Researchers Refute Global Surface Warming Hiatus

Warming rate this century “virtually identical” to the 2nd half of 20th century —NOAA

Researchers at National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) say new evidence show global surface temperatures did not plateau this century, and that there was no “pause” in global surface warming.

The warming rate this century is “virtually identical” to the 20th century, they report in a new study published by Science.

Abstract: Much study has been devoted to the possible causes of an apparent decrease in the upward trend of global surface temperatures since 1998, a phenomenon that has been dubbed the global warming “hiatus.” Here we present an updated global surface temperature analysis that reveals that global trends are higher than reported by the IPCC, especially in recent decades, and that the central estimate for the rate of warming during the first 15 years of the 21st century is at least as great as the last half of the 20th century. These results do not support the notion of a “slowdown” in the increase of global surface temperature.

For 1998–2014, NOAA’s new global trend is 0.106± 0.058°C dec⁻¹, and for 2000–2014 it is 0.116± 0.067°C dec⁻¹,  which is similar to the warming over the second half of the 20th century.

However, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had concluded that global average temperatures increased by about 0.05°C dec⁻¹ between 1998 and 2012, compared to an average of 0.11°C dec⁻¹ between 1951 and 2012.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (1) concluded that the global surface temperature “has shown a much smaller increasing linear trend over the past 15 years [1998-2012] than over the past 30 to 60 years.” The more recent trend was “estimated to be around one-third to one-half of the trend over 1951-2012.” The apparent slowdown was termed a “hiatus,” and inspired a suite of physical explanations for its cause, including changes in radiative forcing, deep ocean heat uptake, and atmospheric circulation changes.

In fact, the latest data shows a figure of 0.116°C dec⁻¹ for 2000-2014, compared with 0.113°C dec⁻¹ for 1950-1999.

“Our new analysis now shows the trend over the period 1950-1999, a time widely agreed as having significant anthropogenic global warming, is virtually indistinguishable with the trend over the period 2000-2014.”

Based on NOAA’s latest analysis, therefore, the IPCC’s 2013 statement—that the global surface temperature “has shown a much smaller increasing linear trend over the past 15 years than over the past 30 to 60 years” —is invalid, said the director of NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).

Science DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa5632 –

Published Online June 4 2015

US 2011 Mega Disasters Costs Exceed $52 Billion*

12 Mega Disasters in 2011 [so far]

The U.S. has sustained 112 weather/climate related Mega Disasters over the past 31+ years, with the overall damages/costs exceeding $1 billion: NOAA

*[NOTE: FIRE-EARTH estimates the total cost of damage from 2011 Mega Disasters to exceed $70 billion.]

Disaster Calendar 2011 – December 8

[December 8, 2011]  Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016.  SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,560 Days Left to the ‘Worst Day’ in Human History

• United States. The U.S. has sustained 112 weather/climate related Mega Disasters over the past 31+ years, with the overall damages/costs exceeding $1 billion.
• More than 10 percent of these (12 disasters)  have occurred so far this year.
•  The previous record was set in 2008, with nine $1 billion disasters.
• “We have good reason to believe [sic] that what happened this year is not an anomaly, but instead is a harbinger of what is to come,” NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said in an interview.

YOUR models can’t duplicate our forecasts!

[Note: NOAA and IPCC simply lack any weather/climate model with such level of predictive power. There’s NO way Administrator Jane Lubchenco could back her prediction up with any scientific evidence whatever. We know this with complete certainty because Models based on ‘science-as-usual’ assumptions and conventional algorithms are incapable of providing long-term forecasts with any degree of accuracy. On the other hand, forecasts posted on this blog are proven to be unparalleled in accuracy time and time again because they employ powerful models that observe the planet in entirely different lights, and resonate with her movements. While FIRE-EARTH has NO objection to its forecasts being echoed by other sources, the Moderators expect at least basic acknowledgement.]

