Weekly Local weather and Power Information Roundup #466 – Watts Up With That?

The Week That Was: 2021-08-14 (August 14, 2021)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project

Quote of the Week: “The simple step of a courageous individual is not to partake in the lie. – Alexander Solzhenitsyn [H/t Ron Clutz]

Number of the Week: – 175 years

THIS WEEK:

By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)

The Physical Science Basis? The UN’s great publication event of the decade is beginning. This week, it published the Physical Science Basis for its findings that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing dangerous global warming and other great ills to the natural world which are a threat to human existence. Some political leaders, many environmental groups, and their allies in the press immediately seized upon this to announce to the world impending doom if it does not change its ways. For example:

Humans have pushed the climate into ‘unprecedented’ territory, landmark U.N. report finds. The U.N. chief called the findings ‘a code red for humanity’ with worse climate impacts to come unless greenhouse gas pollution falls dramatically.” Washington Post Aug 10, 2021.

Others questioned the rigor of the science. Is it really Physical Science or is it Computer Imagineering – making projections into the future that are not supported by physical evidence today? Does the science draw conclusions about the past by only selecting data that supports the conclusion and ignoring a vast body of data that does not – “cherry-picking?” See links under Defending the Orthodoxy.

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Questions: Perhaps Paul Homewood expressed the issues with the IPCC most succinctly: “If we ignore all of the alarmist rhetoric in the IPCC’s Summary for Policymakers, the real nitty gritty lies in these four sections:” 1) extreme rainfall; 2) droughts; 3) tropical cyclones; and 4) sea level rise. He then discusses each of these issues.

Roger Pielke Jr., who has studied climate science since the 1990s, summed it differently:

“The new IPCC report dropped yesterday, prompting a flurry of interpretations and, yes, spin. The Secretary General of the United Nations warned of,

“‘a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk.’

“Not only is this wrong, it is irresponsible. Nowhere does the IPCC report say that billions of people are at immediate risk.”

Pielke then goes on to discuss the various scenarios, storylines, presented by the IPCC over the years. The most extreme one “RCP8.5” is the one used in thousands of papers by practitioners of Bandwagon Science but has become highly unlikely. However, the IPCC protected the Bandwagon Science by assigning no estimates of likelihood to the different storylines.

Patrick Michaels discusses a fundamental error in all IPCC reports:

“As it has in each of its summary reports, AR6 makes the cardinal error of aggregating families of models (in this case CMIP-6) rather than using those that are more representative of reality. Using the more representative models is the ‘best scientific practice’ in forecasting that the IPCC refuses to abide by. This practice is used virtually every day in composing the secular weather forecast. What’s good for 120 hours should be good for 120 years.”

The spaghetti bowl of trends in the models can be used to justify virtually any type of projection. Michaels continues:

“Although the numbers in AR6 are a bit different, there’s been no real or significant change in the range of equilibrium climate sensitivity after 50 years of study and countless billions in model funding.

“AR6 completely minimizes the profound greening of the terrestrial surface that is occurring because of increasing carbon dioxide and the climate change induced by that increase. Over 90 percent of the greening is the direct result of human activity.”

Jennifer Marohasy discusses how national meteorological services make substantial changes to numbers to historic databases to give the appearance of non-stop warming with increasing carbon dioxide (CO2). She writes:

According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), which is one of the national meteorological services providing data for HadCRUT, the official remodelled temperatures are an improvement on the actual measurements. This may be so that they better accord with IPCC policy, with the result being a revisionist approach to our climate history. In general they strip the natural cycles within the datasets of actual observations, replacing them with linear trends that accord with IPCC policy.

The BOM’s Blair Trewin, who is one of the 85 ‘drafting authors’ of the Summary for Policy Makers, in 2018 remodelled and published new values for each of the 112 weather stations used to calculate an Australian average over the period 1910 to 2016, so that the overall rate of warming increased by 23 %. Specifically, the linear trend (°C per century) for Australian temperatures had been 1 °C per century as published in 2012 in the Australian Climate Observations Reference Network − Surface Air Temperature (ACORN-SAT) database version 1. Then, just in time for inclusion in this new IPCC report released on Tuesday, all the daily values from each of the 112 weather stations were remodelled and the rate of warming increased to 1.23 °C per century in ACORN-SAT version 2 that was published in 2018. This broadly accords with the increase of 22% in the rate of warming between the 2014 IPCC report (Assessment Report No. 5) which was 0.85 °C (since 1850), and this new report has the rate of warming of 1.07 °C.

In corporate finance, this would be “cooking the books” and punishable by fines and / or imprisonment.

Writing for WUWT, Willis Eschenbach addresses the issue of evidence. He writes:

“First, ‘evidence’ in their world is not just data, observations, and mechanistic and theoretical understanding. ‘Evidence,’ for them, also includes models and expert judgment. As a man who has programmed computer models of a host of systems, I can assure you that model output is ‘evidence’ only in the very simplest of systems. That’s why Boeing and Airbus use wind tunnels to test physical scale models of proposed airplanes whose design is based on computer model outputs … because model outputs aren’t evidence.”

Apparently, Boeing failed to thoroughly test its Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (a type of computer model), which was developed for the Boeing 767, on the Boeing 737 MAX before the MAX was placed in service. Two fatal crashes resulting in requiring grounding of the airplane. This example shows that if there are changes to a model or to the characteristics of the physical entity the model is designed to simulate, the revised model must be tested against physical evidence, not other models.

