Month: May 2017

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Barents Sea Grows Ice in May

Barents Sea Grows Ice in May

via Science Matters
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Something surprising is happening with Arctic ice.  It is May and ice should be melting, but instead it is growing and in the unlikely place of Barents Sea.  The images above show the ice positions since April, and you can see on the left how ice refused to leave Newfoundland, and how the right how Barents is not backing down but increasing.

The graph below shows how in recent days 2017 NH ice extents have grown way above average, even including the exceptionally low amounts of ice in the Pacific, Bering in particular.

Much of the growth is due to Barents adding 85k m2 in the last 5 days to reach 572k km2, an extent last seen two weeks ago.

The graph below shows Arctic ice excluding the Pacific seas of Bering and Okhotsk.  This provides an even more dramatic view of this years ice extents.  Mid April Arctic ice was average, and look what has happened since May began on day 121.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some insight into the unusual Arctic ice growth comes from AER Arctic Report and Forecast May 8, 2017

Currently positive pressure/geopotential height anomalies are mostly focused on the North Atlantic side of the Arctic with mostly negative pressure/geopotential height anomalies across the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere (NH). This is resulting in a near record low Arctic Oscillation (AO) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) for May.

It might be the second week of May but an unusually strong block/high pressure exists in the northern North Atlantic including Iceland and Greenland and is more commonly associated with winter. The unusually strong block is contributing to not only below normal temperatures to both sides of the North Atlantic, including Europe and the Eastern US but late season snowfall to Southeastern Canada, the Northeastern US and Russia. The negative geopotential height anomalies that have developed both downstream across western Eurasia including Europe and upstream across the Eastern US are predicted to persist for much of the month of May helping to ensure a relatively cool month of May for both Europe and the Eastern US.

Summary

Do not be mislead by reports of declining sea ice in the Arctic; it is a distraction based on early melting in the Pacific, especially Bering sea.

Meanwhile, on the Atlantic side of the Arctic, we have sightings and reports of ice surges along the coast of Newfoundland, such amounts not seen since the 1980s. Below is a NASA satellite photo of Newfoundland Sea Ice, May 5, 2017 Source: Newsfoundsander

 

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May 14, 2017 at 12:46PM

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A prime example of why correct facts don’t matter to climate alarmists

A prime example of why correct facts don’t matter to climate alarmists

via Watts Up With That?
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Respected climate scientist refutes false claim that tree died due to climate change, and the pressure to not do so

Toby Nixon writes:

The Seattle Times ran a hysterical story about how climate change killed a large tree at the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle. Cliff Mass, professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Washington and no climate change skeptic, demolished the Times story in a strongly-worded blog post.

But perhaps more importantly, he goes on to describe the kind of pressure to which he is subjected to not post such corrections because of the ammunition it gives to “deniers”. It is an excellent exposition on the corruption of the scientific method that is rampant in climate science — not just the suppression of dissent, but the suppression of every small corrections of the most exaggerated claims.

Mass writes:

So what about temperature?  Let’s examine the maximum temperature trend at the same Seattle Urban location for summer (June through August).  There is a slight upward trend since 1895 by .05F per decade. Virtually nothing.

What about the period in which the poor lived (it was planted in 1948)? As shown below, temperatures actually COOLED during that period.

You get the message, the claim that warming summer temperatures produced by “climate change” somehow killed this pine is simply without support by the facts.
So the bottom line of all this is that the climate record disproves the Seattle Times claim that warming and drying killed that pine tree in the UW arboretum.  There is no factual evidence that climate change ended the 72-year life of that tree.  The fact that a non-native species was planted in a dry location and was not watered in the summer is a more probably explanation.

Why is an important media outlet not checking its facts before publishing such a front page story? Linda Mapes is an excellent writer, who has done great service describing the natural environment of our region.  Why was she compelled to put a climate change spin on a story about the death of a non-native tree?

Now something personal.  Every time I correct misinformation in the media like this, I get savaged by some “environmentalists” and media.  I am accused of being a denier, a skeptic, an instrument of the oil companies, and stuff I could not repeat in this family friendly blog.  Sometimes it is really hurtful.  Charles Mudede of the Stranger is one of worst of the crowd, calling me “dangerous” and out of my mind (see example below).

I believe scientists must provide society with the straight truth, without hype or exaggeration, and that we must correct false or misleading information in the media.   It is not our role to provide inaccurate information so that society will “do the right thing.”

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May 14, 2017 at 11:13AM

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Scrapping green subsidies would be a much faster route to cheaper energy bills than price caps

Scrapping green subsidies would be a much faster route to cheaper energy bills than price caps

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
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By Paul Homewood

 

 

Short and to the point – Booker on green subsidies in the Telegraph today:

 

 

image

I would defy anyone unfortunate enough to hear the Today programme at 8.10 last Tuesday morning to have made head or tail of an interview in which our Business Secretary, Greg Clark, droned on for 10 minutes with Justin Webb about the Tories’ promise of a “cap” on energy bills. The essence of this flood of deathly jargon was that, thanks to something called the Competition and Markets Authority, this could save 17 million households a total of £1.4 billion a year.

What Clark and Webb never mentioned, of course, were the figures recently published by the Office for Budget Responsibility, showing the soaring cost of those green subsidies and taxes we all pay for through our energy bills. These are officially projected to more than double by the end of this Parliament, from £7.3 billion last year to £14.7 billion, or from £292 a year for each household to £565.

In other words, even if Theresa May’s “cap” on energy saves £1.4 billion a year, this will be dwarfed by the additional £7.4 billion a year due to be added to our bills under the Climate Change Act. But if you ask any candidates in this make-believe election what they think of those figures, almost certainly they will never have heard of them. If they come to your door, try it.

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May 14, 2017 at 09:24AM

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Cartoon of the day: Dilbert does denial

Cartoon of the day: Dilbert does denial

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May 14, 2017 at 07:09AM