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.

The Madden-Julian Oscillation: a weather system Wikipedia lists under Climate Change

by Robert W. Endlich

A significant weather system which affects the globe was not even discovered until the 1970s, perhaps because it is stronger in the Southern Hemisphere than the Northern. This system, the Madden-Julian Oscillation, is an area of enhanced rainfall with these characteristics:

The enhanced precipitation anomaly starts in the Indian Ocean; it always moves eastward, and usually moves from Indian Ocean into mid-Pacific at speeds of 9-19 Miles/Hour. In addition to the enhanced precipitation area itself, there is an associated area of suppressed precipitation, an out-of-phase area ahead of it, usually way out ahead of it. The disturbed weather areas usually last 30 to sometimes 90 days.

The convective precipitation signature of this system is strongest within 15 degrees north and south of the Equator. Continue reading “The Madden-Julian Oscillation: a weather system Wikipedia lists under Climate Change”

Climate F-Words

by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

[Ed.  Dr. Roy Spencer wrote a post (22 March 2018) disagreeing with Lord Monckton’s theory that climate scientists have over-estimated feedback by a factor of 2, because they have been using the feedback  equations incorrectly.  Dr. Spencer agrees with the factor of 2 error, but he disagrees with the reason given by Lord Monckton.  In response, Lord Monckton has countered Dr. Spencer’s argument with a post of his own on Spencer’s blog.  The original Spencer post can be found here with Lord Monckton’s counter argument  here.]

A recent article by Lord Christopher Monckton over at WUWT argues that there has been an “elementary error of physics” that has led to climate sensitivity being overestimated by about a factor of 2.

I agree with the conclusion but not the reason why. It is already known from the work of Otto et ahttp://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Trump-forcing-and-feedback-550x309.jpgl. (2013), Lewis & Curry (2015) and others that the climate system (including the deep oceans) has warmed by an amount that suggests a climate sensitivity only about half of what the models produce (AR5 models warm by an average of 3.4 deg. C in response to a doubling of CO2).

But the potential reasons why are many, and as far as I can tell not dependent upon Christopher’s arguments. For those who don’t know, Lord Monckton is a pretty talented mathematician. However, like others I have encountered over the years, I believe he errs in his assumptions about how the climate research community uses — and does or does not depend upon — the concept of feedback in climate modeling. Continue reading “Climate F-Words”

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”

Weather, not human-caused CO2-fueled global warming, is responsible for 2017’s damaging wildfire history in California

By Robert W. Endlich

The year 2017 featured incredibly intense, damaging wildfires in California. First the Wine Country fires of October, and later, in December, the massive Thomas Fire, each destroyed hundreds of homes.  The latter, in many of the affluent suburbs and enclaves northwest of Los Angeles and Hollywood.  The Thomas Fire is the largest in modern California history with over 1000 structures destroyed.

California’s Governor Jerry Brown blamed human-caused CO2-fueled

Satellite Photo of Thomas Fire, California (Wikipedia, 2017)

global warming for this conflagration during a visit to Ventura County on 9 December, saying the drought conditions were the “new normal.” To quote the governor, “There have (historically) been very long droughts in California and we are getting some of those returning very bad, and we’re going to get them returning more often.”

 

But, Governor Brown is just wrong about this, as an examination of some meteorological and climate data shows:

Continue reading “Weather, not human-caused CO2-fueled global warming, is responsible for 2017’s damaging wildfire history in California”

Hurricane Harvey: Fossil Fuels No Factor

[Note:  This post was submitted by Bob Endlich to the Las Cruces Sun-News as an Op Ed column in response to a weekly column by Algernon D’amassa,  this one  saying that Hurricane Harvey was made worse by human activities.  It was declined by the Sun-News editor, because he was afraid that it would generate too many responses from the alarmist camp.  We believe that this is nothing more than “soft censorship” another way to describe censorship,  accompanied by a nonsensical explanation. Ed.]

Bob Endlich

Algernon D’Amassa is wrong by saying Hurricane Harvey was made worse by humans, mentioning sea level rise, warmer seas, and stronger storms.

No data show that Hurricane Harvey was made stronger by the use of fossil fuels; in fact, ready availability of, and use of, fossil fuels made a dangerous storm less so, as explained below, comparing Harvey with Galveston’s 1900 Hurricane.

Sea Levels were higher 5000, 2000 and 1000 years ago, histories of castles, forts, cities, and towns now some distance from the water show this: in Ur, in present Iraq, in the Battle of Thermopylae, in the Notitia Continue reading “Hurricane Harvey: Fossil Fuels No Factor”