German Fritz Vahrenholt and the authors of the website Die kalte Sonne were blunt::

“Climate models (CMIP6) have failed across the board”’ Reruns of an old myth; and PAGES2K controversy:

“‘Die Welt’ conducted an interview with paleoclimatologist Ulf Büntgen, who explained how there had been a scandal in the PAGES2k group responsible for the new hockey stick. Many members left the group because they did not agree with the approach. Exactly as our Klimaschau had already speculated in 2020.”

Steven Koonin, the author of “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters” writes:

“Previous climate-assessment reports have misrepresented scientific research in the ‘conclusions’ presented to policy makers and the media. The summary of the most recent U.S. government climate report, for instance, said heat waves across the U.S. have become more frequent since 1960, but neglected to mention that the body of the report shows they are no more common today than they were in 1900. Knowledgeable independent scientists need to scrutinize the latest U.N. report because of the major societal and economic disruptions that would take place on the way to a ‘net zero’ world, including the elimination of fossil-fueled electricity, transportation, and heat, as well as complete transformation of agricultural methods.

“It is already easy to see things in this report that you almost certainly won’t learn from the general media coverage. Most important, the model muddle continues. We are repeatedly told ‘the models say.’ But the complicated computer models used to project future temperature, rainfall and so on remain deficient. Some models are far more sensitive to greenhouse gases than others. Many also disagree on the baseline temperature for the Earth’s surface.

“The latest models also don’t reproduce the global climate of the past. The models fail to explain why rapid global warming occurred from 1910 to 1940, when human influences on the climate were less significant. The report also presents an extensive ‘atlas’ of future regional climates based on the models. Sounds authoritative. But two experts, Tim Palmer and Bjorn Stevens, write in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the lack of detail in current modeling approaches makes them ‘not fit’ to describe regional climate. The atlas is mainly meant to scare people.”

See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy, Challenging the Orthodoxy – IPCC and Article # 1.

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The New Hockey-stick! In the next two weeks TWTW will discuss the above issues in IPCC AR6. But since the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) is used to try to persuade government leaders to accept the findings of the IPCC and to pledge $100 Billion per year to the UN Green Climate Fund, this TWTW will focus on it. It gives a good indication of the scientific integrity of the IPCC. Does it give a good description of the complexity of the science involved, and the uncertainty, or is it more a sales tool? The link to the SPM states:

“The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) provides a high-level summary of the understanding of the current state of the climate, including how it is changing and the role of human influence, and the state of knowledge about possible climate futures, climate information relevant to regions and sectors, and limiting human-induced climate change. (39 pages)”

The first graph of the SPM (SPM.1, p.SPM-7) is a showstopper. It is a new hockey-stick titled “Human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2000 years.” It consists of two panels. The first graph (Panel a) shows reconstructed estimates of temperature (proxy data) from year 1 to 1850 connected with estimates of global surface temperature from instruments to 2020. It fails to show overlap of both instrument and proxy data – a too common trick in IPCC reports. A second graph (Panel b) shows temperature change from 1850 to 2020 called observed, simulated human & natural, and simulated natural only (solar & volcanic). The explanation of “panel a” reads:

“Panel a): Changes in global surface temperature reconstructed from paleoclimate archives (solid grey line, 1–2000) and from direct observations (solid black line, 1850–2020), both relative to 1850–1900 and decadally averaged. The vertical bar on the left shows the estimated temperature (very likely range) during the warmest multi-century period in at least the last 100,000 years, which occurred around 6500 years ago during the current interglacial period (Holocene). The Last Interglacial, around 125,000 years ago, is the next most recent candidate for a period of higher temperature. These past warm periods were caused by slow (multi-millennial) orbital variations. The grey shading with white diagonal lines shows the very likely ranges for the temperature reconstructions.” [After title, boldface was italics in original]

There are no references to the data which “Panel a” depicts. Seeking data leads to a search of the Technical Summary, again no references to the data used to construct “Panel a.” Is it a product of model magic?

But the search of the Technical Summary revealed something else: the rebirth of the Tropical Hot Spot! The tropical hot spot, a strong warming trend over the tropics centered at a pressure of about 250 hPa, (or about 35,000 feet, 11 km in altitude) was featured in the 1995 IPCC report. No one has been able to find it. Now, it is projected to reappear in 2080 to 2100. A second product of model magic? (Figure TS.10: Observed and projected upper air temperature and circulation changes p. TS-117)

What is also of interest is that the observed upper air trends make no mention of the 42 years of atmospheric temperature trends.

As Fritz Vahrenholt mentioned, above, there was a controversy regarding the PAGES2K studies – they were the result of careful “cherry-picking” – choosing only those studies that meet the desired conclusion. That has been a major issue, but it needs to be revisited. See links under Defending the Orthodoxy.

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New Hockey-Stick Smashed! Statistician Steven McIntyre with Ross McKitrick smashed the old hockey-stick. Also, McIntyre reviewed the work of PAGES2K, showing how it was cobbled together using industrial strength cherry-picking. Fortunately, he has reviewed the latest work of the IPCC. In his blog he writes:

“Although climate scientists keep telling that defects in their ‘hockey stick’ proxy reconstructions don’t matter – that it doesn’t matter whether they use data upside down, that it doesn’t matter if they cherry pick individual series depending on whether they go up in the 20th century, that it doesn’t matter if they discard series that don’t go the ‘right’ way (‘hide the decline’), that it doesn’t matter if they used contaminated data or stripbark bristlecones, that such errors don’t matter because the hockey stick itself doesn’t matter – the IPCC remains addicted to hockey sticks: lo and behold, Figure 1a of its newly minted Summary for Policy-makers contains what else – a hockey stick diagram. If you thought Michael Mann’s hockey stick was bad, imagine a woke hockey stick by woke climate scientists. As the climate scientists say, it’s even worse that we thought.”

