Month: April 2017

Uncategorized

AI thinks ‘global warming’ is increasing ticks in Alabama, except it’s cooled over the last century there

AI thinks ‘global warming’ is increasing ticks in Alabama, except it’s cooled over the last century there

via Watts Up With That?
http://ift.tt/1Viafi3

From the “you really should check the data before you invoke the universal boogeyman” department:

‘Very bad tick year’ expected for Alabama in 2017, and climate change a factor

BY DENNIS PILLION

2017 could be a record year for ticks and tick-borne illnesses according to one researcher who studies the arachnids in Alabama. “I would say this is going to be a very bad tick year because it was a very mild winter,” said Tim Sellati, chair of Southern Research’s Infectious Diseases Department.

In addition, Sellati said a warming climate has let certain species of ticks expand their range and those changes are reflected in tick surveys in Alabama and other parts of the United States. “The winters are warmer and the ticks recognize this, they sense this change in their environment,”

Uh, no. It has not warmed in Alabama in the last century according to NOAA’s own data. In fact the average temperature has COOLED since 1895:

The minimum temperature trend essentially flat:

And if “ticks recognize this, they sense this change in their environment,” according to Tim Sellati, chair of Southern Research’s Infectious Diseases Department, you’d think they would sense that Alabama is getting cooler, especially the daytime high temperatures:

Here’s the problem:

Tim Sellati is conflating weather with climate. Weather patterns typically span days to weeks, while climate is defined as a 30 year interval according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO):

Climate, sometimes understood as the “average weather,” is defined as the measurement of the mean and variability of relevant quantities of certain variables (such as temperature, precipitation or wind) over a period of time, ranging from months to thousands or millions of years.

The classical period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).  Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a statistical description, of the climate system.

And here’s where Sellati goes really really wrong, note the single end data point, December through February, the “winter” months for Alabama, there’s a nice warm spike there, though not as warm as the spike of 1932. There’s also an ever so slight, though statistically insignificant warming trend since 1895. Note in the legend, NOAA reports that as 0.0F per decade:

Source:

http://ift.tt/2ooN6zd

That one warm point at the end, that’s due to a weather pattern my friends. It’s called El Niño, of which there was a very large one recently that affected Alabama’s winter temperatures and precipitation.

Sellati might be a tick expert, but to quote one of the favorite lines of climate skeptic detractors: he’s not a climate scientist. While the data shows winter was warmer in Alabama, it isn’t part of a long-term trend and in fact, there were three other periods in 1932, 1950, and 1957 that were warmer than this most recent winter.

Seems a correction/retraction is in order.

via Watts Up With That? http://ift.tt/1Viafi3

April 11, 2017 at 05:04AM

Uncategorized

Emerging Nations Urge Trump Administration To Honour Obama’s $100 Billion Climate Funding Pledge

Emerging Nations Urge Trump Administration To Honour Obama’s $100 Billion Climate Funding Pledge

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)
http://www.thegwpf.com

China, Brazil, India and South Africa have urged industrialized countries to honor financial commitments made in Paris in 2015 to help developing countries fight against global climate change, they said in a statement on Tuesday.

Image result for GWPF 100 billion climate fund

Following a meeting in Beijing, climate change ministers from the “BASIC” bloc of four major emerging economies called on rich countries “to honor their commitments and increase climate finance towards the $100 billion goal”, and said more clarity was needed to “track and account for” those pledges.

Climate financing was a major bone of contention during negotiations to seal a new global deal to curb and reduce climate-warming greenhouse gases in Paris at the end of 2015, with China and other developing nations adamant that the bulk of the burden should fall to advanced industrialized nations like the United States.

As part of the Paris deal, developed countries agreed to make more funding available to a Green Climate Fund (GCF), which is designed to be used by poor and climate-vulnerable countries.

But the agreement has been plunged into uncertainty after U.S. President Donald Trump, who has questioned the scientific basis of global warming, last month proposed an end to payments to the GCF and signed an order to undo climate change regulations introduced by his predecessor.

At a media briefing after the Tuesday meeting, South Africa’s deputy minister of environmental affairs, Barbara Thompson, said recent changes in U.S. policy were “of major concern”.

But “the position of the U.S. is still very unclear to us”, she said, adding “we believe there are different views within the U.S. administration” on this issue.

At the same briefing, China’s chief climate envoy, Xie Zhenhua, insisted China remained willing to work closer with the United States.

Xie told Reuters after the briefing that he expected China and the United States to hold talks on climate issues, and that discussions were going on at multiple levels.

Joint pledges made by China and the United States, the world’s two biggest emitters of climate-warming greenhouse gases, helped bridge the gap between developed and developing countries and provided the momentum to seal the deal in Paris.

Full story

via The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) http://www.thegwpf.com

April 11, 2017 at 04:47AM

Uncategorized

NASA to launch 12 satellites to Venus 

NASA to launch 12 satellites to Venus 

via Tallbloke’s Talkshop
http://ift.tt/1WIzElD


The satellites won’t land as the surface pressure – 92 times that of Earth – and heat of Venus would destroy them. Instead they will look for a ‘mysterious substance’ thought to be lurking in its atmosphere.

NASA has spent $3.6 million to build 12 small satellites to explore the planet Venus in search of a mysterious substance that absorbs half the planet’s light, reports The Daily Caller.

The CubeSat UV Experiment (CUVE) mission will launch the satellites to investigate atmospheric processes on Venus. The 12 satellites vary in size. One is less than four inches across and weighs a few ounces. Another weighs 400 pounds.

“CUVE will use remote sensing instruments to study the distribution of energy in Earth’s sister planet Venus,” Dr. Valeria Cottini, a NASA scientist at the University of Maryland in College Park, told Astrowatch.net. “The mission is also designed to address the role of the cloud-top dynamics and chemistry in global energy balance. These results will constrain theories that describe the evolutionary processes of Venus.”

CUVE is a relatively new idea, coming out of a March conference in Texas between NASA an several universities. There is not yet a scheduled launch date for the satellites. NASA only recently begun funding the mission, but the probes will be one of the first projects to use miniaturized cube satellites for space research.

Continued here.

via Tallbloke’s Talkshop http://ift.tt/1WIzElD

April 11, 2017 at 04:24AM

Uncategorized

News Reports on Endangerment Finding Petitions to USEPA

News Reports on Endangerment Finding Petitions to USEPA

via Carlin Economics and Science
http://ift.tt/1gVT2t3

On Sunday I added a post concerning one of two petitions I know of to the US Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider its Endangerment Finding (EF) for Greenhouse Gases issued in December, 2009. The EF is the legal basis for EPA’s subsequent efforts to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). If it should be rescinded by EPA, it would not be able to pursue or enforce any of its CO2 regulations.

The press release discussed in my previous post has resulted in two news stories which I believe may be of particular interest to readers. One is by James Delingpole for Breitbart News and the other is by Michael Bastasch for the Daily Caller. Delingpole’s headline is EPA’s Obama-Era Endangerment Finding a Disgrace to Science, Menace to Economy; Bastasch’s headline is EPA Asked To Invalidate A Pillar Of Obama’s Climate Agenda.

via Carlin Economics and Science http://ift.tt/1gVT2t3

April 11, 2017 at 04:13AM