From Science Matters

By Ron Clutz

The post below updates the UAH record of air temperatures over land and ocean.  But as an overview consider how recent rapid cooling  completely overcame the warming from the last 3 El Ninos (1998, 2010 and 2016).  The UAH record shows that the effects of the last one were gone as of April 2021, again in November 2021, and in February and June 2022  Now at year end 2022, we have again global temp anomaly matching zero warming since 1995. (UAH baseline is now 1991-2020).

For reference I added an overlay of CO2 annual concentrations as measured at Mauna Loa.  While temperatures fluctuated up and down ending flat, CO2 went up steadily by ~55 ppm, a 15% increase.

Furthermore, going back to previous warmings prior to the satellite record shows that the entire rise of 0.8C since 1947 is due to oceanic, not human activity.

The animation is an update of a previous analysis from Dr. Murry Salby.  These graphs use Hadcrut4 and include the 2016 El Nino warming event.  The exhibit shows since 1947 GMT warmed by 0.8 C, from 13.9 to 14.7, as estimated by Hadcrut4.  This resulted from three natural warming events involving ocean cycles. The most recent rise 2013-16 lifted temperatures by 0.2C.  Previously the 1997-98 El Nino produced a plateau increase of 0.4C.  Before that, a rise from 1977-81 added 0.2C to start the warming since 1947.

Importantly, the theory of human-caused global warming asserts that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere changes the baseline and causes systemic warming in our climate.  On the contrary, all of the warming since 1947 was episodic, coming from three brief events associated with oceanic cycles. 

Update August 3, 2021

Chris Schoeneveld has produced a similar graph to the animation above, with a temperature series combining HadCRUT4 and UAH6. H/T WUWT

See Also Worst Threat: Greenhouse Gas or Quiet Sun?

December Update Big Chilling of Land and Sea 

With apologies to Paul Revere, this post is on the lookout for cooler weather with an eye on both the Land and the Sea.  While you will hear a lot about 2020-21 temperatures matching 2016 as the highest ever, that spin ignores how fast the cooling set in.  The UAH data analyzed below shows that warming from the last El Nino was fully dissipated with chilly temperatures in all regions. May NH land and SH ocean showed temps matching March, reversing an upward blip in April, and then June was virtually the mean since 1995.

UAH has updated their tlt (temperatures in lower troposphere) dataset for December 2022. Posts on their reading of ocean air temps this month came ahead of updated records from HadSST4.  I have previously posted on SSTs using HadSST4 Ocean Temps Dropping November 2022This month also has a separate graph of land air temps because the comparisons and contrasts are interesting as we contemplate possible cooling in coming months and years. Sometimes air temps over land diverge from ocean air changes.  However, in December temps in all land and ocean regions dropped sharply.

Note:  UAH has shifted their baseline from 1981-2010 to 1991-2020 beginning with January 2021.  In the charts below, the trends and fluctuations remain the same but the anomaly values change with the baseline reference shift.

Presently sea surface temperatures (SST) are the best available indicator of heat content gained or lost from earth’s climate system.  Enthalpy is the thermodynamic term for total heat content in a system, and humidity differences in air parcels affect enthalpy.  Measuring water temperature directly avoids distorted impressions from air measurements.  In addition, ocean covers 71% of the planet surface and thus dominates surface temperature estimates.  Eventually we will likely have reliable means of recording water temperatures at depth.

Recently, Dr. Ole Humlum reported from his research that air temperatures lag 2-3 months behind changes in SST.  Thus the cooling oceans now portend cooling land air temperatures to follow.  He also observed that changes in CO2 atmospheric concentrations lag behind SST by 11-12 months.  This latter point is addressed in a previous post Who to Blame for Rising CO2?

After a change in priorities, updates are now exclusive to HadSST4.  For comparison we can also look at lower troposphere temperatures (TLT) from UAHv6 which are now posted for September.  The temperature record is derived from microwave sounding units (MSU) on board satellites like the one pictured above. Recently there was a change in UAH processing of satellite drift corrections, including dropping one platform which can no longer be corrected. The graphs below are taken from the revised and current dataset.

The UAH dataset includes temperature results for air above the oceans, and thus should be most comparable to the SSTs. There is the additional feature that ocean air temps avoid Urban Heat Islands (UHI).  The graph below shows monthly anomalies for ocean air temps since January 2015.

Note 2020 was warmed mainly by a spike in February in all regions, and secondarily by an October spike in NH alone. In 2021, SH and the Tropics both pulled the Global anomaly down to a new low in April. Then SH and Tropics upward spikes, along with NH warming brought Global temps to a peak in October.  That warmth was gone as November 2021 ocean temps plummeted everywhere. After an upward bump 01/2022 temps reversed and plunged downward in June.  After an upward spike in July, ocean air everywhere cooled in August and also in September.   Now in December 2022, sharp cooling everywhere brings the global anomaly to zero.

Land Air Temperatures Tracking Downward in Seesaw Pattern

We sometimes overlook that in climate temperature records, while the oceans are measured directly with SSTs, land temps are measured only indirectly.  The land temperature records at surface stations sample air temps at 2 meters above ground.  UAH gives tlt anomalies for air over land separately from ocean air temps.  The graph updated for December is below.

Here we have fresh evidence of the greater volatility of the Land temperatures, along with extraordinary departures by SH land.  Land temps are dominated by NH with a 2021 spike in January,  then dropping before rising in the summer to peak in October 2021. As with the ocean air temps, all that was erased in November with a sharp cooling everywhere. Land temps dropped sharply for four months, even more than did the Oceans. March and April 2022 saw some warming, reversed In May when all land regions cooled pulling down the global anomaly. In July, Tropics and SH land rose sharply, NH slightly, pulling up the Global land anomaly. Note the sharp drop in SH land temps in August and September, while NH Land rose, leaving the Global anomaly unchanged. Nov. and Dec. saw steep declines in air temps over land.

The Bigger Picture UAH Global Since 1980

The chart shows monthly Global anomalies starting 01/1980 to present.  The average monthly anomaly is -0.06, for this period of more than four decades.  The graph shows the 1998 El Nino after which the mean resumed, and again after the smaller 2010 event. The 2016 El Nino matched 1998 peak and in addition NH after effects lasted longer, followed by the NH warming 2019-20.   A small upward bump in 2021 has been reversed with temps having returned close to the mean as of 2/2022.  March and April brought warmer Global temps, reversed in May and the June anomaly was almost zero. With the sharp drop in Nov. and Dec. temps, there is only about 0.1C increase since 1980.

TLTs include mixing above the oceans and probably some influence from nearby more volatile land temps.  Clearly NH and Global land temps have been dropping in a seesaw pattern, nearly 1C lower than the 2016 peak.  Since the ocean has 1000 times the heat capacity as the atmosphere, that cooling is a significant driving force.  TLT measures started the recent cooling later than SSTs from HadSST3, but are now showing the same pattern.  It seems obvious that despite the three El Ninos, their warming has not persisted, and without them it would probably have cooled since 1995.  Of course, the future has not yet been written.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

h/t strativarius; The researchers appear to be effectively predicting five events of the same severity as Australia’s 2019-20 “Black Summer”, over the next seven years.

More than 2,400 lives will be lost to bushfires in Australia over a decade, experts predict

Exclusive: Healthcare costs from smoke-related deaths tipped to reach $110m, new modelling led by Monash University suggests

Melissa Davey Medical editor
@MelissaLDaveyMon 2 Jan 2023 01.00 AEDT

In the decade to 2030, more than 2,400 lives will be lost to bushfires in Australia, with healthcare costs from smoke-related deaths tipped to reach $110m, new modelling led by Monash University suggests.

The lead health economist with the university’s Centre for Medicine Use and Safety, Associate Prof Zanfina Ademi, who headed the analysis, said it was important to get a predictive picture of the bushfire situation in Australia and its impact on health and the economy.

