Based on satellite empirical evidence over the last 30 years, the simple answer is 'No', the lower troposphere temperature changes are not correlated with changes in atmospheric CO2 levels.
This first chart presents the moving 12-month changes for both the UAH satellite lower troposphere (LT) and NOAA's atmospheric CO2 levels (ppm).
A quick first glance at the plotted data suggests there may be a decent match between CO2 changes and LT temperature changes. But that is not the case at all, as the statistical correlation between the two is abysmally low, with an R-squared of almost zero +0.0854.
The second chart is more revealing of the lack of correlation between the two variables. It plots the moving 2-year average of both the LT temperature changes and CO2 level changes.
The 2-year simple averaging of the data variables provides a better view of any relationship between LT temperature changes and changes in CO2 levels, as well as providing visual clues as to why the lack of correlation exists.
It is clear on the second chart that the linear trends of the two variables are moving in opposite directions over time.
While atmospheric CO2 changes are monotonously increasing with a positive trend—i.e., an upward slope—over 30 years, the changes in LT temperatures show a steady negative (downward slope) trend in magnitude.
The R2 between the 2-year averages of the two variables is even lower at a meager +0.0382.
In addition, a closer visual comparison of the two-year averages suggests that more often than not, significant temperature increases/decreases precede significant respective changes in atmospheric CO2 levels, and that is the complete opposite of the "consensus" narrative.
A fair and objective assessment of this empirical evidence indicates that warming in the atmosphere is more likely to be influenced by other factors with multiple times greater impact than the trace gas CO2 from human emissions.
The most recent research by scientists is seriously challenging the belief that human CO2 emissions are causing global warming on land and in the atmosphere. This study and this one are the most recent examples of scientific research challenging the CO2 orthodoxy.
Arctic sea ice, a potential marker of global warming, experienced a shift in the late 1990s called the Arctic Shift. Initially, the 1980s and 1990s saw moderate declines in September Arctic sea-ice extent (SIE).
However, after the 1997 climate shift, a rapid decline set in, leading to "consensus" concerns about a potential ice-free Arctic.
Computer models predicted this outcome by 2040, triggering much public anxiety.
More recent research now suggests that 60% of the September SIE decline since 1979 may be due to atmospheric circulation changes. Additionally, persistent Arctic summer cloud cover has mitigated the ice-albedo feedback, slowing the decline since 2007 unexpectedly and contrary to predictions.
Thus, despite the approved consensus narrative, uncertainty persists among climate researchers regarding the natural climate shift influence versus the human influence on overall sea ice change and what direction Arctic sea ice will take in the future.
And then the unexpected recovery of sea ice in 2013 truly challenged the alarmist predictions. With the original 7-year pause now extending to 17 years that means there was only a 10% probability of that taking place.
This implies that past sea ice predictions were 90% inaccurate, in turn raising significant concerns about climate model reliability.
In June 2023, promoting more anxiety, global headlines warned of ice-free Arctic summers by the 2030s, irrespective of emission reduction efforts, based on a a new peer-reviewed study.
Unfortunately, this study relied on data only up to 2019, ignoring available 2020-22 data. Model projections for 2021 and 2022 significantly differed from observed data, prompting scrutiny and questions as to why the study was approved for publication in the first place.
Clearly, policymakers and the public grapple with challenges when relying on inaccurate computer model projections. Studies that are produced by flawed computer model predictions pose serious potential consequences that highlight the need for thorough evaluation and transparency in climate research. (source of information for above & video)
One of the key fingerprints - aka 'tenets' - of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis is that fossil fuel combustion emissions will create a mid-troposphere tropical hotspot due to a surplus of trapped CO2 molecules. The hotspot warming then initiates positive climate feedbacks that amplifies the warming trend, which is predicted to be robustly higher than the warming trend on Earth's surface.
But has that taken place as predicted?
Since December 1978, satellites have monitored the mid-troposphere, and the evidence shows that global surface temperatures have in reality been warming at a rate that is nearly two times as fast (1.9x) as that of the hypothetical "amplified" tropical mid-troposphere warming rate.
This reversal of the expected outcome is contrary to the experts' hypothesis.
Compounding this failure of this AGW hypothesis tenet is the empirical evidence that there has been a very minor cooling/flat trend in the mid-troposphere tropics since August 2013.
This modest cooling happened in spite of a huge amount of CO2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil fuel combustion and other GH gases, such as methane from cows.
Also, this 10-year period of slight cooling took place even with the two large El Niño temperature spikes of 2014–2016 and 2018–2019. Plus, another new spike of temperatures is currently taking place in 2023 from the developing El Niño, as seen in this chart.
The second chart is a scatter plot that allows for the calculation of the R2 relationship strength between the two variables, CO2 atmospheric levels and the mid-troposphere tropic temperature anomalies.
A typical strong relationship would produce a R2 of at least +0.70.
In this case, the R2 = +0.0001.
(click on image to enlarge)
That microscopic R2 indicates there is no relationship between atmosphere CO2 and tropical temperatures in the mid-troposphere.
That is a completely unexpected outcome that undercuts the hypothesis that the trace CO2 gas will have a powerful impact on current and future climate temps, especially in the region of the predicted atmospheric tropical hotspot.
And without the requisite AGW 'hotspot', the likelihood of the amplified rapid acceleration of warming from the climate's positive feedback mechanisms becomes a very possible non-event.
Note: Excel used for all calculations and plotting. Source of UAH satellite monthly mid-troposphere temperature anomalies. Source for CO2 monthly data.
One of the very important climate temperature trends that NOAA omits from their never-ending, alarmist climate change PR is the fact that the Antarctic's warming has been at a standstill (numerically, a slight cooling trend) since early 1988.
(click on to enlarge)
That standstill spans 35+ years, despite the large growth of atmospheric CO2 levels during that period. And during that span, the correlation between Antarctic's temperature and atmospheric CO2 levels is actually negative (-0.00152), resulting in a r^2 of a ludicrously low 0.000002.
This outcome is entirely contrary to the "global" warming hypothesis that increasing CO2 will cause temperatures to rise, especially at the polar regions.
Because of their cultish belief in the hypothesis narrative, no "consensus" government-funded scientists predicted that the Antarctic would literally not have warmed during an extended period of high human CO2 emissions.
Why "Infamous"? Because no one has ever located this climate unicorn.
The hotspot is an essential claim of climate change doomsday beliefs - the belief that it exists and persists in the mid-troposphere. Combine that with the IPCC's experts reliance on climate models' pseudo-science which predict that increases of atmospheric trace greenhouse gases (CO2, methane, etc.) are the cause of the hotspot.
Many doomsday climate scientists believe that an atmospheric hotspot exists, and for some, it is indicative of an Earth rapidly warming to become a Venus-like oven, thus leading to our planet's oceans boiling.
Hence, for the gullible politicians and journalists, a fake climate crisis posing as an existential threat.
But new peer-reviewed research from a NOAA climate scientist team confirms what doomsday skeptics have been reporting for years: that the climate model's tropical hotspot is non-existent. Recent articles about this new NOAA temperature research can be found here, here and here.
(click on to enlarge)
This NOAA team of scientists corroborate the findings of the UAH satellite dataset record for the mid-troposphere over the tropics. (Also corroborating the UAH lower troposphere temperature records.)
To put an empirical point on it, the satellite observations show that the tropical mid-troposphere has been cooling since August 2012 (see chart) even with the El Niño temperature spikes of 2015-16 and 2018-19.
Stated another way, that is over 10 years with no significant warming and no permanent hotspot.
Confirmation of the satellite data can be found at this NOAA site of surface tropical temperatures for the Hawaiian region, which has also been cooling, since October 2012.
Conclusion: The 'expert' computer climate change models have dangerously overstated how much warming would be the result of trace greenhouse gases. These egregious climate warming predictions cascade into even more dangerous errors about the ultimate impacts of climate change.
And let it be known that computer models for the climate are not alone when it comes to bad predictions: some of the worst predictions are realized almost on a daily basis from computer models used for COVID deaths, short-term weather forecasting, economic forecasting, or stock market performance.
This simple truth is why policymakers should never rely on computer model outputs. Computer models are great for research but not for correctly predicting the future.
Additional prior climate model charts and links to past posts on failed predictions.
Note: Source for UAH mid-troposphere data. Excel used to plot data points and calculate trend.
In a prior article, information was provided confirming that the young Democrat Congressperson, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, should not be in the climate-doomsday prediction business.
Unfortunately, she is not alone in her uncritical acceptance of a cult-like claim that the world will end soon, due to 'devastating' global warming from human CO2 emissions. This cult includes Joe Biden, along with most of the globe's left-wing power brokers, the wealthy elites, celebrities and partisan journalists.
Biden et al share the same necessary traits that produces a gullibility for cultish doomsday stories: namely, the total disdain of actual empirical evidence in combination with an extraordinary blind faith in the elites' experts - aka, the expertocracy.
And just like the experts' recent infamously wrong Covid infection/lockdown models, the climate expertocracy loves their own climate models, despite the models' continuous failure to predict global temperatures accurately.
Case in point, the climate RCP8.5 scenario pathway was generated by computer models (specifically, the CMIP5 model) that the expertocracy relies on for their climate-porn fearmongering.
The climate-porn takes many forms in their scary stories of highly speculative climate change impacts, with the end result always being that any global warming is an existential threat to all species, including humanity.
This absurdly wrong but highly favored scenario for global warming is plotted in the accompanying chart. Note the RCP8.5 model's linear trend versus reality, the HadCrut5.0 gold-standard of actual global temperature observations.
While the RCP8.5 scenario predicts nothing but an accelerating warming trend for the 21st century, the HC5 observation dataset plot in contrast reveals that the globe has experienced a cooling trend for almost 8 years since August 2014. (And NOAA's global temp dataset has been on a cooling trend since March 2014 through end of June 2022.)
By the way, this is not the only cooling trend in the 21st century. The HC5 dataset has recorded at least six separate occasions since 1999 (representing 40% of the months) when there was a rolling 36-month cooling trend of multiple months. In contrast, the climate expert modeled RCP8.5 scenario produced zero periods of a 36-month cooling tend.
Back to the August 2014-May 2022 cooling span.
Another characteristic of the modeled RCP8.5 scenario over the 94 months ending May 2022 is that it exhibits a monthly average anomaly change of +0.00271°C versus the HC5 average monthly anomaly change of only +0.00029°C. That is a 9 times per month larger outcome for the modeled scenario than the HC5's real world result.
