Tag: climate change

[def. dictionary.com]  a long-term change in the earth’s climate, especially a change due to an increase in the average atmospheric temperature: Melting glaciers imply that life in the Arctic is affected by climate change. … Foremost among them is the role of birth control in dealing with climate change.

[added comments] The above appears to be an overly simple definition of climate change and the last sentence is open to extensive discussion.  There is much more to climate change than temperature.  There is wind, precipitation, humidity, atmospheric pressure, and other elements.  Also, there is nothing unusual about climate change, because the climate is constantly changing.  Climate is simply average weather.  What that is depends on the averaging period.  Some say that at least 30 years of measurements are required to compute climatic averages, but that is not necessarily correct.  There are good reasons to consider 60 years of measurements due to the 60-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO).  The limiting factor in computing climatological averages is the amount of measurement data available.  Generally, there is no more than 100 to 150 years of data unless proxy data are used.  Regardless, the climatological average will be different for each different averaging period.  Consequently, we must conclude that we really do not have sufficient data to know what the climatological averages are not to mention how they are changing.

A New Look at NOAA’s Alleged Cat 5 Strength for 2018’s Hurricane Michael

‘More evidence that Hurricane Michael was definitely NOT a Category FIVE storm at landfall.’

Robert W. Endlich
Image courtesy of Pixabay

In late September 2022 Category Four Hurricane Ian struck southwest Florida bringing death and destruction to southwest Florida. Ian’s arrival and wind damage spurred me to take another look at when 2018’s Hurricane Michael struck the Panhandle of Florida, and NOAA’s 2019 declaration that Michael was a Category Five storm at landfall.

This is my new look at Hurricane Michael’s winds and NOAA’s 2019 report. Continue reading “A New Look at NOAA’s Alleged Cat 5 Strength for 2018’s Hurricane Michael”

The Imaginary Climate Crisis – How can we Change the Message?

Richard S. Lindzen
Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Sciences, MIT

[This essay is a slightly extended version of a lecture delivered to a joint zoom meeting of the Irish Climate Science Forum and CLINTEL on March 31, 2021.]

For about 33 years, many of us have been battling against climate hysteria. We have correctly noted

The exaggerated sensitivity,

The role of other processes and natural internal variability,

Image by Pixabay

The inconsistency with the paleoclimate record,

The absence of evidence for increased extremes, droughts, floods, wild-fires, and so on.

We have also pointed out the very real benefits of CO2 and even of modest warming.  And, as concerns government policies, we have been pretty ineffective.  Indeed our efforts have done little other than to show (incorrectly) that we take the threat scenario seriously.  In this talk, I want to make a tentative analysis of our failure.

In punching away at the clear shortcomings of the narrative of climate Continue reading “The Imaginary Climate Crisis – How can we Change the Message?”

Explaining Mauna Loa CO2 Increases with Anthropogenic and Natural Influences

by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.  

[This post first appeared on Dr. Spencer’s web site (here) on 9 April 2022.  We have reproduced it on our web site for the purpose of education and discussion under the fair use doctrine. Ed.]

Summary
Image by Pixabay

The proper way of looking for causal relationships between time series data (e.g. between atmospheric CO2 and temperature) is discussed. While statistical analysis alone is unlikely to provide “proof” of causation, use of the ‘master equation’ is shown to avoid common pitfalls.  Correlation analysis of natural and anthropogenic forcings with year-on-year changes in Mauna Loa CO2 suggest a role for increasing global temperature at least partially explaining observed changes in CO2, but purely statistical analysis cannot tie down the magnitude. One statistically-based model using anthropogenic and natural forcings suggests ~15% of the rise in CO2 being due to natural factors with an excellent match between model and observations for COVID-19 related downturn in global economic activity in 2020.

Introduction

The record of atmospheric CO2 concentration at Mauna Loa, Hawaii since 1959 is the longest continuous record we have of actual (not inferred) Continue reading “Explaining Mauna Loa CO2 Increases with Anthropogenic and Natural Influences”

Post-Hurricane Ida’s deadly rain event in New York City

Natural Rainfall, Excessive Runoff, and Lousy Drainage, Not Human-Caused CO2-fueled Global Warming 

By Robert W. Endlich
FLOODING IN NEW YORK CITY

As the remnants of what, days before, had been Hurricane Ida passed by the New York City Metro area the evening of 1 Sep 2021, the skies opened up and in spots it poured, as an anticipated heavy rain event crossed the region near sunset.  Thunderstorms, fed by water vapor evaporating from

Image by Pixabay

historically the warmest waters of the year offshore, in New York Bay and the nearby Atlantic Ocean, even brought some tornadoes as the unstable air was made even more unstable by convergence of the air at the surface. Overwater winds came onshore to terrain filled with high-rise apartments and skyscrapers built to enable the highest numbers of humans to live and work in the New York City Metropolitan Area, home to over 8 million souls, Continue reading “Post-Hurricane Ida’s deadly rain event in New York City”

El Nino and La Nina: The Controls on Rainfall and Drought in the Western USA

Robert W. Endlich

“It is not necessary to believe false CO2 theory and stories to understand the wild weather in the wild West . . .”

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Have you ever wondered why weather-related news stories from the western USA seem to go from hot, dry weather, droughts, extensive wildfires, and forest fires to the other extreme: heavy rainfall seemingly for days on end, often with cliffside houses washing from their perches into the Pacific Ocean? On-line stories are often accompanied with illustrative video. There is a seemingly never-ending string of weather-related stories carrying western datelines, seemingly varying from dry to drenching, from one extreme to another.

Sometimes climate alarmists claim this is an artifact of our use of fossil fuels, and we are causing these wild excursions because of the increasing amounts of the trace gas CO2 in the atmosphere.

The Questions

“Are we causing these excursions?”

“What is going on here?”

Answers. Starting with some History

Clues come from the history of the Spanish-speaking fishermen who plied Continue reading “El Nino and La Nina: The Controls on Rainfall and Drought in the Western USA”