“This will underline preventive investment strategies to mitigate the incidence and severity of future bushfires in Australia,” she said.

…

“Even based on conservative assumptions, the health and economic burden of bushfires in Australia looms large,” the paper, published in the journal Current Problems in Cardiology, concluded.

“Human-induced climate change is increasing the likelihood of catastrophic wildfires. This underscores the importance of actions to mitigate bushfire risk.”

…Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/02/more-than-2400-lives-will-be-lost-to-bushfires-in-australia-over-a-decade-experts-predict

The abstract of the paper;

The Hospitalizations for Cardiovascular and Respiratory Conditions, Emergency Department Presentations and Economic Burden of Bushfires in Australia Between 2021 and 2030: A Modelling Study

Zanfina Ademi, Ella Zomer, Clara Marquina, Peter Lee, Stella Talic, Yuming Guo, Danny Liew

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpcardiol.2022.101416Get rights and content

Abstract

The health and environmental impacts of bushfires results in substantial economic costs to society. The present analysis sought to estimate the burden of bushfires in Australia over 10 years from 2021 to 2030 inclusive. A dynamic model with yearly cycles was constructed to simulate follow-up of the entire Australian population from 2021 to 2030, capturing deaths and years of life lived. Estimated numbers of bushfire-related-deaths, costs of related-hospitalizations, and broader economic costs were derived from published sources. A 5% annual discount rate was applied to all costs incurred and life years lived from 2022 onwards. Over the 10 years from 2021 to 2030, the modelled analysis predicted that 2418 [95% confidence interval (CI) 2412 – 2422] lives would be lost to bushfires, as well as 8590 [95% CI 8573 – 8606] years of life lost (discounted). Healthcare costs arising from deaths for smoke-related conditions, hospitalizations amounted to AUD $110 million [95% CI 91-129 million] (discounted). The impact on gross domestic product (GDP) totaled AUD $17.2 billion. A hypothetical intervention that reduces the impact of bushfires by 10% would save $11 million in healthcare costs and $1.9 billion in GDP. The health and economic burden of bushfires in Australia looms large during 2021 and 2030. This underscores the importance of actions to mitigate bushfire risk. The findings are useful for the future design and delivery and help policy makers to make informed decisions about investment in strategies to reduce the incidence and severity of future bushfires.Read more: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0146280622003139?via%3Dihub

Sadly the full paper isn’t available. But the prediction seems absurd.

From the study summary;

… In 2019-20, Australia recorded one of the most severe bushfire seasons, with extensive areas of south-eastern Australia affected. Termed the ‘Black Summer’ bushfires, almost 20 million hectares of land were burnt, resulting in over 3000 homes lost, and 34 lives lost directly (including nine firefighters).^2,3 Borchers-Arriagada et al estimated there were an additional 417 excess deaths resulting from longer-term consequences of the fire. … It is estimated that the smoke-related healthcare costs of the Black Summer bushfires totaled AUD $1.95 billion.⁸ This is more than 9 times the median annual cost of bushfires for the previous 19 years (AUD $211 million) …Read more: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0146280622003139?via%3Dihub

Unfortunately the full details of their model are paywalled. But going by their own numbers, 2412 deaths over the next 7 years is:

2412 ÷ (417 + 34) = 5 x “Black Summer” magnitude bushfires

They are predicting FIVE bushfires in the next seven years or the equivalent in smaller fires. Five fires which are predicted to cause as much harm as a single noteworthy event, the 2019-20 Black Summer fires, which according to their own numbers was nine time as bad as the median severity of events in the previous 19 years.

I don’t have access to their calculations, but given the apparent magnitude of the departure from business as usual, I’m guessing someone mixed up a decimal place in one of their model parameters.

From ClimateRealism

By Vijay Jayaraj

At 39 degrees Fahrenheit, India’s capital of Delhi experienced one of the coldest winter nights this year on December 27. The region is home to 32 million people, with millions of them having no access to heating in their homes. Neighboring states recorded below-freezing temperatures.

In contrast, nearly all of metro New York’s population of 18 million has home heating. Delhi’s situation would be considered a humanitarian crisis in the U.S.

The Indian media’s attitude generally is to shrug off such winter events as an aberration of weather while treating high summer temperatures as proof of catastrophic climate change. You see, Delhi, an ancient city that has been subjected to many invasions over the last thousand years, has recently been invaded by climate alarmism.

Every year, media outlets are quick to jump on summer hot spells. Even news outlets in the U.S. have begun reporting to audiences ignorant of Indian realities the occasionally extreme heat of the subcontinent as proof of dangerous global warming.

While city thermometers do at times record exceedingly high temperatures, the usual cause is the well-known urban heat island – a phenomenon that gets a boost even from the exhausts of air conditioning units in densely packed residential areas.

Usually ignored by the media is that summer heat is generally less dangerous than winter cold. There are multiple ways to adapt to heat. Increasing water consumption, limiting exposure to heat, weather proofing roofs and increasing green spaces are among them. However, adaptation to cold usually requires a reliable heating source, something that is not readily available to the poorest in developing countries.

Delhi has been witnessing historically cold winter temperatures during the past five years. Lacking access to proper heating, millions of people in the city suffer from cold-induced morbidities. Like any other place, cold kills more people than heat in India. Many burn wood and waste together in open spaces, a common sight even in the city’s wealthiest pockets.

Observers like me have been pointing out record-breaking cold weather in the country’s capital year after year. A 100-year-old record for low temperatures was registered in recent years. Yet, the media in India and around the world seldom recognize these cold spells as contradictions to the dominant climate-change narrative.

The lack of logic in media reports is often stunning. Not long ago, alarmists claimed that snow would be a thing of the past. Today, many of them say global warming will cause excessive snowing. Excuse me while I scratch my head.

Consider the current winter in the U.S.: Climate commentator Tony Heller points out that the media change their logic to suit the alarmist narrative. New York Times, for example says “the polar vortex is caused by global warming and melting Arctic sea ice.” However, in 1978, the same paper “blamed the polar vortex on global cooling and expanding Arctic sea ice.”

Expect the contradictions of alarmists’ pronouncements and media reports to increase in the coming days. Weather events of virtually all manner will be presented as evidence for a coming apocalypse spawned by man-made global warming. The objective is not to shed light on the actual cause and effects of weather or climate but rather to add to a ridiculous doomsday vision.

---

This commentary was first published at American Thinker, December 29, 2022, and can be accessed here.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, UK and resides in India.

From polarbearscience

Polar bears are supposed to starve before they die, the experts said. They said only a few years ago that dead or emaciated individuals onshore were evidence that many polar bears would soon be dying of starvation out on the sea ice.

So, if the Western Hudson Bay (WH) subpopulation had indeed dropped by 27% by late summer 2021 as researchers claimed, where are all the photos of starving bears in the fall of 2020, the year before the count? The photo below of a thin female and cub was taken in late fall of 2021 (the year of the count) by a stationary web cam.

In other words, some bears came off the ice without an optimal amount of fat because of poor hunting conditions over the winter but they were still alive. We know that 2020 had the shortest ice-free season in at least 20 years (and no similar images were captured), so bears went into the winter of 2020/2021 in good condition. Ditto for 2017-2019.

In contrast to 2021, in 2016 (the year of the previous survey that also indicated a declining population size), bears reportedly came off the ice in good condition.

All I’ve seen are photos of fat bears and fat cubs, even a triplet litter in fall 2020. The shore of WH near Churchill should have been abounding with starving bears in 2020 (and in 2015), if the experts were right about starving bears preceding a population decline.

More importantly, where are the studies on food-deprived bears onshore, as were done in the 1980s when WH bears were emaciated and cub survival poor (e.g. Ramsay et al. 1988)? WH bears are being used exclusively to model an implausibly pessimistic future for polar bears across the entire Arctic (Molnar et al. 2010; 2020), which means lack of good science for WH polar bears has big consequences. Covid restrictions in two of those ten years don’t excuse lack of study on this phenomenon.