If those average monthly changes for both were to continue for the next 100 years, the RCP8.5 result would hypothetically be 2.9°C degrees higher than the HC5.
Yet, despite the above empirical science clearly indicating the incapacity of the RCP8.5 model to produce a reasonable representation of either global warming or global cooling trends, the uniformed elites continue to base future policy decisions on this model. This is especially true for the president of the United States and the vast majority of Democrats in Congress.
Why they continue to rely on obviously faulty computer models for climate/energy policy - or Covid policy for that matter - beggars belief.
An aside. Defenders of climate model output often fall back on the rationale that the models worked almost to perfection to predict past temperatures. Well, of course they did, due to the simple fact that the programmers knew in advance what the past temperatures were. But when the the models have to predict an uncertain future they do not fare well.
Case in point is the RCP8.5, which was introduced in 2013 and predicted past temps amazingly well. But by late 2014, the model results were starting to deviate consistently from actual observations. That explains why in reality we have an actual cooling trend from Sept 2014 to May 2022 while the RCP8.5 predicted the exact opposite.
Note: RC8.5 model scenario dataset; HC5 dataset. Excel used to calculate and plot linear trends.
Most will remember Democrat superstar Alexandria Ocasio Cortez's famous prediction that she stated during a January 2019 interview. It's now been 40 months since her prediction that in 12 years the world will end - 2131AD - from climate change.
And how has her prediction fared against reality?
In an attempt to be somewhat charitable to the Congressperson, her knowledge of climate reality and her prediction prowess are rather suspect to say the least.
Below are a series of five temperature charts that plot global temperatures the 40 months prior to her prediction, and the 40 months since her prediction, plus single atmospheric CO2 chart.
This first chart is a plot of global monthly temperature anomalies and linear trends for both the HadCrut 5.0 land/ocean surface areas and the UAH 6.0 atmosphere satellite global area. The timeframe for this chart is from Oct 2015 through the end of January 2019, which represents the 40 months prior to AOC's prediction.
This next chart plots the same temperature anomalies but for a different timeframe - the 40 months since her prediction (February 2019 through May 2022).
The third chart in the series looks similar to the first two, but instead of plotting the actual monthly anomalies, this chart plots the 12-month differences - i.e. change - between anomalies. For example, the difference between the October 2015 anomaly and that of October 2016; then the difference between November 2015 and that of November 2016; and so on. The timeframe for this chart is from October 2015 and January 2019.
This fourth chart is the same as the above third chart but with a different timeframe, February 2019 - May 2022 (the 40 months after her prediction).
The last temperature anomaly chart in the series is for the full 80 months of anomalies from October 2015 through May 2022.
Lastly, the following chart depicts the NOAA monthly atmospheric CO2 levels (ppm) for the full 80 months ending May 2022. In contrast to the declining global temperature trends, clearly the CO2 levels continue to increase at a monotonous pace.
Conclusion: Based on the empirical evidence, the world is not going to end by 2031AD. Unless one is concerned with the overall global cooling trend, it is irrational and illogical to even suggest that global warming from CO2 emissions poses an existential threat to humanity or civilization in the near/intermediate future. Those establishment elites who continue to utter this type of climate nonsense should be summarily thrown on the ash heap of anti-science liars.
Note: Excel used to calculate/plot all measurements and linear trends. One extra chart can be found in comments. As of 6/29/22, the May 2022 HadCrut 5.0 temperature dataset still has not been published, as a result a May HC5 anomaly estimate of +0.74 was used.
Back around 2005-2010, the climate change experts and the mainstream media were going on and on about the Amazon devastation due to droughts.
The implication was that the droughts were due to human caused climate change, and the droughts, in turn, would cause more climate change that would then cause the droughts to worsen - a prospective positive feedback loop prediction that did not bode good tidings for humans.
But skeptics around the world challenged these conclusions for obvious reasons.
Major regional droughts have always happened and they were not driven by human CO2 emission activity in the form of fossil fuel consumption. Plus, surprise, droughts have this habit of ending, which are then followed by periods of plentiful rain.
The 2005 and 2010 Amazon droughts were no different.
As it turns out, the skeptics were right again and the climate experts; and the expert/MSM coalition were again victims of their own failed prediction hubris.
In a recent peer-reviewed study, nine scientists reconstructed the precipitation totals for the eastern equatorial Amazon basin of Brazil.
The adjacent chart depicts their findings. Simply stated, there are periods of excess rainfall and there are subsequent periods of drought over the 230-year period. The dramatic precipitation fluctuations are part of the natural cycle and those droughts taking place in the 21st century are part of this natural pattern.
"Examination of the precipitation record reveals, in the words of the authors, that it is "dominated by interannual and subdecadal variability, not unlike the instrumental precipitation totals for the eastern Amazon study area." Focusing on such variability captured in the reconstruction, Granato-Souza et al. note the existence of two extended wet episodes, a mid-twentieth century period from 1942-1956 and an earlier late nineteenth century period between 1882 and 1903, and one exceptional extended dry episode that occurred during the years 1864 and 1881.....A longer-term perspective of the moisture regime clearly indicates there is no compelling support for that contention given that both wet and dry periods of greater duration and magnitude have naturally occurred throughout the record despite atmospheric CO2 concentrations being much lower than they are today."
In the real world, climate model simulations have been self-debunking over recent decades due to the constant prediction failures.
And the latest embarrassing example of model prediction failure is very relevant to the doomsday Arctic meltdown myth that the anti-science 'climate emergency' cult pushes.
A new peer-reviewed study by a group of researchers set out to determine the accuracy of top-tier climate model predictions of Arctic warming rates versus the actual Arctic warming rate. Their research involved the output of the same 36 climate models used for the UN's IPCC work.
This chart is a snapshot of their work, which visually portrays the computer climate model simulations over a 138-year period, from 1880 to 2017, and how they consistently overestimate how fast the Arctic is warming since around 1950.
Per the study's findings: "...the model-estimated rate of secular warming (the solid red line) increased quite sharply across the 138-year period, rising from a value of around 0 °C per decade at the beginning of the record to a value of 0.35 °C per decade at the end. Observations, in contrast, started off with a higher warming rate than that of the models (a rate of 0.13 °C per decade; the solid black line), but dipped below the rate of warming predicted by the models around the middle of the record, thereafter experiencing a lower rate of warming relative to the models through the end of the record. By the end of the record, the model-predicted secular rate of warming was 67% higher than that determined from observations (0.21 °C). Thus, the figure shows an increasing disparity between modelled and observed warming rates that starts around the middle of the record and grows to 0.14 °C per decade by the mid-2010s."
"Huang et al. state the obvious, that "anthropogenically induced secular warming has been overestimated by the CMIP5 GCMs during the most recent warming period, and the overestimation is aggravated with time." What is more, given the error bars shown on the figure, in the very near future the observed warming rate will likely soon fall outside the significance levels of the ensemble model mean, removing any remaining credibility left in the model projections of future Arctic warming."
Based on the well documented abundance of failures of even the most sophisticated climate models, it should now be considered criminal malfeasance or malpractice that any politician or bureaucrat utilizes said models for setting policies. While doomsday climate-crisis cultists propagandize using the untenable and unreliable model projections, those that represent the public should be employing more sober analysis and commonsense for policy development and implementation, if any.
A terse synopsis: Climate models can't predict squat.
This NASA climate model chart certainly confirms why expert computer climate simulations are held in such contempt and ridiculed; and also why they should not be utilized for policy work performed by politicians and bureaucrats.
The failure of climate models at what they were originally intended to accomplish has forced the major climate research agencies into a constant state of both "upgrading" their wildly expensive climate models and "correcting" past actual temperature measurements.
This particular model was instrumental in starting the egregious and shrill propaganda war against economic growth and prosperity way back in 1988. It's creation has led to the point where today teenage doomsday cult personalities are provided top-level platforms to fear-rant - by those who should know better - to rail against the bountiful wonders of modern civilization.
This NASA model has had a long history being wrong, and when correct at specific periods, it's due more to blind luck of the natural temporary El Niño global warming phenomenon, which is not sustainable over lengthy time spans.
The model chart presents three simulated global temperature scenarios that portray the end result of growing greenhouse gas emissions, with the focus on fossil fuel CO2 emissions. The scenarios developed by NASA include:
Scenario 'A': The business-as-usual (BAU) scenario that represented total emissions growing without any constraints.
Scenario 'B': Representing the reduction of total emissions by moderate amounts.
Scenario 'C': Representing a scenario that had global emissions being maintained in the future at year 2000 levels.
As the observed NASA and HadCRUT global temperature plots on the chart reveal, the observed temperatures are not anywhere close to NASA's BAU scenario 'A'. Yet, as can be seen below, it's continued to be business-as-usual for a very long time, at least since the 1988 introduction of this model to the public.
Sources: 2019 BP Energy Statistical Review & NOAA CO2 ppm levels
This December 2019 article lays out the essentials of past greenhouse gas growth and the continuing growth of CO2, which shows no signs of a permanent global curtailment.
In summary, this NASA/GISS model was never an effective tool for climate change prediction, let alone establishing a realistic national or global policymaker climate strategy. And over the decades since 1988, all the later generations of climate models have been no better as they also way over estimate the warming impact of greenhouse emissions.
Prior climate model postings. Additional climate model charts.
'Greta and her UN climate change alarmist friends are currently attending the UN's Madrid Climate conference, which seems to be experiencing some unplanned difficulties.
As in past years, this conclave's purpose is to frighten mainstream journalists with stories of pending doom caused by fossil fuel CO2 emissions. Of course, they always state that doom is 'just around the corner.'
After decades of these disaster prognostications never coming true, one would think journalists would finally learn that they are being played.
Not yet it would appear (one is always reminded of the maxim that journalists are not the sharpest blades in the drawer).
Recently we had another example of the failed doomerism religion, and it comes with the end of the 2019 hurricane season, which the UN, Greta, and journalists do not want the public to be aware of.
As this article lays out, the doomer-cult scary predictions of increased frequency and increased intensity of hurricanes simply has not happened. And the adjacent charts reveal the indisputable empirical evidence, much to the angst of Greta and friends.
With all due respect to the profession of mainstream journalism, there is no such thing as rapid, catastrophic "global warming."
In fact, there are vast land and sea areas that are not warming, which seriously counters publicized statements that the world is suffering from a "global" climate condition. And claims of rapid, catastrophic "global" warming are simply fictional derivatives of imagination.
