A frequent review and commentary on topical matters concerning the science, economics and governance matters associated with climate change developments.
Climate News Archives: 2013
Climate News: December 19, 2013
By Alan Moran
Australia’s Energy White Paper and carbon costs
The previous government’s “Energy White Paper” was issued just over a year ago, but the new government has announced it will do it all again. The new White Paper, like the previous one, will be developed by the Energy (now called Industry) Department and have a reference group including green, consumerist and industry representatives. It is supposed to “outline a coherent, integrated and efficient regulatory and policy framework, stimulating sustainable growth, building community confidence in environmental safeguards and growing investment in the energy sector.” It “will also consider lower emissions energy and the more productive and efficient use of energy.” It is to be completed by September 2014.
There is also to be a review of the Renewable Energy Target (RET) but no timing or procedure has yet been set. The Guardian also reported this week encouraging remarks from Prime Minister Tony Abbott on the RET – including potentially scrapping the scheme altogether.
The Australian Energy Market Commission has assessed residential electricity prices where it estimated that the carbon tax adds 9 per cent to final consumer prices (24 per cent to costs excluding networks) and renewables and other green schemes add 7 per cent to final consumer prices (16 per cent to costs excluding networks).
Trends, forecasts and fantasies
Just to keep perspective, this chart exposes the absurd predictions of the IPCC. It compares the global average temperature increase predicted by climate models with the actual observed warming, using two of the major data sets. The first (the green dotted line) measures sea-surface temperatures collected by the Hadley Centre at the UK Met Office and the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. The second (the blue dotted line) is the UAH lower troposphere measure of temperatures from the University of Alabama at Huntsville.
As you can see, the average predicted temperature rise (the black dotted line) far exceeds both actual measures of temperature, and exposes the exaggerated claims made by the IPCC and others.
As Canadian Lawrence Solomon said in the Huffington Post, a number of highly respected scientists are now predicting a cooling of the climate, which has been grudgingly accepted by the warmist propaganda outfit, the BBC. Solomon adds, “The global warming scientists — with their models defunct and now acting on hope rather than science — assert that temperatures will soon renew their climb.” Others take a contrary view.
Imagine the hysteria if – and it was a 50/50 chance – the earth had shown higher average temperatures over the past 17 years!
But, riding to the relief of alarmism, The Guardian reported that Australia is having its “warmest Spring on record.” However, that reprieve of the doom-mongers was short-lived because Time has since reported that Antarctica had just recorded temperatures close to the coldest on record. And the extent of the ice is breaking new records. Even the Arctic, long the poster child of warmist hysteria, has seen stable temperatures over the past decade, as the below chart demonstrates.
Two excellent articles in the November issue of the IPA Review by Jennifer Marohasy and Stewart Franks are well worth reading. Jennifer calls for alternative forecasting tools to the general circulation models that have been found wanting. Stewart notes warmists’ grasping at straws in the form of climate aberrations to support their case and that their fervour contrasts to “the ability to attribute these events to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.”
Police your global support
Attending global climate talks isn’t as cool as it used to be. The number of attendants at recent talkfests is on a downward trajectory, surpassed only by that of governments like Australia.
Those reading this will be aware that green-sanctified energy, produced courtesy of subsidies in Australia, is at least three times the cost of commercially available energy. But in the UK, Bishop Hill has dissected an address given by the Energy and Climate Change Secretary that places the cost of each green job at £1 million.
Many corporates have for far too long given aid and comfort to those who want to end their business. Finally, they seem to be waking up. Shell’s climate change adviser, having attended a “Radical Emission Reduction” conference, seems to have cottoned onto the fact that the clients Shell bankrolls want the end of the industrial system.
Frivolity
Snow in Egypt for the first time in 112 years disproves global warming more effectively than the last hurricane proved it! This pic of the pyramids ripe for ski lifts is photoshopped but snow in Egypt is real.
Climate News: December 6, 2013
By Alan Moran
Global Warming Overall Trends
The Non-Governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), delivered a 1000 page withering critique of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPA’s Bob Carter was one of its three lead authors who were supported by four dozen chapter authors including Australians Stewart Franks and Bill Kininmonth.
The NIPCC report shows that the latest IPCC report issued two months ago has exaggerated predictions of future warming just as comprehensively as the four previous reports. The latest IPCC report was, however, forced to acknowledge a lack of warming for the past 17 years and no increase in untoward events like hurricanes. The NIPCC finds that any warming that may occur will be modest and not harm the global environment or human well-being.
The NIPCC members were selected for their expertise. In contrast, Lubos Motl shows UN agencies pick climate “experts” on the basis of gender and geography, when expertise is concentrated in the developed world.
