By an astonishing 15 distinct methods, Christopher Monckton of Brenchley demonstrates in his latest SPPI technical paper that the warming we can expect in response to the doubling of CO2 concentration that is expected this century will not be 6 F, the IPCC’s central estimate, but only around 2 F.

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Summary for Policy Makers

In this report we provide a review of Louisiana’s climate history and show that there is no observational evidence of unusual long-term climate changes taking place that could be linked to anthropogenic “global warming”—despite the frequent prognostications of gloom and doom.

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The first six months of 2011 are now in the books. Heat waves are currently in the headlines, but how does the national average temperature compare to other years and ‘normal’? And what does the first half of the year portend for the year as a whole?

The indication is that 2011 will mark the continued return of U.S. national temperatures to conditions much closer to the 20th century mean, down from the unusually elevated temperatures that characterized the 1998–2010 period.

If this proves to be the case, it strongly suggests that the unusually warm decade from 1998–2007, was just that–unusual–and does not best represent the expected trend or the climate state of the U.S. for the next several decades to come.

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The focus of this paper is early (historic) weather events. The chronology cuts off at the year 1900 A.D.

Recent weather events are fairly well documented. Excluded from the chronology are events caused by man (such as the 1642 Kaifeng flood which killed 300,000 Chinese, and the 1938 Yellow River flood that caused 500,000 Japanese/Chinese fatalities) and events caused by other non-weather related catastrophes (such as tsunami waves caused by earthquakes/volcanoes). The chronology does include major volcano induced global cooling events.

This chronology begins at 0 A.D. A few of the source chronologies actual date some weather events as far back as 1,800 B.C. I have left these out of this chronology because the further one goes back in time, the less certain the dates. This is because these chronologies use calendars (such as AM – Anno Mundi), and the events in many cases were derived using a variety of ancient calendars systems. And date uncertainty is introduced in calendar conversion. This is also due to the inexactness within the narrative descriptions.

Why is a chronological listing of weather events of value? If one wishes to peer into the future, then a firm grasp of the past events is a key to that gateway. This is intrinsically true for the scientific underpinnings of weather and climate.

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Important new scientific report challenges EPA claims about mercury risks from power plants Real threat is from power plant closings, soaring electricity rates and lost jobs.

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The southern plains drought, followed the second strongest La Niña (behind only 1917/18) according to the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), an atmospheric pressure based measure (standardized Darwin, Australia versus Tahiti surface pressure). Positive values are La Niña, negative El Niños. The April to April SOI showed the 1917/18 peak and 2010/11 close behind.

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Does a piece of art mean something because the artist intended it to go so, or, rather can the meaning be perceived differently by each viewer?

The artist may want us to think about something when viewing a piece of art, but are we bound to do so? And what if the artist is wrong? Does the art then become nothing but a collection of material with no soul? Does the art cease to be, or can each of us resurrect it again, to fit our own sense and sensibilities?

I ponder these questions as I read about a new art installation being erected at the University of Wyoming. The installation includes an outdoor sculpture by British artist Chris Drury entitled “Carbon Sink.” The piece is to consist of a large horizontal swirl of pine logs from trees that were killed from pine beetle attacks that Drury links to global warming. Amongst the log swirls are to be set chunks of coal, and all will spiral into a black pit of charred logs in the center. You can follow progress at Chris Drury’s blog site.

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Global food security is one of the most pressing societal issues of our time. Based on food production databases assembled and maintained by the United Nations, I have identified the specific crops that supply 95% of the food needs of the world, six large regions into which the world may be divided, twenty sub-regions, and twenty-five individual countries of particular interest. I have then projected trends in the productivities of these key crops for each of these geographical areas to the year 2050, finding that expected advances in agricultural technology and expertise will significantly increase the food production potential of many countries and regions, but discovering that these advances will not increase production fast enough to meet the demands of the planet’s even faster-growing human population. The positive impact of Earth’s rising atmospheric CO2 concentration on crop yields, however, will considerably lessen the severity of the looming food shortage. In some regions and countries it will mean the difference between being food secure or food insecure; and it will aid in lifting untold hundreds of millions of people out of a state of hunger and malnutrition, thereby preventing widespread starvation and premature death.