For example, the Southern Hemisphere's and tropical-latitude oceans currently have sea temperature anomaly measurements that are essentially the same as those found during the during the period of 1997-1999, some 20+ years ago.
And a critical example of a large land mass without significant warming is the contiguous land mass of the lower 48 U.S. states.
The above chart (click on to enlarge) is a plot of average U.S temperature anomalies and one does not need to be a climate scientist to discern from the plot that the fear-mongering about rapid, dangerous, and catastrophic warming is empirical nonsense.
Putting some flesh on the empirical science bones, the chart is plotted from the datasets produced by the world's only state-of-the-art climate/weather USCRN measurement system with 140 station sites all across the contiguous U.S.
Notice that since the USCRN sites went online in January 2005, over the last 14+ years the average U.S. temperature has had periods of both cooling and warming.
And when comparing the latest August 2019 12-month average (green circle) and the 8-month average (yellow star) with their respective beginning averages in 2005, it's clear that the current averages are lower.
Also, as the chart's 6th degree fitted trend line (black) indicates, the most recent warming has turned towards a cooling direction.
Based on these facts, it can be fairly surmised that the climate doomsday cult prediction of a global warming inferno is without empirical evidence, and it can justly be called anti-scientific as well. With a little greater specificity, the claim that human CO2 emissions has produced a global "tipping point" with runaway warming is demonstrably false.
For the record, including 2005, there has been 441 gigatonnes of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere through 2018, which represents an overall increase of 25%.
In summary, apparently for politicians, celebrities, "journalists" and teenagers, science and empirical evidence are no longer to be taken seriously. Thus fossil fuels and their resulting emissions have become convenient scapegoats, nothing more. And wildly speculative climate change predictions are, unfortunately, tipping point catnip for the hysterical and feeble-minded.
Note: As occurs everywhere, in the U.S. during that 2005-2019 time span there were quite a few hot months; but the same can be said about cold months. When all is said and done, the hot period spans are canceled out by the cooler spans, which is what the 'average' natural climate cycle does. There has been regional warming and regional cooling as the the various regional climates continue to change; and climate expert predictions have failed to account for the non-consistent attributes of climate change.
The climate change prediction that increased atmospheric CO2 and resultant global warming would cause a greater frequency and stronger intensity of rainfall has long been a staple of CAGW doomsday alarmism.
But has it proven to be true?
A recent study, conducted for the northern India geographic region, found that the hypothesized significant impact on rainfall - due to CO2 emissions and global warming - is not evident.
"In a test of this hypothesis, Kant (2018) examined the precipitation records of four major weather stations in Uttar Pradesh, India, namely Bareilly, Allahabad, Lucknow and Babatpur, over the period 1969 to 2014"....."In contrast to model predictions, Kant reports that "rainfall of different intensities in yearly, monthly, June-September (monsoon) [periods] for all the four stations is not statistically significant." Thus, it would appear that neither the CO2 rise nor the temperature increase of the past four-and-a-half decades was sufficient to drive changes in hourly rainfall intensity in northern India."
A recent "study" by "scientists" playing with their computer climate model simulations guesses that there might be a future depth shift of the Southern Ocean carbonite event horizon based on simulated output from the model.
Editor Note: The aforementioned depth shift is speculated to occur when human emissions of CO2 infiltrate the ocean's waters, thus causing an acidifcation process associated with lower pH.
They report that maybe the ocean's pteropods species (a sea snail) will be harmed and may not be able to adapt.
The model output results do not seem to correlate well with known scientific facts..."Some estimate it began as early as 2006 in discrete locations, while others predict it will begin as late as 2038. The research suggests that the change may be inevitable..."
Their scientific conclusion from zero empirical evidence? "If that occurs, it could impact marine food webs significantly and lead to cascading changes across ocean ecosystems, including disruptions of vital global fisheries." And, "These factors put us closer to a threshold that might be harmful for a lot of organisms,."
In comparison to the above "scientists," there are scientists who actually conduct experiments to determine outcomes that are based on observed reality and not simulations.
For example, this 2018 study by 9 scientists determined that actual phytoplankton organisms, a major food source for the Southern Ocean ecosystem, were test for survival in waters with a lower pH - i.e. acidified waters. The scientists found the increased levels of CO2 "did not have a significant impact on the [phytoplankton] community, either individually or in combination with other factors,".
Then there is this study by 7 scientists who investigated the impact of different levels of elevated water CO2 on Southern Ocean adult krill, a crucial marine food staple for blue whales and other mammal species.
What did they find? "Ericson et al. state that "the measured physiological processes in adult Antarctic krill were robust to near-future ocean acidification (1000-2000 µatm pCO2)." In particular, they note that "the survival rate of krill subject to near-future pCO2 increased by up to 11%" and that such pCO2 levels "did not affect the size of adult krill," nor their ability to moult, grow, store fat or mature."
Getting back to the pteropods, this 2018 scientific study with the apt title, "Pteropods counter mechanical damage and dissolution through extensive shell repair", pretty much counters the pteropod doomsday scenario conjured up by the computer simulation jockeys.
The study's 5 scientists determined the following: ""the ability of L. helicina [pteropod] to repair shell damage in naturally undersaturated conditions indicates that this species has more potential to counteract the deleterious effects ocean acidification may have on their shells than previously considered." ...it adds "to the growing body of evidence that many polar calcifiers, exposed to undersaturated waters, can withstand and repair damage to their shells, perhaps on account of natural exposure to heightened physical and chemical variability, which have resulted in organisms developing or exhibiting an inherent resilience strategy.""
In summary, per the real-world science, the Southern Ocean food chain ecosystem appears not to be at risk for CO2 emissions.
One should remember that there is no computer simulation substitute for real scientific investigation and research.
Unfortunately, climate computer models have harmed the scientific endeavor and reputation with simulated doomsday results that have little basis in reality. It is our opinion, as we have stated before, policymakers across all forms of government should never rely on output from computer models - they are fundamentally flawed and promulgated by agenda-driven "scientists."
Climate change predictions by alarmist scientists and activist 'doomers' have been absolutely atrocious. Possibly (being generous), there has been limited 'accuracy' here and there, but remains sufficiently insufficient to demonstrate even a minuscule level of actual, consistent reliability.
The constant litany stream from politicos, media sources and celebrities of failed climate catastrophe predictions is wide and deep and seemingly knows no bounds.
And this article provides a brief summary of where we are headed, if these bureaucratic-loving and power hungry politicians produce policies and regulations based on the proven failed prediction capabilities of the "experts." Needless to say, it's not going to be very pretty if they are successful.
The good news is that these establishment elites self-identify as liars since no truthful person would ever repeat anti-scientific, imbecilic doomsday trash, such as the end of humanity within a generation.
The bad news is that the USA's Democratic Party embraces the lies and is eagerly pushing the climate anti-science alarmism on a daily basis as the 2020 election edges closer.
Blatant significant dishonesty to mislead voters is a risky electoral strategy yet, unfortunately, now appears to be a go-to favored method for most Democrats on a host of important issues.
A new peer-reviewed study provides additional evidence that significant parts of the world have not experienced the hypothesized dangerous and rapid global warming impact of CO2 emissions.
Central Asia represents a large swath of the globe's land area where one would expect that the "powerful" temperature impact of humanity's CO2 would be rather robust.
Although the area exhibited warming in the 20th century, it is not much different than earlier warming from periods centuries ago (see graph at bottom).
And there has been a recent late 20th century cooling that is attributed to natural factors.
"[T]he recent cool-moist period from 1985 to 2000 has been related to the Arctic Oscillation...During this recent cool-moist period, ice mass accumulation of the glaciers in the Russian Altai Mountains was observed and Narozhniy and Zemtsov (2011) connected this phenomenon to annual precipitation increased by 8% – 10% especially in winter and spring (April-May) as a result of a strengthening of the zonal circulation over the Altai Mountains.”
Conclusion: Those stubborn facts again get in the way of the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming doomsday claims. Central Asia's warming and cooing during both the past and modern era look to be more a function of natural volcano variations and ocean oscillations.
Acidification of ocean waters from human CO2 emissions has raised concerns that aquatic life would be severely impacted. Yet, actual studies testing acidification levels on different species more often than not reveal that sea life is not impaired.
Adding to that empirical evidence is a new study on Atlantic salmon smolt.
"In a test of the above hypothesis, McCormick and Regish examined "the effect of future ocean acidification on the salinity tolerance and early seawater growth of Atlantic salmon Salmo salar smolts."..."Results of the analysis, in the words of the authors, revealed that "ocean acidification will not negatively affect the survival and ion regulatory ability [and, hence, salinity tolerance] of S. salar smolts," Furthermore, McCormick and Regish add that "rather than have a detrimental effect, ocean acidification conditions may actually improve the growth of S. salar in the first 2 weeks after seawater exposure." With respect to this latter parameter, Figure 1 graphically portrays the mean specific growth rates of the fish inhabiting the two seawater pH regimes, revealing 40 percent higher specific growth rates of Atlantic salmon in the ocean acidification treatment compared to ambient seawater pH."
Possible conclusion: CO2 makes for very happy fish.
Does @AOC's prediction that we are all going to fry within 12 years because of CO2 emissions have any basis in empirical reality? (Or, for that matter, does her #GreenNewDeal utopia?)
Here is a chart from the NOAA National Centers For Environmental Information. It is a plot of the maximum temperatures for the hottest U.S. month - July - going back to 1895.
The trend line (blue line) plotted by NOAA reveals that maximum temperatures in July have been on a declining trend of -0.07°F per century since 1914 through July 2018.
And if the exact same NOAA plot was done for August maximum temperatures - the 2nd hottest month for U.S. summers - there is a declining trend of -0.26°F per century since 1928.
Unequivocally, the recent maximum temperatures over the most recent 5 years, during the two hottest months of summer, are not unprecedented.
Below is a table of the 10 hottest months since 1895, along with the respective global atmospheric CO2 level at the time. The lack of correlation between hottest years and CO2 is striking.
Clearly, all the human CO2 emissions produced during the modern era have not significantly changed the overall trend of maximum temperatures since the early 20th century.