Watts Up With That points to the “epic failure of the Canadian climate model,” which has delivered similar forecasts to other IPCC models. The Canadian model predicted 2013 global temperatures 1.2°Celsius above 1980 levels (0.6°Celsius above the 1990-95 average). The actual outcome was temperatures 0.4°Celsius above 1980 (no change on the 1990-95 average).
Australia, like one third of the countries attending the latest climate conference in Warsaw, did not send a minister. Predictably, many delegates blamed typhoon Haiyan on climate change but sober science demonstrated that the incidence of such catastrophes had not increased. Developed world delegates have “pledged” some funding to developing countries but not the $100 billion a year that was sought. A tweet from the Canadian Greens‘ leader pointedly asked if it was the worst ever Conference of Parties. The IPA’s Tim Wilson was there as a referee!
The Advancing Ice
Arctic sea ice has appeared to be reducing while in the Antarctic ice has been increasing. The former is often attributed to human induced climate change, while the latter is attributed to random matters. The Arctic was in fact more easily navigated 70 years ago, as evidenced by a German cruiser making it through to the Pacific in 1940. Now, once again Arctic sea ice coverage seems to be increasing.
Meanwhile the ice coverage of the Antarctic continues to increase in spite of images of melting ice falling into the ocean. NASA announced that at the end of September Antarctic sea ice has extended over the largest area since measurements began in 1979.
Australian Bushfires
In October, unseasonably freezing weather in Victoria accompanied unseasonably warm weather in central NSW accompanied by strong winds. The consequent bushfires are claimed to be evidence for global warming by alarmists ranging from UN Climate Change chief Christiana Figueres to Tim Flannery. David Evans pointed out, “The IPCC says that ‘drought, coupled with extreme heat and low humidity, can increase the risk of wildfire’, but there is no drought in southeast Australia at the moment.” And he added prevention of burn-offs meant, “Current fuel loads are now typically 30 tonnes per hectare in the forests of southeast Australia, compared to maybe 8 tonnes per hectare in the recent and ancient pasts. So fires burn hotter and longer.”
And it is hard to go past Andrew Bolt in placing the current fires in their historical context:
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“of 48 major bushfires in NSW between 1926 and 2006, 11 occurred in October or earlier.”
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“These fires are serious. But the scale of destruction is nothing like the very worst we have faced. The ‘Black Thursday’ fires of February 1851 in Victoria, burnt the largest area (approximately 5 million ha) in European-recorded history and killed more than one million sheep and thousands of cattle as well as taking the lives of 12 people. Between December 1938 to January 1939, 1.5-2.0 million ha were burnt, 71 people were killed and over 1000 homes destroyed in Victoria. In 1944, bushfires in Victoria burnt an estimated one million ha, killed between 15 and 20 people and destroyed more than 500 houses.”
In an interview in Washington, Tony Abbott said, “We’ve had much bigger floods and fires than the ones we’ve recently experienced. You can hardly say they were the result of anthropic global warming.” He described the carbon tax as, “basically socialism masquerading as environmentalism, and that’s why it’s going to get abolished.”
Seeing the Light
John Howard now says he was forced to promote emission restraints due to “a perfect storm” of propaganda.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron is finally understanding that the green schemes he has championed are crippling the economy. In an attempt to shift blame he has pointed out that the costly regulations were introduced by Edward Miliband as Energy Secretary, and said “We need to roll back some of the green regulations and charges that push up our bills. We all know who put them in place.”
Australian politicians are all too busy to visit Warsaw for the latest climate change jamboree. Craig Emerson castigates the Abbott Government as the “first remover” from the emission control program. Too late: Canada has already acted and last week Japan followed suit.
Fumbling in the Dark
The Climate Change Authority (CCA), which was established by the Gillard Government and is to be abolished by the Abbott Government, says the IPCC confirms the influence of human activity on warming. It argues that countries accounting for 80 per cent of global emissions are taking abatement action. The correct figure is only 10 per cent. The CCA advises that the policy position of both the ALP and the Liberals – requiring a five per cent carbon emission reduction by 2020 – creates insufficient damage and should become 15 per cent!
Astonishingly, Stephan Lewandowsky, a taxpayer funded climate alarmist, says “when a CSIRO scientist reviewed the (Club of Rome) 40-year old projections, he found them to be remarkably accurate!” The projections saw many minerals being depleted by 2000 and forecasted global
starvation.
US Federal expenditure on climate change in 21 years to 2013 totaled $185 billion. For the latest year, 11 per cent was on science and 75 per cent for “clean energy” and tax breaks to special interests like wind farms. UK spending in the decade to 2021 is estimated at $140 billion, half on wind subsidies etc, and the rest split between UK bureaucracies and EU initiatives. James Dellingpole’s new book, reviewed here eviscerates the green instigators of all this waste.