by Judith Curry

A few things that caught my eye this past week.

UN Report: 3-5C of Arctic warming is now locked in [link]

Factcheck: is 3-5C of Arctic warming now locked in? [link]

The oceanic sink for anthropogenic CO2 from 1994 to 2007 [link]

New report by Svensmark:  The sun’s role in climate change [link]

Relative sea-level rise and the influence of vertical land motion at Tropical Pacific Islands https://buff.ly/2CqUNeF

How RCP8.5, a valuable worst-case scenario, has been misrepresented to incite fear in the American public. https://fabiusmaximus.com/2019/03/15/rcp85-climate-science-corruption/

Predictable and Unpredictable Aspects of US West Coast Rainfall and El Niño: Understanding the 2015-2016 Event https://buff.ly/2tYvUSU

Deep diving robots find warming accelerating in South Pacific Ocean waters [link]

A submarine wall protecting the Amundsen Sea intensifies melting of neighboring ice shelves https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-2019-32

Evolution of ocean heat content related to ENSO https://buff.ly/2F1F3PU

Deciphering patterns and drivers of heat and carbon storage in the Southern Ocean https://buff.ly/2J79Vnj

Lenny Smith and Erica Thompson: Escape from model land [link]

Youtube of Nic Lewis lecture on climate sensitivity [link]

Widespread global peatland establishment and persistence over the last 130,000 yrs [link]

Nonlinear impacts of future anthropogenic aerosol emissions on Arctic warming [link]

Attributing the 2017 floods in Bangladesh to climate change gave unexpected results: no trend in extreme rainfall up to now, but a trend towards more extremes is projected as the aerosol cooling is reduced. Hydrological models show the same for discharge. https://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/23/1409/2019/

Does air pollution really kill nearly 800,000 people in Europe and 9 million worldwide each year? https://www.newscientist.com/article/2196238-does-air-pollution-really-kill-nearly-9-million-people-each-year/

An ambitious roadmap for developing next-generation extreme-scale computing systems for weather and climate simulations: http://bit.ly/2Chfvhb

A historical Southern Ocean climate dataset from whaling ships’ logbooks https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/gdj3.65

Estimating Climate Feedbacks Using a Neural Network https://buff.ly/2JacKE3

Recent strengthening of Greenland blocking drives summertime surface warming over northern Canada and eastern Siberia https://buff.ly/2VRTtsq

Impacts of the North Atlantic subtropical high on interannual variation of summertime heat stress over the conterminous United States [link]

Social science, technology & policy

MIT has demonstrated that nuclear is required in any energy mix that attempts to achieve an optimal zero-carbon outcome. The stricter the CO2 target, the more nuclear is required. If no nuclear is employed at all, costs increase two- to fourfold. [link]

Scientific leaders have no monopoly on expertise, nor do they have a privileged ethical standpoint, for evaluating the social consequences of science and of science policies [link]

The right way to deal with extreme weather. In setting out a plan to make Manhattan better prepared for extreme weather, Mayor Bill de Blasio is delivering a sorely needed message on climate change. [link]

As costs skyrocket, more U.S. cities stop recycling [link]

Stemming the tide of trash: 5 essential reads on recycling [link]

Weather has a major effect on the productivity of wind turbines. Both the Polar Vortex and El Niño have reduced the output of wind turbines in the Midwest. [link]

One big challenge to the Green New Deal – rapid decarbonization will require closing down working equipment [link]

The mounting solar panel waste problem [link]

Large-scale carbon dioxide removal, negative emissions, may be unfeasible, but is reducing global emissions to zero by 2030 any more feasible? “We need to explore all options, then society can decide if one or another is more attractive than another” https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/climate-change-model-warns-of-difficult-future/

How CA can adapt to fire risk. In short, there shouldn’t be a grid in the severe fire zone. People who live there can generate their own renewable power and use batteries to store it. https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2019/02/04/only-who-should-prevent-forest-fires/

We need radical thinking on climate change [link]

The largest county in the country by land area (San Bernardino County, California) has banned big renewable-energy projects. [link]

About science & scientists

The environment is too important to leave to environmentalists [link]

Rebels without a clue [link]

Sarah Lawrence: A Professor Spoke the Truth, He Still Pays the Price [link]

Sarah Lawrence Students Demand Tenure Review Of Conservative Professor, No-Whites Scholarships, And Free Detergent https://jonathanturley.org/2019/03/16/sarah-lawrence-students-demand-tenure-review-of-conservative-professor-no-whites-scholarships-and-free-detergent/

Teaching to Transgress: Rage and Entitlement at Evergreen College [link]

Motivated or manipulated?  Rise of youth climate activism fuels alarm over exploitation [link]

Do beliefs yield to evidence?  Examining belief perseverance vs change in response to congruent empirical findings [link]

Twilight of the humanities [link]

Interview with David Spiegelhalter: Accessible, comprehensible, usable – are your facts trustworthy? [link]

Down the rabbit hole of political intolerance in Silicon Valley [link]

It’s time to teach young people how to stop being so offended [link]

via Climate Etc.

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March 17, 2019 at 08:53AM

Guest essay by Eric Worrall Climate activists are demanding to know why Green New Deal proponents are so selfish, why they want to keep trillions of dollars of Green New Deal cash inside the USA, instead of sharing the cash with everyone through the United Nations. The Green New Deal Isn’t Global Enough The resources Democrats…

via Watts Up With That?

