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Global warming: antarctic sea ice extents hits 35-year record high

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No significant global warming in 15 years
No significant global warming in 15 years

About two weeks ago, I blogged about record ice extents in the ARCTIC (north pole).

Now, here’s a new story about record ice extents in the ANTARCTIC (south pole) – and from the radically leftist Washington Post, no less.

Excerpt:

Antarctic sea ice has grown to a record large extent for a second straight year, baffling scientists seeking to understand why this ice is expanding rather than shrinking in a warming world.

On Saturday, the ice extent reached 19.51 million square kilometers, according to data posted on the National Snow and Ice Data Center Web site.  That number bested record high levels set earlier this month and in 2012 (of 19.48 million square kilometers). Records date back to October 1978.

[…]In a new study in the Journal of Climate, Zhang finds both strengthening and converging winds around the South Pole can explain 80 percent of the increase in ice volume which has been observed.

“The polar vortex that swirls around the South Pole is not just stronger than it was when satellite records began in the 1970s, it has more convergence, meaning it shoves the sea ice together to cause ridging,” the study’s press release explains. “Stronger winds also drive ice faster, which leads to still more deformation and ridging. This creates thicker, longer-lasting ice, while exposing surrounding water and thin ice to the blistering cold winds that cause more ice growth.”

But no one seems to have a conclusive answer as to why winds are behaving this way.

“I haven’t seen a clear explanation yet of why the winds have gotten stronger,” Zhang told Michael Lemonick of Climate Central.

Some point to stratospheric ozone depletion, but a new study published in the Journal of Climate notes that computer models simulate declining – not increasing – Antarctic sea ice in recent decades due to this phenomenon (aka the ozone “hole”).

“This modeled Antarctic sea ice decrease in the last three decades is at odds with observations, which show a small yet statistically significant increase in sea ice extent,”says the study, led by Colorado State University atmospheric scientist Elizabeth Barnes.

It’s a mystery. How could global warming be false?

Two weeks ago it was Arctic ice extents

Let’s review my previous post about how ARCTIC ice extents had increased 60% from last year, despite predictions by the socialist BBC.

From the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

A cold Arctic summer has led to a record increase in the ice cap, leading experts to predict a period of global cooling.

There has been a 60 per cent increase in the amount of ocean covered with ice compared to this time last year, they equivalent of almost a million square miles.

In a rebound from 2012′s record low an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shores, days before the annual re-freeze is even set to begin.

The Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific has remained blocked by pack-ice all year, forcing some ships to change their routes.

A leaked report to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) seen by the Mail on Sunday, has led some scientists to claim that the world is heading for a period of cooling that will not end until the middle of this century.

If correct, it would contradict computer forecasts of imminent catastrophic warming. The news comes several years after the BBC predicted that the arctic would be ice-free by 2013.

Despite the original forecasts, major climate research centres now accept that there has been a “pause” in global warming since 1997.

The original predictions led to billions being invested in green measures to combat the effects of climate change.

It’s so bad that environmentalists who thought there wouldn’t be any ice are trapped!

Not only have we had 15 years with no significant global warming, but now we have record ice extents in both the north pole and the south pole. Global warming alarmism is nothing but mythology dressed in a cheap tuxedo. When is the anti-science hysteria of the left going to end? What evidence will it take to convince them not to believe in fairies and leprechauns? I know they get a lot of brainwashing in public schools and universities, but eventually, they get out and they can look through telescopes and microscopes and see for themselves what is real. When experimental science has spoken about observations, then secularist doomsday fiction must give way. Mustn’t it?

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Obama administration effectively bans construction of future coal plants

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CNBC explains. (H/T Bad Blue)

Excerpt:

The proposal would help reshape where Americans get electricity, away from a coal-dependent past into a future fired by cleaner sources of energy. It’s also a key step in President Barack Obama’s global warming plans, because it would help end what he called “the limitless dumping of carbon pollution” from power plants.

Although the proposed rule won’t immediately affect plants already operating, it eventually would force the government to limit emissions from the existing power plant fleet, which accounts for a third of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.

[…]Despite some tweaks, the rule packs the same punch as one announced last year, which was widely criticized by industry and Republicans as effectively banning any new coal projects in the U.S.

That’s because to meet the standard, new coal-fired power plants would need to install expensive technology to capture carbon dioxide and bury it underground. No coal-fired power plant has done that yet, in large part because of the cost.

[…]”EPA has set a dangerous and far-reaching precedent for the broader economy by failing to base environmental standards on reliable technology,” said Hall Quinn, president and CEO of the National Mining Association. The EPA regulation “effectively bans coal from America’s power portfolio,” he said.

The first effect of this decision will be to put a lot of Americans out of work.

The second effect will be to cause electricity costs to skyrocket, exactly as Obama promised.

Excerpt:

Wind and solar energy are dilute, intermittent, and more costly than traditional hydrocarbon energy sources. After atmospheric absorption and system losses, only a single 100-watt bulb can be powered from a square meter of solar cells, and this only at midday on a cloudless day.  Wind towers must be spaced about 140 meters apart to capture energy from the wind.  As a result, solar requires 75 to 100 times the land and wind requires 150 to 250 times the land of traditional power sources.