Condition of bears since 2017

If adult females with cubs and young bears on their own for the first time actually starved to death over the winter of 2020/2021–accounting for a 27% decline in numbers documented in the fall of 2021–at least a few of those bears should have been come ashore in the summer of 2020 in poor condition. As a result of not eating over the summer months, those bears should have been skin and bones by late October/early November 2020 and died over the winter of 2020/2021.

Yet as far as I know, not a single photo of a lean or truly starving polar bear was shared on social media by locals or captured on the Explore.org stationary or buggy-mounted web cams in 2020 (which weren’t affected by Covid restrictions in 2020). There was certainly nothing in the media or shared by Polar Bears International. If I’ve missed any, please let me know.

The two lean bears below (probably youngsters) were photographed be the Explore webcam on 26 November 2021 just as ice formation had begun that fall. The photos of these bears, and of the thin female with cub above, indicate that some bears came off the ice that summer in less-than-ideal condition but were still alive. It’s what we should have seen in 2020 (and in years before that) but didn’t.

By 2022, Andrew Derocher said the bears his team out tagging bears in April were in good condition (by “past years”, he meant many years past, not the recent past, since he said bears were in good condition in 2019).

Dr. Nick Pilfold (left) PhD from @ualbertaScience & now with @sandiegozoo attaching an eartag satellite radio on an adult male in Hudson Bay today. A really big male about 80 km offshore. The bears are in good condition this spring compared to past years. pic.twitter.com/zShn4DerzO

— Andrew Derocher (@AEDerocher) April 28, 2022

Although researchers weren’t out in fall 2020 because of Covid restrictions, the Tundra buggies of Frontiers North were out watching and photographing the bears even if they weren’t taking tourists (see photo below, taken 4 November 2020). Very good sea ice conditions in 2020 (late breakup, early freeze-up compared to early 2000s) and photos of fat bears taken by the webcams suggest the animals did very well that year.

More photos of fat bears below, most from the fall of 2020 and one from 2017, captured by stationary Explore.org web cams or those mounted on Tundra buggies (which I have monitored since 2017).

Below, bears on a fresh seal kill, 5 November 2020:

Below, female and yearly cubs on a seal kill, 31 October 2020:

Below, female with triplet litter, 15 September 2020:

Below, female with two cubs in good condition, 24 August 2020:

Below, big male in excellent condition, 10 November 2017:

The purported 27% population decline between 2017 and September 2021 would have required a large number of bears to have died very quickly of starvation over the spring of 2021, even though they were in good shape beforehand. That premise is hard to swallow without some kind of corroborating evidence.

That leads to an even bigger question. How does a population of polar bears supposedly decline by 40% over 10 years–from about 1030 in 2011 to about 618 in 2021–without significant numbers of bears in poor or very poor condition being documented in the years immediately before the counts were done, especially for the most-studied–and probably the most photographed–subpopulation in the world?

What happened in the 1980s?

In the 1980s, when it was known from yearly detailed studies that WH polar bears were really struggling (Calvert et al. 1986:19,24; Ramsay et al. 1988), polar bear specialists Ian Stirling and Andrew Derocher suggested that there might be too many bears in Hudson Bay (i.e., more bears than food to eat). Alternatively, it was suggested that something might have happened out on the ice during the winter that made it difficult for the bears to find ringed seals, their primary prey, although lack of data meant the possibility could not be confirmed (Derocher and Stirling 1992, 1995).

There was no apparent population decline in WH during the 1980s (1983-1990) as there had been in the Southern Beaufort between 1974 and 1976, when thick spring ice drove seals out of the region and left many bears to starve or move elsewhere themselves (Burns et al. 1975; Lentfer 1976:187, 192; Stirling 2002; Stirling et al. 1975a, 1975b, 1980, 1982, 1993, 2008), because compared to everywhere else, WH bears overall had been doing exceptionally well even when some bears were clearly starving (Stirling and Lunn 1997).

Regardless of the cause, the result for several years during the 1980s, some WH bears were in poor condition during the summer but no population decline occurred. These starving bears were impossible to ignore, as the details below show.

1983

Polar bear researchers Ian Stirling and Malcolm Ramsay emphasized that the mean weight of pregnant females they encountered in 1983 was 37kgs lighter than in other years (Ramsay and Stirling 1988:615). These authors stated:

“...bears of all age and sex classes in the summer and autumn of 1983 appeared to us, at the time of capture, to be, on average, in poorer condition than at equivalent seasons in the years previous and subsequent. Some qualitative behavioural observations corroborated this view. During autumn, 1983, the town of Churchill recorded a larger number of bears feeding at its dump (Lunn & Stirling, 1985) than in the previous three years and a higher number of human-bear incidents than in any year of the previous decade. Three cubs-of-the-year were found abandoned by their mothers in autumn and near starvation, something seen in no other year.” [my bold]

In one extreme example, a female they encountered with three cubs-of-the year in November 1983 weighed only 99 kg (218 lb). As thin as she was then, she survived and by the following July she was pregnant again and weighed a remarkable 410 kg (904 lb).

Lunn and Stirling had this to say about polar bears feeding at the Churchill dump in 1983:

“In 1983, bears came into the dump more than a month earlier (late August compared with early October) and there were about twice as many (20 vs. 10-11) as in the previous 2 years.”

In other words, in 1983 the bears arrived onshore in WH leaner than usual after a poor spring feeding season–we probably won’t ever know why but it could have been thicker-than-usual sea ice or deeper-than-usual snow pack over the ice that year. This was clearly an issue that bothered Ian Stirling, before he moved on to worrying about global warming.

However, we know the poor feeding opportunities in 1983 weren’t due to lack of summer ice because the bears came ashore in August as usual. Coming ashore leaner than usual meant they got hungry earlier and many turned to the dump. Having found food there, it appears they were not in any hurry to leave at the first opportunity when sea ice appeared – exactly what seems to have happened with the bears at Belushya Guba in 2019.

1989

From Derocher and Stirling (1992:1153):

“The proportion of females with yearlings varied annually between 6% and 25% of all adult females sampled over the study, but did not demonstrate any trend. The low proportion of females with yearlings in 1990 appeared to be due to very low survival in the cohort of cubs from 1989.”

What was happening with sea ice in 1989 in WH? Breakup was a bit early in 1989 but not especially so, and the date of freeze-up was about average (Castro de la Guardia et al. 2017). As a consequence, like a recent decline in proportion of females with yearlings cubs documented in Southern Hudson Bay (Obbard et al. 2018)–as well as the purported 2017-2021 decline in WH numbers–a decline in the length of the ice-free season could not have caused the low survival of WH cubs in 1989.

Average weights of females in the fall declined from about 230 kg (1965-1982) to about 190 kg (1983-1990)(Derocher and Stirling 1992:1154), but there was no apparent population decline.  The authors state later in that paper:

“Typically, density dependence in large mammals is expressed by changes in juvenile survival, birthrate, age of first reproduction, and body size, all of which have been documented in this study. Invoking an argument of density-dependent changes is difficult to support without accurate population estimates, and other explanations for the observed patterns in our study cannot be dismissed as alternatives. For example, climatic fluctuations and variation in ice conditions could impact polar bear populations by increasing or decreasing the availability of prey. The observed decreases in reproduction and weight could be a function of a reduction in the seal population or their availability to polar bears.

Variation in the abundance of a prey base is usually reflected in changes in weight and subsequently in reproduction of predators. For example, the weights and reproductive output of polar bears in the Beaufort Sea decreased markedly following a decline in ringed and bearded seal populations.

