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China Cooled Nearly 0.2°C During Global Warming Hiatus

China Cooled Nearly 0.2°C During Global Warming Hiatus

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

During the global warming hiatus between 1998 and 2014  temperatures in the whole of China declined sharply, dropping by nearly 0.2°C by the end of the hiatus period. The delayed cooling observed in the Tibetan Plateau was even steeper.

Figure 2.

Abstract

A reduction in the warming rate for the global surface temperature since the late 1990s has attracted much attention and caused a great deal of controversy. During the same time period, however, most previous studies have reported enhanced warming over the Tibetan Plateau (TP). In this study we further examined the temperature trend of the TP and surrounding areas based on the homogenized temperature records for the period 1980–2014, we found that for the TP regions lower than 4000 m the warming rate has started to slow down since the late 1990s, a similar pattern consistent with the whole China and the global temperature trend. However, for the TP regions higher than 4000 m, this reduction in warming rate did not occur until the mid-2000s. This delayed warming hiatus could be related to changes in regional radiative, energy, and land surface processes in recent years. […]

3 Results

3.1 Annual Mean Temperature Variations

For the global, whole China, the TP regions lower and higher than 4000 m, the annual mean temperature showed evident rapid warming since 1980 (Figures 1 and S2). Trend analysis showed relatively little temperature change for the TP regions lower than 4000 m since 1998 (Figures 1b and S2b), and similar pattern existed for the whole China and the global temperature at the same time (Figures 1c and 1d, and S2c andS2d). The temperature for the TP regions lower than 4000 m showed almost flat trend with a rate of 0.07°C/decade during period 1998–2014 (Table 1). However, for the TP regions higher than 4000 m, the annual mean temperature kept increasing until the mid-2000s, followed by a significant decreasing trend in recent years (Figures 1a and S2a).

Figure 1.

Figure 1. Observed annual mean temperature anomalies for the TP regions (a1) higher than 4000 m, (b1) lower than 4000 m, (c1) whole China, and (d1) global mean temperature during 1980–2014. Trend lines were estimated using the nonparametric LOESS regression technique with a span of 0.5; the shading area represents the 95% confidence intervals of the estimated trends. The (a2, b2, c2, and d2) insets in each figure show the decadal change rate of temperature variations (°C/decade) and corresponding error bars during the period of 1980–1997 and 1998–2014.

 

 

Warming Rates of Annual Mean Temperature

To examine changes in the warming rates over time, we first smoothed the temperature time series using the LOESS regression with the span of 0.5. Based on the smoothed trend lines, we calculated the annual change rate for the mean temperature of the global, the whole China, and the TP regions lower and higher than 4000 m. Consistent with the reported global warming hiatus period [Fyfe et al., 2013], the increase rate of global mean temperature peaked around 1997 and started to decline. However, since about 2010, the annual change rate of global mean temperature started to increase again, indicating the general warming trend in global temperature. By contrast, the results showed that for the TP regions lower than 4000 m and the whole China, the warming rates started to decline sharply and persistently since about 1998, indicating a significant warming slowdown (Figure 2). It seems that the TP regions lower than 4000 m responded fairly quickly to the global warming hiatus, and this temperature slowdown was intensified in recent years with negative annual change rates (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Figure 2. Comparisons of annual change rates for the TP regions higher than 4000 m, the TP regions lower than 4000 m, and global and whole China mean temperature from 1981 to 2014. The annual change rates were estimated based on the nonparametric LOESS regression technique with a span of 0.5.

 

 

However, the temperature trajectory for the TP regions higher than 4000 m was different. For this region, the rapid warming continued until about 2005, when the warming rate peaked and started to decline (Figure 2).

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April 16, 2017 at 10:21PM

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MATT RIDLEY EXPOSES THE GREEN ACTIVISTS PLANS AND FAILURES

MATT RIDLEY EXPOSES THE GREEN ACTIVISTS PLANS AND FAILURES

via climate science
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Matt Ridley’s article explains how the ban on neonicotinoids has been a failure like so many other attempts by green activists. He looks at the activists play plan to see how they promote their dubious causes, and very clever it is too.

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April 16, 2017 at 10:15PM

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This Isn’t A March For Science This Is About Economic And Political Policy

This Isn’t A March For Science This Is About Economic And Political Policy

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

The complaint which is driving the ‘March for Science’ isn’t about an attack on science at all. Far from it, it’s one group of scientists not understanding that the policy they advocate is, by the scientific experts in the policy, considered to be a bad one which should be replaced. 

Image result for March for Science cartoon

“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.” ― Michael Crichton

One of those who organises the Union of Concerned Scientists has penned an explanation of the March for Science to take place next weekend. And it’s entirely obvious that what he’s actually irate about isn’t science at all, it’s the political and economic policies being put in place as a result of science that irks him.