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The Utah State Legislature produced HJR 12, calling for the EPA to substantiate its claims about carbon dioxide. It's the most obvious of statements, so mundane it shouldn’t even be necessary. How, you wonder, could any scientist complain about that? (What is science if its claims are not substantiated?) Nonetheless, the Utah Legislature have been criticized (and twice) by a small cadre of PhDs at Brigham Young University (BYU). Disturbingly these scientists don't appear to have examined the empirical evidence themselves, and merely repeat the conclusions of others. Worse, their criticisms are filled with logical errors, baseless assertions and mistaken assumptions.

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A three part series that examines some of the systematic bias in Snow Course, SNOTEL, Streamflow data and Hydrologic Models.

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The NAS panel's scientific justification for increasing the price of carbon dioxide does not include new research, but instead draws from the standard set of human-caused-climate-change-is-happening-and-will-be-bad talking points. The climate change science that the NAS found significant for basing their recommendations for increasing the price of carbon dioxide emissions is summarized in Chapter 2 ("Causes and Consequences of Climate Change") of the NAS report.

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In an interview and paper published in 21st Century in 2007, I have shown that global sea level is not in an alarming rising mode, which is the main threat in the International Panel on Climate Change scenario.

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In view of the rejection by the EPA of challenges to their endangerment finding, why would we be surprised to find that they have a long-term stake in the IPCC’s climate models and in the continuance of the IPCC itself.

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A few months ago Judicial Watch, which describes itself as a “a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, [which] promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law” summarized the results of its Freedom of Information request for records concerning Nancy Pelosi’s use of Air Force aircraft for her transportation while Speaker of the House.

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SUMMARY FOR POLICYMAKERS

In this report, we examine the historical observations of weather and climate in Montana. We find that climate variability from year-to-year and decade-to-decade plays a significant role in Montana’s climate.

While temperatures have generally appeared to have risen across the state over the past century (although part of this rise may be a result of non-climatic influences on the thermometers), precipitation changes have been largely limited to the early portion of the 20th century, and other climate impacts, such as drought, wildfires, and glacier changes are largely influenced by natural variations and cycles driven in part by decadal variations in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Further, “tropical” disease such as malaria or the West Nile Virus are not so much influenced by the climate as they are by the (already extant) and widespread presence of the host species.

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On March 8, 2011, Dr. Richard Somerville supplied written testimony to the U.S House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power. Dr. Somerville’s testimony was an eloquently packaged collection of general alarmist talking points that closely follows his 2009 Copenhagen Diagnosis. It consists of a selective presentation of post-AR4 findings on climate change—carefully groomed to forward his point of view that disaster is imminently upon us if large and drastic cuts in greenhouse gases emissions are not immediately undertaken.

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1. Research has shown that a focus on just carbon dioxide and a few other greenhouse gases as the dominant human influence on climate is too narrow, and misses other important human influences.

2. The phrases “global warming” and “climate change” are not the same. Global warming is a subset of climate change.

3. The prediction (or projection) of regional weather, including extremes, decades into the future is far more difficult than commonly assumed. In addition, the attribution of extreme events to a particular subset of climate forcings is scientifically incomplete if the research ignores other relevant human and natural causes of extreme weather events.

4. The climate science assessments of the IPCC and CCSP, as well as the various statements issued by the AGU, AMS, and NRC, are completed by a small subset of climate scientists who are often the same individuals in each case.

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Whilst everyone has been occupied with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s defense before Congress of the EPA’s attempts to regulate CO2 emissions, the Administration has continued to move towards International Ocean Governance with the establishment of a Governance Coordinating Committee for the National Ocean Council, (NOC). The NOC has been long in the making and earlier history of Ocean legislation can be found here, going back to the 1969 Stratton Commission and beyond. However the current impetus dates to the Pew Oceans Commission in 2003 and the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy - An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century in 2004, mandated by the Oceans Act 2000.

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The US congress sub-committee on Energy and Commerce Committee held hearings on whether to restrict in some way the EPA’s regulatory authority relative to greenhouse gas emissions.

There were 7 scientists invited to testify. Three of the four who argued not to restrict the EPA played a key role in the last IPCC report (and will also in the next one) and generally started with the position that IPCC science was sound and there was a consensus of all real scientists.

In the attached analysis we take a look at the IPCC based science.

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