In contrast to the Beaufort Sea studies, where the decline in body size and reproduction was sudden and then evident for only 2 or 3 years, the trend in the western Hudson Bay population has been of much longer duration. [my bold]

Conclusion

On the two notable occasions when starving polar bears were studied (1974-76 in the Southern Beaufort Sea, and the 1980s in Western Hudson Bay), lack of summer sea ice was not the cause and in only one case (the SB example) did significant numbers of starving bears result in a documented population decline.

However, on both previous occasions, bears in poor condition were noted by researchers in studies dedicated to documenting the phenomenon. If a polar bear population decline of 40% between 2011 and 2021 indeed occurred in WH because of starvation caused by climate change, where is the evidence? Why has there not been a single scientific study documenting bears in poor condition onshore during the summer and fall over the last 10 years (2020–and perhaps 2021–excepted, due to Covid restrictions)?

The stakes for polar bear researchers couldn’t be higher. This makes it all the more significant that they have provided no actual evidence that WH bears are indeed starving to death in sufficient numbers to substantiate a 40% decline over 10 years. If the claimed population decline of 2011-2021 is real and not an artifact of some other phenomenon (like females moving north of Churchill to have their cubs), we should have been seeing numerous photos of starving bears in the summer/fall of 2016 and 2020 at the very least, as well as a peer-reviewed paper or two describing the situation. So far, neither has been presented and there is still no publicly-available copy of the 2021 population count report.

References

Burns, J. J., Fay, F. H., and Shapiro, L.H. 1975. The relationships of marine mammal distributions, densities, and activities to sea ice conditions (Quarterly report for quarter ending September 30, 1975, projects #248 and 249), pp. 77-78 in Environmental Assessment of the Alaskan Continental Shelf, Principal Investiagors’ Reports. July-September 1975, Volume 1. NOAA, Environmental Research Laboratories, Boulder Colorado. pdf here.

Calvert, W., Stirling, I., Schweinsburg, R.E., Lee, L.J., Kolenosky, G.B., Shoesmith, M., Smith, B., Crete, M. and Luttich, S. 1986. Polar bear management in Canada 1982-84. In: Polar Bears: Proceedings of the 9th meeting of the Polar Bear Specialists Group IUCN/SSC, 9-11 August, 1985, Edmonton, Canada. Anonymous (eds). Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge UK, IUCN. http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/meetings/ pg. 19-34.

Castro de la Guardia, L., Myers, P.G., Derocher, A.E., Lunn, N.J., Terwisscha van Scheltinga, A.D. 2017. Sea ice cycle in western Hudson Bay, Canada, from a polar bear perspective. Marine Ecology Progress Series 564: 225–233. http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v564/p225-233/

Derocher, A.E. and Stirling, I. 1992. The population dynamics of polar bears in western Hudson Bay. pg. 1150-1159 in D. R. McCullough and R. H. Barrett, eds. Wildlife 2001: Populations. Elsevier Sci. Publ., London, U.K.

Abstract: Reproductive output of polar bears in western Hudson Bay declined through the 1980’s from higher levels in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Age of first reproduction increased slightly and the rate of litter production declined from 0.45 to 0.35 litters/female/year over the study, indicating that the reproductive interval had increased. Recruitment of cubs to autumn decreased from 0.71 to 0.53 cubs/female/year. Cub mortality increased from the early to late 1980’s. Litter size did not show any significant trend or significant annual variation due to an increase in loss of the whole litter. Mean body weights of females with cubs in the spring and autumn declined significantly. Weights of cubs in the spring did not decline, although weights of both female and male cubs declined over the study. The population is approximately 60% female, possibly due to the sex-biased harvest. Although estimates of population size are not available from the whole period over which we have weight and reproductive data, the changes in reproduction, weight, and cub mortality are consistent with the predictions of a densitydependent response to increasing population size. [my bold]

Derocher, A.E. and Stirling, I. 1995. Temporal variation in reproduction and body mass of polar bears in western Hudson Bay. Canadian Journal of Zoology 73:1657-1665. http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/z95-197

Lentfer 1976. Polar bear management and research in Alaska 1974-76. Pg. 187-197 in [Anonymous]. Polar Bears: Proceedings of the 6th meeting of the Polar Bear Specialists Group IUCN/SSC, 7 December, 1976, Morges, Switzerland. Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge UK, IUCN. http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/meetings/

Molnár, P.K., Bitz, C.M., Holland, M.M., Kay, J.E., Penk, S.R. and Amstrup, S.C. 2020. Fasting season length sets temporal limits for global polar bear persistence. Nature Climate Change 10:732-738.  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-020-0818-9

Molnar, P.K., Derocher, A.E., Theimann, G., and Lewis, M.A. 2010. Predicting survival, reproduction and abundance of polar bears under climate change. Biological Conservation 143:1612-1622. http://www.math.ualberta.ca/~mlewis/Publications%202010/Molnar-Derocher-Thiemann-Lewis.pdf

Obbard, M.E., Stapleton, S., Szor, G., Middel, K.R., Jutras, C. and Dyck, M. 2018. Estimating the abundance of the Southern Hudson Bay polar bear subpopulation with aerial surveys. Arctic Science https://doi.org/10.1139/AS-2018-0004

Ramsay, M.A. and Stirling, I. 1988. Reproductive biology and ecology of female polar bears (Ursus maritimus). Journal of Zoology London 214:601-624. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-7998.1988.tb03762.x/abstract

Stirling, I. 2002. Polar bears and seals in the eastern Beaufort Sea and Amundsen Gulf: a synthesis of population trends and ecological relationships over three decades. Arctic 55 (Suppl. 1):59-76. http://arctic.synergiesprairies.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic/issue/view/42

Stirling, I. and Lunn, N.J. 1997. Environmental fluctuations in arctic marine ecosystems as reflected by variability in reproduction of polar bears and ringed seals. In Ecology of Arctic Environments, Woodin, S.J. and Marquiss, M. (eds), pg. 167-181. Blackwell Science, UK.

Stirling, I., Andriashek, D., and Calvert, W. 1993. Habitat preferences of polar bears in the western Canadian Arctic in late winter and spring. Polar Record 29:13-24. http://tinyurl.com/qxt33wj

Stirling, I., Andriashek, D., Latour, P.B. and Calvert, W. 1975a. Distribution and abundance of polar bears in the Eastern Beaufort Sea. Beaufort Sea Tech. Report #2, Dept. Environment, Victoria, B.C.

Stirling, I., Archibald, R. and DeMaster, D. 1975b. Distribution and abundance of seals in the Eastern Beaufort Sea. Beaufort Sea Tech. Report #1, Dept. Environment, Victoria, B.C.

Stirling, I, Kingsley, M. and Calvert, W. 1982. The distribution and abundance of seals in the eastern Beaufort Sea, 1974–79. Canadian Wildlife Service Occasional Paper 47. Edmonton.

Stirling, I., Richardson, E., Thiemann, G.W. and Derocher, A.E. 2008. Unusual predation attempts of polar bears on ringed seals in the southern Beaufort Sea: possible significance of changing spring ice conditions. Arctic 61:14-22. http://arctic.synergiesprairies.ca/arctic/index.php/arctic/article/view/3/3

Stirling, I., Schweinsburg, R.E., Kolenasky, G.B., Juniper, I., Robertson, R.J., and Luttich, S. 1980. Proceedings of the 7th meeting of the Polar Bear Specialists Group IUCN/SSC, 30 January-1 February, 1979, Copenhagen, Denmark. Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge UK, IUCN., pg. 45-53.http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/meetings/ pdf of except here.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

 

On March 19, 2020, the State of California became the first state to issue a stay-at-home order, mandating all residents stay at home except to go to an essential job or shop for basic needs.  Within weeks most of the world followed.

For the next three months total energy use across all sectors…transportation, industrial, commercial, and residential…plummeted by over 15% thereafter rising slowly in bursts and spats.

As an avid studier of all things “climate change” related I tracked the impact this significant fuel use reduction had on the Keeling Curve.  The Keeling Curve is the chart tracking carbon dioxide in the atmosphere based on near-daily measurements at the Mauna Lao observatory located on the big island of Hawaii.