After presenting the graph discussed as panel a, above, (graphs are not reproduced in TWTW because they do not get past spam checkers) McIntyre writes:

“Curiously, this leading diagram of the Summary of Policymakers does not appear in the Report itself. (At least, I was unable to locate it in Chapter 2.) However, it is clearly the progeny of PAGES2K Consortium (Nature 2019) and Kaufman et al (2020), both of which I commented on briefly on Twitter.

“It’s hard to know where to begin.

“The idea/definition of a temperature “proxy” is that it has some sort of linear or near-linear relationship to temperature with errors being white noise or low-order red noise. In other words, if you look at a panel of actual temperature “proxies,” you would expect to see series that look pretty similar and consistent.

“But that’s not what you see with the data used by the IPCC. You’d never know this from the IPCC report or even from the cited articles, since authors of these one- and two-millennium temperature reconstructions scrupulously avoid plotting any of the underlying data. It’s hard for readers unfamiliar with the topic to fully appreciate the extreme inconsistency of underlying “proxy” data, given the faux precision of the IPCC diagram.

“Many of the series discussed in this post, including nearly all of any HS-shaped [hockey-stick-shaped] series, have been previously discussed in Climate Audit blog posts (tag/pages2k) from 2, 5, 10 or even 15 years ago or in tweets from 2019 and 2020 (see here).

“The PAGES2019 is not a ‘random’ selection of proxies but winnowed through ex post criteria. As Rosanne d’Arrigo explained to the NAS panel many years ago: if you want to make cherry pie, you first have to pick cherries.

“The PAGES2019 dataset consists of 257 proxies, selected from the prior PAGES2017 dataset consisting of 692 proxies, which had previously been selected from thousands of proxy series accumulated by many authors over the years. [Boldface added.]

“In order to give readers an overview of the underlying data – not the massaged final product, I’ve plotted three batches of 11 randomly selected series from each of PAGES2017, PAGES2019 and then PAGES2019 North American tree rings and then commented on each batch. (The samples were selected by R formula sample (1:K, 11) where K is the size of dataset being sampled.) In each case, there were usually series that I had already studied plus numerous non-descript series, which are notable and important to show precisely because the majority of proxies are non-descript and you need to see this to understand it.

“This post will be a work in progress for a few days, as I have some sections on special issues that I will try to add as I have time.”

Most of the randomly selected graphs are at the end of the 2000-year record and one is an exception in that it shows recent cooling, not warming. McIntyre gives a plausible explanation why. After discussing tree rings including the removal of data that does not meet the conclusions, McIntyre concludes:

“I discussed many of these problems in July 2019, within a couple of days of publication of the underlying article (see here). While I don’t necessarily expect IPCC reviewers to be paying rapt attention to my twitter feed, one surely presumes that IPCC climate scientists, who are employed full time on these topics, to be competent enough to notice things that I was able to observe in my first day or so of looking at PAGES2019. But their obtuseness never ceases to amaze.”

From the above, one can conclude that the IPCC lacks scientific integrity and has no respect for the scientific method. IPCC AR6 can be considered as extreme alarmism used in hope of receiving $100 Billion per year. There are many words used to describe corporations that use such tactics. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy – IPCC

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14th ICCC: The 14th International Conference on Climate Change presented by The Heartland Institute will be October 15 to 17, 2021, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. See https://climateconference.heartland.org/

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Number of the Week: 175 Years. January 1979 marked the beginning of atmospheric temperature trends calculated from data taken by satellites – the only comprehensive global database existing. Once discovered, a few minor errors in calculations were quickly corrected. The data are published monthly for all to review. Yet, the UN IPCC ignores these 42 years of atmospheric temperature trends. The calculated linear trend is 0.14°C/year (0.25°F/decade).

Over the same period, the globe has witnessed a dramatic decrease in percentage of population living in extreme poverty and a dramatic increase in human carbon dioxide emissions. The UN IPCC ignores the former and labels the latter as a threat to humanity.

The data taken by NOAA at Mauna Loa observatory, and confirmed by other observatories, show that the annual peak CO2 concentration has grown from 339 ppm (parts per million volume) in 1979 to 419 ppm in 2021 – an increase of 80 ppm or slightly less than 24% (0.57%/year or 5.7% per decade.) At that rate it would take 175 years (17.5 decades) for CO2 to double from 339 ppm to 668 ppm. There is no factual basis for demanding a reduction in CO2 today for something that may happen over the next 130 years, by the year 2150.

If the increases in the atmospheric temperatures can be solely attributed to increases in CO2 and other greenhouse gases with no change in solar radiation, cloudiness, etc., and the current trend continued, then by 2150, global temperatures would increase by 2.45°C (4.4°F), just below the low end of the current IPCC estimate. However, there is compelling evidence that global temperatures are heavily influenced by solar changes, changes in cloudiness, and events not understood such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation. Thus, the projected temperatures are probably substantially too high.

Further decades of laboratory experiments and decades of atmospheric observations show that the effectiveness of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is not linear, the effectiveness falls as its concentration is increased. Thus, the projected temperatures are certainly too high. The appropriate course of action is to thoughtfully monitor the atmosphere as closely as we can, knowing that short-term changes are not necessarily long-term trends.

Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC

Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science

Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013

Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf

Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts

Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014

Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts

Summary: https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-IIb/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf

Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels

By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019

CCR II: Fossil Fuels

Download with no charge:

http://climatechangereconsidered.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Climate-Change-Reconsidered-II-Fossil-Fuels-FULL-Volume-with-covers.pdf

Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming

The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus

By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015

Home

Download with no charge:

https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming

Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate

S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008

http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf

Global Sea-Level Rise: An Evaluation of the Data

By Craig D. Idso, David Legates, and S. Fred Singer, Heartland Policy Brief, May 20, 2019

Challenging the Orthodoxy

Two Charts Destroy Big Lie About ‘Climate Change’ And Wildfires

By I & I Editorial Board, Aug 13, 2021

Yes, the Climate Is Changing. No, It’s Not an Emergency | Opinion

By James Taylor, Newsweek, Aug 3, 2021

https://www.newsweek.com/yes-climate-changing-no-its-not-emergency-opinion-1615632

Claims carbon dioxide is destroying the planet are ‘antiscientific’

Video, Sky News, Ian Plimer, Aug 6, 2021

“Wind power does not run on wind, but it runs on subsidies.”

Climate Scientists Admit Exaggerated Warming

By Vijay Jayaraj and E. Calvin Beisner, American Thinker, Aug 12, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/08/climate_scientists_admit_exaggerated_warming_.html

Link to paper: Pervasive Warming Bias in CMIP6 Tropospheric Layers

By R. McKitrick, & J. Christy, Earth and Space Science, July 15, 2020

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020EA001281

Climate change causes arson in Greece, Turkey, Algeria and California

By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Aug 11, 2021

Challenging the Orthodoxy – IPCC

The IPCC AR6 Hockeystick

By Stephen McIntyre, Climate Audit, Aug 11, 2021

The IPCC Summary For Policymakers

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 10, 2021

How to Understand the New IPCC Report: Part 1, Scenarios

Contrary to what you’ve been reading, the massive new IPCC report offers grounds for optimism on climate science and policy

By Roger Pielke Jr., The Honest Broker, Aug 10, 2021

https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how-to-understand-the-new-ipcc-report

Pielke Jr. on AR6

By Roger Pielke Jr. Via WUWT, Aug 9, 2021

Distorting the view of our climate future: The misuse and abuse of climate pathways and scenarios

By Roger Pielke Jr. and Justin Ritchie, Energy Research & Social Science, February 2021

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629620304655?via%3Dihub

Editorial: A Climate of Catastrophe

Editorial, WSJ, Via GWPF, Aug 11, 2021

Observations Concerning the Newest IPCC Report

By Patrick J. Michaels, CEI, Aug 10, 2021

https://cei.org/blog/observations-concerning-the-newest-ipcc-report/  (summary)

Fussing Over One Degree of Simulation

By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Aug 12, 2021

IPCC AR6 Focusses On “Absurd”, “Fairy Tale” Scenarios, Ignores Hundreds Of Publications, Major Factors

By Fritz Vahrenholt, Via No Tricks Zone, Aug 11, 2021

IPCC Enters “Into Thin Air”. German Scientists: IPCC “In A Hopeless Situation”…”Stained Scientists”

IPCC’s sixth climate report disappoints across the board

By De kalte Sonne, Translated by P Gresselin,, No Tricks Zone, Aug 10, 2021

UN Eye PC Sea Level

By Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, Aug 11, 2021

New Climate Change Report Once Again Promises, As It First Did in 1990, We Only Have a Few Years Left

By William Briggs, The Stream, Aug 11, 2021 [H/t Paul Homewood]

“My friends, this cannot be. It is impossible that atmospheric change can bring only harm, and cause no good. That Experts insist only evil things can occur is why you can know, without doubt, that they cannot be trusted. Experts, like you, also know that much good can come from a warmer, more carbon-dioxide-rich planet, but the Experts choose to deny these goods because of politics.”

IPCC AR6 WG1 Author: “more and more starting to get scared … hopefully that’ll affect the way they vote”

By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Aug 13, 2021

Holocene Antarctic CO2 Variability or Lack Of

By Ranee Hannon, WUWT, Aug 13, 2021

Hot Air Coming From IPCC At Tropical Storm Levels: Typhoons Trending Down Since 1951

Typhoon trends contradict alarmist clai9ms made by the IPCC’s latest report

By Kirye and Pierre, No Tricks Zone, Aug 13, 2021

Pants On Fire: U.N. Issues Another Climate Report

By I & I Editorial Board, Aug 9, 2021

Aussie PM Pushback Against UN Code Red Climate Declaration: “I won’t be signing a blank cheque”

By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Aug 10, 2021

Discussion thread: New IPCC AR6 report

By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Aug 9, 2021

Editorial: ‘Adapting to cope with inevitable warming is just as important as identifying the cause’

Editorial, The Daily Telegraph, Via GWPF, Aug 10, 2021

IPCC report confirms that climate policies have failed: It’s time to do something different

By Staff, GWPF, Aug 9, 2021

30 years after the IPCC’s first report and despite yearly UN climate conferences it is now beyond doubt that renewable energy policies have failed to halt or slow the relentless rise in global CO2 emissions.

“Decades of childish and misconceived green policies have done nothing to reduce global CO2 emissions and have only succeeded in stirring up intense public resistance. We are constantly told to do ‘more’, but more of the same will be disastrous. Renewables are futile, ineffective and have no future. Gas and nuclear have to be fast-tracked if there is any chance of publicly acceptable, long-term climate policies.”

UN Cranks Up Thermostat for Climate Alarm Confab

By Larry Bell, Newsmax, Aug 13, 2021

https://www.newsmax.com/larrybell/unitednations/2021/08/13/id/1032226/

Silly Season at the UN: 1989 vs. 2021 Climate Doomsday (it’s all politics now)

By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Aug 10, 2021

Defending the Orthodoxy

IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers

In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

By Masson-Delmotte, V., P, et al. Cambridge University Press. In Press.