Conclusion: The AOC climate change fearmongering, along with her fellow Green New Deal Democrats', is a narrative without any empirical evidence. The narrative that U.S. adults, children, and grandchildren will to survive in a 'living hell' that will destroy our society within the next 12 years is highly, highly unlikely. Per the evidence presented in the chart and table, we have survived warmer temperatures in the past, and will do so in the future because we've adapted and can now better cope with both higher and lower temperatures (thank the modern advances in technology, engineering, medicine, and food production and they will continue).
Note: Trend lines are not predictions. They provide a sense of direction from the past to a specific endpoint, but they provide absolutely no proof of what will take place in the future, especially with a global climate that is dominated by large natural oscillations and variations. NOAA web site that maximum temperature plots are available from.
Does AOC's (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) well publicized and dramatic prediction that climate-doomsday will strike humanity in a very short 12 years have any empirical validity?
If indeed that is the case, then surely global warming must be accelerating at a fevered rate that should easily be detected within today's known empirical measurement evidence, or not.
Per the CAGW hypothesis, the coming climate collapse prediction demands that the rapid global warming acceleration be closely linked with the undisputed continuous growth of atmospheric CO2 levels.
But does the empirical evidence support such a link?
The adjacent chart plots the global warming acceleration per century rates (12 month, 36 month, 60 month, and 120 month) using the HadCrut global temperature dataset through February 2019. In addition, the levels of atmospheric CO2 are plotted.
The temperature plots show a wide range of acceleration/deceleration, especially for the shorter time frames.
Viewing the chart (click on to enlarge), it becomes obvious that a major 12-month acceleration trend can turn quickly into a major deceleration trend - a 40 degree +/- change in direction is not uncommon.
Currently, both the 36-month (bright red) and 60-month (bright green) are exhibiting a cooling rate (respectively, a -5.9°C cooling/century rate and a -2.1°C cooling per century rate).
The 120-month acceleration rate is falling but still in warming mode at +2.6°C/century; and the 12-month acceleration rate of 10.9°C warming rate/century has reversed its trend from a -31.8°C cooling rate reached in December 2017.
Putting the current 120-month (i.e. 10-year) acceleration rate in context, as recently as October 2013 there existed a deceleration period - i.e. a minus cooling rate trend. In addition, the February 2019 rate is significantly below the highest warming peaks of November 1983, September 1988, and September 2002; and it is below the pre-1950's peaks of 1941 and 1916.
The good news is that there is no indication in the chart's plots that anything extraordinary is now taking place suggesting there is a total climate system of "rapid" accelerated warming. There is nothing there that would provide a reasonable rational basis for any fear of climate change destruction in 12 years.
Since the actual current trends do not support the AOC climate change doomsday claim, is there at least any empirical evidence that establishes a strong link between atmospheric CO2 levels and rapid acceleration of warming trends?
Nope.
The correlations between the CO2 levels and the rate of temperature increase is close to being nonexistent. For the 12-month rate the r2 is +0.0006; the 36-month r2 is +0.008; the 60-month rate r2 is +0.04; and the 120-month r2 is +0.14.
With such low r2's, the claim that CO2 levels are a dominant forcing which determine the rate of increase in global warming is a hypothesis without empirical clothing. And puts into serious question the validity of the overall CAGW hypothesis.
Conclusion: Based on an analysis of the gold-standard global temperature dataset and current atmospheric CO2 levels, there is conclusive evidence that acceleration/deceleration rates of temperature are within a natural variation range, with little to any apparent relationship or enhancement from greenhouse gases, such as CO2. Doomsday from CO2 greenhouse emissions within 12 years is beyond unlikely.
The mainstream journalists have been reporting over the last 20 years that global warming was dangerously accelerating due to greenhouse gas emissions, primarily CO2.
They reported that this rapid temperature elevation would bring untold climate change disaster and calamity to humanity - per the climate model based speculations - if we did not cease using the fossil fuels that produced the CO2.
Yet, despite growing emissions that now surpass 400 ppm in the atmosphere, at the end of 2018, according to HadCrut annual global temperature dataset, the globe warmed by a measly +0.056°C since 1998 - not even a tenth of a degree over 20 years.
A nothing-burger.
(Note: see the +0.056°C increase on adjacent thermometer where the small white dots represent the 1998 temperature.)
If that 20-year amount of "warming" is repeated every 20 years, then by the end of 100 years, global warming would have increased a barely measurable +0.3°C degree. This is not your AOC's warming that will end the world in a short 12 years.
In addition, the last 20 years of actual warming does not match well with the predicted warming from the most sophisticated climate models' compilation. For the 20 years ending 2018, the models' approximate mean estimate of global warming is +0.50°C .
Thus, the expert predicted warming is roughly 8 times greater than actual.
All of the above tells one that actual warming has not been either extreme or dangerous.
This has been literally worry-free warming over the last 2 decades notwithstanding the climate model scenarios of excessive near-death-warming that must be upon us.
Besides the recent actual tiny warming, there also have been multiple peer-reviewed studies published over the last 12 months that establish catastrophic global warming to be more science fiction than scientific reality. For example:
SUMMARY: There exists no empirical evidence, nor research studies based on actual empirical evidence, indicating that humanity is being threatened by disastrous warming or associated climate change manifestations. On the contrary, real world indications are that natural climate changes do occur but they do not amount to the claimed existential menace, even with the increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases. These facts confirm that proposed billions to trillions of American's dollars should not be spent on unproven and highly controversial attempts to fix what amounts to non-threatening global "warming" and mild climate "change."
From this recent article, the main takeaways from 2019 study are:
North America (180-0°N, 15-60°N) has been characterized as a “major cooling center” by the authors of a new paper (Gan et al., 2019) published in Earth and Space Science...The continent warmed from 1982-1998, but a cooling trend since 1998 has nearly wiped out all the previous warming...Overall, there has been no significant temperature change in North America since 1982.
Climate science alarmists are devastated by these findings and are scrambling to smear its scientific authors rather than challenge the empirical evidence, one would imagine.
Then again, possibly the alarmists will finally admit defeat by accepting the skeptical AGW viewpoint - that CO2 is not the dominant forcing in climatic trends, it is a minor one at best.
The authors of this study assess the likely reason for the cooling as being a natural climate change phenomenon from one of the known natural oscillations/cycles.
This study should again confirm that current climate predictions from "experts" and their computer models have been fabulously wrong.
Conclusion: Politicians and bureaucrats should table any discussions and regulations in regards to actual climate and energy policies, since the assumptions and hypothesis being utilized are clearly without scientific merit.
A few days ago, we discussed Japan's cooling winter temperature trend and now it's Germany's turn. If Italy also develops a similar cooling trend, it will be the new #ClimateChange Axis, so to speak.
As usual, we are beating a dead horse - climate expert predictions that are based on the trace gas CO2 are worthless.
No climate or energy policy should ever be based on computer models that are focused on human emission of carbon dioxide. These models cannot simulate natural climate cycle variation at all and thus make for incredibly lousy prediction outputs.
Just another case of those stubborn facts getting in the way of pseudo science by simulation.
The failure of the climate "experts" to accurately predict short or long-term has been well documented in the past.
And this article points to the latest examples of such failure, which the #Dems and #Green #Socialists will again deny, despite the scientific empirical evidence. (That is what is called science denial.)
The climate prediction failure stream will continue until the point when the "science experts" finally realize that natural climate processes are the significant primary drivers of climate change and not the trace gas CO2.
It is absolutely laughable that anyone at this point would believe the climate catastrophe hoaxes from "experts" and know-it-alls since each and every prediction has been wrong.
Human caused climate apocalypse is not in the cards (unless your one of those who believes in Tarot card reading).
Politicians and celebrities need to stop believing the 'Harold Campings' of the world. Enough is enough.
Maybe politicians and establishment types should quit believing computer models that are poor replicates of reality and often riddled with forecasting methodology errors.
Does the empirical evidence support the belief that human CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere will directly cause an increase in forest fires from global warming?
As the above plots show, whether it's the U.S. national forests or the state owned properties in fire-prone California, the number of fires incidents has significantly declined starting with the 1980s. This has taken place during 50 years of the largest growth of atmospheric CO2 levels - the largest possibly for millions of years.
The chart plots are from the recent extensive peer-reviewed study published by forestry researchers.
"Both USFS and Cal Fire protected lands had the lowest number of fires in the early record but ignitions began to increase in the1960s and peaked between 1970 and 1990, subsequently declining on both USFS and Cal Fire lands. ... Major fires are dependent on the juxtaposition of such weather events with anthropogenic ignitions. Future fire regimes will be less affected by global warming than by other global changes, in particular population growth, because over 95% of ignitions are due to humans. As populations increase we expect a greater chance of ignitions during severe fire weather conditions."
In addition, the subject of forest fire devastation was recently re-analyzed using entirely different data. And further back, 'C3' and others have published multiple examinations of the available empirical evidence - here, here, here, here, here, here, here.
Prediction FactCheck Verdict: Fail
The expert and climate model predictions of CO2 and global warming wreaking fire havoc upon forested areas is absolutely without convincing empirical evidence. All facts point to an overall improvement in the count and extent of forest fire destruction since the peak destruction experienced during the early decades of the 20th century.
Additional fire and other weather phenomenon charts, failed-prediction articles, and peer-reviewed articles.
Note: Decade-end atmospheric CO2 levels superimposed on graphs from the 2017 Keely & Syphard study.
Expert predictions about the negative impacts of climate change on bird populations are assessed in this study.
The scientists investigated the bird species that populate the mountain habitats of the Pacific Northwest. These habitats are considered by wildlife experts to be "among the most immediately susceptible to [the] effects of climate change."
Was the "expert" prediction correct that modern climate change (i.e., global warming) would have a significant negative impact on bird specie populations?
In fact, this peer-reviewed analysis determined that modern climate change was not negatively impacting these vulnerable habitats and bird populations.
".....the team of ten researchers conducted a total of 8404 point-count surveys at 3177 distinct survey point locations across the three parks during the breeding seasons of 2005-2014. From those surveys, 39 species (24 migratory and 15 "residents" that overwinter in the parks) were identified for population stability analyses."....."all but one species were either stable or increasing across the sampled points in the three parks" throughout the period of study (see Figure 1 below). Furthermore, the authors say they "found little evidence for upslope range shifts across the sampled region," adding that "no species increased at higher elevations while declining at lower elevations."
Based on this study's results, one could surmise that modern climate change has been of benefit to the bird species in the Pacific Northwest.
Al Gore, and other shallow celebrity "intellects," have a penchant for doomsday and apocalypse predictions that today's less gullible public fall for.