The effect was both shocking and predictable.  The marked reduction of fossil fuel use had no effect on the Keeling Curve which continued its virtual 45% upward slope on the highly exaggerated chart expressed as parts per million per year.  This was wholly consistent with our findings over the previous 10 years as developing countries increased fossil use with no corresponding change of CO2 as reflected in this curve.

Notice on the upward-slopping blue bar line of the Keeling curve in figure 2, the jagged “sawtooth” line.  This jagged sawtooth waveform represents the seasonal variations of CO2 as affected by plant growth on land and sea. This is a function of the Earth’s elliptical orbit around the Sun and its 23.5-degree axial tilt.

Close inspection of this saw tooth-like variance in CO2 shows roughly 10 parts per million (ppm) variation between the minimum and maximum as affected by sunlight and plant life distribution.  This is far more than the 3 ppm increase in CO2 that the climate alarmist community claim is caused by man’s use of fossil fuels. To me, this was the “smoking gun” showing that these claims of fossil fuel increasing total CO2 were false and without merit!

In collaboration with Mr. Bud Bromley, and with the kind financial support of actor/singer Pat Boone, we engaged two Stanford-educated Ph.D.s, Dr. Shahar Ben-Menahem a physicist, and Dr. Abraham Ishihara, a high-level mathematician and control theory expert, to design an experiment using the Mauna Lao Keeling data which is considered by all leading scientists as the “gold standard” of the available CO2 monitoring data sets.

1. Our scientists took the raw NOAA Mauna Loa data for daily CO2 tests and filled in data points for days with missing data using standard interpolation methods.
2. Then they transformed the CO2 ppm concentration versus time data into the frequency domain, like a continuous spectrum of light or radio frequencies.  This provides nearly unlimited resolution.
3. Then they notch filtered to remove resonances and seasonal cycles such as the shark’s teeth.
4. Then they low-pass filtered out all frequencies above a specified frequency to remove random noise spikes.
5. Then they reconstructed the data again as CO2 ppm concentration versus time and cleaned the CO2 time signal.
6. They calculated these data as the time derivative of CO2 concentration.  This is the rate of change of CO2 ppm concentration.  It is like the speed or velocity of a car. 
7. Then, they drilled into this data to look at the time window beginning about a year before the Pinatubo volcano eruption of June 15, 1991, and a few years after the eruption.

What we proved was that:

1. The NOAA-Scripps “Keeling curve” dataset from Mauna Loa is responsive to CO2 changes even though the event causing those changes is physically remote, thousands of miles away from the NOAA measurement site on Mauna Loa in Hawaii.  We now know this NOAA data will be sufficient for further data science.  Confirming this was one of the primary purposes of our first phase of work.
2. Our results confirm that human CO2 emissions are insignificant compared to the net global average CO2 concentration.  We demonstrate this by simple calculations in our written publication of the results of this Pinatubo study and 2 addenda. 
3. The software and method we used is sensitive to changes in the CO2 daily records from Mauna Loa and well suited for further research.
4. This first phase of our study is consistent with Henry’s Law in conjunction with the Law of Mass Action, Le Chatelier’s Principle, Graham’s Law, and Fick’s Law.  CO2 concentrations in air, ocean, soil, and biosphere began to rapidly re-equilibrate to the cooler Earth surface caused by reduced insolation due to the cloud belt.  As the cloud belt dissipated and the surface warmed, CO2 concentrations rapidly re-equilibrated.          
5. Following Henry’s Law, human-produced CO2 can only temporarily change CO2 concentration in the air and ocean surface.  Our results, confirming NOAA-Scripps results, suggest that human CO2 emissions are a temporary perturbation to an ongoing CO2 trend, like the perturbation caused by the Pinatubo volcanic eruption and its aftermath, but much smaller.  Perturbation by human emissions will be rapidly returned to the CO2 trend.  CO2 concentration in air is controlled by the CO2 solubility on the water’s surface.  More than 90% of Earth’s water is in the ocean, and the ocean is 70% of earth’s surface.
6. The solubility of any gas in any liquid is an intensive property of matter, like a boiling point, or a specific heat.  Intensive properties of matter are not a function of the amount of material present.   Instead, the solubility and diffusivity of a gas in a liquid are a property of the matter itself; in this case, the diffusivity of CO2 is a function of the molecular weight of CO2.  Adding more CO2 to the air, whether done by a volcano, humans, or decaying biological material, does not change the ratio of CO2 gas concentration on the ocean’s surface versus CO2 gas concentration in the air above that surface, this is Henry’s Law.  Surface temperature does change that ratio.
7. Solubility or diffusivity of a gas in a liquid depends on the surface temperature and the molecular weight of the gas, not on the amount of the gas or the source of the gas.  The diffusivity of a gas in a liquid is inversely proportional to the square root of the molecular weight of the gas; this is Graham’s Law. 
8. Many variables affect surface temperature, some are systematic like Earth’s orbital distance from the sun, and other variables may be chaotic, such as ocean and air currents, storms, humidity and clouds.

The bottom-line results of our experiment and analysis of the NOAA Scrips Keeling data conclusively proves that “the net amount of equilibrated carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is the same as if human beings never existed.” Climate Change is a natural phenomenon, and not manmade.

Let that sink in.  The total net amount of CO2 in our atmosphere today is no more or no less than if humans never existed on our planet.

Why does the Keeling curve show an increase of roughly 3 parts per million (ppm) per year?

The causes of such a small annual increase in CO2, if true, are unknown and theoretical. There are several possible causes, but 3 ppm is an annual increase in CO2 of only 0.0003% of the total CO2 in the atmosphere, an amount so small it cannot be distinguished in the open air from random measurement noise. Your exhaled breath is about 4% CO2, and higher if you are exercising. Systematic or random perturbations in sea surface temperature and/or humidity, underwater volcanoes, cyclical deep ocean currents dense with CO2 rising to the sea surface, movements of planetary bodies including the Sun and large planets, destruction of photosynthesizing plants and plankton, are among possible causes, and each of these has multiple possible causes.

And yet only today the New York Times writes Hurricane Ian “rapidly transformed from a relatively weak storm into a strong one, a phenomenon that has become more common due to climate change. Ian embodies several of the major hurricane trends in recent years, as the world copes with the effects of climate change.”

Indeed, Ian was devastating, but well within the bounds of natural variability.

Two days ago, the Vatican released a new documentary on climate change based on what it calls the “reckless new use of fossil fuels.” through Cardinal Czerny, and calls for “zero emissions” by 2050.

Only a few weeks ago, Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib tried to browbeat the nation’s largest bank CEOs into not lending to oil and gas companies.  Thankfully, and correctly, JP Morgan Chase’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, responded to the Congresswomen when asked if Chase would cease lending to energy companies as follows:  

“Absolutely not. That would be the road to hell for America.”

In a recent private exchange with Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Professor Emeritus, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and author of over 200 scientific papers and books on the atmosphere, I pointed out that the climate change farce drivers are purely financial and political.  The science is clearly on our side.  Of course, I was preaching to the Choir.

Dr. Lindzen points out: “…the importance in the propaganda of establishing the narrative (i.e., the accepted storyline).  One of the more subtle techniques is to pepper the narrative (climate change is caused by man) with many dubious features.  This may seem counterintuitive.  However, by doing so, one diverts attention from the narrative’s larger framework.  People immediately attack these dubious features while leaving the larger narrative untouched.  He offers us this sage advice: “Stop treating AGW…human-caused global warming/climate change…as a worthy opponent.  Do not ascribe reasonableness to the other side.  It is not reasonable, not true, and not even plausible.”

