Avalanches of global warming alarmism at #COP23

Protesters at COP23 on November 4th. Image via AFP by SASCHA SCHUERMANN

Foreword by Paul Driessen:

As the COP23 climate conference wraps up in Bonn, amid even more alarms than usual about Earth’s climate and weather, it is vital that we take a deep breath – and ponder the far less dramatic REALITY that what has been said in Bonn bears virtually no resemblance to what is actually happening on Planet Earth … or is likely to happen in the future because of mankind’s use of fossil fuels to power modern civilization.

In this article, climate experts Tim Ball and Tom Harris offer a timely, scientific assessment of what we know – and do not know – about Earth’s climate, and human influences on that climate. You will find it refreshing, reassuring and a valuable education on important aspects of climate science.

Avalanches of global warming alarmism

UN climate cataclysm predictions have no basis in fact and should not be taken seriously

By Dr. Tim Ball and Tom Harris

Throughout the United Nations Climate Change Conference wrapping up in Bonn, Germany this week, the world has been inundated with the usual avalanche of manmade global warming alarmism. The UN expects us to believe that extreme weather, shrinking sea ice, and sea level rise will soon become much worse if we do not quickly phase out our use of fossil fuels that provide over 80% of the world’s energy.

There is essentially nothing to support these alarms, of course. We simply do not have adequate observational data required to know or understand what has happened over the past century and a half. Meaningful forecasts of future climate conditions are therefore impossible.

Nevertheless, this year’s session has been especially intense, since the meeting is being chaired by the island nation of Fiji, a government that has taken climate change fears to extremes.

COP23 (the 23rd meeting of the Conference of the Parties on climate change) conference president, Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, has called for “an absolute dedication to meet the 1.5-degree target.” This is the arbitrary and most stringent goal suggested by the Paris Agreement. In support of Bainimarama’s position, the COP23/Fiji Website repeatedly cites frightening forecasts made by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

One prediction stated: “The IPCC recently reported that temperatures will significantly increase in the Sahel and Southern African regions, rainfall will significantly decrease, and tropical storms will become more frequent and intense, with a projected 20 per cent increase in cyclone activity.”

To make such dire forecasts, the IPCC relies on computerized models built on data and formulas to represent atmospheric conditions, and reflect the hypothesis that carbon dioxide is the principal factor driving planetary warming and climate change.

However, we still do not have a comprehensive, workable “theory of climate,” and thus do not have valid formulas to properly represent how the atmosphere functions. We also lack data to properly understand what weather was like over most of the planet even in the recent past. Without a good understanding of past weather conditions, we have no way to know the history, or the future, of average weather conditions – what we call the climate.

An important data set used by the computer models cited by the IPCC is the “HadCRUT4” global average temperature history for the past 167 years. This was produced by the Hadley Centre and the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, both based in the United Kingdom.

Until the 1960s, HadCRUT4 temperature data were collected using mercury thermometers located at weather stations situated mostly in the United States, Japan, the UK, and eastern Australia. Most of the rest of the planet had very few temperature sensing stations, and none of the Earth’s oceans (which cover 70% of the planet) had more than occasional stations separated from the next ones by thousands of kilometers of no data. Temperatures over these vast empty areas were simply “guesstimated.”

Making matters even worse, data collected at weather stations in this sparse grid had, at best, an accuracy of +/-0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9 degrees F), and oftentimes no better than +/-1.0 degree C. Averaging such poor data in an attempt to determine past or future global conditions cannot yield anything meaningful – and certainly nothing accurate or valid enough to use in making critical energy policy decisions.

Modern weather station surface temperature data are now collected using precision thermocouples. But, starting in the 1970s, less and less ground surface temperature data was used for plots such as HadCRUT4. Initially, this was done because governments believed satellite monitoring could take over from most of the ground surface data collection.

However, the satellites did not show the warming that climate activists and computer models had forecast. So, bureaucrats closed many of the colder rural surface temperature sensing stations, while many stations in the vast frigid area of Siberia were closed for economic and other reasons. The net result was that cold temperature data disappeared from more recent records – thereby creating artificial warming trends, the very warming that alarmists predicted, desired and needed for political purposes.

Today, we have virtually no data for approximately 85% of the Earth’s surface. Indeed, there are fewer weather stations in operation now than there were in 1960.