List of ‘Billion-Dollar’ Disasters that have occurred in 2011, as of posting (source NOAA):

1. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona Wildfires Spring-Fall 2011
2. Hurricane Irene, August 20-29, 2011
3. Upper Midwest Flooding, Summer, 2011
4. Mississippi River flooding, Spring-Summer, 2011
5. Southern Plains/Southwest Drought, Heatwave, & Wildfires, Spring-Fall, 2011
6. Midwest/Southeast Tornadoes and Severe Weather June 18-22, 2011
7. Midwest/Southeast Tornadoes, May 22-27, 2011
8. Southeast/Ohio Valley/Midwest Tornadoes, April 25-30, 2011
9. Midwest/Southeast Tornadoes, April 14-16, 2011
10. Southeast/Midwest Tornadoes, April 8-11, 2011
11. Midwest/Southeast Tornadoes, April 4-5, 2011
12. Groundhog Day Blizzard, Jan 29-Feb 3, 2011

Several  new records were set in 2011,  so far, including 

• Texas Drought: The most intense drought 117 years of records occurred in Texas this summer.
• Tornadoes: 199 tornadoes struck on April 27, the highest on record for any single day in the United States.

Across the Globe

• UK. The UK Met Office has issued its highest warning, a red alert, prompting regional authorities to shut hundreds of schools, and causing bridge and road closures, as 90mph winds batter the country’s coastal areas, a report said.
• “Parts of England and Northern Ireland are also being hit by extreme wind and rain.”
• Wind gust of 130 mph were reported in the Ski resort of  Aonach Mor, near Fort William in the Scottish Highlands.
• Police forces in Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway, Central Scotland and Lothian and Borders have issued a ‘do not travel’ warning, advising motorists against all travel, as severe winds  batter the country, the report said.

• Colombia. Bogota (Population ~8.8 million), the capital and largest city of Colombia, has declared a state of emergency after extreme rain events triggered severe flooding, inundating the southwestern part of the city and leaving 10,000 people homeless,  El Tiempo newspaper reported.
• “The river’s water volume has reached record levels — 64cm above that which is needed to issue a red alert — flooding more than 700 farms in the surrounding areas,” said the report.
• In all probability water levels would continue to rise.
• More than 21 people were killed, about 40 missing and dozens of others are trapped in the northwestern city of Manizales after a landslide, a report said.
• Since the start of the second rainy season in September, at least 500,000 people have been affected by floods and landslides across the country, including more than 50,000 in Bogota.
• The rainy season has claimed at least 134 lives, destroyed about 1,000 homes and damage up to 80,000 others.

Global Disasters

• 2011 Much More Disastrous
• 2010 Disasters [Includes Links to 2010 Disaster Calendar]
• Mega Disasters: 2011 SIX TIMES MORE DISASTROUS THAN 2010
• 2011 Disaster Calendar

British Govt Makes Another Straw Man

UK Govt: Climate Change Denial Devil in the Detail

In Big Brother’s birthplace govt makes a straw man for others to knock down, perpetuating the fallacy of “NO climate change”

Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned posters based on the children’s poems Jack and Jill and Rub-A-Dub-Dub because it says they exaggerated  claims about the threat of global warming to Britain!

Why the Ban? They say predictions on the impact of global warming made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “involved uncertainties” that the adverts did not reflect. They received about 940 complaints.

Why the UK govt did this? British govt, in its time-old tradition, booby-trapped  their own campaign by intentionally wording the posters in a controversial way so as to invite criticism, objections and complaints, knowing that the adverts would then fall victim to the “yobbo culture” and become the laughing stock of the corporate media. This campaign was ultimately an exercise in trivializing the seriousness of the threats posed by climate change,  especially to Britain.

It was designed not only to  remove any vestiges  of doubt in the mind of the “undecided” about the climatic impacts, and conditioning them to side with the denialists, but to strengthen the atmosphere of ridicule preventing any serious discussion of climate change, and intimidating potential participants.