This message and these facts must be brought to the people.  Only then can the political establishment be jarred into reality.

https://shalemag.com/nature-controls-co2-not-man-op-ed/

About the Author: In 1971 Tom received the nation’s highest honor for high school students in the field of physics for his work in nuclear magnetic resonance. He did his undergraduate studies in physics, with a dual minor in math and chemistry, at N A U in the 1971-75 timeframe.  He has been in the energy generation and utility industry since 1985.  Tom was the inventor of electric utility energy conservation instrumentation and measurement devices. He has been granted seven patents in the U.S., Israel, Europe, & China.  In the U.S. alone his patents are practiced by the nation’s largest utility companies on over 90 million installed devices.

Tom spends roughly ½ of his “working time” lecturing, writing articles, and working with prominent Ph.D. level scientists on what he calls the greatest deception and fraud ever created by man against mankind; AGW climate change.

In 2019 Tom formed ClimateCite, Corp., a U.S. IRS 501(c)(3) compliant not-for-profit company to further his efforts in defeating the climate hoax worldwide.

Tom married his wife, Emily J. Tamarkin in 1982 and the two of them live together in Carmichael, California. They have one son, Jeremy A. Tamarkin.

From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

Who could have guessed battery performance would plummet in cold weather?

Tesla fined $2.2M for exaggerating driving range of its vehicles: report

South Korea fine comes as Tesla stock continues to plunge

By Greg Norman FOXBusiness

Tesla is facing a new $2.2 million fine for apparently misleading consumers about the range of its vehicles in cold weather, a report says. 

South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission alleged Tuesday that the electric automakerexaggerated the “driving ranges of its cars on a single charge, their fuel cost-effectiveness compared to gasoline vehicles as well as the performance of its Superchargers” on its Korean website from mid-2019 until recently, according to Reuters. 

The actual driving range of Tesla vehicles drops in cold weather by up to 50.5% compared to what was being advertised online, Reuters also reported, citing the Korean agency. 

…Read more: https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/tesla-fined-2-2m-exaggerating-driving-range-vehicles-report

Elon Musk hasn’t been having a good time lately, he has earned the dubious distinction of being the first man to ever lose $200 billion.

I visited South Korea once in winter, temperatures in Seoul were mostly in the low 30s – so not bone chilling cold, but I was glad I packed my hat and gloves. Up in the mountains of course it gets a lot colder. Both North and South Korea have plenty of mountains.

Cold weather can also permanently damage EV batteries. If you own an EV, my understanding is somewhere in the fine print you’ll see a warning to park indoors at night in winter, or at least keep the vehicle plugged in.

From https://www.gtk.fi/

By Geologian tutkimuskeskus GTK

The transition to low-carbon world? – is a very topical global concern.

In order to improve the conditions for the transition to low carbon energy system The Geological Survey of Finland GTK has been exploring the link between materials and energy systems.

First findings were released in a report by Associate Research Professor Simon P. Michaux in the fall of 2021. It brings up preliminary calculations and systemic interdependencies of this broad entity. Discussion and cooperation with actors in different fields and the refining of observations into scientific publications is continuing.

Report arose a great deal of discussion and comments. Here are answers to the most common questions asked, which will be explained in more detail in the accompanying video.

The research report “Assessment of the Extra Capacity Required of Alternative Energy Electrical Power Systems to Completely Replace Fossil Fuels” is a picture of the situation in 2018, which was the most recent year during the report that had not been affected by the coronavirus exemption period.

The report provides scenarios for how a fossil energy based system would be transposed as such to low carbon without, for example, reduction in consumption. Report does not propose that energy system should be replaced as such, because our energy future is a much larger issue than renewable energy production capacity.

The scales of the calculation outcomes are greatly influenced by the assumptions used in the calculations, as well as adoption of technology options, the share of nuclear power, the development of synthetic fuels, among many other factors.

“In building the overall picture, how the material system and the energy system are intertwined remains to be worked out, particularly when approaching the concrete of supply issues of raw materials, which would cover the entire arc of manufacturing, from excavation, enrichment, through processing, intermediates or the manufacture of intermediate and finished products to recycling.” says Saku Vuori, Director of Science and Innovation.

“For example, only less than half of Finland’s known cobalt resources are recoverable since cobalt is bound to the wrong minerals, so to say. Recycling of complex compounds speaks of similar challenges and therefore emphasises the importance to pursue recyclability in product design. In natural minerals, this option does not exist,” he continues.

Do we have enough raw materials? Yes and No

The Earth´s crust contains great abundancy of various elements. As such, we are not running out minerals and metals from the geological point of view. The problem is their exploitability and availability. The development of circular economy is important, but in some cases, there is still not enough materials to recycle. With the current operations, production cannot meet fast enough to the evolving and growing raw material needs. This concern is shared by e.g. European Commission, World Bank and International Energy Agency IEA.

“However, there is no ambiguity about the connection between energy transition and growing material needs (including various minerals extracted from bedrock and other raw materials and secondary raw materials), and addressing challenges requires a systemic global perspective. These needs to be solved, ther is no other alternative,” says Associate Research Professor Simon P. Michaux.

Is there one replacement for fossil fuels?

There are several options for solutions — and they need to be sought from a variety of sources. There is reason to assume that no single technology solves the whole challenge; many different ones are needed. Technology is constantly evolving and thus new solutions can be found.

What would be the solution for storing wind and solar energy and why is a buffer needed?

In the video Answers to Hot Topics Around Simon P. Michaux’s Report Simon P. Michaux explains the need for buffer and storage and opens up some background assumptions for the Net-Zero America report.

There are uncertainties, but based on the calculation, batteries are not the solution for long-term energy storage. Computationally, material needs, not to mention cost, would exceed any conceivable possibilities. A good example of other solutions needed is the Power to X (P2X) thinking and technologies.

Work to outline the energy and materials system of the future continues — and will be further refined based on feedback. We are constantly working to identify preconditions. We will continue to engage in dialogue with the various actors working together.

The Key Findings of Simon P. Michaux Research Report

In the video, Simon P. Michaux shows the key findings of his research report “Assessment of the Extra Capacity Required of Alternative Energy Electrical Power Systems to Completely Replace Fossil Fuels”. He will also shed light on the bottlenecks in the supply chain and why we need a new plan.

Answers to hot topics around Simon P. Michaux’s report

In this video Simon P. Michaux answers the following questions:

• Is there one technology solution to replace fossil fuels?
• What battery chemistries were used?
• How does this work compare to other studies done?
• How big should the power buffer for wind & solar be?
• What is the role of ERoEI in calculations?

Comment and discussion Peter Handley, Jukka Leskelä, Simon Michaux and Saku Vuori

At the webinar comments were given by

• Peter Handley, Head of the Energy-Intensive Industries and Raw Materials Unit, DG GROW at European Commission
• Jukka Leskelä, Managing Director, Finnish Energy.

This video features their commentary on the subject and a discussion between them and Saku Vuoren and Simon P. Michaux, as well as answers to questions posed by the audience. In the beginning there is a presentation by Research Professor Tommi Kauppila on how GTK currently contributes to the green transition.

From  Townhall

By Spencer Brown, January 03, 2023

In addition to joining investigations against companies over their use of ESG in attempts to “decarbonize” the global economy and fighting to keep woke asset management firms from scooping up shares of publicly traded utilities, Kentucky is putting the companies that boycott reliable and affordable energy on notice. 

On Tuesday, Kentucky State Treasurer Allison Ball named 11 such financial companies currently boycotting energy companies, following the passage of a 2022 law that directed Ball’s office to publish a list of companies actively engaged in energy boycotts, which then puts said companies on a path toward divestment by the Commonwealth.

Tuesday’s notice is just the latest step in Ball’s leadership against ESG policies that put political aims before financial success.

“When companies boycott fossil fuels, they intentionally choke off the lifeblood of capital to Kentucky’s signature industries,” Treasurer Ball explained in a statement. “Traditional energy sources fuel our Kentucky economy, provide much needed jobs, and warm our homes. Kentucky must not allow our signature industries to be irreparably damaged based upon the ideological whims of a select few,” Ball warned. 

