The war on non-alarmist, rational science takes a hit… Bonn state prosecutor’s office decides to dismiss criminal complaint filed by “unnamed scientist” against lead author of the sensational Heinsberg paper, Prof. Hendrik Streeck, who had been accused of “having made up research results”

Professor of Virology, Henrik Streeck. Institute for HIV Research, Germany,  CC BY 2.5

Investigation dropped

The online German General Anzeiger here reports that the Bonn state prosecutor’s office has decided not to pursue a criminal investigation of renowned researcher Hendrik Streeck, Professor of Virology, after the police had received a 100-page criminal complaint from an unnamed person who claimed to be a scientist.

No criminal science behavior found

The unnamed scientist who filed the criminal complaint accused Streeck of “having made up research results and made false statements in connection with the Heinsberg study.”

Flurry of accusations

Also German business magazine “Capital” reported on its online site about alleged “contradictory data on which the ethics committee of the University of Bonn gave the green light for the study to be carried out.”

Streeck was also accused if “making up research results” and refusing “to provide raw data for verification”.

Study: COVID-19 death rate overstated by factor of 10

The distinguished virologist Streeck is the head of the Institute of Virology and HIV Research at the University Hospital of Bonn, and the lead author of the now famous “Heinsberg study” whose results showed that the mortality rate of COVID-19 was in fact significantly lower than that previously claimed by numerous health officials and the media.

According to the University of Bonn: “This number of unreported cases is about 10 times higher than the officially reported cases (162,496 on May 3rd, 2020).”

North Rhine Westphalia’s Minister President used the results of Streeck’s study to defend his decision to relax restrictions.

A number of officials and parties with an interest in spreading panic reacted angrily to the study’s panic-silencing affect. It’s still unknown who was behind the 100-page criminal complaint effort.

Virologists receiving death threats

Wolfgang Holzgreve, Director the University Clinic in Bonn, told the General-Anzeiger he was concerned about “the increasing number of accusations against scientists” and: “It’s amazing what people have to put up with these days. Some virologists have even received death threats. I think we’ll have to live with that.”

via NoTricksZone

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July 3, 2020 at 08:45AM

By Paul Homewood

Just when you thought the loonies had gone away!

Extinction Rebellion has warned it will set up blockades in Westminster to prevent MPs from returning to work. A statement on its website said: "We’re not going to let them back in until they agree to start anew with justice, care and life at the heart of it. From September 1 we will peacefully blockade the UK Parliament in London until they promise that the first thing they’ll do is debate our three demands."

We will peacefully blockade the UK Parliament until they promise to debate our three demands

Extinction Rebellion

Extinction Rebellion said its first demand was for the Government to declare a climate and ecological emergency and work with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.

The second demand is for the Government to act immediately to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.

And the group’s third demand is the creation of a "Citizens’ Assembly" on climate and ecological justice…..

Extinction Rebellion said: "We are at an intersection of global crises. Climate breakdown, COVID-19, racial injustice – all are symptoms of a toxic system that is driving us to extinction – a system built on economic inequality, extraction, the destruction of nature, and exploitation.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1304564/Extinction-Rebellion-blockade-parliament-latest-September-London-news-Cardiff-Edinburgh

The idea that you can have a peaceful blockade that prevents MPs going to work is a contradiction in terms.

And talk of racial injustice, economic inequality and so on simply confirms the real, hard left agenda, hidden behind their green facade.

Of course, we knew all of this anyway, but what about their new demand for net zero emissions by 2025? Even if we drove the economy off the top of a cliff, it still would not make much of a dent in emissions.

Electricity only accounts for about a tenth of overall emissions in the UK, so even if we could miraculously quadruple our renewable capacity in the next five years, and find a way to manage with the lights going out half the time, it would make little difference.

Domestic users account for another 16% of non power emissions, mainly for heating, cooking and hot water.  Does XR recommend that we freeze to death in winter?

Industry emits about a quarter of GHGs, so that would have to all shut down. Another quarter comes from transport, which would raise the question of how we are all supposed to get to work, except for the fact that we would have no work to go to.

And finally there’s agriculture, with another tenth of emissions, so we would have no food to eat, even if there were lorries to ferry it around, and factories to process it.