That means HadCRUT4 and other surface temperature computations after about 1980 are meaningless. Combining this with the sensitivity (accuracy) problems in the early data, and the fact that we have almost no long-term data above Earth’s surface, the conclusion is unavoidable:

It is not possible to know how or whether Earth’s climate has varied over the past century and a half. The data are therefore useless for input to the computer models that form the basis of the IPCC’s conclusions.

But the lack of adequate surface data is only the start of the problem. The computer models on which the climate scare is based are mathematical constructions that require the input of data above Earth’s surface as well. The models divide the atmosphere into cubes piled on top of each other, ideally with wind, humidity, cloud cover and temperature conditions known for different altitudes. But we currently have even less data above the surface than on it, and there is essentially no historical data at altitude.

Many people think the planet is adequately covered by satellite observations – data that is almost global 24/7 coverage and far more accurate than anything determined at weather stations. But the satellites are unable to collect data from the north and south poles, regions that are touted as critical to understanding global warming.

Moreover, space-based temperature data collection did not start until 1979, and 30 years of weather data is required to generate a single data point on a climate graph. The satellite record is far too short to allow us to come to any useful conclusions about climate change.

In fact, there is insufficient data of any kind – temperature, land and sea ice, glaciers, sea level, extreme weather, ocean pH, et cetera – to be able to determine how today’s climate differs from the past, much less predict the future. The IPCC’s climate forecasts have no connection with the real world.

Sherlock Holmes warned that “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote this famous quote for fiction, of course. But it applies perfectly to today’s global warming debate, especially where the IPCC’s scary conclusions and forecasts are involved. Of course, this will not stop Bainimarama and other conference leaders from citing IPCC “science” in support of their warnings of future climate catastrophe.

We should use these facts to spotlight and embarrass them every time.

___________

Dr. Tim Ball is an environmental consultant and former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Manitoba. Tom Harris is executive director of the Ottawa, Canada-based International Climate Science Coalition.

Ref.: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/11/15/avalanches-of-global-warming-alarmism-at-cop23/

……………………

New York Times Article Conclusively Proves That Climate Change “Crisis” is 100% Politics!

Satire by David Middleton

Protesters Jeer as Trump Team Promotes Coal at U.N. Climate Talks

By Lisa Friedman and Brad Plumer
Nov. 13, 2017

BONN, Germany — The Trump administration made its debut at a United Nations conference on climate change on Monday by giving a full-throated defense of fossil fuels and nuclear energy as answers to driving down global greenhouse gas emissions.

The forum — the only official appearance by the United States delegation during the annual two-week climate gathering of nearly 200 nations — illustrated how sharply the administration’s views are at odds with those of many key participants in the climate negotiations.

George D. Banks, special adviser to President Trump on international energy issues, led a panel with top American energy executives. “Without question, fossil fuels will continue to be used, and we would argue that it’s in the global interest to make sure when fossil fuels are used that they be as clean and efficient as possible,” Mr. Banks said. “This panel is controversial only if we chose to bury our heads in the sand.”

But even before the Trump team could make its case, the panel was disrupted for more than 10 minutes by scores of chanting and singing demonstrators. The protesters then walked out, leaving the room half empty. Throughout the remainder of the presentation, audience members shouted down and mocked White House officials who attempted to explain away President Trump’s stated view that global warming is a hoax.

[…]

The American presentation came the same day that a new study showed that emissions were rising worldwide after three years on a plateau. Researchers said the emissions growth was driven largely by increased burning of coal in China and India.

[…]

“Nuclear and carbon capture are critical to reducing CO2 emissions, but going to Bonn to promote the technologies without admitting climate change is a crisis is a logical absurdity,” said Josh Freed, director of the clean energy program at the centrist think tank Third Way.

[…]

Still, [Andrew Steer, president of the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank based in Washington] acknowledged, countries throughout Asia and Africa are continuing to build coal plants in their quest to provide energy access for millions living without electricity. “This is not wickedness on the part of these countries that want to get cheaper energy,” he said.

Trump administration officials made a similar point. “We need to lift one billion plus people out of energy poverty,” Mr. Banks said. He argued that while renewable energy has a “bright future,” only fossil fuels at the moment can deliver enough energy to allow people to rise out of poverty.

[…]

Officials from Bangladesh, which still gets most of its electricity from natural gas and has plans to build 25 new coal-fired plants by 2022, said they would welcome the use of technology to improve the efficiency of their coal plants as a steppingstone toward renewable energy.

[…]

Mr. Banuri said that Pakistan’s emissions were likely to grow in the coming decades as it lifts itself out of poverty, though the country is also making a big push on renewable energy and could do more if wealthier nations provided more aid to help drive down the cost of wind and solar even further.