As Treasurer Ball’s office noted, Kentucky’s energy sector makes up 7.8 percent of total state employment, or nearly 144,000 jobs.

It also accounts for close to 95 percent of the Bluegrass State’s power generation used by more than half of residents to heat their homes.

Still, the Office of the Treasurer noted that Kentucky boasts the 12th-lowest average electric prices in the United States. 

The updated list of companies engaged in energy boycotts was based on “careful review of publicly available statements and commitments made by the companies” and includes the following entities:

• BlackRock, Inc.
• BNP Paribas SA
• Citigroup Inc.
• Climate First Bank
• Dankse Bank A/S
• HSBC PLC
• JPMorgan Chase & Co.
• Nordea Bank ABP
• Schroders PLC
• Svenska Handelsbanken AB
• Swedbank AB.

Those institutions are now considered “Restricted Financial Institutions” under Kentucky law, and state government entities now have 30 days in which they must notify Treasurer Ball’s office of any direct or indirect holdings owned by the government and submit a written notice to the restricted institution.

Within 90 days of that notice, the restricted institution is required to end its energy boycott if it wants to avoid becoming subject to divestment.

From Watts Up With That?

Roger Caiazza

I recently noted that the New York Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (Climate Act) Scoping Plan framework for the net-zero by 2050 transition plan was approved by the Climate Action Council on December 19, 2022.  In the last article I quoted a portion of Dr. Robert Howarth’s statement in which he more or less claimed credit for the Climate Act.   This post uses two children’s tales to illustrate my concerns about his claimed basis for the Act.

Climate Act Background

The Climate Act established a “Net Zero” target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050. The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to “achieve the State’s bold clean energy and climate agenda.”  In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible and power the electric gride with zero-emissions generating resources by 2040.  The Integration Analysis prepared by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and its consultants quantifies the impact of the electrification strategies.  That material was used to write a Draft Scoping Plan that was released for public comment at the end of 2021 and approved on   December 19, 2022.

Children’s Stories

I believe that two children’s fables illustrate the false presumptions of the Climate Act.  According to Wikipedia, the Pied Piper of Hamelin is a Middle Ages tale from the town of Hamelin, Germany.  The pied piper, dressed in multicolored (“pied”) clothing, was a rat catcher hired by the town to lure rats away with his magic pipe. When the citizens refuse to pay for this service as promised, he retaliated by using his instrument’s magical power on their children, leading them away as he had the rats. The phrase “pied piper” has become a metaphor for a person who attracts a following through charisma or false promises.

The other fable is the Emperor’s New Clothes.  This Danish fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen was first published in 1837.  In this story, swindlers convince the emperor, who spends lavishly on clothing at the expense of state matters, that they can provide magnificent clothes that are invisible to those who are stupid or incompetent. The emperor and his court don’t see any clothes but pretend otherwise to avoid being thought a fool.  When the emperor marches through the city to show off his new clothes the townsfolk uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to appear inept or stupid, until a child blurts out that the emperor is wearing nothing at all. The people then realize that everyone has been fooled.  The phrase “The Emperor Has No Clothes” is often used in political and social contexts for any obvious truth denied by the majority despite the evidence of their eyes, especially when proclaimed by the government. 

The Pied Pipers of the Climate Act

The statement of Robert W. Howarth, Ph.D., the David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology & Environmental Biology at Cornell University was very illuminating relative to the motives of the Climate Act authors.  He reiterated his claim that he played a key role in the drafting of the Climate Act, developed the irrational methane requirements, and credited one politician for getting the Act passed:

Assembly Person Steven Englebright was hugely instrumental in the passage of the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act that established the Climate Action Council. I thank him for his leadership on this, and particularly for his support of the progressive approach on greenhouse gas emissions that is a central part of the CLCPA. I originally proposed this to Assembly Person Englebright in 2016, and he enthusiastically endorsed and supported it through multiple versions of the bill that finally led to passage of the CLCPA in 2019. In this accounting for greenhouse gases, a major government for the first time ever fully endorsed the science demonstrating that methane emissions are a major contributor to global climate change and disruption. Further, in passing the CLCPA New York recognized that consumption of fossil fuels (and not simply geographic boundaries) is what matters in addressing the climate crisis. New York wisely banned the use of high-volume hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) to develop shale gas in our State. But since the time of that ban, the use of fossil natural gas has risen faster in our State than any other in the Union. Methane emissions from this use of shale gas are high, but much of that occurs outside of our boundaries in the nearby states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. Through the CLCPA, the citizens of New York are taking responsibility for these out-of-state emission caused by our use of fossil fuels, particularly for fossil natural gas. The way to reduce these emissions is to rapidly reduce our use of fracked shale gas.

Based on the work of David Zaruk I recently wrote an article describing his analysis of the motives of people like Englebright and Howarth who insist on reducing their perceived priority risks to zero.  One of Zaruk’s articles explained that the use of definite articles is “abused by activists needing definite truths to win policy debates on complex problems.”  Dr. Howarth’s monomaniacal vilification of natural gas is well described by that statement.  During the discussions at the Climate Action Council meetings, he constantly referred to the science and his background as a scientist.  Zaruk writes:

In declaring: “This is the science on XYZ” an activist is attempting to own the issue and shut down any discussion or analysis. In a policy framework where there may be uncertainty or grey areas, imposing a “the” provides a wedge between others’ false opinions and “the” truth.

With all due respect to Dr. Howarth, it is appropriate to consider why a “Professor of Ecology & Environmental Biology” is qualified to be an expert on methane emissions from fracking.  In my opinion, scientists getting paid to deliver a specific result from trust fund philanthropic organizations, no matter how noble the perceived motive, is the same as the much vilified “tobacco industry” scientists.  The funding stream ends when the results don’t match the funder’s requirements so their arguments are biased.  They may be right but the arguments must be considered in that context and debated.

As a member of the Climate Action Council, Howarth was considered a saint and most unquestioningly accepted whatever he said as gospel.  This deference to his concerns is also apparent in the Integration Analysis and Scoping Plan.  However, his views are not universally accepted.  For example, the Climate Act requires New York to account for upstream emissions from fossil fuel used in the state because Howarth has claimed in a 2020 paper that “Some evidence indicates that shale-gas development in North America may have contributed one-third of the total global increase in methane emissions from all sources over the past decade (Howarth 2019).”  This paper and other similar papers claim that “methane emissions can contribute significantly to the GHG footprint of natural gas, including shale gas” and form the rationale of the Climate Act vilification of natural gas.

Despite the Climate Act mandate to provide a “detailed explanation of any changes in methodology or analysis, adjustments made to prior estimates, as needed, and any other information necessary to establish a scientifically credible account of change” any contradictory information has been ignored.  No comments on the Integration Analysis numbers that formed the basis for the Scoping Plan were mentioned at any of the Climate Action Council meetings.  For example, I noted that there is a high quality, long-term monitoring network that measures methane (Lan et al., 2019) over the period when Pennsylvania shale-gas production increased tremendously.  According to the plain language summary for the report:

In the past decade, natural gas production in the United States has increased by ~46%. Methane emissions associated with oil and natural gas productions have raised concerns since methane is a potent greenhouse gas with the second largest influence on global warming. Recent studies show conflicting results regarding whether methane emissions from oil and gas operations have been increased in the United States. Based on long‐term and well‐calibrated measurements, we find that (i) there is no large increase of total methane emissions in the United States in the past decade; (ii) there is a modest increase in oil and gas methane emissions, but this increase is much lower than some previous studies suggest; and (iii) the assumption of a time‐constant relationship between methane and ethane emissions has resulted in major overestimation of an oil and gas emissions trend in some previous studies.