The two are not the same thing, not the same thing at all:

“So, why are they grabbing placards now? Because an unprecedented attack on science, scientists and evidence-based policymaking is underway in the US federal government.”

An attack upon science or the scientific method would be worthy of a march of course. But that really just isn’t what is being complained about:

“Nowhere is the attack more ferocious than on the issue of global warming, where the Trump administration has taken a wrecking ball to the modest but important policies put in place by President Obama.”

Ah, no, that’s not a complaint about science at all is it? That’s a complaint about political and economic policy. I am, for example, boringly mainstream concerning climate science. That warming climate is happening, we’re causing it and we should do something. And then I become equally boringly mainstream with what we should do about it–have a carbon tax. As Nick Stern, James Hanson, Greg Mankiw, William Nordaus, John Quiggin, Richard Tol, Marty Weizman, Sir Partha Dasgupta and just about every economist who has studied the matter agrees.

And the thing is, as the Stern Review itself, all 1,200 pages of meaty goodness of it, explains, because the carbon tax is the efficient method of dealing with this then the other methods, say, regulatory action like that from Obama, is not something we should do. For, if we deal with this problem the efficient way then we will either be able to solve more of it for the costs we’re willing to bear or, alternatively, solve it entirely at least cost. Using regulation, that less efficient method, means that either we’ll solve less of it because we’ll be so aghast at the cost, or we’ll be poorer once we have solved it.

That is, good economic policy tells us that the political action to deal with climate change should not be what Obama has been doing. Reversing those regulations is not thus an attack on science it’s an attack on bad policy. And do please note that this is true whatever we think of climate science itself. The truth of emissions causing warming has no influence at all upon the best method of reducing emissions and thus warming.

“My organisation, the Union of Concerned Scientists, with its more than 500,000 members and supporters, has joined with allies from the climate, environmental justice and labour movements to help organise both the March for Science and the People’s Climate March.”

Again, that’s not about science. That’s about economic and political policies.

There’s a much deeper point here too. Let’s say that we really do want to be ruled by science. Personally, I don’t think so, the people who tried scientific socialism didn’t give that sort of thing a good name really. But let’s say that we do want to be. OK, so, each scientist is an expert in their really rather small part of the overall endeavour. I know someone, in fact have funded some of her work, who is the world’s great expert on the extraction of rare earth metals from the wastes of bauxite processing. Excellent–that doesn’t mean that she’s therefore who I would turn to on how competition policy should be crafted so as to ensure rare earth supply for the US military, just to mention something that is doing the rounds at present. Similarly I’m absolutely delighted to take the world of that guy measuring atmospheric CO2 in Hawaii. That doesn’t mean that he’s going to be expert in how to change human behaviour in order to get that number going down again.

For we’ve another scientific specialty which deals with those sorts of things–economics. That’s what it is about, the allocation of scarce resources so as to meet humans wants and desires. And thus if we want to change the way that humans are allocating resources then that’s the science we’re going to have to use. It’s worth noting that pretty much all economists are against those uses of regulation to control emissions. Not because they don’t believe or trust the climate scientists. But because the economists have their own expertise. Not in climate science of course–but in what you need to do to get humans to change their behaviour.

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April 16, 2017 at 09:31PM

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New Paper: 100% Renewable Energy Not Feasible, ‘Unsupportable And Reckless’ – Keeps Poor Impoverished

New Paper: 100% Renewable Energy Not Feasible, ‘Unsupportable And Reckless’ – Keeps Poor Impoverished

via NoTricksZone
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Comprehensive Analysis Crushes

100% Renewable Energy Fantasy

While fully accepting the perspective that fossil fuel energy production and consumption must be dramatically reduced to save the planet from dangerous CO2-induced global warming, four Australian researchers have compiled a comprehensive rebuke of the premise that renewable energies (wind, solar, biomass, etc.) can ever supplant fossil fuels to become the dominant power source for the world.

The authors’ analysis zeroes in on the devastating conclusion that each and every one of the 24 previous attempts to substantiate the claim that a 100% renewable energy grid is achievable have failed to satisfy even the most basic feasibility criteria.

Further, a commitment to all-renewable energy sources means there will need to be a massive and unprecedented increase in grid extensions (for new power distribution systems), as well as realized plans for extreme and unrealistic land-use expansion (for biomass production especially) that would threaten ecosystem preservation, biodiversity, and land conservation efforts.

From a humanitarian standpoint, it is conceded that attempts to “decarbonize” energy sources seriously hampers efforts to provide electricity generation to the world’s most impoverished people. In fact, Heard and colleagues conclude that a commitment to renewable-only energy supplies “appears diametrically opposed to [the] eradication of poverty … and social justice for indigenous people.”

Again, these damning conclusions have been advanced by researchers avidly committed to reducing or eliminating fossil fuel energy production for the sake of mitigating global warming.  And yet even staunch renewable energy advocates cannot find a way to substantiate the claim that 100% renewable power generation is feasible.