But any nuanced discussions of energy policy were overshadowed by anger at the Trump administration for disengaging from the global community on climate change.

During a question-and-answer session, audience members pressed American officials to clarify the White House’s stance on climate change.

[…]

New York Times

Let’s see… There appears to be a general consensus that:

  1. Coal will be the second or third largest energy source through at least the mid-21st century.
  2. Carbon capture and storage is “critical to reducing CO2 emissions”… (Even if it never really works, the U.S. is in an excellent position to profit from CCS).
  3. Nuclear power is the only carbon-free energy source that can actually replace coal and eventually natural gas.
  4. Lifting more than a billion people out of energy poverty is a “good thing.”

The U.S. delegation is in Bonn promoting nuclear power and clean coal technology… Yet they are shouted down by a bunch of “long-haired hippie type pinko [censored]”… because they won’t *admit* that “climate change is a crisis.”

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[Long-haired hippie-type pinko] demonstrators at a presentation by the United States delegation to the United Nations climate change conference in Bonn, Germany, on Monday. Credit Philipp Guelland/European Pressphoto Agency

(Yes… I know most of these clowns don’t look like Long-haired hippie-type pinko ****… But, I just really like the old Charlie Daniels song, Uneasy Rider.)

With these zealots, the acknowledgement that human activities have contributed to the recent modest warming of the Earth’s average surface temperature, is insufficient.  We must *admit* that “climate change is a crisis.”  And our penance is to fork over as much of our money as they demand; so that they can redistribute it to Third World tin-horn dictators.

Clearly COP23 and the entire UNFCCC is not about finding solutions to what is, at worst, a minor problem.  Their purpose is to exaggerate the problem in order to extort cash out of prosperous western democracies (very small-d), primarily from these tangentially United States of America.  And this is all it has ever been… Just ask The Talking Heads of the IPCC and UNFCCC.

Same as it ever was…

Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection, says the German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated.

-– Ottmar Edenhofer, November 2010

Same as it ever was…

“This is  probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history.”

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of UNFCCC, February 2015

If climate change was actually a “crisis,” the solution is trivial: N2N – Natural gas to nuclear.  Since it isn’t a crisis and coal will remain one of the top three sources of energy well-into the mid-21st century, it’s time to drop the renewables fantasy and focus on the energy sources that can actually power the world and lift a billion people out of enrgy poverty.

There has been a lot of idiotic babble about President Trump “paving the way for Chinese dominance in clean energy” by ditching Paris… When the real story is that Red China seems to be the only nation on Earth seriously pursuing nuclear power.

Nuclear Power in China

(Updated October 2017)

  • Mainland China has 37 nuclear power reactors in operation, about 20 under construction, and more about to start construction.
  • The reactors under construction include some of the world’s most advanced, to give a 70% increase of nuclear capacity to 58 GWe by 2020-21. Plans are for up to 150 GWe by 2030, and much more by 2050.
  • The impetus for nuclear power in China is increasingly due to air pollution from coal-fired plants.
  • China’s policy is to have a closed nuclear fuel cycle.
  • China has become largely self-sufficient in reactor design and construction, as well as other aspects of the fuel cycle, but is making full use of western technology while adapting and improving it.
  • Relative to the rest of the world, a major strength is the nuclear supply chain.
  • China’s policy is to ‘go global’ with exporting nuclear technology including heavy components in the supply chain.

[…]

World Nuclear Association

Pertinent coal and nuclear data from my previous post on COP23…

Chapter 4. Coal

Overview

In the IEO2016 Reference case, coal remains the second-largest energy source worldwide—behind petroleum and other liquids—until 2030. From 2030 through 2040, it is the third-largest energy source, behind both liquid fuels and natural gas. World coal consumption increases from 2012 to 2040 at an average rate of 0.6%/year, from 153 quadrillion Btu in 2012 to 169 quadrillion Btu in 2020 and to 180 quadrillion Btu in 2040.

[…]

U.S. EIA

Figuring out ways to generate electricity from coal in a manner less impactful on the environment is a far more productive exercise than pretending that it will be replaced with solar panels, wind turbines, fairy dust and unicorn farts.

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If there actually was an urgent need to tackle climate change, the only player on the field large enough to do the tackling is N2N – natural gas to nuclear.

Ref.: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/11/15/new-york-times-article-conclusively-proves-that-climate-change-crisis-is-100-politics/

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