Link to Technical Support Document

Humans have pushed the climate into ‘unprecedented’ territory, landmark U.N. report finds

The U.N. chief called the findings ‘a code red for humanity’ with worse climate impacts to come unless greenhouse gas pollution falls dramatically

By Brady Dennis and Sarah Kaplan, The Washington Post, Aug 10, 2021

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/08/09/ipcc-climate-report-global-warming-greenhouse-gas-effect/?utm_campaign=wp_todays_headlines&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_headlines&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F345c2e0%2F6110fca69d2fda2f47ebbc54%2F596ada85ae7e8a44e7ccdf6f%2F9%2F65%2F6110fca69d2fda2f47ebbc54

Yes, a few climate models give unexpected predictions, but the technology remains a powerful tool

By Nerilie Abram Et Al., The Conversation, Aug 9, 2021 [H/t Bernie Kepshire]

https://phys.org/news/2021-08-climate-unexpected-technology-powerful-tool.html

“We can expect the IPCC report to be deeply worrying. And unfortunately, 30 years of IPCC history tells us the findings are more likely to be too conservative than too alarmist.”

UN issues dire warning on climate change in new report

By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Aug 9, 2021

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/566801-climate-report-warns-temps-to-rise-15-degrees-celsius-over-preindustrial-levels

Questioning the Orthodoxy

Is the climate really getting more disruptive?

Climate policy, not climate change, poses the biggest risk to our daily lives.

By Ben Pile, Spiked, Aug 3, 2021

“Ironically, it is environmentalism that makes the climate actually dangerous. Green austerity will deny people the resources and technology they need and deserve to keep warm in winter and cool in summer. And it is environmentalism, with its promise to make the weather ‘safe’ and unchanging if we follow its agenda, that is selling us false hope. That is a much greater threat than climate change or extreme weather could ever be.”

Cooling In The Pipeline? Low Solar Activity, Wild Fire Smoke, La Niña All Setting Up A Cooled 2022?

By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Aug 8, 2021

Australia is About to Breach +1.5C Climate Change – And All is Well

By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Aug 10, 2021

‘Green Fraud’ author: Goal of UN climate change report is to ‘scare everyone’

By Charles Rotter, WUWT, Aug 10, 2021

Tipping points, Attenboroughesque narratives of climate doom and dying polar bears

By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, Aug 9, 2021

After Paris!

Concerns grow that UN climate summit may end in failure

By Staff, GWPF, Aug 13, 2021

Is Boris Johnson planning to abandon the 1.5C climate target to secure a COP26 agreement?

By Staff, GWPF, Aug 12, 2021

Is Boris Jeremy Clarkson or Greta Thunberg?

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 13, 2021

Change in US Administrations

Biden’s Race to Undo Trump Environmental Reforms Violates Public Trust

By Rick Perry & Jason Isaac, Real Clear Energy, Aug 12, 2021

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2021/08/12/bidens_race_to_undo_trump_environmental_reforms_violates_public_trust_789583.html

Problems in the Orthodoxy

Boris Johnson’s push for net zero plunged into chaos, as Treasury baulk at the cost

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 8, 2021

China puts growth ahead of climate with surge in coal-powered steel mills and power plants

By Staff, Financial Times, Via GWPF, Aug 13, 2021

[SEPP Comment: Who in the West would try to force China to enforce CO2 emissions caps?]

Science, Policy, and Evidence

Climate Change Isn’t Driving Western Wildfires; Government Mismanagement Is to Blame

By H. Sterling Burnett, Epoch Times, Aug 9, 2021

https://www.theepochtimes.com/climate-change-is-not-driving-western-wildfires-government-mismanagement-is-to-blame_3935622.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge

Europe’s ‘Unprecedented Manmade Floods’

Separating myth from reality about extreme weather events, today and over the centuries

By Paul Driessen, WUWT, Aug 10, 2021

Sorry Gov. Kate Brown, Climate Change is Not Driving Oregon’s Wildfires

By H. Sterling Burnett, Climate Realism, Aug 4, 2021

Turkey Wildfires

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 13, 2021

Changing Weather

This Date in 1936

By Tony Heller, His Blog, Aug 13, 2021

https://realclimatescience.com/2021/08/this-date-in-1936-2/

“On August 12, 1936, one third of India was flooded and it was 120 degrees in Oklahoma.”

Brazil frosts and its coffee region: Coldest weather in decades ravages crop for world’s biggest producer

The worst frosts since 1994 are causing major problems for the world’s largest coffee exporter and its customers

By I Team, I News, UK, Aug 1, 2021 [H/t Paul Homewood]

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/brazil-frosts-and-its-coffee-region-coldest-weather-in-decades-ravages-crop-for-worlds-biggest-producer-1130618

“But the worst cold snap in nearly three decades, believed to be a result of climate change, also presents a threat to the country’s economy as it ravages coffee, sugarcane and orange crops.”

[SEPP Comment: In the tropics at about 20°S latitude with elevations up to 1500 m or 5000 feet. About comparable to central Mexico, a bit north of Mexico City but significantly lower in elevation. Journalists should spare the public their beliefs. Boldface added.]

The Summer’s Second Heatwave Comes Into Focus (And Slightly Cooler Than Initially Predicted)

By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Aug 11, 2021

https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-summers-second-heatwave-comes-into.html

Blue Book on Climate Change in China 2021 shows increasing trend of extreme weather events in the country

By Staff, Global Times, Aug 4, 2021

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202108/1230607.shtml

Death For Millions In 1921’s Record Heat Wave

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 9, 2021

March 1936

By Tony Heller, His Blog, Aug 13, 2021

https://realclimatescience.com/2021/08/march-1936/

Ice, socialists and floods?

