h/t Scottish Skeptic for referring to this article by James Delingpole in the Sun UK

How scientists got their global warming sums wrong — and created a £1TRILLION-a-year green industry that bullied experts who dared to question the figures

The summary puts the point clearly.  The scientists who produce those doomsday reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finally come clean. The planet has stubbornly refused to heat up to predicted levels.  Read the whole thing.  Favorite excerpts below with my bolds.

I’VE just discovered the hardest word in science.

Not pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (inflammation of the lungs caused by inhalation of silica dust). Nor palmitoyloleoylphosphatidylethanolamine (a lipid bilayer found in nerve tissue).

No, the actual hardest word — which scientists use so rarely it might as well not exist — is “Sorry”.

Which is a shame because right now the scientists owe us an apology so enormous that I doubt even a bunch of two dozen roses every day for the rest of our lives is quite enough to make amends for the damage they’ve done.

Thanks to their bad advice on climate change our gas and electricity bills have rocketed.

So too have our taxes, our car bills and the cost of flying abroad, our kids have been brainwashed into becoming tofu-munching eco-zealots, our old folk have frozen to death in fuel poverty, our countryside has been blighted with ranks of space-age solar panels and bat-chomping, bird-slicing eco-crucifixes, our rubbish collection service hijacked by hectoring bullies, our cities poisoned with diesel fumes . . .

And all because a tiny bunch of ­scientists got their sums wrong and scared the world silly with a story about catastrophic man-made global warming.

This scare story, we now know, was at best an exaggeration, at worst a ­disgraceful fabrication. But while a handful of reviled and derided sceptics have been saying this for years, it’s only this week that those scientists have fessed up to their mistake.

One scientist has described the ­implications of the new Nature Geoscience report as “breathtaking”. He’s right. What it effectively does is scotch probably the most damaging ­scientific myth of our age — the notion that man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) is causing the planet to warm at such dangerous and ­unprecedented speeds that only massive government intervention can save us.

For a quarter of a century now — it all really got going in 1992 when 172 nations signed up to the Rio Earth Summit — our politicians have believed in and acted on this discredited theory.

In the name of saving the planet, war was declared on carbon dioxide, the benign trace gas which we exhale and which is so good for plant growth it has caused the planet to “green” by an extraordinary 14 per cent in the last 30 years.

This war on CO2 has resulted in a massive global decarbonisation industry worth around $1.5trillion (£1.11trillion) a year. Though it has made a handful of green crony capitalists very rich, it has made most of us much poorer, by forcing us to use expensive “renewables” instead of cheap, abundant fossil fuels.

So if the science behind all this ­nonsense was so dodgy, why did no one complain all these years?

Well, a few of us did. Some — such as Johnny Ball and David Bellamy — were brave TV celebrities, some — Graham Stringer, Peter Lilley, Owen Paterson, Nigel (now Lord) Lawson — were ­outspoken MPs, some were bona fide scientists. But whenever we spoke out, the response was the same — we were bullied, vilified, derided and dismissed as scientifically illiterate loons by a powerful climate alarmist establishment which brooked no dissent.

Unfortunately this alarmist establishment has many powerful media allies. The BBC has a huge roster of eco-activist reporters and science “experts” who believe in man-made global warming, and almost never gives sceptics air time.

It comes as little consolation to those of us who’ve been right all along to say: “I told you so.”

In the name of promoting the global warming myth, free speech has been curtailed, honest science corrupted and vast economic and social damage done. That ­apology is long overdue.

via Science Matters

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September 21, 2017 at 09:12AM

By Paul Homewood

 

 Difference in average temperature (2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004) from 2003, covering the date range of 20 July – 20 August

http://ift.tt/1HHXK8v

There is little doubt that the European heatwave of 2003 was one of the defining meteorological events of the last hundred years.

Climate scientists have often held it up as an example of what the future has in store, as global warming takes hold. Indeed, every time the sun comes out in summer, we seem to get the mantra that “heatwaves are becoming more common”.

We heard the usual nonsense this summer when southern Europe had a hot spell. It was even given a name, Lucifer. The Telegraph reported:

Unusually high temperatures, in some cases unprecedented, are being recorded across an area spanning much of the Iberian peninsula, southern France, Italy, the Balkans and Hungary.

http://ift.tt/2fdUKdi

 

But was this summer abnormally hot, and have we been seeing 2003 style heatwaves since?

