For some time, I’ve been using the assumption that there’s an approximately 60 year long cycle in the climate corresponding to the AMO (Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation). This is not so much because I have a high confidence there is a connection between global temperature & AMO, but instead because there isn’t much else that is predictable. So whilst my confidence in a connection is perhaps only 50%, and because we can largely ignore CO2 and because we have no other predictable climate changes, the decline in global temperature that is suggested by AMO whilst far from certain is the best guess of future change we have. To some figures on the cooling, when I last checked, it looked like the peak in AMO warming should have been around 2010. As such, we’ve been rather overdue for cooling, which should reach a maximum rate of cooling in 2025 and reach another low around 2040. (Perhaps up to 0.5C cooler than today)
Then we had Trump.
But before Trump we had the El Nino – with it’s predictable rise in global temperature. And even more predictably, the vile alarmists claimed it proved global warming was happening (and not all of them could have been totally ignorant that the rise was highly predictable from El Nino). But after El Nino … we tend to get La Nina and with La Nina we get global cooling (for which the alarmists have no answer except to try to ignore it).
Then I came across an article on warwickhughes. A string of spotless days on ole Sol. So, at first the warwickhughes “article” (~27 words) appeared to be just another comment on Sun Spots:

From 2nd to 9th Jan so far and SILSO has New ‘Spotless days’ page with several graphics to ponder.

And yes, many suggest a link between Sun Spots and climate, and I think it is a viable hypothesis. But I’ve yet to see a predictable link. So I’m interested, willing to consider the idea, but still waiting to see anything approaching positive preditive confirmation of the link.
However … unexpectedly the warwickhughes article went on:

OT but the SOI is nudging positive too.

SOI means Southern Oscillation Index, and it is one of the metrics that tell us something about the El Nino/La Nina/Enso cycle. Here is a graph of some recent values which unfortunately doesn’t include the recent 2016 peak of El Nino, but if it did, the value of SOI would be negative. (Note it varies around 20-30 either side of the axis).

Continue reading →

or a scam built on nothing but hot air and fraudulent data, what surprises me, is the total lack of understanding from the alarmists as to how Trump can so easily destroy the monster.
Instead, we’ve had articles like one from “Mother f*cking Jones” about how difficult it will be for Trump to destroy Obama’s legacy – by which they assume Trump will attack the government actions taken in response to the supposed “science”. Because these scientifically illiterate journalists are clueless how flimsy the foundations of the scam are. They just don’t seem to understand is that the natural climate denying  “science” is the soft underbelly of the global warming scam. But does Trump?
To be fair to MFJ, Trump will  undoubtedly target the ridiculous spending on climate non-science. What is less certain is that he will also target the non-science.
So, until we start to see how Trump’s administration acts, we will not know whether  Trump will be sending a well aimed bullet direct at the head of the denialist monster and destroying it – or whetehr he will be blindly lashing out like a blind man, and merely cutting the tentacles, leaving the monster largerly unscathed and just making it more cross and more determined to carry on.
But whether by intention and his direct action – or just by creating the environment in which others can act to force through investigations, I’ve little doubt that Trump’s election heralds the end of the climate scam.
 

Now that UAH have updated their global temperature graph we can see that the 13 month average has now started to drop:This suggests that May 2016 was the peak and that this peak was ~0.05C warmer than the 1998 peak. This suggests around 0.3C warming per a century.I think we can safely say that there is no evidence of a crisis – except for those who make a living by falsely asserting there is a crisis.
However, now we have a peak, because in 1998 it took around 17 months to reach a minimum, then if it now follows a similar trajectory, this suggests global temperatures will keep cooling until +/- a couple of months around October 2017
It’s also possible to compare the rate of cooling: and this month is now about 18% more cooling from the peak than occurred in 1998. However the noise is so large relative to the signal that this is best interpreted as “2016 is cooling at faster rate, but not a significantly different rate than 1998”.
Putting this all together, my best estimate is that the 13 month average mean will be back floating around the axis around October this year.