See also: climate change could directly affect about half the population in the UK  in the next 3 to 5 years

Related Links:

• 133,000,000 Wise Monkeys
• Google’s Top 10 List of ‘Holy Cows’
• Ten Climate Change Lies, Myths and Misconceptions

“We were completely surprised!”

In Thought for the Day: A 2009 Forecast co-moderator TERRES said:

The most widely used phrase by “scientists” in 2009

“We were completely surprised!”

Surprised! (source: bp1.blogger.com). Image may be subject to copyright.

UN’s Ban Ki Moon: Pace of Climate Change “very serious and alarming.”

“The impact of climate change is accelerating at an ‘alarming’ pace and urgent action must be taken, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday.” Reuters reported.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks to a reporter after arriving in Vantas, Finland in this May 25, 2009 file photo. The impact of climate change is accelerating at an “alarming” pace and urgent action must be taken, Ban said on Wednesday. REUTERS/Lehtikuva/Sari Gustafsson. Image may be subject to copyright.

“What is frightening is that the scientists are now reviewing their predictions, recognizing that climate change impact is accelerating at a much faster pace,” Ban said, referring to the ongoing fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“This is very serious and alarming. That is why I have been urging that if we take any action, we must take action now regardless of where you are coming from. Rich and poor countries, we must address this issue together,” Ban said.

Relates Links:

• Index of Human Impact on Nature (HIoN) March 2008
• Marsification of Earth
• Earth’s Collapsing Life Support Systems

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Nuking Earth for Lifestyle
• Giga Trends
• The Fate of Energy Dinosaurs
• 286W

• The Root Cause Matrix
• The Economy
• Collapsing Ecosystems

Global warming worse than predicted: Surprised?

Our regular readers probably remember Thought for the Day: A 2009 Forecast AND

The most widely used phrase by ‘scientists’ in 2009 : ‘We were completely surprised!’

The first of the ‘surprises’ in 2009 is a BIG one!

Global Warming is occurring at a faster rate than scientists had predicted, according to a climate scientist.

“The consequence of that is we are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we’ve considered seriously,” Chris Field, a climate scientist and a  member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, said on saturday.

Smoke billows from an iron and steel plant in Hefei, Anhui province December 9, 2007. All nations must do more to fight climate change, and rich countries must make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts, a draft proposal at United Nations talks said on Saturday. REUTERS/Jianan Yu (CHINA). Image may be subject to copyright.

Field reported that “the actual trajectory of climate change is more serious” than any previously predicted in the IPCC’s fourth assessment report named “Climate Change 2007.”

“He said recent climate studies suggested the continued warming of the planet from greenhouse gas emissions could touch off large, destructive wildfires in tropical rain forests and melt permafrost in the Arctic tundra, releasing billions of tons of greenhouse gasses that could raise global temperatures even more.” Reuters reported.

“There is a real risk that human-caused climate change will accelerate the release of carbon dioxide from forest and tundra ecosystems, which have been storing a lot of carbon for thousands of years,” Field said.

“We now have data showing that from 2000 to 2007, greenhouse gas emissions increased far more rapidly than we expected, primarily because developing countries, like China and India, saw a huge surge in electric power generation, almost all of it based on coal,” Field added.

Related Links:

• Stern Report: “a great toxic dump of doublespeak in truly Orwellian fashion”
• FEWW CO2e Links
• Burning Earth

325 words, 1 image, 3 links

Southern Ocean Carbon Sink

From NASA’s Earth Observatory:

If you drove to work or school this morning or used electricity to power the computer on which you’re looking at this image, chances are you released carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, people released about 7.8 billion tons (7.8 gigatons) of carbon into the atmosphere in 2005 by burning fossil fuels and making cement, and that number grows every year. What happens to all of the carbon dioxide that people release into the atmosphere? About half stays in the atmosphere, where it warms Earth, and the other half is absorbed by growing plants on land and by the ocean.

