As the non-profit, non-partisan Institute for Public Policy Research once observed, climate change alarmism typically employs a quasi-religious register of death and doom, uses an inflated or extreme lexicon with language of acceleration and irreversibility, and imparts an urgent tone and cinematic codes which might even become secretly thrilling . . . effectively a form of “climate porn.”
Impressionable prime time media viewers are breathlessly exposed to provocative fantasies of rapidly rising oceans and dirty weather images. The ugly behind-the-scenes skinny reveals much less to get hot and bothered about.
Climate change is not an unnatural act
You probably heard President Obama and other administration notables feverishly lamenting that 2015 was the hottest year “on record” following a previous one set in 2014. Lost in the fanfare were any mentions that the 2014- 2015 temperature spike was attributable to a major ocean El Niño, not to anything smoke stacks and SUVs did. By the way, other than these events bracketed by a previous 1998 El Niño, satellites have recorded no statistically significant warming in nearly two decades.
Although we are very accustomed to daily and seasonal temperature fluctuations of many degrees, those 2015 El Niño year surface station recordings were only 29 hundredths of one degree (0.29º) warmer than global mean temperatures over the past 100 plus years.
Also not featured, 2014 was just seven hundredths of a degree (0.07º) warmer . . . or any mention that far more reliable satellite data reveals that 2015 was only the third warmest year since recordings first began in 1979.
Incidentally, U.S. surface records obtained from the most reliable thermometer stations — those not corrupted by local “heat island” influences such as instrument relocations, evolutionary urban developments, or other man-made changes — show no significant warming over the past 80 years. There have been more all-time U.S. cold records than heat records since the 1940s.
And yes, climate really does change. In fact U.S. cooling of about 1.3º F between 1945 and 1975 prompted The New York Times and other major news publications to headline “experts” trumpeting the arrival of a new ice age. That alarm vector reversed entirely about a decade later when Sen. Al Gore’s steamy 1988 Senate hearings concluded that the planet is on fire . . . and, of course, we are causing it.
Size of sea level rise is greatly exaggerated
Ten years ago the very same climate doom and gloom Goracle warned that, “unless drastic measures to reduce greenhouse gases are taken within the next ten years, the world will reach a point of no return.” If not, the sea level would rise up to 20 feet “in the near future” as the ice in Greenland and western Antarctica melts. He also repeatedly predicted that the Arctic Ocean would be ice-free by around 2013.
Yet by 2014 that ice was even thicker and covered a larger area than when he originated that prophesy. Periodically changing Arctic cycles have been reported by whalers and explorers dating back centuries. Alpine glaciers at Glacier National Park have been receding since the little ice age ended about two hundred years ago. Meanwhile, the Antarctic ice mass has been steadily growing since first recorded by NASA satellites in 1979, and 2013-2014 expanses exceeded all previous measurements.
Sea levels have actually been rising at a constant rate of barely 7 inches per century without any measured acceleration. Even the latest UN’s 2013 IPCC report states, “It is likely that GMSL [Global Mean Sea Level] rose between 1920 and 1950 at a rate comparable to that observed between 1993 and 2010.”
Real dirt behind CO2 pollution claims
There’s no end to anti-fossil-energy, agenda-driven reports that conflate essential and harmless plant-fertilizing CO2 “pollution” with the truly dirty and far more readily avoidable sulfur, lead, carbon monoxide, and smog-causing emissions that cause real health problems. True to form, Al Gore’s 2012 “Dirty Weather Report” video campaign linked a global crisis of connections between climate change and extreme weather events with “increasing frequency of fire, flood, drought, crop and livestock devastation, refugees, just to mention a few — impact[ing] everyone, everywhere.”
An inconvenient truth regarding this “extreme weather” is that no Category 3-5 hurricanes have struck the U.S. coast since October 2005, setting a record lull since 1900. Others are that both NOAA and the IPCC have admitted that there have been no increases in the severities or frequencies of droughts, floods, thunderstorms, or tornadoes in decades.
Nor has the number of U.S. wildfires increased.
On the other hand, a global satellite study published last April in the journal Nature reported . . . “a persistent and widespread increase” of greening over 25% to 50% of the “global vegetated area” over the past 35 years . . . lots more fertile bounty for all God’s creatures.
Now that’s a sexy scene truly worth getting excited about.
NOTE: A version of this article appears at: http://www.newsmax.com/LarryBell/alarm-climate-extreme-weather/2016/09/12/id/747762/#ixzz4K42RMVyQ
I’m struggling to understand what distinguishes as qualified to comment on climate change, a guy who – uh.. “heads” space architecture, as opposed to anyone who actually researches the stuff.
Sorry – larry whom? and so?
He points out the rate of hurricanes has not significantly increased over the last two decades – well okay, we’ll ignore for the moment that the actual numbers being considered here are a mere handful per year anyhow, and any kid with basic training in statistics can point out that drawing conclusions from a small population sample means you also have to have big error bars – but we know larry isnt trained in basic statistics – at least, I would hope not.
oh, climate alarmsim isnt sexy?
wait.. what?
really larry?
I suppose though, larry’s point is that the lack of any statistically significant increase in fires or hurricanes in the usa, means that the increases etc. we see in the much more fire-prone Australia, are not really happening.
It’s easy to demonise people pointint out inconvenient truths when you deliberately cherry pick your data, and ignore the rest.
Hey larry? Learn some statistics – sadly, it’s not very sexy either, but if sex is what drives your ability to think intelligently, clearly, you’re not getting enough.
Do you mean those who have been educated/brain washed or just depend on holding the line to keep their jobs?
Some of those who feel qualified are the the UK green party spokespeople, they had no science qualification at all until they attended the Green parties education weekend.
Just explain any viable mechanism that might be responsible for the massive warming we keep being warned of.
You might also explain the carbon credit system that increases co2 emissions by uplifting the recipient countries into buying cars and fuel. The planet seems not to benefit so why is the counter productive tax continuing?
Brin, check this out. Caitie the clown gets schooled and unmasked as a know-nothing:
http://notrickszone.com/2016/09/13/massive-cover-up-exposed-285-papers-from-1960s-80s-reveal-robust-global-cooling-scientific-consensus/#comments
Thanks for that, seems the young have an incredible beliefe in there own infallibility. Such arrogance with it too.
I worked alongside some very bright chaps as a lab assistant in The Institute of Aviation Medicine. Some of these guys had incredible projects and they could all tell me the theory behind their works in minute detail. In Climate Science its a bit like extracting teeth to get any explanations at all.
Oh, I should also point out the serious lack of intellectual honesty here.
Since larry didnt even bother to read the abstract of this nature article, much less comprehend it’s substance, I’ll duplicate the salient point here:
” CO2 fertilization effects explain most of the greening trends in the tropics, whereas climate change resulted in greening of the high latitudes and the Tibetan Plateau. L”
There you have it. Larry is debunked again.
Our planet is getting greener because of CO2 – a greenhouse gas. I wonder if larry realises he just made his opposition’s point.. again?
Thanks larry, you do your mentally bereft cause more damage than any actually qualified research scientist could – i.e. something you’re not.
It is fun watching you get schooled over on the notrickszone. Your arrogance is only exceeded by your ignorance. You must be a legend in your own mind too ! You are an asshole best ignored.
A new climate kook has shown up to troll here. OH! The sky is falling!
Great article Larry! Ignore the climate clowns. They have NOTHING.