Still, at least there is one consolation – Emma Thompson would be stuck would not be able to fly back from abroad every time she felt like it!

via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

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July 3, 2020 at 08:12AM

With apologies to Paul Revere, this post is on the lookout for cooler weather with an eye on both the Land and the Sea.  UAH has updated their tlt (temperatures in lower troposphere) dataset for June 2020.  Previously I have done posts on their reading of ocean air temps as a prelude to updated records from HADSST3. This month also has a separate graph of land air temps because the comparisons and contrasts are interesting as we contemplate possible cooling in coming months and years.

Presently sea surface temperatures (SST) are the best available indicator of heat content gained or lost from earth’s climate system.  Enthalpy is the thermodynamic term for total heat content in a system, and humidity differences in air parcels affect enthalpy.  Measuring water temperature directly avoids distorted impressions from air measurements.  In addition, ocean covers 71% of the planet surface and thus dominates surface temperature estimates.  Eventually we will likely have reliable means of recording water temperatures at depth.

Recently, Dr. Ole Humlum reported from his research that air temperatures lag 2-3 months behind changes in SST.  He also observed that changes in CO2 atmospheric concentrations lag behind SST by 11-12 months.  This latter point is addressed in a previous post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?

HadSST3 results were delayed with February and March updates only appearing together end of April.  For comparison we can look at lower troposphere temperatures (TLT) from UAHv6 which are now posted for June. The temperature record is derived from microwave sounding units (MSU) on board satellites like the one pictured above.

The UAH dataset includes temperature results for air above the oceans, and thus should be most comparable to the SSTs. There is the additional feature that ocean air temps avoid Urban Heat Islands (UHI). In 2015 there was a change in UAH processing of satellite drift corrections, including dropping one platform which can no longer be corrected. The graphs below are taken from the latest and current dataset, Version 6.0.

The graph above shows monthly anomalies for ocean temps since January 2015. After all regions peaked with the El Nino in early 2016, the ocean air temps dropped back down with all regions showing the same low anomaly August 2018.  Then a warming phase ensued with NH and Tropics spikes in February and May 2020. As was the case in 2015-16, the warming was driven by the Tropics and NH, with SH lagging behind. After the up and down fluxes, oceans temps in June are back to a neutral point, close to the 0.4C average for the period.

Land Air Temperatures Showing a Seesaw Pattern

We sometimes overlook that in climate temperature records, while the oceans are measured directly with SSTs, land temps are measured only indirectly.  The land temperature records at surface stations sample air temps at 2 meters above ground.  UAH gives tlt anomalies for air over land separately from ocean air temps.  The graph updated for June 2020 is below.

Here we have fresh evidence of the greater volatility of the Land temperatures, along with extraordinary departures, first by NH land with SH often offsetting.   The overall pattern is similar to the ocean air temps, but obviously driven by NH with its greater amount of land surface. The Tropics synchronized with NH for the 2016 event, but otherwise follow a contrary rhythm.  SH seems to vary wildly, especially in recent months.  Note the extremely high anomaly last November, cold in March 2020, and then again a spike in April. Now in June 2020, all land regions have converged, erasing the earlier spikes in NH and SH, and showing anomalies comparable to the 0.4C anomaly prior to the 2015-16 El Nino.

The longer term picture from UAH is a return to the mean for the period starting with 1995.  2019 average rose but currently lacks any El Nino to sustain it.

These charts demonstrate that underneath the averages, warming and cooling is diverse and constantly changing, contrary to the notion of a global climate that can be fixed at some favorable temperature.

TLTs include mixing above the oceans and probably some influence from nearby more volatile land temps.  Clearly NH and Global land temps have been dropping in a seesaw pattern, more than 1C lower than the 2016 peak, prior to these last several months. TLT measures started the recent cooling later than SSTs from HadSST3, but are now showing the same pattern.  It seems obvious that despite the three El Ninos, their warming has not persisted, and without them it would probably have cooled since 1995.  Of course, the future has not yet been written.

via Science Matters

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July 3, 2020 at 08:09AM

Like with climate science, being a virus expert means interpreting data exactly opposite what it shows. Coronavirus Bell Curve | Daily COVID-19 Statistics for the United States

via Real Climate Science

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July 3, 2020 at 07:35AM