Changing Seas

Understanding The Sea Level Rise Scare

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 11, 2021

Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice

New Study: Antarctica Added 0.76 cm To Sea Levels Since 1992…Ice Extent Has Been Advancing Since 2009

By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Aug 9, 2021

Link to latest paper: Environmental drivers of circum-Antarctic glacier and ice shelf front retreat over the last two decades

By Celia A. Baumhoer. et al. The Cryosphere, May 20, 2021

From conclusions: “For the first time, we present a circum-Antarctic record of calving front changes over the last two decades. Overall, the extent of the Antarctic Ice Sheet decreased by−29 618 ± 1193 km2 between 1997 and 2008 and gained an area of +7108 ± 1029 km2 between 2009 and 2018. Glacier and ice shelf front retreat [is] concentrated along the Antarctic Peninsula and West Antarctica.”

Foxe Basin polar bear attack leaves three people seriously mauled, airlifted to hospital

By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, Aug 11, 2021

Arctic Sea Ice Melt Since 1958

By Tony Heller, His Blog, Aug 11, 2021

https://realclimatescience.com/2021/08/arctic-sea-ice-melt-since-1958/

[SEPP Comment: US submarines pop up through the ice at the North Pole.]

Un-Science or Non-Science?

Cenozoic Ice Age Caused by Drop in CO2… Because Models

By David Middleton, WUWT, Aug 9, 2021

Link to paper: Eocene to Oligocene terrestrial Southern Hemisphere cooling caused by declining pCO2

By Vittoria Lauretano, et al. Nature Geoscience, Aug 2, 2021

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-021-00788-z

Lowering Standards

National Public Radio’s Misinformation on Wildfires and Climate: Part 1

By Jim Steele, WUWT, Aug 8, 2021

National Public Radio’s Misinformation on Wildfires and Climate: Part 2

By Jim Steele, WUWT, Aug 11, 2021

BBC Wildfire Propaganda

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 13, 2021

“The latest bit of BBC climate propaganda, laughingly described as a ‘Reality Check’!”

Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?

Green journalism and the failure to question

By Staff, GWPF, Aug 13, 2021

“If Net Zero crashes and burns, the press will have only themselves to blame.”

Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.

Eemian Sea Level Adjusted Downwards

By David Middleton, WUWT, Aug 10, 2021

Link to Article: Some Past Sea Levels May Not Have Been as High as Thought, Says Study of Rising and Sinking Landmasses

But Even Reduced Estimates, If Applied to Today, Would Be Catastrophic

By Kevin Krajick, State of the Planet, Columbia Climate School, Aug 9, 2021

From the article: Based on newly sophisticated measurements made across the Bahamas along with new methods of analyzing data, the researchers produced lower—though still daunting—estimates for the last interglacial. They say seas peaked at least 1.2 meters (4 feet) higher than today—roughly in line with most current models for the next 100 years of so. [Boldface added]

[SEPP Comment: A new source for non-science?]

Questioning European Green

A welcome U-turn: Ministers backtrack on gas boiler ban

Press Release, GWPF, Aug 11, 2021

Funding Issues

Not Our Founding Father’s Infrastructure Bill

By Steve Milloy, Real Clear Energy, Aug 09, 2021

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2021/08/09/not_our_founding_fathers_infrastructure_bill_789256.html

The Political Games Continue

Democrats seize on ‘alarm bell’ climate report in spending plan push

By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Aug 9, 2021

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/567060-democrats-seize-on-alarm-bell-climate-report-in-spending-plan-push

Litigation Issues

Information Tribunal orders Committee on Climate Change to reveal Net Zero calculations

Press Release, GWPF, Aug 7, 2021

London, 7 August – The Information Tribunal has ordered the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) to publish the calculations behind its claim that the UK economy can be decarbonised at modest cost.

[SEPP Comment: What was termed as practically free may be extremely costly?]

Energy Issues — US

The Cost of Upgrading Electric Distribution

By Ewelina Czapla, American Action Forum, Aug 10, 2021

https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/the-cost-of-upgrading-electric-distribution/

“The cost imposed on the distribution system by electric vehicle and photovoltaic solar panel adoption alone is nearly $1 trillion.

[SEPP Comment: The administration calls spending trillions on replacing electricity generation “opportunity” – until someone has to pay for it.]

‘Net-Zero By 2050? Not Even Close. with current energy infrastructure delivery’

Solar projects covering an area equivalent of 260 Tokyo Olympic stadiums would need to be built in the US every week from now until 2050 to help the country reach net zero, according to a new report

By Dimitris Mavrokefalidis, Energy Live News, Aug 4, 2021

“In another scenario, more than 250 large nuclear power plants would be needed to help the country fulfill its net zero commitments.”

Net-Zero Emissions By 2050? Rupert Darwall, Tom Switzer, Erwin Jackson

Video, Centre for Independent Studies, Aug 12, 2021

https://www.realclearenergy.org/video/2021/08/12/net-zero_emissions_by_2050_rupert_darwall_tom_switzer_erwin_jackson_789735.html

Maintaining reliability and affordability in public power

Hearing from NPPD and NEGT on decarbonization

By Melanie Standiford, KNOP News, Aug 7, 2021 [H/t Dennis Ambler]

https://www.knopnews2.com/2021/08/07/maintaining-reliability-affordability-public-power/

1,876 Pages: Texas’s ISO Rules (central planning, mother-may-I system)

By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, Aug 9, 2021

Washington’s Control of Energy

White House calls on OPEC to boost oil production as gasoline prices rise

By Pippa Stevens & Ylan Mui, CNBC, Aug 11, 2021

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/11/as-gas-prices-rise-white-house-says-opec-action-is-simply-not-enough-calls-for-ftc-scrutiny.html?__source

Russia Benefits from Biden Oil and Natural Gas Policies

By Staff, Institute for Energy Research, Aug 12, 2021

Washington’s War against the Incandescent Light Bulb Is Back

By Ben Lieberman, CEI, Aug 13, 2021

https://cei.org/blog/washingtons-war-against-the-incandescent-light-bulb-is-back/

Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?

