Haven’t had much climate change news for a while. Can’t Donald Trump say something outrageous about it so we can kickstart the issue?
There’s actually lots of fun climate news right now, but it is getting lost in the ether.
First, there’s a new explanation for the temperature pause that we keep being told isn’t happening. It’s those pesky volcanoes:
Over the last few years, many possible explanations have been bandied about for the so-called pause in climate change, a plateau in global surface air temperatures that is out of step with rising greenhouse gas concentrations. But now an international research effort is laying responsibility at the feet of volcanic eruptions, whose particles it has found reflect twice as much solar radiation as previously believed, serving to temporarily cool the planet in the face of rising CO2 emissions.It has long been known that volcanic eruptions impact the climate, spewing ash and sulfur-rich particles into the atmosphere and blocking out the warmth of the sun. These eruptions had been factored into climate modeling, though it is now the view of an international group of scientists that their influence has been majorly understated.
I think this takes us up to the magic number of 57 theories for the pause that isn’t happening.
Second, there is stiff competition for our coveted Green Weenie Award right now. A top contender is Cambridge University professor Peter Wadhams, who told the London Timesthat he thinks someone is bumping off climate scientists:
A Cambridge professor has said that assassins may have murdered scientists who were seeking to reveal how rapidly global warming was melting Arctic ice.Peter Wadhams, professor of ocean physics, said he believed that he had also been targeted but had a narrow escape after a driver of an unmarked lorry tried to push his car off the M25.
The complete Times story is behind a paywall, but James Delingpole has more of the story atBreitbart. As Delingpole explains, Wadhams is considered a crank in the inner sanctums of the climatistas:
For a period, it’s true, Professor Wadhams’s extravagant predictions of imminent, catastrophic Arctic ice melt were reported assiduously by the media because they provided apparent high-level scientific credence to the fashionable doomsday narrative.However, more recently, Professor Wadham’s theories have been recognised as extravagantly, risibly wrong even by his alarmist peers, who have openly derided his “science” on social media.
Meanwhile, we reported here last year on the “ship of fools” climate science expedition to Antarctica that had to be rescued when the ship became hopelessly ice-bound. Well guess what Al? The same thing is happening right now with a ship that is caught in unexpectedly heavy summer ice in the Arctic:
A carefully planned, 115-day scientific expedition on board the floating research vessel, the CCGS Amundsen, has been derailed as the icebreaker was called to help resupply ships navigate heavy ice in Hudson Bay.“Obviously it has a large impact on us,” says Martin Fortier, executive director of ArcticNet, which coordinates research on the vessel. “It’s a frustrating situation.”During the summer, the Amundsen operates as a floating research centre with experiments running 24 hours a day. This year it was scheduled to reach North Baffin Bay.Johnny Leclair, assistant commissioner for the Coast Guard, said Tuesday conditions in the area are the worst he’s seen in 20 years.With only two icebreakers available in the Arctic — the CCGS Pierre Radisson has been escorting resupply ships through ice-choked Frobisher Bay— he said the only option was to re-deploy the Amundsen.
Why is this happening? While Al Gore and other climatistas were predicting a few years ago that the Arctic might be ice-free by 2014, Nature Geoscience reports that there is a robust rebound in Arctic ice under way the last few years. Here’s the full abstract (full study behind a paywall):
Changes in Arctic sea ice volume affect regional heat and freshwater budgets and patterns of atmospheric circulation at lower latitudes. Despite a well-documented decline in summer Arctic sea ice extent by about 40% since the late 1970s, it has been difficult to quantify trends in sea ice volume because detailed thickness observations have been lacking. Here we present an assessment of the changes in Northern Hemisphere sea ice thickness and volume using five years of CryoSat-2 measurements. Between autumn 2010 and 2012, there was a 14% reduction in Arctic sea ice volume, in keeping with the long-term decline in extent. However, we observe 33% and 25% more ice in autumn 2013 and 2014, respectively, relative to the 2010–2012 seasonal mean, which offset earlier losses. This increase was caused by the retention of thick sea ice northwest of Greenland during 2013 which, in turn, was associated with a 5% drop in the number of days on which melting occurred—conditions more typical of the late 1990s. In contrast, springtime Arctic sea ice volume has remained stable. The sharp increase in sea ice volume after just one cool summer suggests that Arctic sea ice may be more resilient than has been previously considered. (Emphasis added.)
I’m sure that last sentence really hurt. Especially for Prof. Wadhams.
JOHN adds: Let’s not let Prof. Wadhams off too easily. Of the three scientists he claimed may have been assassinated, one fell down a flight of stairs during a New Year’s Eve party, one rode her bicycle into a truck, and the third was struck by lightning. A wide-ranging conspiracy indeed!
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