That's the probable reason Gore's latest documentary failed miserably at the box office versus his first 2006 climate documentary. People have grown weary of the never ending apocalyptic scenarios that the real world reality constantly slaps down.
Unfortunately, current journalism keeps spreading this anti-scientific nonsense, such as the "Nibiru Apocalypse" which has no valid beneficial public purpose. Only the doomsday perpetrators and publishers seem to benefit.
The 'Venus' prediction - quackery or a valid climate science prediction?
There are climate doomsday proponents and alleged "experts" who fear that Earth is warming so fast that it will soon reach hothouse Venus-like temperatures, primarily due to humans continuing global emissions of CO2, a trace greenhouse gas.
To summarize this alarmist position, the feared extreme global warming and climate change would result in the demise of all humans and civilization. More recent claims of similar outcomes, include: the '6th great mass extinction' and the one referred to as the 'human extinction'.
Indeed, Venus is quite uninhabitable for humans with surface and lower atmospheric temperatures in excess of 800°F (+400°C). This planet is an extreme hothouse that had a runaway warming tipping point in its past.
But.....do the scientific facts and latest empirical evidence indicate that sort of "runaway tipping point" and extreme warming fate is even remotely possible for Earth in the future?
(click on chart to enlarge)
As a starting point, the above chart plots the gold-standard satellite warming measurement trends of Earth's lower troposphere, and plots the cumulative CO2 increase, since 1979. (These are the rolling per century temperature trends by month.)
None of the current trends, as of the end of September 2017, reveal a significantly high acceleration of lower atmospheric warming that would indicate a Venus tipping point of runaway global warming is imminent, despite the growing amount of CO2.
From the chart, it is clear there are very abrupt changes in acceleration and deceleration of temperatures, which strongly suggest powerful natural climate factors are in the driver's seat, not human CO2 emissions. The chart depicts short-term warming trend peaks that correlate well with recent and prior El Niño warming periods.
Focusing just on the above chart's 12-month (bright red curve) and 24-month (bright blue) and 36-month (bright green) trends, one can visualize the quick shifts in atmospheric temperature direction, from warming to cooling and then back to warming.
Again, these abrupt trend changes are associated with known short-term natural climate forces.
(click on chart to enlarge)
The long-term 20-year acceleration shown alone in this above chart confirms that the short-term changes in acceleration/deceleration are somewhat reflected in the longer trends but with a much reduced variation - i.e. - a smaller trend range.
Instead of a huge trend range of +80 degrees per century acceleration or a -80 degrees per century acceleration, the 20-year trend variation is much narrower, from +0.5 to +2.5 degrees per century.
And this satellite 20-year trend evidence confirms that the longer temperature trend has actually declined since a March 2004 peak, indicating that its relationship with the steady growth trend of atmospheric CO2 is rather weak, at best. One could surmise it's more of an inverse relationship during this time span.
Or, one could surmise that this reflects the proven and much investigated 'pause' in global warming.
(click on chart to enlarge)
Going back again to shorter term trends, this above graph represents the moving 12-month trends over the critical 31 months for the last 2 major El Niños: 1998 and 2016. The 16-month mark is the peak 12-month trend for each event. Plus, each temperature trend plot includes the 15 months prior to the peak, and after the peak.
Based on the gold-standard empirical evidence, it can safely be said that the increased atmospheric CO2 levels of 2016 had little acceleration impact, if any, since the earlier period - at a much lower level CO2 - exhibited greater atmospheric temperature acceleration.
Fact Check Conclusion: Large increases in atmospheric CO2 levels, be they from natural or human sources, are not turning Earth into the next Venus. The prediction of a Venus-like runaway warming future is quackery.
In the scheme of important global priorities and concerns, the accelerated warming of Earth due to CO2 emission should not even rank in a list of priorities, per the real empirical evidence.
(It truly does make one wonder why really smart people would be tempted to utter such anti-science 'Venus' nonsense. Or, why they choose to ignore the known empirical evidence and scientific research challenging the wrongheaded Gore orthodoxy.)
(click on chart to enlarge)
Okay, this one last chart to put the entire Venus vs. Earth comparison into proper context.
On an annual basis, Earth's lower troposphere (5km high) averages around -4.25°C. In contrast, the Venus lower troposphere (5km) temp is around +430°C. The above chart reveals the gigantic difference in these temperature levels.
Obviously, Earth's LT temps are not accelerating to match the outlandish Venus temps, even after 30 years of large scale industrial/consumer CO2 emissions.
One reason that we are not becoming the next Venus is that its atmosphere is 96% CO2. In comparison, our atmosphere is less than one-tenth of 1% composed of CO2. And even if our CO2 levels doubled, it would still be less than one-tenth of 1% of the atmosphere.
The actual known laboratory physics indicates Earth's temps will only increase between 1-2°C after a CO2 doubling - not some 400+ degrees.
In addition, Venus is a lot closer to the sun and its rotation is 243 Earth days, not 24 hours - it is basically baking in the solar furnace all the time.
And Venus has an atmospheric pressure that is some 90 times greater than Earth's, which is going to create incredible hot temperatures on its own.
Simply stated: Earth will not turn into Venus unless a major catastrophic event (asteroid, comet, an alien 'tractor' beam weapon, etc.) changes Earth's position in the solar system.
Note: Excel used to calculate averages, rolling month trends, the resultant per century trends, and to chart the dataset plots. Lower troposphere (LT) temperature satellite datasets - RSS and UAH - an equal weighting monthly average dataset used in chart's plot; NOAA's atmospheric CO2 dataset. For Earth vs. Venus comparison: a 30yr baseline was calculated from this UAH file of daily Kelvin temps and then monthly UAH LT anomalies applied to result in absolute temps for each month from 1979. Venus 5km LT absolute temps found on this web page.
Yesterday morning brought news that the political experts and pundits were robustly wrong again.
The Georgia special election "expert" polls persistently reported that Democrat Jon Ossoff was leading in the polls and would result in a win for the left-liberal complex. This was supposedly a election not about each candidate but about being a negative referendum on Trump and his administration.
The Democrat elites and experts convinced themselves that Americans would show their true feelings about Trump.
Yep, they indeed did that, in spades.
By election eve, the two candidates were polling at a standoff, and now the results are in: the GOP candidate won by 5 points, yet spent some $20 million less than Ossoff.
Seriously, are "experts" almost always wrong, just about everything? Well, yes, that would be a fairly accurate portrayal.
Here are just a few more recent examples from the past few days of headlines, outside of politics, that document the continuing saga of expert-failure.
After years of claiming otherwise, consensus climate experts now confirm that the global warming hiatus actually existed for an extended period, which was a global condition opposite their predictions.
Recent studies confirm why consensus climate expert predictions are almost always wrong: computer climate models relied on can't predict squat.
Research on clean-green battery storage used in electric vehicles finds it is actually a bigger pollutant source than fossil-fueled gasoline vehicle transportation, contrary to science expert claims.
Empirical evidence continues to substantiate that solar projects that politicians and experts so love are vast sinkholes of worthless subsidies and failure for the taxpayers/consumers.
Ooops, the science is never settled - we've long been told by experts that homo sapiens evolved close to 200,000 years ago, but newest fossil evidence finds we are about 100,000 years older than that.
Remember, experts say that to lose weight you have to exercise a lot and 'burn off' calories - WRONG!
Just trust us, parents: Absolutely, the government doctor experts know best for your child - uh-oh, new study finds significant link with mercury in vaccines and autism.
Again, just a few recent headlines covering different fields that are not unusual, in the sense that those "experts" the mainstream media and elected officials rely are often wildly wrong.
Whatever the claim, it pays to be always skeptical and to challenge consensus orthodoxy and opinion.
Note: Since the Trump election, we are on a extended sabbatical from blogging-burnout. Maybe in the future, after a recovery from reading too much MSM doomsday alarmism, this blog will resume regular publishing. 'C3' blog was started the first month of Obama's administration. Since then, over those 8+ years, many more skeptic blogs have been started and prospered with growing audiences. Here is the list of skeptic climate blogs that are read by tens of thousands on a daily basis, including moi.
A new focused effort by a team of researchers analyzed 26 decades of hurricane activity, covering the end of the Little Ice Age (LIA) through 2012 for the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico water regions.
As most scientists agree, be they orthodox or skeptic, the world has been modestly warming since the end of the LIA.
Yet the proponents of global warming alarmism "science" have claimed that severe weather, such as hurricanes, has increased dramatically due to this rather modest warming.
These expert claims were primarily based on simulations from climate models (and less so on the actual empirical evidence) which has become a sure fire methodology of producing bass-ackwards fake science.
This new empirical study presents the evidence from the last 260 years of hurricane activity and the result is irrefutable as the adjacent chart reveals. Not only has hurricane activity not increased across the wide areas examined, the activity has actually been on a slow declining trend.
"In their intriguing analysis published in the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, the four-member research team of Rojo-Garibaldi et al. developed a new database of historical hurricane occurrences in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, spanning twenty-six decades over the period 1749 to 2012. Statistical analysis of the record revealed "the hurricane number is actually decreasing in time," which finding is quite stunning...as the Mexican research team indicates, "when analyzing the entire time series built for this study, i.e., from 1749 to 2012, the linear trend in the number of hurricanes is decreasing"."
What truly makes this a head-exploding study for celebrity "scientists" is not only the fact the findings are the opposite of what they predicted, but that this Mexican scientific team tied the decline to natural solar events, not human CO2 emissions. (See more information on the study.)
Fortunately, the Titanic only sunk once because engineers and navigators did not continue to make the same mistakes over and over.
But "experts" and climate models provide a never-ending loop of sinking and re-floating of a wide assortment of climate change predictions, forecasts and scenarios.
The weather/climate researchers seem unable to embrace the humility and reality that their computer simulation predictions rarely stay afloat for any length of time before being sent down to deep and cold watery graves.
A recent noteworthy example of a failed prediction is the Hurricane Matthew event.
More specifically, climate model output has been predicting that CO2-induced global warming and climate change would produce more frequent, and more intense, cyclones/hurricanes that would continuously terrorize many coastal populations.
Yet those frightening predictions keep doing a 'Titanic' on the expert model forecasts.
And actually, there is a logical reason for that happening: climate models can't predict squat.