Forbes: “Forget About Peak Oil – We Haven’t Even Reached Peak Coal Yet”

By David Blackmon, Forbes, Via WUWT by Eric Worrall, Aug 7, 2021

Return of King Coal?

Coal Prices Are Soaring

By Staff, Institute for Energy Research, Aug 11, 2021

Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage

Energy Storage: An Estimate Using Actual Data

By Mike O’Ceirin, WUWT, Aug 12, 2021

Energy Storage Best Practices from New England

By Roger Caiazza, WUWT, Aug 9, 2021

Link to report: Energy Storage Policy Best Practices from New England: Ten Lessons from Six States”

By Todd Olinsky-Paul, Clean Energy Group & Clean Energy States Alliance, August 2021

Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles

The Idiot’s Answer To Global Warming: Hydrogen

By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Aug 12, 2021

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-8-12-the-idiots-answer-to-global-warming-hydrogen

Link to: Hydrogen: The Once And Future Fuel (pdf)

By John Constable, GWPF, 2020

Electric Vehicles Will Run on Empty Green New Deal Pipe Dreams

By Larry Bell, Newsmax, Aug 11, 2021

https://www.newsmax.com/larrybell/pipe-dreams-electric-vehicles-green-new-deal/2021/08/11/id/1031918/

The working poor need workhorse vehicles

By Ronald Stein, CFACT, Aug 12, 2021

https://www.cfact.org/2021/08/12/the-working-poor-need-workhorse-vehicles/

Material Supply Constraints Threaten to Derail Climate Progress

By Thomas J. Madison Jr., Real Clear Energy, Aug 06, 2021

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2021/08/06/material_supply_constraints_threaten_to_derail_climate_progress_788813.html

California Dreaming

Trying To See If California’s Energy Plans Add Up

By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Aug 10, 2021

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-8-10-trying-to-see-if-californias-energy-plans-add-up

Health, Energy, and Climate

Do Cell Phones Cause Cancer?

By Chuck Dinerstein, ACSH, Aug 9, 2021

https://www.acsh.org/news/2021/08/09/do-cell-phones-cause-cancer-15721

Oh Mann!

Michael Mann Issues Traditional COP26 Last Chance Climate Warning

By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Aug 8, 2021

Other News that May Be of Interest

An inconvenient truth (about weed)

Federal laws bar cannabis from crossing state lines, driving up the cost — and the emissions — of an industry using indoor grow operations.

By Natalie Fertig and Gavin Bade, Politico, Aug 10, 2021

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/10/weed-cannabis-legalization-energy-503004

“One recent model estimated that Massachusetts’ nascent cannabis industry represented 10 percent of the state’s industrial electricity consumption in 2020.” No link to model

Dumber Than a Pet Rock

By John Hinderaker, Power Line, Aug 8, 2021 [H/t William Schanefelt]

BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE

Arctic To Be Ice-Free Again

By Tony Heller, His Blog, Aug 11, 2021

https://realclimatescience.com/2021/08/arctic-to-be-ice-free-again-2/

[SEPP Comment: False predictions of 2007 & 08]

Private Jets Jam Airport for Presidential Birthday Party

By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Aug 10, 2021

[SEPP Comment: If the Obama party was as big as originally planned, would Martha’s Vineyard have sunk?]

UN Secretary General: “This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet”

By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Aug 9, 2021

“In 2019 WUWT celebrated the 30th anniversary of the 1989 10 years to save the world UN climate emergency declaration. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is showing real determination to keep this proud tradition alive, by escalating the emergency to a ‘code red’.”

ARTICLES

1. Climate Change Brings a Flood of Hyperbole

Despite constant warnings of catastrophe, things aren’t anywhere near as dire as the media say.

By Steven E. Koonin, WSJ, Aug. 10, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/intergovernmental-panel-climate-change-ipcc-un-united-nations-global-warming-floods-wildfire-stevens-palmer-koonin-11628631428?mod=hp_opin_pos_4

In addition to what is discussed in the “This Week” section above, Koonin begins:

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued its latest report assessing the state of the climate and projecting its future. As usual, the media and politicians are exaggerating and distorting the evidence in the report. They lament an allegedly broken climate and proclaim, yet again, that we are facing the “last, best chance” to save the planet from a hellish future. In fact, things aren’t—and won’t be—anywhere near as dire.

“The new report, titled AR6, is almost 4,000 pages, written by several hundred government-nominated scientists over the past four years. It should command our attention, especially because this report will be a crucial element of the coming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. Leaders from 196 countries will come together there in November, likely to adopt more-aggressive nonbinding pledges to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.”

Then he writes what was presented above before writing about subjects that will be discussed in upcoming TWTW’s, before concluding with:

“Good science is characterized by detail, data, proven models and reasoned debate. That takes time. Meanwhile, we should be wary of the torrent of hyperbole that is sweeping the globe.”

*******************

2. Climate Change Has Consumed Journalistic Standards

Reporters used to be hard-bitten skeptics. Now they aspire to be part of the authoritative expert class.

By Gerard Baker, WSJ, Aug. 9, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-journalism-mainstream-media-racism-covid-19-vaccines-disinformation-11628523971?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

After giving examples of extreme statements from journalists, the journalist writes:

“Be ready for much more of this in the coming weeks after the publication Monday of the update by the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change in advance of the so-called COP 26 meeting in the U.K. in November. You will scarcely hear a dissenting voice as the monolithic media faithful echoes every frightening forecast from the scientists whose livelihoods depend on maintaining the highest level of alarm.

