Carbon Isotopes and Climate Change

A while ago I explained the basics of Carbon Isotopes and how they help in understanding what is happening to our climate:

http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/is-all-carbon-same.html

Today Skeptical Science have posted a more detailed article about the subject:

https://www.skepticalscience.com/From-eMail-Bag-Carbon-Isotopes-Part-1.html


 

Excellent visualisation of global warming

Says it all really:

Trump ready to censor Climate Science?

It's been a big worry ever since Trump 'won' the US Presidential election this year. He appears to be siding with the anti-knowledge mob and is heading for the censorship of science and knowledge.

Why is this so?

Well science is basically non-political, it produces knowledge that may or may not be positive and 'beneficial' to humanity, how it is used is up to us. It is just there and may influence political decisions in a positive or negative way.

This BBC report sums up the current views regarding Trumps decisions even before he has taken up the position of US President:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-38322594

According to the article:

1. Trumps team asked for all the names of the Department of Energy scientists that had worked on Climate Change issues. Basically this is the equivalent of Hitlers party supporters denouncing un-German science and forcing the likes of Einstein to leave 1930s Germany.
   Is this an extreme view? Well you either believe in the freedom to do any science that may inform government and business decisions or you try and dictate what science can be done based on your ideological preference (censoring it).
   Witch hunting scientists for their work is very, very similar to what the Nazis did in the 1930s.
   Sorry if you disagree, but if you believe in democracy then you have to accept unwelcome scientific knowledge as well as the 'welcome' knowledge.
   
   
2. Anthony Scaramucci one of Trumps team recently made comments on CNN comparing the ancient idea of the flat Earth with Climate Change. There is a big difference between ancient 'science' and modern science. Those that believed in the flat Earth did not try and prove that the theory was correct and did not collect data to prove it was correct.
   Modern science relies on the scientific method which did not develop until the 17th century, by today's standards the flat Earth theory does not stand up to scrutiny. Scaramucci's effectively assumes and bets on the assumption that in the future science will disprove current climate science knowledge. No normal sane decision maker bases political and social decisions by betting on what science might come up with in 100 years. You can only take on board what is known now and assume it is correct because it's based on existing knowledge that is tested and well proven (Infra Red radiation, Green House Effect and basic physics etc) verified by observation (temperature measurments, witnesses like farmers and other ordinary people, melting ice records, various species struggling or doing well, sea level rise etc.).
   
   
3. As the Ex-NASA boss points out in the article both government and businesses depend on truthful and factual climate data. If it is altered or is no longer available, businesses will have a false picture of reality and such holes will be replaced lies, myths, rumour and hearsay. We would have gone back in time to a more primitive period. We would be living a lie.
   
   
4.  On top of the above observations Trump has appointed Rick Perry and Scott Pruitt to positions where they are in charge of departments that they are critical of.

So far it looks like Trump will significant damage in order to achieve his 'dream'. 
Then there is Putin and Trumps love in.

One has to hope that the scientists can save the climate data and keep doing good science in defiance of Trump diktats and censorship.

More subsidies for fracking in the pipe line

The media today write about the proposals by Theresa May for additional financial support for fracking on top of existing financial support for fracking drilling operations.
It's not to hard to see the hypocrisy in the governments energy policies fueled by fears that votes will be lost if rural home owners are upset when a wind turbine is built within 100 miles of their home.

The government has cut ROC support for onshore wind farms and solar energy, both of which are crucial in cutting CO2 emissions and reducing energy costs for home owners.

The so called problem of intermittent renewable energy supply is a problem that is being solved by engineers and scientists. This year global energy storage capacity has doubled, it's a market that is growing rapidly and only ignorant Daily Mail writers think it's unsolvable.

World leading Fareham based energy storage company:
http://www.isentropic.co.uk/

As well as this increased support for Fracking (and carbon emissions) Mays government has been quick to scrap the Climate Change cabinet position and close down the Department of Energy and Climate Change as a separate entity.

It seems that Climate Change are forbidden words within government despite it being a costly problem that needs real technology solutions.