As people have put more and more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the ocean has responded by soaking up more carbon dioxide—a trend scientists expected to continue for many years. But in 2007, a team of scientists reported in the journal Science that between 1981 and 2004 carbon dioxide concentrations in the Southern Ocean didn’t change at all, even though global atmospheric levels continued to rise. This graph shows the changes scientists expected to see (blue line) compared to their estimate of actual carbon dioxide absorption (red line). The results suggested that the Southern Ocean was no longer keeping pace with human carbon dioxide emissions.

Why has the Southern Ocean started to lag behind human emissions? The answer, believes Corinne Le Quéré, is in the wind. An ocean scientist at the University of East Anglia, Le Quéré led the study that discovered the Southern Ocean’s change of pace. Le Quéré modeled the mechanisms that influence how the ocean takes up carbon and found that winds increased between 1981 and 2004. Winds stirred the ocean and enhanced the upwelling of deep, carbon-rich water. The ocean releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in areas where deep water comes to the surface, so increased upwelling allowed the ocean to vent more carbon dioxide. This increased venting made it look like the Southern Ocean was no longer taking up carbon dioxide as quickly as people were pumping it into the atmosphere.

Full article and references are available at: Southern Ocean Carbon Sink

Related Links:

• Southern Ocean already losing ability to absorb CO₂

• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part IV :  Researchers found evidence of corrosive water about 20 miles off the west coast of North America from Canada to Mexico.

• Human carbon emissions make oceans corrosive : ‘Carbon dioxide spewed by human activities has made ocean water so acidic that it is eating away at the shells and skeletons of starfish, coral, clams and other sea creatures …’

• The Eight Steps that Help Kill More of Our Fish : How Your Car’s Exhaust Emissions Helps Create Dead Zones and Kill Our Fish.

• Global warming could starve oceans of oxygen: study : Areas of the eastern Atlantic and Pacific Oceans with low amounts of dissolved oxygen have expanded in the past 50 years, apparently in line with rising temperatures.

• The Floating Toxic Garbage Island : A patch of garbage twice as large as the continental United States and dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch floats in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in North Pacific Gyre.
• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part III : Tourism: The Most Destructive Human Activity After Warfare

• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part II : Major Problems: Fertilizer Runoff; Tourism; Coastal Developments [and Ocean Warming due to climate change]

• Oceans, Where Life Started, Are Dying – Part I : Our Oceans Are Now Dying!

Don’t Worry, it’s Only Earth

A Herculean task, significant impact on physical and biological systems globally, worst cases in 800,000 years

One species disappears every 20 minutes, UN Experts

“In my view, climate change and the loss of biodiversity are the most alarming challenges on the global agenda,” Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said at the opening of a U.N. biodiversity conference on Monday.

Some of the biodiversity of a coral reef. Reproduced under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation license, ersion 1.2 or any later version. (author: Richard Ling)

“In my view, climate change [Germany is the world’s 6th largest pollutor] and the loss of biodiversity are the most alarming challenges on the global agenda […] It will be a Herculean task to get the world community and each individual country on the right path to sustainability [still talking about ‘Tending Our Goats at the Edge of Apocalypse’] … The truth today is that we are still on the wrong track. If we follow this path we can foresee that we will fail to meet the target … Business as usual is no more an option if humanity is going to survive. Losing biodiversity is not just losing trees and species, it is an economic and security loss. [Thanks for reading our blogs, Mr Gabriel!]” (Source)

Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change

Significant changes in physical and biological systems are occurring on all continents and in most oceans, with a concentration of available data in Europe and North America. Most of these changes are in the direction expected with warming temperature. Here we show that these changes in natural systems since at least 1970 are occurring in regions of observed temperature increases, and that these temperature increases at continental scales cannot be explained by natural climate variations alone. Given the conclusions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely to be due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations, and furthermore that it is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica, we conclude that anthropogenic climate change is having a significant impact on physical and biological systems globally and in some continents. (Source)

Instrumental Temperature record of the last 150 years. (Author: Robert A. Rohde) Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License Version 2.5

Greenhouse gases highest in 800,000 years

Atmospheric greenhouse gases are now at the highest levels in 800,000 years, according to a study of Antarctic ice, which provides additional evidence that human activity is disrupting the climate.

