The Future of Everything

[The Future of Everything presented to CASF: part 1- January 20, 2018 Part 2 – February 17, 2018.  Title borrowed from a Wall Street Journal Magazine Nov/Dec 2017]

by Bernie McCune

No one can really predict the future, but I would like to speculate on it a bit and maybe unravel a few promising threads from the tapestry of time and

clip art courtesy of Iconbug.com

see what one or two future worlds might look like.

 

 

Demographic threads, a discussion of future growth, will Capitalism survive?, Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the future, the future of work, emerging medical processes, the future of poverty and the influence of global trade are a few of the hot spots of future development. And what might the future climate turn out to be?

Demographics and the Future

In the past we have briefly discussed global demographic trends and I will only focus on them as they might influence the future of growth, poverty, work and automation issues. Continue reading “The Future of Everything”

A 1D Model Of Global Temperature Changes, 1880-2017

Dr. Roy Spencer

[Dr. Spencer’s post originally appeared on his blog on February 22nd, 2018.  The link to his 2/23/18 update of the post is here.]

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/1D-model-1880-2017-results-Tsfc-plot-revised-1-550x303.jpg

UPDATE(2/23/18): The previous version of this post had improper latitude bounds for the HadCRUT4 Tsfc data. I’ve rerun the results… the conclusions remain the same. I have also added proof that ENSO is accompanied by its own radiative forcing, a controversial claim, which allows it to cause multi-decadal climate change. In simple terms, this is clear evidence the climate system can cause its own, natural, internally-generated climate changes. This is partly what has caused recent warming, and the climate modelling community has assumed it was all human-caused. Continue reading “A 1D Model Of Global Temperature Changes, 1880-2017”

Eleven-Year Major Hurricane Drought: Much More Unusual than Two Cat 4 Strikes

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

Roy Spencer

[This is a reprint (21 Sep 2017) from Dr. Roy Spencer’s blog (drroyspencer.com) in which he makes the point that two category 4 hurricanes making landfall in the same year is far more likely than the recent  eleven year period with no major hurricane landfalls that preceeded the two category 4 hurricanes.  Assuming the 177 year return period for no major hurricanes in 9 years estimated by NASA was correct, we agree with Dr. Spencer that the return period for no major hurricanes in 11 years would be 560 years.  Ed.]

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

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/irma-harvey-split-550x309.jpg
Left: Hurricane Harvey makes landfall near Rockport, Texas, on Aug. 25, 2017 | Right: Hurricane Irma makes its first landfall at Cudjoe Key, Florida, on Sept. 10, 2017 (graphic: Weather.com).

Continue reading “Eleven-Year Major Hurricane Drought: Much More Unusual than Two Cat 4 Strikes”

Biofuel justifications are illusory

[This post was originally published on cfact.org on 29 July 2017 and authored by Paul Driessen.  Previous to this publication, Bob Endlich gave a presentation to the CASF at our 16 August 2014 meeting on a similar subject.  Mr. Driessen’s post complements Mr. Endlich’s  presentation, which was  entitled “21st Century Snake Oil.” ]

It’s time to really cut, cut, cut ethanol and other renewable fuel mandates – maybe to zero.

http://2hiwrx1aljcd3ryc7x1vkkah.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/biocorn-628x353.jpg

July 29, 2017 by Paul Driessen

http://2hiwrx1aljcd3ryc7x1vkkah.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/reagan-300x300.jpg The closest thing to earthly eternal life, President Ronald Reagan used to say, is a government program.

Those who benefit from a program actively and vocally defend it, often giving millions in campaign cash to politicians who help perpetuate it, while those who oppose the program or are harmed by it are usually disorganized and distracted by daily life. Legislative inertia and Continue reading “Biofuel justifications are illusory”

Study: Sea Level Rise Revised Downward

Study: Sea Level Rise Revised Downward

[The following is a reprint of a blog on Dr. Roy Spencer’s web site (drroyspencer.com) on July 21, 2017.  The study described by Dr. Spencer is unique in that instead of changing the data to better fit the narrative it actually describes a change that makes alarmist-described climate change a little less ominous.  It is provided as part of the archive for future reference.]

July 21st, 2017

Dr. Roy Spencer

http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/new-york-flooding-1-300x159.jpg If I had not looked past the headline of the press report on a new study, I would have just filed it under “It’s worse than we thought”. A new study in Nature reported on July 17 carried the following headlines:

“Satellite snafu masked true sea-level rise for decades”
“Revised tallies confirm that the rate of sea-level rise is accelerating as the Earth warms and ice sheets thaw.”

When I read that, I (like everyone else) assumed that corrections to the satellite sea level data since 1993 have now led to a revised trend toward faster (not slower) sea level rise. Right? Continue reading “Study: Sea Level Rise Revised Downward”