A long time ago, as I watched HADCRUT3 global temperature, I began to realise that whenever the month was particularly cold globally, that the release of that information would be delayed.
Today, I realised when discussing temperature, that I hadn’t heard anything of the usual “warmest evah” for 2016 nor had anyone reported on the latest temperature for December.
So, thinking I must have missed it, I went to search – but nothing can be found.
Possibilities:

1. Everyone got so drunk over Xmas/Newyear that they are incapable of producing the temperature.
2. There’s been a massive rise in temperature – but they don’t want to spoil the festive season for us sceptics.
3. There’s been a massive cooling of the temperature due to the La Nina conditions, and as I learnt from HADCRUT3, they are already planning a massive publicity campaign to try to avert the PR disaster.

So, it’s not impossible we’ve had a massive cooling in December, which could well knock 2016 off the “Warmest evah” perch.

Happy New Year – and for all those from England, the US and elsewhere who may be misled into thinking we in Scotland spend the New Year drinking and dancing, I’ll let you into a secret about us canny Scots.

Above, you see the real “News Years” activity. Note the very simple and obvious black mark on each and every tin – except the two at the front (Fruit Cocktail and Rhubarb). The single mark indicates that it was in the cupboard this New Year, the double marks indicate it was there, not only this year but the previous. And note how few there are of them and not one single tin that has enjoyed three New Year’s with us.
This is how we in Scotland spend the moments before New Year – not drinking, not dancing, not sitting around watching the boring BBC go on about how bad 2016 was with Trump and Brexit. No! We mark the tins, and on New Year’s day we wonder dish can be made from tins of Fruit Cocktail, jars of Lemon and Ginger and a huge jar of Beetroot – and an absolutely enormous tin (about a gallon!) of gooseberries that the wife thought was a bargain about two years ago.

Happy New Year!!

Global Temperature

Despite $trillions of spending predicated on a change in “global temperature”, there still remains no measurement of this figure. Most of the globe has no measurement at the surface particularly over the sea and the centre of large continents like Africa and S.America. Satellites provide a broader coverage but as yet there is no satellite crossing the poles.
The current measurement system is wholly inadequate and it is criminal that after 20 years of calling global temperature “the worlds greatest problem”, that we still don’t even have the basic measurement of global temperature.

Global Temperature Trend

To assert there is a trend when we don’t have the basic figure of global temperature is wrong. Instead all we can say is what the various ad hoc measures suggest. Unfortunately, after a period when the temperature was shown to have “paused” (in these measures) rather than look for errors in the predictions that forecast warming, those involved with the ground measurements have sought to find ways to make their metrics compatible with the models. These now lack credibility and all we can say with any confidence is that there is no reason not to believe we are still in the pause.
The other set are satellite measurements. Again these show the pause continuing – albeit without data for the poles.

Climate models & effect of CO2

Given the continuance of the pause, no climate model now has credibility. It is time that this issue was addressed by going back to basics and rethinking the presumed role of CO2 in the 20th century warming.
It now appears very likely that the scale of presumed feedbacks in the climate are much smaller than believed. There may even be strong negative feedbacks present. However, until more evidence is available it is recommended that future modelling and policy be based on the effects of CO2 alone with no feedbacks. This suggests a rise of about 1C for a doubling of CO2.

Natural Variation

It now appears very likely that most of the warming in the 20th century was caused by a period of natural warming. As such, there is a strong possibility we will see modest cooling within the next few years.
However, there is also a strong possibility we will see warming or cooling that is not currently predicted. Therefore climate policy should consider both strong warming and cooling to be possible.

Effects on Extreme weather, droughts floods.

Given we appear to be in a period of “pause”, it is not surprising that there appears to be no trend in extreme weather, global droughts, floods etc. It is therefore difficult to say what linkage, if any, exists between global temperature. However as CO2 levels continue to rise, there is no evidence for adverse effects caused by CO2.