Meanwhile global temperatures this year are already close to breaking the limits set by the Paris climate agreement intended to limit temperatures to a 1.5 degrees C increase. Ed Hawkins (University of Reading) has shown that this year temperatures increased by about 1.4 degrees:

http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2016/spiralling-global-temperatures/

Conservatives continue to ignore science

The Friends Of the Earth are 100% correct with their attack on the Conservatives. We have all known for a long time that there are many Conservatives that are ignorant or choose to be ignorant of climate science (and other sciences) in order to pursue a political and economic ideology.
Since the election they have put into action extremely damaging policies that will undo many years of excellent work that started to reduce carbon emissions, created new businesses and jobs.

The policies include:

• Onshore Wind farm support cuts.
• Commercial Solar farm support cuts.
• Commercial Biomass energy project support cuts.
• Scrapping of the Green Deal with no replacement.
• Delayed introduction of zero carbon homes.
• Reduced tax on pollution.
• Introduced the Climate Change Levy on the renewable energy industry.
• Removal of tax breaks on low carbon cars including hybrids but excluding electric vehicles.

The Conservatives continued their campaign of lies and misinformation to defend and justify a series of very foolish and potentially law breaking policy changes that will cost future generations not just a lot of money, but also lives.

The Conservatives use the claim that the left have hijacked the climate change cause, but the fact is that is a red herring. Cutting carbon emissions is not linked to ideology, you just have to get on with it and do it, the same policies to do it apply to all political parties. In effect the Conservatives have made it an ideological issue by scrapping all the policies that were essential to cut emissions, they haven't got the guts to continue with emissions cuts because the long term benefits of such cuts can never feature in Conservative ideology and religion which is fundamentally short term.

Conservative ideology is about 'now', it can't cope with looking more than a few years into the future.

But science and nature don't care about politicians, the rules of science are mathematical and ultimately they detemine the future (on this planet at least) based on the actions we take now. So the FACT is, actions taken now can either be good or bad for future outcomes depending on the type of actions taken.

The Conservative sudden cuts in support for renewable energy, low carbon housing, insulation for homes etc is unforgiveable especially when it is known that much of the support can be slowly removed without damaging a flourishing green business sector.

How can democracy be working if political lunatics can do this?
We don't want this pathetic old political battle, we want political decisions about energy and environment based on facts, not lies and politcal fantasies (ideologies).

The AA also join the attack:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33724781

Conservatives take an axe to the future

I have written about wind turbines extensively in the past:

http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/pet-cats-vs-wind-turbines.html
http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/is-wind-energy-subsidised.html
http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/why-chris-heaton-harris-is-wrong-about.html
http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/chris-heaton-harris-continues-to-tilt.html
http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/name-wind-farm-and-win-prize.html
http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/new-isle-of-wight-offshore-wind-farm.html
http://lovelywaterlooville.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/east-meon-anti-wind-turbine-mis.html

This week the Conservatives decided to ignore decades of facts and research in favour of listening to the anti-science league of Toffs.

At a time when we need as much renewable energy as possible the Conservatives have given a veto vote to locals for onshore wind farms, whilst leaving out similar votes for fracking and nuclear energy. They have also decided to remove Renewable Obligations (non-subsidised support) for onshore wind farms. (don't forget that both fossil fuels and nuclear energy world wide are subsidised!)

I have also written about Climate Change over the same period and all the science that has been researched by tens of thousands of scientists is largely becoming reality. For instance sea levels are set to rise by 5 metres as a result of a political failure to do enough to reduce Carbon emissions. Portsmouth is mostly below 5 metres so it is already 'doomed' and 5 metres is not the end of sea level rises.

Failures by the Conservatives and their extremist economic ideologists to address climate science in their policies will result in more emissions and hence much greater sea level rise will be the result.
The trouble is no political ideologist has the stamina or will to question their own ideas.

Wind farms are still the most important and cheapest renewable energy source in the UK. Many nations would pay a lot of money to have the rich wind resource that we have. Yet the Conservatives have decided to abuse their position of power, ignore the future and keep us dependent on old technology.

They are killing the nation for short term political gain. They are neglecting our future.

Keep an eye (over many years) on the Actic Ice graph on the right of this blog (it is updated by real scientists regularly), it reflects the truth.

Arctic sea ice heading for record minimum?

Please take some time to view the Arctic ice graph in the right column of this blog.
It is updated automatically and currently shows a massive drop in sea ice extent compared to the 2011-2012 record minimum.

The graph is produced by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

If it continues it will be big news, or should be if the BBC were not so politically biased against climate change news reporting these days!