The fact that the relevant high quality, long-term monitoring network does not show a trend consistent with the work of Howarth is a fatal flaw in his claims.  In addition, those measurements unequivocally support another contradictory analysis by Lewan that concludes his ideas, perspectives, and calculations on methane emissions from shale gas are invalid.  The bottom line is that two pied pipers are responsible for the Climate Act’s irrational war on natural gas.   The Climate Act’s elimination of natural gas is based on the false promises of one biased individual supported by one charismatic motivated politician.  These pied pipers are going to lead New York over an energy cliff.

The Climate Act Has No Clothes

Howarth’s statement went on to claim that the Scoping Plan development process ”brought in a large number of experts and key stakeholders who worked diligently to advise the Council on our Scoping Plan”.  After extolling the success of the stakeholder process and the staff members who contributed, he explained why everything will work out:

I further wish to acknowledge the incredible role that Prof. Mark Jacobson of Stanford has played in moving the entire world towards a carbon-free future, including New York State. A decade ago, Jacobson, I and others laid out a specific plan for New York (Jacobson et al. 2013). In that peer-reviewed analysis, we demonstrated that our State could rapidly move away from fossil fuels and instead be fueled completely by the power of the wind, the sun, and hydro. We further demonstrated that it could be done completely with technologies available at that time (a decade ago), that it could be cost effective, that it would be hugely beneficial for public health and energy security, and that it would stimulate a large increase in well-paying jobs. I have seen nothing in the past decade that would dissuade me from pushing for the same path forward. The economic arguments have only grown stronger, the climate crisis more severe. The fundamental arguments remain the same.

I believe that this is the fundamental basis for the Climate Act’s aggressive schedule.  The Jacobson analysis approach unfortunately is pretty much the same as the Integration Analysis modeling approach for the Scoping Plan.  Both modeling efforts project future load requirements, then list a bunch of control strategies, estimate the energy they could produce, and presume everything will work together if we cross our fingers.  Neither includes a feasibility analysis that considers reliability, affordability, or cumulative environmental impacts.

Howarth appeals to the authority of peer-reviewed science to provide credibility to the Jacobson analysis. However, science is a continuous process where hypotheses are constantly challenged and confirmed.  In this instance Howarth neglects to mention the analyses that discredit the Jacobson work. 

The Jacobson analysis cited was a continuation of previous work.  For example, in a widely publicized November 2009 Scientific American article, Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucchi, suggested all electrical generation and ground transportation internationally could be supplied by wind, water and solar resources as early as 2030. However, other contemporary projections were less optimistic. Two examples: the2015 MIT Energy and Climate Outlook has low carbon sources worldwide as only 25% of primary energy by 2050, and renewables only 16% and the International Energy Agency’s two-degree scenario has renewables, including biomass, as less than 50%.

Howarth’s statement cites a specific plan for New York (Jacobson et al. 2013) that he and Jacobson laid out a decade ago.  He says that “In that peer- reviewed analysis, we demonstrated that our State could rapidly move away from fossil fuels and instead be fueled completely by the power of the wind, the sun, and hydro.”   Table 2 from that report follows.  This analysis includes power from exotic resources such as waves, geothermal, tidal turbines, and concentrated solar power but no energy storage.  It is significantly different than the projections in the Integration Analysis and the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) 2021-2040 System & Resource Outlook that exclude all the exotic renewable generating capacity, contain significant amounts of energy storage, and include a new dispatchable, emissions-free resource for a set of resources that they think can provide sufficient electrical power for the future.  Furthermore, it claims that end-use power demand can be decreased by 37%.   In my opinion, any analysis that suggests that concentrated solar power is a viable source of energy in New York is simply not credible because that resource would never work in New York.  It is too cloudy to operate enough to cover costs and the environmental impacts would be too great.

There was a formal rebuttal paper to this analysis. The rebuttal paper argued that: 

The feasibility analysis performed by Jacobson et al. (2013) is incomplete and scientifically questionable from both the technical and economic perspectives, and it implicitly assumes, without sufficient justification, that social criterion would not produce even larger feasibility barriers.

Jacobson et al. responded to that rebuttal claiming  that “The main limitations are social and political, not technical or economic.”  Given the significant differences between that analysis and the most recent projections by the organization responsible for keeping the lights on, I agree with the conclusion cited above.  I do not believe that the 2013 analysis includes a defensible feasibility analysis.

Using Jacobson as the basis for the Climate Act transition gets worse.  Unmentioned by Dr. Howarth is that in a 2015 article for a different iteration of the wind, water, and solar roadmap Clack et al, 2017 discredited the Jacobson approach:

In this paper, we evaluate that study and find significant shortcomings in the analysis. In particular, we point out that this work used invalid modeling tools, contained modeling errors, and made implausible and inadequately supported assumptions. Policy makers should treat with caution any visions of a rapid, reliable, and low-cost transition to entire energy systems that relies almost exclusively on wind, solar, and hydroelectric power.

In the scientific process, when issues with your work are noted, the proper response is to provide more evidence supporting your modeling tools, explain why the claimed errors are not errors, and defend your assumptions.  Instead, Jacobson filed a lawsuit, demanding $10 million in damages, against the peer-reviewed scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the authors for their study showing that Jacobson made improper assumptions in order to make his claims that he (and by extension Howarth) had demonstrated U.S. energy could be provided exclusively by renewable energy, primarily wind, water, and solar. In my opinion this is an appalling attack on free speech and scientific inquiry but want to emphasize that the bad actions by Jacobson in no way should be attributed to Howarth.

In February 2018, following a hearing at which PNAS argued for the case to be dismissed, Jacobson dropped the suit.  The defendants then filed, based on the anti-SLAPP — for “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation” — statute in Washington, DC, for Jacobson to pay their legal fees. In September 2022, he was ordered to pay the defendants’ legal fees based on a statute “designed to provide for early dismissal of meritless lawsuits filed against people for the exercise of First Amendment rights.” 

In my opinion Jacobson’s attempted lawsuit was because his work could not stand on its own.  Therefore, it is unsettling that it is claimed to be the basis of the Climate Act.  Howarth’s statement explicitly lays out his position for the Jacobson analysis:

We further demonstrated that it could be done completely with technologies available at that time (a decade ago), that it could be cost effective, that it would be hugely beneficial for public health and energy security, and that it would stimulate a large increase in well-paying jobs

Unfortunately, Howarth’s technology demonstration is not supportable.  Nonetheless, it forms the basis for the Climate Act schedule and zero-emission electric system by 2040 mandate.  The Climate Action Council has embraced it despite the projections in the Integration Analysis and the NYISO Resource Outlook that reject it.  The Council is denying the majority opinion despite the evidence presented in their own analysis.  The Climate Act has no clothes. 

Conclusion

Pied piper Dr. Robert Howarth stated that “Our final Scoping Plan from the Climate Action implicitly endorses the vision of the Jacobson et al. paper and is quite clear: we can meet the goals of the CLCPA and we can and will do so in way that is affordable and that will benefit all New Yorkers.”  Unfortunately, that vision has no clothes.  The implementing regulations and additional legislation necessary to implement this vision must include independent, unbiased feasibility analyses to determine if the proposed plans can maintain current standards of reliability, will preserve the affordability of energy, and not create environmental impacts to New York State that are greater than the alleged impacts of climate change.  Failure to do so will ensure that the state ends up as badly as the children’s stories.

---

Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York.  More details on the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act are available here and an inventory of over 250 articles about the Climate Act is also available.   This represents his opinion and not the opinion of any of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated.

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Joe Public

You could not make it up, but Greenpeace can!

 

"When we fail to recognise that #ClimateChange is an imminent threat to the welfare of womxn & other vulnerable gender identities, it's not ranked as a priority"#GenderBasedViolence activist @oliver_meth looks at air pollution's impact on #GBV & femicide https://t.co/QHnSRDS4sz

— Greenpeace International (@Greenpeace) January 3, 2023