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March 17, 2019 at 08:06AM

By Paul Homewood

 

David Rose uncovers yet more of John Gummer’s dodgy dealings:

 

As head of the Government’s climate change committee, Tory peer John Selwyn Gummer was a key figure behind last week’s controversial decision to ban fossil fuel central heating in new homes.

But in pushing for the radical change, he failed to declare that the firm he runs has received more than £500,000 from companies which are set to make millions from the decision.

The ban, from 2025, was announced by Chancellor Philip Hammond following the recommendations of two reports by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), chaired by Mr Gummer, now known as Lord Deben.

The reports both recommended homes should no longer be heated with natural gas but with hydrogen – even though it is an expensive, and, as yet, largely untried method.

Gummer did not declare he had any relevant private interests in either report, even though his family-run consultancy, Sancroft International, has received at least £299,699 from Johnson Matthey, which sells hydrogen technology.

Tory peer John Selwyn Gummer was a key figure behind last week’s controversial decision to ban fossil fuel central heating in new homes

The firm is also part of a lobby group, the Hydrogen Council, which campaigns for policy changes favouring the hydrogen industry.

Gummer is already being investigated by the Lords Commissioner for Standards, Lucy Scott-Moncrieffe, after The Mail on Sunday last month revealed that Sancroft was paid more than £600,000 by ‘green’ businesses, including Johnson Matthey, which stood to benefit from CCC decisions.

She is also examining more than a dozen occasions when Gummer, 79, spoke in Lords debates on matters affecting its clients.

Gummer, who as Agriculture Minister in 1990 famously fed his four-year-old daughter a beefburger at the height of the BSE crisis, has always declared his chairmanship and ownership of Sancroft.

However, he has never disclosed its clients – but has denied any conflicts of interest. It is understood he justifies this by saying Sancroft did not advise its clients how to influence Government policy.

In his spring statement, Mr Hammond also announced there would be new measures to increase the proportion of gas from biological sources supplied to homes. Sancroft has been paid more than £232,000 by businesses which make such gas, including £183,062 from Saria Ltd, which is building a network of UK plants which generate gas from waste and specially grown crops, such as maize and sugar beet.

 

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The Mail on Sunday revealed last month that Mr Gummer’s company Sancroft International was paid more than £600,000 by ‘green’ businesses in consultancy fees

Spills from these sites, which are heavily subsidised by taxpayers, have caused numerous pollution incidents. Two years ago, a leak poisoned the River Teifi, with a devastating impact on what had been Wales’s finest trout and salmon stream.

In another report issued in November, the CCC also strongly supported such ‘biomass’ fuel, saying its use should be increased. Gummer did not declare any interests in it.

Last night MPs from both main parties voiced concern that Mr Hammond had followed CCC recommendations – adding to house-building and energy bills – despite Ms Scott-Moncrieffe’s ongoing investigation. Labour’s Graham Stringer said: ‘Gummer’s denials he has conflicts of interest now lack any credibility. It’s really disturbing that key Government policies are being influenced by someone who has vested interests on this scale.’

Monmouth Conservative MP David Davies added: ‘I’m very concerned that the Chancellor has announced huge and costly policy changes while the chairman of the committee which recommended them is being investigated. Until the inquiry is complete, these policies should be put on hold.’

Treasury sources confirmed last week that banning fossil fuel heating will leave two main options – electric powered heat pumps, and using hydrogen.

The CCC issued a statement praising Mr Hammond’s announcements as ‘a genuine step forward in reducing emissions’. But the CCC, Gummer and Johnson Matthey declined to comment on Sancroft’s work.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6818199/Tory-peers-firm-paid-500-000-energy-companies-set-profit-fossil-fuel-boiler-ban.html

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

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March 17, 2019 at 07:10AM

Joe Bastardi argues that loud claims of a climate about to spin out of control are out of tune with various actual observations.

I have long advocated that climatologists take a course on long-range forecasting so they can better understand the inherent errors in trying to predict the weather or climate, says Joe Bastardi at Patriot Post.

In the debate over the fate of the planet, where one side is always pushing hysteria, the weather is plainly not cooperating with the missive.

Forecasters take climatology classes and are now being taught the one-sided climate narrative, but in general, climatologists do not have to learn how to forecast.

If they did, they would have to confront errors. I have had to confront mine, the latest example being this past winter’s botched forecast for the Southeast.

Because climatologists are not exposed to forecast verification, it has led to a bold initiative that simply pushes an issue because no one will question it.

From the evidence I have seen, not only is the cause of warming questionable (there’s no question it’s warming; the question is why it’s warming), but the implied negative impacts are also questionable, because there are factual examples of the opposite happening.

I am not trying to be mean and nasty. That is not my mission. My mission in writing a piece like this is to show what I am looking at and why I question what I am being told. It does me no good to engage in the kind of activity I see out there today with derogatory labeling. In fact, I am trying to go the other way.

The assumption, of course, is that everyone is truly searching for the right answer. But if that is the case, is the missive being pushed not unlike using the fruit of a poisoned tree, wherein the means justify the ends? What if the ends are not at all what they are purported to be?

If a catastrophe that is driving children to sue the government is actually occurring, why are there major metrics opposite of what is being claimed?

Continued here.

via Tallbloke’s Talkshop

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March 17, 2019 at 06:18AM