The Effect of CO2

Whilst there is no evidence that CO2 has a direct impact on the climate except that  theoretically a rise in CO2 should see a rise in temperature (although far from being confirmed), we do expect rising CO2 to causes changes. The biggest of these is to increase the availability of atmospheric carbon to plants and to aid plant growth. This effect is predicted to have most impact on dry areas, and we are seeing evidence of a “greening of the desert”.

Sea & Land Ice and impact on ocean levels

There has been evidence for growing ice in Antarctic and diminishing ice in the Arctic. The cause of this is unclear and cannot at this stage be linked to rising CO2, although as ice-sheets will tend to lag in their response to rising temperature, there are good theoretical reasons to believe the 20th century temperature rise may be continuing to have an affect on polar ice-caps.
However, historical accounts, whilst far from being quantitative, do suggest qualitatively that similar changes in ice-sheets have occurred before. It would therefore seem prudent to ensure the state of global ice-sheets is known.
However, as yet there is no evidence to show an increased rate of sea level rise (sea level has been rising naturally since the last ice-age).

Regional & short term forecasts

Whilst much effort has  gone into the unsuccessful long-term forecasts with a massive waste of public money, very little has gone into the areas of short-term regional forecasts where there is a real chance of dramatically improving the forecast models with a huge potential for life saving and improvements to standard of living.
Moreover, if we cannot predict the climate/weather in the short-term it is ridiculous to believe we can predict it in the longer term. Therefore we should “cut our teeth” on the relatively simpler task of regional and short-term forecasts where we can more easily validate models.

Priorities for the future

1. To eradicate the “make do and mend” culture of those compiling the climate metrics in which they attend to turn a pigs ear into a silk purse, taking data from instruments wholly unsuited for the purpose they are now being used for. It is an absolute priority that we urgently replace both the instruments and organisations and replace them with people and equipment up to the job. This may involve a global investment in monitoring sites, or alternatively methods of calibrating satellite data as well as launching a new satellite(s) to cover the poles.
2. We must urgently reconcile the discrepancy between “global temperature” and the climate models, no as has been the habit in the last decade, by changing the method of compiling the temperature data to “shoe-horn” it into the models, but instead by critically evaluating the failures of all models to predict the pause”.
3. We must continue monitoring climate, and indeed, should be aiming for more global coverage of key metrics.
4. There should be a particular drive to understand the linkage between climate and polar ice-sheets.
5. The main research focus should move to short-term climate/ long-term weather prediction at a regional scale. This will have the dual benefit of increasing the knowledge of climate as well as making long-range weather forecasts more accurate.
6. We must move to depoliticise climate science and particularly climate advice given to global governments and instead focus on credible empirical measurements. As such it is recommended the IPCC is split into two organisations. The first should be solely concerned with creating a “state of the global climate” review using quality metrics. It would need to employ its own staff to compile these metrics This organisation should focus on data and as such would not tolerate any climate activism of any form.
7. In addition, there should be a secondary organisation, entirely separate from the first, and filled with those knowledgeable about the climate, economics and industrial & agricultural impacts (from both private and public sector). They should be tasked with taking the available data, creating forecasts for climate as a whole: meaning possible cooling and warming, and developing cost projections for various policies and contingencies. Again climate activists would be barred from taking part. It is further strongly suggested that those giving their advice should be paid.

As I was replying to some of the comments on the article on the development of farming, the subject of the development of fire came up. And I was lamenting the “fact” that no one ever lets chimps play with fire. However, after making the comment I thought I should check and lo and behold:





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When academics describe the development of any technology, they tend to portray it as some “lightbulb” moment, whereby Mr Ug suddenly has a brainwave and thinks: “if I planted this thing I could farm it”.
But farming wasn’t some great innovation, instead, it was a skill developed when we were still hunter gatherers able to wonder around the “garden of Eden”, which later became a necessity as population levels rose so that it was no longer possible to rely on unprotected widely distributed food resources and we were forced to settle down and work the soil. Continue reading →

At noon local time (5 PM GMT) on January 20, Donald Trump will take the Oath of Office and be sworn in as America’s 45th president. I’ve got fed up trying to work out how long that is, so I’ve created a count-down timer. It’s now 29days and 17 hours.