Per the latest peer-reviewed scientific research:
"...Camargo and Wing write that (5) "efforts on modeling improvements, from convective parameterizations to new numerical methods and dynamical cores, also need to continue to occur." And "most of all," as they continue, they say that (6) "what is needed is a better theoretical understanding of what sets the frequency of TCs," noting that (7) "we could make much more confident climate change projections if we had a firmer theoretical expectation of what should happen."
"In conclusion, therefore, they state that (8) "despite the recent advances, there is still need for a substantial community effort to improve simulation of TCs in climate models on all time scales."
Essentially, even after burning through multi-billions of taxpayer monies, the models still can't predict squat due to the inescapable fact that experts require a "firmer theoretical expectation of what should happen."
Message to Trump from climate scientists: "We don't know what we're doing but please send more money anyways, ASAP!"
"Can't predict squat" has become a climate science known ... thus, we have the common climate expert lament: so many predictions, yet so many failures ... but climate science "experts" are not the only ones who litter the public terrain with DOA prediction carcasses.....
The 2016 election Trump again reminded everyone that the vast majority of experts, pundits and journalists are not only terrible at short-term and long-term predictions, but also their failed prognostications usually, and directly, lead to public reactions that would not have occurred otherwise, such as the post-election anti-Trump riots.
As the New York Post cover page shown on the left confirms, the public was completely mislead by the mainstream media regarding Hillary Clinton's supposedly massive soon-to-be landslide election over the hapless Trump.
To compound the consensus expert election idiocy of 2016, many of the same "experts" then predicted that economic disaster would immediately follow this "unexpected" election of Trump. Here are the infamous Chuck Todd of NBC and Paul Krugman of the New York Times providing post-Trump election predictions that were completely without merit - literally, pure mainstream B.S. speculation posing as truth.
Now please note the 5-year Dow Jones Industrial chart depicted above on the right, as of Friday, November 12. Because investors were pleased that Hillary Clinton lost, the market set new records over the 3 days immediately after the election. The Trump unexpected coattails obviously extended beyond just the large GOP gains across the nation from the November 8 election.
Finally, because the experts and the media significantly misinformed the public constantly with Hillary-biased polls, combined with just plain ludicrous Trump fear-mongering, society's most gullible and misinformed Facebook generation went on a rampage with destructive and violent riots.
The moral of this story? The consensus experts, in almost every field, have an extremely high probability of being wrong, especially the ones pushing biased, agenda-driven doomsday scenarios and outcomes; and, the conclusion is indisputable: they should not be trusted at all by the public.
The consensus alarmist-scientist community has again been discomforted with new empirical evidence that confirms the findings of past research done by scientists skeptical of human-caused catastrophic global warming.
The new study, officially published in a publication from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows:
"....that water conserved by plants under high CO2 conditions compensates for much of the effect of warmer temperatures, retaining more water on land than predicted in commonly used drought assessments....the implications of plants needing less water with more CO2 in the environment changes assumptions of climate change impacts on agriculture, water resources, wildfire risk, and plant growth..."New satellite observations and improvements in our understanding hydrological cycle have led to significant advances in our ability to model changes in soil moisture," said Randerson. "Unfortunately, using proxy estimates of drought stress can give us misleading results because they ignore well-established principles from plant physiology."."
And ...,
"Recent studies have estimated that more than 70 percent of our planet will experience more drought as carbon dioxide levels quadruple from pre-industrial levels over about the next 100 years. But when researchers account for changes in plants' water needs, this falls to 37 percent, with bigger differences concentrated in certain regions."
You read that right. The "consensus" scientists were forced to cut almost in half climate models' simulated drought impact on the world's plant life when the actual empirical evidence was properly analyzed.
Of course, despite the contrary findings of this study, the article reminds readers that hypothetical fearmongering from computer simulations is still acceptable, such as:
"Is this good news for climate change? Although the drying may be less extreme than in some current estimates, droughts will certainly increase, researchers said, and other aspects of climate change could have severe effects on vegetation."
The prediction failures regarding the Arctic polar region being ice-free, and the continuing good health and resilient, growing population of polar bears, just really grates on some science "journalists."
"Up in the Arctic, things are getting slushy. But some polar bears are refusing to change their ways. Instead of compromising on where they spend their time, they’re clinging to the icy habitats they’ve always loved. As those habitats keep shrinking, though, the bears will eventually find things too crowded and uncomfortable to ignore."
Buuuuut....it would seem those stubborn bears just keep ignoring their human scientific betters whom keep predicting the demise of polar bear species.
“Polar bears are sticking to using the same type of habitat conditions even while sea ice disappears,” says lead author Ryan Wilson of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They still love regions with shallow water, a high but variable concentration of sea ice, and not much land-bound ice. He thinks that’s because—for now—they can still eat....So these polar bears seem to be doing fine without changing their habits."
Buuuuut....just wait until next season warns the Discover Magazine's species helicopter-parent nanny.
"As the iciest spots continue to shrink, more animals will have to either crowd into them or move onto solid land during the summer. They can’t stay stuck in their ways forever. These carefree polar bears will soon experience the same negative effects that their neighbors have, Wilson says: “It’s likely only a matter of time.”
The mountain of failed predictions and significant flip-flops seems to be never ending when it comes to climate change experts.
For years they predicted (i.e. carelessly speculated) that a warming climate would increase the incidence of the nasty dengue fever disease.
But now researchers are reporting that the incidence of the disease could actually be reduced with warming climate change.
“While climate change generally poses a major threat to humanity, it also may reduce the incidence of dengue in some areas,” said Dr Harley, an epidemiology researcher at the ANU Research School of Population Health. ... The findings are also relevant to other mosquito-borne viruses including Zika because the mosquitoes that carry dengue also transmit the Zika virus. ... “There is significant concern in countries on the margin of the tropical areas where dengue is mainly found, that with global warming dengue and other mosquito-borne viruses such as Zika will encroach and become common,” Dr Harley said. ... “Previous projections have suggested that climate change will increase transmission of mosquito-borne diseases globally. ... “Our work, using a mathematical model based on Queensland conditions, suggests that dengue transmission might decrease with greater warming.”
Naturally, this is good news that all global warming alarmists should embrace, with the exception of a single caveat regarding the study that should give pause. This latest flip-flop was based on a computer model, which is quite simply, nothing but simulated research using limited empirical evidence.
As has often been the case, official climate science is now agreeing with what skeptics identified several years ago: Antarctica is not warming.
The prestigious science consensus journal Nature has published a new peer-reviewed study that counters what that journal has been reporting about Antarctica for at least the last decade.
This should not come as a surprise to the observant.
The global warming doomsday scientists have relied on a compliant mainstream media to claim that their opinions represent the supposed 97% of settled science - an indisputable "consensus" that should not be debated. But, as in almost every scientific endeavor, the science is never, ever settled.
Yet the climate science orthodoxy continues to push the catastrophic scenario that Earth's major coastal and island regions will be submerged due to the melting of the polar ice sheets found in Antarctica. Unfortunately for the consensus alarmism, this new study indicates Antarctica's canary in the global warming fearmongering-fable has actually been cooling over the last 20 years, not warming (see chart).
"Natural variability was responsible both for the decades-long warming since the 1950s and more recent cooling, according to research published today in Nature. The research, led by John Turner from the British Antarctic Survey, said while the start of Antarctic Peninsula cooling in 1998 had coincided with the so-called “global warming hiatus”, the two were not connected."
And what do they say next, after being severely humiliated with the empirical evidence that skeptics rely on? Well.....the consensus doomsday scientists bounce right back with their orthodoxy beliefs, based on the always wrong climate model computer simulations.
"Scientists were quick to declare the results of the Turner et al paper, which covered 1 per cent of the Antarctic continent, did not negate a long-term warming because of man-made climate change...“Climate model projections forced with medium emission scenarios indicate the emergence of a large anthropogenic regional warming signal, comparable in magnitude to the late-20th-century peninsula warming, during the latter part of the current century,” the Turner research concluded."
Per a previous analysis of rising seas surrounding Pacific islands, the satellite measurements indicate that seas are rising but at a very meager rate. The current sea rise rate is significantly below what consensus climate science alarmists have predicted.
So, how do the doomsday claims that tropical islands are being lost to "rapidly" rising seas compare to reality?
Scientific peer-reviewed research can answer that question: The claims are bogus.
A new study examined the Jaluit Atoll of the Marshall Islands.
Back in 1958, Typhoon Ophelia passed by the atoll causing 14 deaths, plus resulting in the atoll shrinking in land area. Per the study:
"...the pair of New Zealand researchers set out to examine historical changes in 87 islands found within the Jaluit Atoll...over the period 1945-2010. During this time, the islands were subjected to ongoing sea level rise and the passage of a notable typhoon...which caused severe damage with its >100 knot winds and abnormal wave heights...caused a decrease in total island land area of approximately five percent, yet Ford and Kench write that “despite [this] significant typhoon-driven erosion and a relaxation period coincident with local sea-level rise, [the] islands have persisted and grown.” Between 1976 and 2006, for example, 73 out of the 87 islands increased in size, and by 2010, the total landmass of the islands had exceeded the pre-typhoon area by nearly 4 percent."
Simply stated, this study again confirms that doomsday prognostications based on climate model simulations have no relation to the actual Pacific island/atoll reality during periods of sea rise.
This article discusses the severe forest fire that is currently happening in the Fort McMurray area of Canada, which the article's author takes issue with those claiming the fire is due to climate change from human activities - i.e. human CO2 emissions, etc.
Claims that specific fires (and forest and wildfires overall) are due to human greenhouse gases have routinely been made since the 1988 testimony of NASA's top climate scientist, James Hansen, predicted that rapid and accelerating warming from GHG emissions would cause more severe and frequent weather events.
As a result of this Congressional testimony, the "consensus" climate experts then predicted that the "dangerous" human-caused warming would produce a significant trend increase of wildfires, especially in the northern hemisphere's boreal forests.
Although the globe has warmed since 1988 (not rapid, nor accelerating, see here and here), the trend for Canadian boreal forest fires has been the opposite of that predicted over the 27 years after the Hansen 1988 testimony.
The adjacent charts plots the number of Canadian forest fires and hectares burned. Clearly, the trends are declining, which suggests an inverse relationship with the level of atmospheric CO2 (ppm CO2 is the chart's right axis).
Despite those climate "experts" failed prognostications, the recent irrefutable empirical evidence indicates that the increased levels of atmospheric CO2 emissions are producing a greener and healthier biosphere, which actually may be more resistant to wildfires.
