griff, there would have been a chorus of LOLs and “Nice sarc” replies.
–
–
Wait… was that sarcasm from you, griff? Strange things are happening these days. Did mom cut off the home baked cookies? Have you been turned out of her basement?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Griff, are you drinking Aqua Velva again?
It’s interesting to note that:
– The cited paper in the link says that temperatures were warmer and glaciers smaller or absent in a majority of locations 6000 years or more ago.
BUT
– The papers conclusion is contrary to the claims made for it. (GIC = glaciers and ice caps)
viz
“Today, the direction of orbital forcing continues to favor GIC expansion; however, the rapid retreat of nearly all Arctic GICs underscores the current dominance of anthropogenic forcing on GIC mass balance. Our review finds that in the first half of the Holocene, most of the Arctic’s small GICs became significantly reduced or melted away completely in response to summer temperatures that, on average, were only moderately warmer than today. In comparison, future projections of temperature change in the Arctic far exceed estimated early Holocene values in most locations, portending the eventual loss of most of the Arctic’s small GICs.”
Glaciers are still growing in several places but it appears that hydrocarbon energy saves us again by preventing their growth everywhere.
“… future projections of temperature change in the Arctic …” says it all.
No. My aim is to be as objective as I can manage.
This study draws conclusions that are reasonably based on past history, (whether right or wrong) that we may not wish to hear. A major point I was making is that it is extremely “misleading” to cite a study to support a position we hold when the study conclusion is opposite to our beliefs.
Quoting again:
> “Today, the direction of orbital forcing continues to favor GIC expansion;
Solar input would lead us to expect glaciers to grow.”
> “however, the rapid retreat of nearly all Arctic GICs “
But we see that nearly all Arctic glaciers are rapidly retreating.
>” underscores the current dominance of anthropogenic forcing on GIC mass balance. “
This net change demonstrates that forcing is such as to cause loss of mass balance. We attribute this to anthropogenic causes.
> “Our review finds that in the first half of the Holocene, most of the Arctic’s small GICs became significantly reduced or melted away completely in response to summer temperatures that, on average, were only moderately warmer than today. In comparison,”
Historical records show that existing or slightly increased temperatures in the early Holocene lead to significant reduction or elimination of small Arctic glaciers. [[Inference: we can expect the same based on these historical observations.]]
____________________
We all seek to make “future projections”. Those based on models are often rejected ‘as of right’. Projections based on historical data, and present situations and observed trends deserve a little more careful treatment.
Estimates of Holocene temperatures are made by the same group that gave and continue to give us Michael E. Mann Hockey Sticks. Read:
The Hockey Stick Illusion by Andrew Montfort
Blowing Smoke by Rud Istvan
A Disgrace to the Profession by Mark Stein
The validity of an argument depends on the reliability of the whole of its evidence. Anybody accepting at face value anything coming out of CliSciFi is misinformed.
Disingenuous at best; much of the “rapid retreat” was due to wind patterns that pushed Arctic ice out of the Arctic, not due to temperature rise in the Arctic. The response of GIC to solar insulation is also bound to have extensive time response lag, because it’s all bout the oceans, not atmospheric temps. The poorly supported conclusion (since we have a pet hypothesis, it must be that) is therefore not convincing (as usual).
The kowtowing to “The Science (TM)” is to be expected in order to ensure publication, in any event.
Mods, FYI, this article seems to repeat after the coral bleaching section.
One should always precede such announcements with “Sorry, Climate Caterwaulers, But…”. One might think that they would be relieved, joyful even, with such news, but one would be wrong. Because for them, it is the Belief, and their Belief System which is all-important, not the actual, good state of the climate.
immature ‘science’. A referral to some Swedish mouthpiece?
That seems entirely reasonable. Could someone please give Prince Charles a copy – and preferably encourage him to read it! Attenborough and Mann too, please!
There has to be a climate crisis…Greta said so!
I was disappointed to see that the new edition of Climate at a Glance is only available on Amazon, but downloaded the PDF anyway and started to read it.
I am astonished that it says that corals only live in warm water. Here in Scottish sea waters we have lots of them, some of them living at depths of over 400M.
Kind of reduces the authority of the whole book.