“Shanghai at sunset, as seen from the observation deck of the Jin Mao tower. The sun has not actually dropped below the horizon yet, rather it has reached the smog line.” This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (Photo: Suicup; via: Wikimedia Commons. )

“We can firmly say that today’s concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane are 28 and 124 percent higher respectively than at any time during the last 800,000 years,” said Thomas Stocker, a researcher at the University of Berne. (Source)

Related Links:

• Failing Ecosystems
• State of the World
• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
  
• Nuking Earth for Lifestyle

• Giga Trends
• Tipping Point
• Future Scenarios
• World Problems: The Root Cause Matrix

Arctic Melting FAST!

Rocket Science: Ice + Heat = Water

Arctic summer sea ice. Image taken by NASA satellite September 16, 2007.

News Reports:

• Arctic ice seen melting faster than anticipated (so, what’s new?)
  
• Sun cycles seen not key to recent global warming (yawn …)
• Nearly 900 scientists at the EPA have experienced political interference in their work (While in GB they readily volunteer!)
  
• UN Expert: 50 Million Could be Displaced by Climate Change by 2010 (make that 200m)
  
• A Storehouse of Greenhouse Gases Is Opening in Siber[i]a

Related Links:

• Greenland Ice Melt Faster Than IPCC Estimates
• Only Zero Emissions Would Avert Dangerous Warming
• Stern Report: “a great toxic dump of doublespeak in truly Orwellian fashion”

Repeat After Me!

WASHINGTON (AFP) — “A small group of US experts stubbornly insist that, contrary to what the vast majority of their colleagues believe, humans may not be responsible for the warming of the planet Earth.

“These experts believe that global warming is a natural phenomenon, and they point to reams of data they say support their assertions.”

There’s no such thing as global warming!

• Global Warming is a figment of our imagination [AAR, is has nothing to do with human activity. ]

• It makes no difference whether you have 290, 450, or 560 ppm (parts per million) of CO2 in the atmosphere. A million is a 1 followed by six zeros, you know how big a number that is? [AAR, what is to do with you, are you a f**king scientist or something?]

• There’s NO toxic pollution in the environment. Do you know how toxic dioxins, mercury … blah, blah are? They are so toxic even a minute trace of them in your breast milk could cause permanent brain damage to your baby. [AAR, it has nothing to do with industrial production.]

• There’s NO ozone hole in the atmosphere [AAR, the NASA conjurers could easily make anything disappear. ;-)]

• Our oceans are so clean and teeming with fish, you could eat from them. [AAR, they were OK just a few years ago; ask your grandma, she would tell you!]

• There’s no global shortage of potable water [AAR, what’s wrong with buying your own bottled water like the rest of us?]

• If fertilizers are good for the crops and vegetables, then sewage discharge into the rivers and coastal waters must be good for the fish. [AAR, just because you don’t eat fish, it doesn’t mean they should be starved!]

• There is no deforestation [or habitat what?] anywhere on the planet. [AAR, if we don’t cut all the trees they catch fire and pollute the air- heard about global warming, buster?]

• Land degradation is scientific mumbojumbo. [AAR, the same scientists have calculated that our planet can easily feed 14 billion people and produce enough ethanol to run 2 billion cars. How could it do all of that, if it were running out of cropland?]

Now close your eyes, take a big breath of fresh air and repeat after me…

Related Links:

How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic
26 most common climate myths and misconceptions
Climate myths: Assessing the evidence

[Problems with IPCC data? Absolutely none! Perhaps … only a minor issue of a time lag-a slight delay of about 30 years compared with the real-time events.]