It was France which was most seriously affected back in 2003, so let’s start there, with Limoges in the south west of the country:

The summer of 2003 stands out very clearly. This summer, while warmer than average, was 2.1C cooler than 2003. It was also no hotter than 1976.

 

In Spain, the 2003 heatwave was less pronounced. As the temperature record at Alicante shows, despite the hype, this summer was not even as hot as 1952.

And at Pisa in Italy, this summer was 2.7C cooler than 2003. As in Spain, summer temperatures in 1950 and 1952 were at a similar level.

 

All of these places are, of course, heavily urbanised, so much of the recent increase in temperatures may be due to UHI. There are very few genuinely rural stations in these countries with long term records, at least not in the GHCN record anyway.

There is one, however, at Mont Aigoul, in central France. When we look at the record there, we find that it was as hot or hotter than this summer in 1949, 1950 and 1951.

 

The heatwave in 2003 was clearly an anomalous meteorological event, but there is no evidence that it has any climatic significance, or that it tells us anything about future summer weather. It is similar in this respect to the dustbowl years in the US.

Climate scientists have used it to scaremonger about global warming. It is time for them to drop this pretence, and admit they were wrong.

SOURCE

All temperature data from GISS:

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via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

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September 21, 2017 at 09:03AM

Weather.com published an article noting that the two Cat 4 hurricane strikes this year (Harvey and Irma) is a new record. Here’s a nice graphic they used showing both storms at landfall.

But the statistics of rare events (like hurricanes) are not very well behaved. Let’s look at this new record, and compared it to the 11+year period of no major hurricane strikes that ended when Harvey struck Texas.

The Probability of Two Cat 4 Strikes in One Year

By my count, we have had 24 Cat 4 or Cat 5 landfalls in the U.S. between 1851 and 2016. This gives a probability (prior to Harvey and Irma) of one Cat4+ strike every 7 years. It also leads to an average return period of two Cat4+ strikes of about 50 years (maybe one of you statiticians out there can correct me if I’m wrong).

So, since the average return period is once every 50 years, we were overdue for two Cat4+ strikes in the same year over the entire 166 period of record. (Again, for rare events, the statistics aren’t very well behaved.)

The Probability of the 11-Year “Drought” in Major Landfalling Hurricane

In 2015, a NASA study was published which calculated how unlikely the (then) 9-year stretch with no major hurricane landfalls was. They came up with a 177 year return period for such an event.

I used that statistic to estimate what eventually happened, which was 11 years with no major hurricane strikes.

I get a return period of 560 years!

Now, which seems more unusual and potentially due to climate change: something that should happen only once every 50 years, or every 560 years?

Maybe global warming causes fewer landfalling hurricanes.

via Roy Spencer, PhD.

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September 21, 2017 at 08:40AM

The diagram represents how Dr. judah Cohen pictures the Northern Hemisphere wintertime climate system.  He leads research regarding Arctic and NH weather patterns for AER.  He explains the dynamics in an interview at Washington Post (here):

My colleagues, at AER and at selected universities, and I have found a robust relationship between two October Eurasian snow indices and the large-scale winter hemispheric circulation pattern known as the North Atlantic or Arctic Oscillation pattern (N/AO).

The N/AO is more highly correlated with or explains the highest variance of winter temperatures in eastern North America, Europe and East Asia than any other single or combination of atmospheric or coupled ocean-atmosphere patterns that we know of. Therefore, if we can predict the winter N/AO (whether it will be negative or positive) that provides the best chance for a successful winter temperature forecast in North America but certainly does not guarantee it.

[Of the two indices we’ve analyzed], the first and longer [more data points] index is simply the monthly mean snow cover extent (SCE) for the entire month [of October] as measured from satellites. This record dates back to at least 1972 and is available on the Rutger’s Global Snow Lab website.

The second index that we developed last year, with the support of NSF and NOAA grants, measures the daily rate of change of Eurasian snow cover extent also during the entire month of October, which we refer to as the Snow Advance Index or SAI.

There have been recent modeling studies that demonstrate that El Nino modulates the strength and position of the Aleutian Low that then favors stratospheric warmings and subsequently a negative winter N/AO that are consistent with our own research on the relationship between snow cover and stratospheric warmings. So the influence of ENSO on winter temperatures in the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast may be greater than I acknowledge or that is represented in our seasonal forecast model.