Additional forest fire articles of the past [tip: then use browser Cntrl-F function to do search on word 'forest' to find forest fire news articles on that page].
Note: Canadian forest fire statistics source; Excel used to plot annual fire statistics and linear trends.
The unsubstantiated claim has been that human CO2-induced climate change was (and is) producing dramatic changes in precipitation levels across the world.
But is it true?
A research effort was undertaken to determine if indeed the evidence backed up the alarmist non-empirical claims/predictions.
"...report that "most trends exhibited no clear precipitation change," noting that "global changes in precipitation over the Earth's land mass excluding Antarctica relative to 1961-90 were estimated to be: -1.2±1.7, 2.6±2.5 and -5.4±8.1 percent per century for the periods 1850-2000, 1900-2000 and 1950-2000, respectively." ... "stations experiencing low, moderate and heavy annual precipitation did not show very different precipitation trends," ... "deserts/jungles are neither expanding nor shrinking due to changes in precipitation patterns." ... "reasonable to conclude that some caution is warranted about claiming that large changes to global precipitation have occurred during the last 150 years."
Simply put, the exaggerated climate change claims of major disruption to rainfall/snow patterns are just that, exaggerations sans any empirical evidence. The evidence-based science is clear: Over the last 150 years, precipitation trends remain within normal variability.
Doomsday climate models have been programmed to simulate greater ocean acidification levels as a result of increasing atmospheric CO2 from human emissions.
Simply stated, this predicted dangerous "acidification" is hypothesized to make the waters uninhabitable for most marine life.
And for this to become a reality, it means that a demonstrable and consistent decline in sea/ocean pH levels should be evident since the beginning of the industrial age.
In fact, as this study indicates, researchers are finding it exceedingly difficult to locate ocean/sea waters that exhibit a dangerous decline in pH values. In addition, as this chart shows (click on chart to enlarge), any slight change in pH from human sources is being swamped, multiple times, by natures own unpredictable wide variability.
"Expert" predictions, especially those associated with climate change, fail more often than not.
The climate change consensus has long been predicting that global warming will bring more flooding to river regions.
"...freshwater flooding is "the most impacting natural disaster in terms of number of people affected and economic damages," adding that "some studies in the literature (e.g. IPCC, 2013; Stern Review, 2007) seem to indicate that flood damages are expected to increase in the near future as a consequence of a global climate change," citing the additional studies of Hall et al. (2005) and de Moel et al. (2011)."
So, several scientists decided to actually analyse the available climate data for the Po River region of Italy to determine if the IPCC and other predictors had any merit.
As always, they found the predictions counter to reality:
"...analyses revealed there was a significant increase in residential growth in and around the Po river, particularly near levees and dykes, which increased the exposure of persons and property to flood risk over the period of study. However, meteorologically speaking, Domeneghetti et al. report flood events have not increased. "Consistent with previous analyses (see e.g. Montanari, 2012; Zanchettini et al., 2008)," they write, "our trend detection analysis, which we carried out on long historical series observed for the Po river, does not detect any evidence of a statistically significant change in the flood hazard along the Po river and supports the stationarity of the hydrological series during the period of interest (i.e., last five decades)."
Why does any sane person believe these knuckleheads?
Global warming alarmists, green activists, celebrities, and especially the mainstream press, collaborated in a loud chorus denouncing CO2 human emissions due to its supposed destructive nature on honeybee colonies.
With the onset of the widely publicized American 'colony collapse disorder', they were predicting that climate change from greenhouse gases would destroy the honeybees (and other bee species) and crop agriculture - meaning a massive starvation for mankind.
Something had to be done about global warming and this potential extinction. Climate change had to be dealt with swiftly. Do it for the children honeybees!!!
So, Obama proposed the typical tardy government response of more bureaucrats, taxpayer monies for scientists, and evidence-free untested policies, which will likely accomplish zilch.
In the meantime, the bee problem has been solved, like usual, via free markets, capitalism and individualism, not by govt diktat. Read the whole story here.
And not to be forgotten, like polar bears, another species predicted to go extinct a long time ago, bee colonies just reached a record high in the last 20 years at a time of the world's "hottest" temperatures evah and highest atmospheric CO2 levels.
Even with the strong surge in global temperatures from the current El Niño and from the surge of 2015 global warming exaggeration and fabrication (here, here and here), there remains the strange case of establishment climate science models failing to meet expected outcomes.
Case in point. This chart replicates the famous climate model output presented to Congress and the world in 1988 by James Hansen, the then chief climatologist of the NASA/GISS climate research unit. (Here is an image of the original chart.)
The climate model predicted annual temperature changes would follow the bright green curve if greenhouse gases (GHGs) were not curtailed. GHGs include: CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride - the latter 3 are known as fluorinated greenhouse gases.
The orange curve represents the predicted annual temperature changes if the GHG growth rate were reduced over time.
The chart's cyan (aqua) curve datapoints are the predicted annual temperature changes if GHGs were curtailed by governmental polices and regulations so that year 2000 and beyond had a net growth rate equal to zero.
From the Hansen 1998 testimony, there is this statement:
"We have considered cases ranging from business as usual [BAU], which is scenario A, to draconian emission cuts, scenario C, which would totally eliminate net trace gas growth by year 2000."
From the 1988 Hansen peer-reviewed article that supports his testimony, there is this statement:
"We define three trace gas scenarios to provide an indication of how the predicted climate trend depends upon trace gas growth rates. Scenario 'A' [chart's green curve] assumes that growth rates of trace gas emissions typical of the 1970s and 1980s will continue indefinitely; the assumed annual growth averages about 1.5% of current emissions, so the net greenhouse forcing increases exponentially. Scenario 'B' [chart's orange curve] has decreasing trace gas growth rates, such that the annual increase of the greenhouse climate forcing remains approximately constant at the present level. Scenario 'C' [chart's cyan curve] drastically reduces trace gas growth between 1990 and 2000 such that the greenhouse climate forcing ceases to increase after 2000."
So.....since NASA's top climate expert's testimony, what has happened with the GHG growth and growth rates?
From a recent U.S. EPA report on non-CO2 greenhouse gases, there is the following:
"Global non-CO2 emissions are projected to increase significantly between 2005 and 2030 unless further actions are taken to reduce emissions...total emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases have nonetheless increased."
From the latest IPCC AR5 climate report, we know the following about GHGs (a synopsis here):
"Total anthropogenic GHG emissions have continued to increase over 1970 to 2010 with larger absolute decadal increases toward the end of this period. Despite a growing number of climate change mitigation policies, annual GHG emissions grew on average by 1.0 gigatonne carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2eq) (2.2 %) per year from 2000 to 2010 compared to 0.4 GtCO2eq (1.3 %) per year from 1970 to 2000. Total anthropogenic GHG emissions were the highest in human history from 2000 to 2010 and reached 49 (±4.5) GtCO2eq/yr in 2010.".....
In addition, the combination of CO2 fossil fuels emissions and CO2 emissions from deforestation, forest fires and peat burning have grown from 72% of all GHG emissions in 1970 to 76% of all GHG emissions.
Regarding fossil fuel CO2 emissions, specifically (CO2 data here): NASA and Hansen's 'BAU' Scenario A was proposed at a time when CO2 emissions were growing: since 1972, the 15 years ending 1987 the world emitted 285 billion tonnes of CO2. This represents a CO2 average growth rate of 2.2% per year for those 15 years prior to Hansen's 1988 testimony.
In contrast, for the 15 years ending 2014, the world has emitted a total of 467 billion tonnes - that is growth some 1.6 times greater than Hansen's 'BAU'. This represents a CO2 average growth rate of 2.9% per year for the period since 1999.
Without any doubt, both empirically and objectively, NASA's Hansen's projected GHG emissions for 'Scenario A' has easily been exceeded since his testimony in 1988. To state otherwise is a falsehood, categorically.
Now, back to the above chart.
For the year 2015, NASA's model predictions had temperature change for all 3 scenarios declining. Of course, we now know the exact opposite took place with the sharp increase in 2015 global temps.
It is important to note that since the 1988 testimony, the NASA climate predictions have very rarely been correct regarding annual temperature changes. (NASA is not an exception, though - all climate computer models and experts suffer the same level of failure.)
For what it's worth, the chart also shows the 2016 predictions: there is continuing decline for Scenarios B & C, but a sharp spike up for Scenario A to a record calendar year anomaly level.
While global warming alarmists are celebrating 2015 as the "warmest" year ever, the climate model failures clearly point to the absurdity of focusing on peak or trough moments as indicators of informed expertise. Peaks happen and troughs happen, in weather and climate, but pointing to either as scientific proof of computer simulations is not science.
Taking that to heart, the accompanying chart has 3-year average plots of highly adjusted observed temperatures from the NASA and UK climate agencies - the 3-year averages remove the focus from peaks/troughs.
As can be seen, 3-year averages of the GISS and HC4 datasets depict the last 3-year average increase due to the El Niño conditions, and those questionable man-made factors.
Be that as it may, the GISS and HC4 averages still remain closer to the realm of NASA's Scenario C range. As a reminder, the Scenario C predictions are a result of net zero GHG emissions simulated to have started in year 2000, which is yet another galaxy away from reality.
In conclusion, some relevant takeaways on climate models:
1. At this point, now close to 3 decades after NASA's testimony, one can safely surmise that expert climate models can't predict squat. The climate is a chaotic complex that defies even the most sophisticated and powerful forecasting tools.
2. GHG emissions have far surpassed the 1988 "world-will-soon-end" BAU construct - a construct that many alarmists still believe. Yet the predicted positive feedback from BAU has not occurred and thus runaway global warming is, without question, AWOL.
3. The climate models are still absolutely unable to discern either the amount or rate of global warming/cooling that is due to natural forces. The models were designed to purposefully rely on greenhouse gas forcings as their major causal factor, while diminishing natural climate impacts. It's no wonder that climate models remain on a fail path.
4. Based on the model outputs from 1960 to the present, policymakers and the public would be better served by rejecting the alarmist scenarios A and B; instead, moving forward, base all adaption and mitigation policies on Scenario 'C', which would likely produce better outcomes with superior allocation of scarce resources.
The climate models definitely have their important place in the climate researcher's toolbox. They are best suited to advance science's better understanding of our world, but their climate predictions, forecasts and prognostications should never be relied on - they are unreliable and inaccurate.