Solar systems don’t output energy at night or at low angles of incoming sunlight.  Wind systems provide rated output less than 30% of the time and this output varies chaotically. Traditional gas or coal power plants must be running as an active backup to maintain continuity of electricity supply.  Like a car driving in stop-and-go conditions, installation of a wind farm converts the power system into a stop-and-go electrical system.  In measured real world conditions, combined wind and hydrocarbon systems use more fuel, output more sulfur and nitrogen oxides, and emit more carbon dioxide than hydrocarbon-only electrical systems.

Total cost estimates show that wind and solar systems are significantly more costly than hydrocarbon energy sources.  Since wind requires an active backup hydrocarbon facility, wind can only replace some of the variable cost of a coal or gas plant.  Department of Energy 2011 estimates place the variable cost of coal at 3 cents per kW-hr and gas at 5 cents per kW-hr, compared to 9 cents for on-shore wind and 24 cents for offshore wind.  Solar costs are 20 to 30 cents per kW-hr.

We’re getting what we voted for. We’ve had no significant global warming for 15 years, but that won’t stop the Democrats from saddling private industry with regulatory costs – costs that they will pass on to consumers. I would not be surprised if consumers (who after all mostly voted for Obama) blame the energy companies and never identify the root cause of the rising costs.

News

IPCC report: simulations drastically overestimated global warming

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My good friend Andrew sent me this story from The Australian.

Excerpt:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest assessment reportedly admits its computer drastically overestimated rising temperatures, and over the past 60 years the world has in fact been warming at half the rate claimed in the previous IPCC report in 2007.

More importantly, according to reports in British and US media, the draft report appears to suggest global temperatures were less sensitive to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide than was previously thought.

The 2007 assessment report said the planet was warming at a rate of 0.2C every decade, but according to Britain’s The Daily Mail the draft update report says the true figure since 1951 has been 0.12C.

[…]Professor Judith Curry, head of climate science at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, told The Daily Mail the leaked summary showed “the science is clearly not settled, and is in a state of flux”.

[…]According to The Daily Mail, the draft report recognised the global warming “pause”, with average temperatures not showing any statistically significant increase since 1997.

Scientists admitted large parts of the world had been as warm as they were now for decades at a time between 950 and 1250, centuries before the Industrial Revolution.

And, The Daily Mail said, a forecast in the 2007 report that hurricanes would become more intense had been dropped.

Looks like the Australians chose well when they chose Tony Abbott to repeal their carbon tax.

So it looks like the IPCC global warming simulations were misrepresented to push a socialist agenda.  Shame on us for our scientific illiteracy in this country. But we can thank the naturalists in the schools for that, I suppose. They don’t like debates about scientific theories. This is what we get from hearing one side of scientific controversies all the time, I guess.

Andrew also sent me this UK Telegraph article that shows how insulated from science global warming alarmism really is in Europe.

Excerpt:

Regardless of whether or not scientists are wrong on global warming, the European Union is pursuing the correct energy policies even if they lead to higher prices, Europe’s climate commissioner has said.

 Connie Hedegaard’s comments come as the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is expected to admit that previous scientific predictions for global warming and the effects of carbon emissions have been proved to be inaccurate.

In an interview with the Telegraph, Europe’s most senior climate change official argued that the current policies are the correct ones because a growing world population will put pressure on energy supplies regardless of the rate of global warming.

“I personally have a very pragmatic view.

“Say that 30 years from now, science came back and said, ‘wow, we were mistaken then now we have some new information so we think it is something else’. In a world with nine billion people, even 10 billion at the middle of this century, where literally billions of global citizens will still have to get out of poverty and enter the consuming middle classes, don’t you think that anyway it makes a lot of sense to get more energy and resource efficient,” she said.

“Let’s say that science, some decades from now, said ‘we were wrong, it was not about climate’, would it not in any case have been good to do many of things you have to do in order to combat climate change?.”

The Danish commissioner also rejected public complaints over increases in electricity prices to subsidise renewable energies, such as wind farms, as unrealistic because, she said, increased competition over diminishing energy resources such as oil and gas will lead to higher bills.

“I believe that in a world with still more people, wanting still more growth for good reasons, the demand for energy, raw materials and resources will increase and so, over time so, over time, will the prices,” she said.

“I think we have to realise that in the world of the 21st century for us to have the cheapest possible energy is not the answer.”

Mrs Hedegaard, and the European Commission, have not changed their position that the science that is currently used to justify EU climate change policy is “over 90 per cent” certain that global warming exists and that it is manmade.

This story is just like the Matthew Shepard story that was misrepresented by the media to push a gay rights agenda. The sad thing is that both of these factions of the secular left got what they wanted, and the truth is only becoming known more widely now when laws and policies have already changed.

Maybe we should remember this lesson for the next time there is a “crisis” that requires us to lurch to the left.

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