“My beef here isn’t mainly with climate extremism itself. I’m no climate scientist: I’m confident the planet is warming and that evasive action would be smart. I’m less confident that a spate of historically familiar extreme weather events constitutes proof that we’re all going to burn in the next decade or that the answer lies only in the most drastic government-mandated responses, which the media will insist we must immediately adopt. Better-informed writers on these pages have put the case for a more measured judgment and approach. ‘Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters,’ a recent book by Steven E. Koonin, a scientist and former Obama administration official, provides an elegant rebuttal to much of the extremism.

“My concern is with the way these topics are now almost universally reported by the news media. ‘Reported’ is a misnomer. They aren’t facts; they are sacred revealed truths, unchallengeable arguments invested with epistemic certainty and moral clarity.

“Journalism is no longer about trying to tell us what happened; it’s about telling us what we must believe, on pain of moral peril. On every major topic—climate, Covid, race relations, electoral law—almost every story blares out at us with censorious didacticism, the journalist’s smug disdain for the unbelievers pouring through the prose.

“News stories are not really covered in the old sense these days. The editors and reporters simply cull from the innumerable events around them those that fit the prevailing narrative and make sure they include a healthy dose of moral prescription.

“In its heyday journalism demanded skepticism and curiosity. The good reporter doubted whatever he was told, even what time it was. He’d weigh competing accounts and explanations and actively seek out alternative versions. Read the bios of great reporters from the past and they’ll be scattered with adjectives like ornery and insubordinate.

“The modern journalist is different. His primary ambition is to be part of the expert class, to identify as a member of the cultural elite, happily swaddled in all their shared nostrums. He’s most content when he’s wagging a finger at the selfish fools who continue to doubt climate extremism, express skepticism about vaccines, or deny their innate white sinfulness.

“His virtue thus signaled, he luxuriates in the knowledge that he’s on the side of the chosen ones. It’s just a pity it’s no longer journalism.”

*******************

3. ‘The Long Game’ Review: Asia First, Then the World

Beijing seeks to blunt American order in Asia, build dependence on China throughout the region and expand its dominance globally.

By David Wilezol, WSJ, Aug 9, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-long-game-review-asia-first-then-the-world-11628547372?mod=opinion_reviews_pos1

In reviewing The Long Game, the founder and president of the communications firm Seventh Floor Strategies begins

“In 1998 a former People’s Liberation Army basketball player turned businessman, Xu Zengping, purchased the Varyag, a never-completed Soviet aircraft-carrier hull rotting in a Ukrainian shipyard. Publicly, Mr. Xu played a free-spending tycoon hoping to repurpose the ship as a floating casino. He was in fact the front man for a Chinese military acquisition. The previous year, a Chinese Navy vice admiral had asked him to be the go-between in Beijing’s attempt to obtain the Varyag. In the words of Mr. Xu, ‘he held my hand and said, ‘please do me a favor—go and buy [the carrier] and bring it back for our country and our army.’ ‘

“After months of booze-soaked negotiations with Ukrainian businessmen, Mr. Xu and his Beijing-backed shell company walked away with the Varyag, its engine technology and the vessel’s 45 tons of blueprints for $120 million. But China didn’t begin converting the hull into an operational carrier until 2009.

“Why was China so secretive about this acquisition, and why did it delay so long in making its new prize seaworthy? The answer lies in how Chinese Communist Party leaders thought the world would view a Chinese aircraft-carrier program, according to Rush Doshi’s compelling book ‘The Long Game.’

“To Mr. Doshi, a former Brookings Institution scholar now on the president’s National Security Council, ‘Beijing’s ultimate objective is to displace the US order globally in order to emerge as the world’s dominant state by 2049.’ Mostly by dissecting 30-plus years’ worth of CCP speeches, statements, reports and other communiqués, he’s meticulously laid bare the Party’s methodical advance toward global supremacy. China watchers craving a broad understanding of the Party’s geopolitical thought and actions won’t be disappointed.

“The author’s arguments rest on a scrupulous parsing of these texts—many of them among the dullest political communications on Earth. A speech like General Secretary Xi Jinping’s 2017 Party Congress address—a 30,000-word, 3½-hour affair—might seem to be merely an act of dictatorial self-glorification. But Mr. Doshi correctly appreciates that in China, where the Marxist-Leninist CCP ‘sits above the state, runs parallel to the state, and is enmeshed in every level of the state,’ high-level Party statements are authoritative policy directives with true meanings that run far below the semantic surface.

“Thus he conveys how the CCP’s senior leaders have spent decades in quiet pursuit of Chinese international primacy. In the wake of American outrage over the Tiananmen Square slayings, America’s striking victory in the Gulf War and the breakup of the Soviet Union, the ’90s-era CCP assessed that the United States had become its greatest external threat. In response, China pursued what Mr. Doshi describes as a strategy of ‘blunting’ American power. Resolutely following paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s maxim ‘hide capabilities and bide time,’ the CCP eschewed premature strategic moves that would rattle the West—like building an aircraft carrier. Instead, the Party solidified its domestic power and defensive military capabilities. That explains why it created the world’s largest stockpile of sea mines (useful for stopping American ships) rather than construct amphibious assault vehicles (for an invasion of Taiwan). Economically, ‘China’s pursuit of permanent Most Favored Nation status as well as World Trade Organization accession were meant to tie American hands with respect to economic leverage.’”

Mr. Wilezol concludes by discussing more details and some US options.

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