A very brief summation of the highlights from the analysis — as well as the link to the full paper — is provided below.

Heard et al., 2017

Burden Of Proof: A Comprehensive Review Of The

Feasibility Of 100% Renewable-Electricity Systems

Of 24 Analyses Of The Prospects Of Achieving 100% Renewable Energy, Zero Met Basic Feasibility Criteria

“While many modelled scenarios have been published claiming to show that a 100% renewable electricity system is achievable, there is no empirical or historical evidence that demonstrates that such systems are in fact feasible. Of the studies published to date, 24 have forecast regional, national or global energy requirements at sufficient detail to be considered potentially credible. We critically review these studies using four novel feasibility criteria for reliable electricity systems needed to meet electricity demand this century. [N]one of the 24 studies provides convincing evidence that these basic feasibility criteria can be met. Of a maximum possible unweighted feasibility score of seven, the highest score for any one study was four. … On the basis of this review, efforts to date seem to have substantially underestimated the challenge and delayed the identification and implementation of effective and comprehensive decarbonization pathways.”

Reducing Fossil Fuel Consumption Will ‘Raise Problems’ For ‘Poverty Alleviation’

“Our review of the 100%-renewable-scenario literature raises substantial concerns. The widespread assumptions of deep cuts in primary energy consumption defy historical experience, are generally inconsistent with realistic projections, and would likely raise problems for developing countries in meeting goals of poverty alleviation.”
“[E]conomic growth and poverty reduction in developing countries is crucially dependent on energy availability. A reduction in primary energy is an unlikely pathway to achieve these humanitarian goals. To move beyond subsistence economies, developing nations must accumulate the necessary infrastructure materially concentrated around cement and steel. That energy-intensive process likely brings with it a minimum threshold of energy intensity for development. Across a collation of 20 separately modelled scenarios of primary energy for both India and China, Blanford et al. found a range of energy-growth pathways from approximately +50 to +200% from 2005 to 2030. None of those scenarios analyzed for these two countries — with a combined population of almost 2.5 billion people — suggested static or reduced primary energy consumption.”

100% Renewable Energy Demands Unrealistic Grid Extensions, Land-Use Commitments

“The remaining feasibility gaps lie in the largely ignored, yet essential requirements for expanded transmission and enhanced distribution systems, both to transport electricity from more sources over greater distances, and to maintain stable system operations. Fürsch et al. suggested that a cost-optimized transmission network to meet a target of 80% renewables in Europe by 2050 would demand an additional 228,000 km of transmission grid extensions, a +76% addition compared to the base network. … Rodríguez et al. [83] concluded that to obtain 98% of the potential benefit of grid integration for renewables would require long-distance interconnector capacities that are 5.7 times larger than current capacities. Becker et al. found that an optimal four-fold increase in today’s transmission capacity would need to be installed in the thirty years from 2020 to 2050. An expansion of that scale is no mere detail to be ignored.”
“Perhaps our most concerning finding relates to the dependence of 100% renewable scenarios on biomass. The British scenario is a typical example; even with the assumption of a 54% reduction in primary energy consumption, biomass requires 4.1 million ha [hectares] of land to be committed to the growing of grasses, short-rotation forestry and coppice crops (17% of UK land area). … The WWF scenario demanded up to 250 million ha [hectares] for biomass production for energy, along with another 4.5 billion m3 of biomass from existing production forests to meet a scenario of an absolute reduction in primary energy from today.”
“[I]n applying so many assumptions to deliver changes far beyond historical precedents, the failure in any or several of these assumptions regarding energy efficiency, electrification or flexible load would nullify the proposed supply system. As such, these systems present a fragile pathway, being conceived to power scenarios that do not exist and likely never will.”

Wind-Watch.Org Image “Steel Winds“

Summarizing Statements:  Proposition Of 100% Renewable Energy Must Be…’Discarded’

1.      “To date, efforts to assess the viability of 100% renewable systems, taking into account aspects such as financial cost, social acceptance, pace of roll-out, land use, and materials consumption, have substantially underestimated the challenge of excising fossil fuels from our energy supplies. This desire to push the 100%-renewable ideal without critical evaluation has ironically delayed the identification and implementation of effective and comprehensive decarbonization pathways. We argue that the early exclusion of other forms of technology from plans to decarbonize the global electricity supply is unsupportable, and arguably reckless.”
2.      “The realization of 100% renewable electricity (and energy more broadly) appears diametrically opposed to other critical sustainability issues such as eradication of poverty, land conservation and reduced ecological footprints, reduction in air pollution, preservation of biodiversity, and social justice for indigenous people.”
3.     “The evidence from these studies for the proposition of 100% renewable electricity must therefore be heavily discounted, modified or discarded.”

 

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April 16, 2017 at 09:22PM