How It Works

Conceptual model for how fall snow cover modifies winter circulation in both the stratosphere and the troposphere–The case for low snow cover on left; the case for extensive snow cover on right.

1. Snow cover increases rapidly in the fall across Siberia, when snow cover is above normal diabatic cooling helps to;
2. Strengthen the Siberian high and leads to below normal temperatures.
3. Snow forced diabatic cooling in proximity to high topography of Asia increases upward flux of energy in the troposphere, which is absorbed in the stratosphere.
4. Strong convergence of WAF (Wave Activity Flux) indicates higher geopotential heights.
5. A weakened polar vortex and warmer down from the stratosphere into the troposphere all the way to the surface.
6. Dynamic pathway culminates with strong negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation at the surface.

From Eurasian Snow Cover Variability and Links with Stratosphere-Troposphere
Coupling and Their Potential Use in Seasonal to Decadal Climate Predictions by Judah Cohen

What About Winter 2017-2018?

Dr. Cohen’s Winter Outlook for NH  September 18, 2017

Many important markers are currently being set indicating the atmosphere is beginning in earnest the transition from summer to winter. There are four features that I am monitoring closely over the coming weeks and months to gauge the evolving atmospheric circulation pattern and resultant weather across the NH.

The first is the nascent stratospheric polar vortex (PV). The PV has returned to the NH polar stratosphere. Much recent research including my own has shown that the relative strength of the PV if not forces, certainly leads prolonged periods of temperature anomalies across key regions of the NH. A strong PV is related to relatively milder temperatures across the mid-latitudes of the NH while a weak PV is related to relatively colder temperatures across the mid-latitudes of the NH. This relationship is strongest in mid-winter. Early signs are that the PV will start off relatively weak similar to last fall. This is somewhat surprising because increasing greenhouse gases favor colder stratospheric temperatures and hence a stronger PV. Poleward heat flux or vertical wave activity flux is predicted to be unusually active in the coming two weeks, which is likely the reason for the predicted relatively weak start to the PV.  (my bolds)

The active poleward heat flux is also likely related to the second feature that I will be following – high latitude blocking. The negative AO state is often a manifestation of strong high latitude blocking while the positive AO often reflects a lack of high latitude blocking. The predicted negative AO in the coming two weeks is a result of predicted strong high latitude blocking with the dominant block predicted to reside in the region of Scandinavia and the Barents-Kara seas. In the near term this will lead to a cold and snowy period across most of Siberia. Blocking in this region is favorable for weakening the stratospheric polar vortex and will likely lead to weakening of the PV over the next two weeks. If similar blocking occurs later on during the late fall and early winter it will favor a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW). SSW in the winter often precedes extended periods of severe winter weather across the continents of the NH. (my bolds)

The third feature is Arctic sea ice extent. The minimum in Arctic sea ice extent is achieved this time of year and if the minimum has not already been reached it should occur relatively soon. The past two blogs I suggested the possibility that the sea ice minimum could be similar to the years 2008 and 2010 and that is looking likely. Sea ice extent is extremely low compared to climatology but will not be a new record low. The largest anomalies are in the North Pacific side of the Arctic in the Beaufort Sea. This pattern matches recent Septembers. Typically, the largest anomalies migrate with the progression of fall to the North Atlantic side of the Arctic. It is my opinion that low sea ice favors high latitude blocking but the nature of the blocking is regionally dependent. For example, low sea ice in the Barents-Kara Seas favors blocking in the northwest Eurasia sector resulting in cold temperatures in parts of Asia. (my bolds)

The fourth feature is Siberian snow cover. My, along with my colleagues and others, research has shown that extensive Siberian snow cover in the fall favors a trough across East Asia with a ridge to the west near the Urals. The atmospheric circulation pattern favors more active poleward heat flux, a weaker PV and cold temperatures across the NH. With a predicted strong negative AO in the coming weeks, snow cover is likely to advance relatively quickly heading into October. It is very early in the snow season but recent falls have been snowy across Siberia and therefore I do expect another upcoming snowy fall across Siberia. Though admittedly, recent Siberian snow cover as a predictor of winter temperatures has been mixed.

Summary

Uh oh.  Now where did I put away my long johns?

via Science Matters

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September 21, 2017 at 08:12AM