Update h/t: Video of climate scientist making the same point about climate model failure before a congressional committee on Feb 2, 2016:
Notes: NASA/GISS 2015 temperature dataset and HC4 2015 dataset. Excel was use to calculate chart's 3-month averages from their respective monthly datasets.
The lower troposphere represents that layer of the atmosphere which is predicted to first experience the positive feedback of accelerated warming due to human greenhouse gases.
Recently, NOAA and NASA held a global warming presentation, which included various charts, and an unexpected admission that the atmosphere was not as warm as previous El Niño years.
An essential general review of the presentation can be found here.
The troposphere's lack of achieving the "warmest" year label was confirmed by the NOAA/NASA analysis of the relevant balloon and satellite datasets. And the adjacent chart is a combination from the NOAA/NASA presentation, with one chart being superimposed atop the other.
Other than a normal atmospheric response to the latest large El Niño temperature surge, the chart documents the continued lack of dangerous positive feedback warming.
As the state-of-the-art satellite technology shows (see chart), significant global warming since the early 2000’s has been nonexistent.
There has definitely been an extended ‘pause’ (aka the ‘Hiatus’ in science journals). The pause has generated some 60+ scientific explanations regarding its existence and persistence.
This has become a real problem for many proponents of dangerous global warming, which has recently pushed them into a stance of actually denying the 'pause'.
Empirically, since November 2000 the lower atmosphere temperature trend has actually been negative at a minus 0.12ºC per century trend. (The chart’s green curve is a 36-month average, which makes the pause even clearer to the casual observer.)
The chart also includes r-squared calculations, besides linear trends, that indicate a fairly weak 30-year relationship between CO2 and temperatures, which appears to have become a zero relationship over the last 15 years.
In review, the AGW theory is based on a CO2-induced warming of the lower atmosphere, at a rapid and accelerating warming rate - this being a result of the theory's speculative positive feedback loop.
As can be seen, the satellite empirical evidence after 30+ years does not readily support the climate-alarmist AGW theory, nor the doomsday predictions of global warming hell.
Although the satellites are considered the gold-standard for measuring and observing sea levels, hurricanes/typhoons, ozone holes, sea ice, atmospheric CO2 distribution, polar ice sheet masses and etc., the same 24/7 technology used to measure temperatures across the entire habitable world is now being ignored (i.e., denied) due to the above inconvenient evidence.
Denying the global-warming pause has recently become a self-inflicted, nightmarish scenario for agenda-driven scientists - in a sense, they have morphed into science deniers. And all these political shenanigans, plus the ongoing NASA/NOAA data fabrication/tampering, are proving to be a significant drag on the reputation and integrity of the science community.
Note: Source of monthly satellite data; source of month CO2 levels. Excel used to plot and calculate linear trends and r-squared values (per Excel's correlation function).
The adjacent chart pretty much makes a turkey mockery of accelerating global warming fears. It's simply not flying happening.
While the climate science establishment continues its costly and misallocated efforts against "catastrophic" global warming, the empirical evidence indicates the worlds' elites are pursuing a laughably ludicrous Don Quixote quest against an imaginary climate-evil.
Like so many Thanksgivings of the past, those on the 'quest' have piously announced civilization's reaching its 'last chance' point of saving itself from climate doomsday. But all of these TurkeynadoSharknado-like prophecies that the end-is-near have proven to be pure anti-science fiction.
At some point, we can hope some sanity returns to the climate science anti-CO2 Quixote brotherhood of warriors. But in the meantime, what does the actual climate science say?
Well, this chart is just brutally frank: the fast growth of atmospheric CO2 levels (the black dots) have not exactly been the robust evil foe the elite establishment has fixated on.
As the chart depicts, the CO2 impact on either short (red curve) or long-term (pink curve) rapid global temperature acceleration appears to be non-existent versus the "consensus" predictions. And the blue-dash curve reveals the rather turkey-like impact on the 36-month average of absolute global temperatures.
Indeed, global temperatures have increased since 1950. But the scientific reality is that the chart confirms a steady global warming that has been taking place since the end of the Little Ice Age (late 1700s) - well before the influx of the giant CO2 emissions from the industrial/consumer era. The chart clearly shows a long history of frequent periods of rapidly increasing temperatures, then to be always followed by a significant deceleration.
Examine the chart's most recent period, from December 1996 through October 2015. The periods of both rapid temperature increases and decreases are evident, just as they existed since instrumental recording of temperatures first began.
The vast majority of climate analysis based on actual empirical evidence show similar results, whether in a global or regional context.
Terrified by global warming doomsday? Not so much anymore, it would seem.
Suffice it to say, Americans are no longer impressed by the claims of government and celebrity elites. Fully 97% now reject the unreal turkey-esque predictions of climate change disasters.
And the American public is not alone. The global masses join Americans in their low assessment of the elites' unscientific climate calamities.
As the public has learned, the empirical evidence supports neither the man-made climate change disaster narrative nor the CO2-reducing solutions proposed, which have been seriously debunked.
With all that said, foolish anti-science elites will continue to make preposterous claims and those exaggerated, attic-crazy predictions leading up to the soon to be Paris COP21 climate conference.
One last 'chance' - look at the chart, are you still terrified this Thanksgiving? How about that wacky college-aged, censorship-loving, millennial niece gnawing on that turkey wing next to you?
Note: Excel used to calculate the 3-year absolute temperature and CO2 level averages; also used to calculate the moving 36-month and 360-month per century acceleration/deceleration trends (Excel slope function) as depicted on chart; the absolute temps calculated using the HadCRUT4 month anomalies and NOAA's monthly global mean temperature estimates; and, the 3-year average beginning value for CO2 was offset to a zero starting place. Temperature sources used: here and here. CO2 sources used: here (March 1958-October 2015) and here (used annual historical levels for each month of the given year, from January 1850 to February 1958).
The climate change fear-mongering generated by government-related persons and agencies has recently reached peak levels, with claims that are a mixture of absurd and just plain silly when compared to the empirical scientific evidence.
Such claims include the meme that rising global CO2 has caused accelerating, rapid US warming; that droughts are destroying all of our food crops; that more frequent and stronger weather disasters from warmer temperatures are wreaking untold harm; that global warming will shorten/threaten US life spans; that ever expanding wildfires are consuming our forests; and etc., etc., etc.
(One indeed wonders why so many Americans can't wait to retire to the tropical and warmer climates that Hawaii, Florida, Arizona and S. California offer if warm temperatures are so harmful and deadly.)
There are even bizarre claims that bumblebees' tongues are shortening and pumpkin pies are at risk, both supposedly due to global warming.
With all that said, the U.S. has the best weather and climate measurement capabilities in the world, with observations from a wide geographical dispersion and a extensive range of micro-climates, be it tropical islands or Arctic tundra. The most extensive and complete empirical evidence comes from the continental U.S., which the vast majority of the American population resides.
Instead of believing the promoters of doomsday screams about every single impending weather event being the next civilization-busting disaster, or the journo/pundits' propensity to shout about the hottest hour, the hottest day, week, month, summer and/or hottest year stats (take your pick) ad nauseum, it might be best to reflect on what the American public has realized about long-term climate change doomsday from the empirical evidence - it's a very thin nothing-burger.
To the empirical evidence.
The adjacent chart depicts several long-term climate record trends of 10-year averages (US hurricane landfalls, forest fire acres, drought, precipitation, maximum and average temperatures). The chart also includes the following 10-year average trends: atmospheric CO2 levels; the U.S. corn yield; and, the U.S. life expectancy trend from decadal census information.
As can be seen, the CO2 growth trend has been truly remarkable, only exceeded by the exceptional trend for corn yields (by the way, other agricultural crops also possess exceptional yield trends). And the increasing life expectancy trend for Americans is none too shabby either.
In contrast, the charts reveal the truly unexceptional, unremarkable long-term trends for any climate/weather attribute previously predicted to worsen from the modern era's CO2-induced climate change.
These fitted curve trends have yawn-inducing characteristics, indicating CO2 from fossil fuel combustion is spectacularly not the powerful greenhouse gas emission that experts conjectured about.
Conclusion: Although short-term variation extremes in weather attributes and incidents can be large and at times awe-inspiring, they are not climate change. Long-term climate change since the Little Ice Age has been dominated by a very slow warming, which the chart's 'average' and 'maximum' temperature trends reveal. The long-term climate change across the continental U.S. as represented by the precipitation, hurricane landfall events and drought are much more difficult to discern from their respective fitted trends (objectively, they are rather climatically insignificant overall). Forest fire acres burned has had an uptick in recent years (for bureaucratic reasons) but is vastly below levels reached in the early 20th century. All in all, human CO2 combustion emissions are directly linked to the great agricultural prosperity and vastly improved well being of the American citizen over the past century, much to the chagrin of doomsday cultists - whether yesteryear's or today's.
In other words, the politicos and bureaucrats predictions of gloom, doom and disasters were wrong, significantly.
Notes: Excel used to produce chart's fitted 2nd order trends. Sources of datasets used for chart can be found by downloading this Excel spreadsheet from MS OneDrive. For the temperature, precipitation and drought (PHDI) curves, 9-month YTD through September measurements from NOAA were used. CO2 levels used for its trend curve represents the September ppm value for each year. Corn yields represent the 'commodity and market' year reported. Both corn and CO2 had beginning values set to '10' in order that they would fit on a '0' to '150' y-axis (did not affect linear trends of either). Hurricane US landfalls observations used represent a per year average from the given decade's count of events. Life expectancy data are U.S. decadal averages for female/male and all races.
As the site 'Not A Lot of People Know That' reports, extreme and severe rainfall (i.e. precipitation) trend has not increased in Holland, when viewed from a decadal perspective.
The adjacent chart depicts the distribution of the top 50 DeBilt, Holland rainfall events while atmospheric CO2 levels increased over the decades. (Go here to view maximum hourly precipitation incidents versus global cumulative CO2 emission tonnes since 1950.)
For the record, on any given hour during any given day, someplace in the world is likely to be experiencing an extreme weather event. But as this Holland dataset confirms, the actual empirical global and regional trends of a climatic shift of ever more severe weather events do not support the alarmists' predictions; the irrational fears of more frequent/larger weather disasters as a result of CO2 or global/regional "warming" is unjustified, per the scientific evidence.
And it is indisputable that hundreds of media outlets have extensively documentedover the past century that weather catastrophes have always been a normal climate occurrence, regardless of greenhouse gas emissions.
Note: 'C3' used monthly CO2 levels from NOAA and superimposed the CO2 curve on the above chart.