Oh dear - Owen Paterson shows his true colours...

I haven't blogged much about Owen Paterson but have always considered this trouble maker a serious problem for us all. I always suspected he blagged his way into DEFRA.

How did he ever become Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs?

Only two scenarios that I can think of:

1. He kept his anti-climate science and climate change denial a secret and misinformed his colleagues. I use the word denial instead of skeptic because I assume, like in the past, he hasn't told the full truth about is belief system.

2. He didn't keep it secret and the Conservatives knew full well that they had placed a bull in a china shop.

Whatever the case, he set out to cause trouble once he got into DEFRA.
How can anyone trust this person? Over time he has gone from alleged environment lover, to wind farm hater and now climate science attacker.

Why do politicians believe they know science better than scientists?
Why are so many politicians so arrogant that they believe they can rewrite science, history, statistics and goodness knows what else!

He apparently claimed today that there has been no global warming for the last 18 years. This is of course plainly wrong, for many reasons. One is that it has warmed, two is that trends are more important than relatively short snap shots and three is that the science calculations show it is warming. The measurements match the theory!

Facts from NASA:
Global Temperature anomaly 18 years ago (1996) = 0.33 degrees C
Global Temperature anomaly in 2013 = 0.61 degrees C

The temperature has gone up, so why would Paterson make misleading statements suggesting it hasn't?

97 climate scientists speak out for 97 hours

The 97 Hours of Consensus project starts today with the launch of an interactice web app that displays a qoute from a climate scientist every hour for 97 hours.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/97-hours-of-consensus-caricatures-quotes-from-97-scientists.html

The application itself is quite cool and shows the outline of each scientist in a crowd, as each hour passes, a cartoon of the scientist is revealed and when clicked on their quote is revealed.

http://skepticalscience.com/nsh/?

Climate Change the state of the science

Good video produced by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme showing the current state of science on the subject of Climate Change:

Sticky jet stream and persistent weather

Back in 2012 when we last had significant amounts of flooding and weather patterns seem to be stuck for weeks on end, Jennifer Francis a professor at Rutgers University studying Arctic climate put forward the idea that the warming Arctic was forcing the jet stream South and making it stick there.

The type of weather that resulted depended on how far south the jet was pushed. But more importantly the jet was sticking in a relatively fixed position for many weeks or months.

The evidence is growing that the jet is often shifting as a result of the warming Arctic. It's interesting to note that at the time of writing the sea ice extent appears to be heading for a record winter minimum this year (see graph in right hand column).

At the American Association for the Advancement of Science 2014 meeting Jennifer Francis again presented work that shows that as the Arctic gets warmer the temperature difference between the Arctic and the mid-latitudes is reducing, making the jet stream weaker and meander more.

The result... Extreme and persistent weather. The big climate experiment continues. Do you want to continue? You don't have to.

2012 Yale article by Jennifer Francis:
Linking Weird Weather to Rapid Warming of the Arctic

Wired:
Wavier jet stream means changing weather patterns

NPR:
Warming Arctic May Be Causing Jet Stream To Lose Its Way

Met Office Chief Scientist links current storms to climate change

Julia Slingo the Met Office chief scientist has linked current storms across Southern England to anthropogenic climate change.

Which highlights the tragic confusion caused by irresponsible policies that attack the establishment of renewable energy in favour of short term 'get rich quick' schemes involving fossil fuels.
Sadly farmers in Somerset, villagers in Hambledon, and train users in the South West (to name a few) have the idea that flooding, gale force winds and overflowing rivers can be fixed permanently with Environment Agency action and government spending.

The FACT is, these events will not only become normal in the future, but also will become more EXTREME!

In public Julia Slingo and her colleagues have to be very cautious, she knows the truth about climate change and the impacts it will have, but she has to word her public anouncements with care, hence the statement:

"There is no evidence to counter the basic premise that a warmer world will lead to more intense daily and hourly rain events." 

Which is code for 'we believe and worry that climate change is responsible'.

So what can people expect?

Well the Somerset levels and Hambledon village down the road will likely flood more regularly and the flooding will probably more extreme. We either spend ever increasing amounts of money to defend against flooding rivers, rising ground water and sea level rise, or we abandon these places. We also have to cut carbon emissions, beacuse ultimately that is the only lasting solution.

Climate change is going to be hard. Even with defences, some people will have to migrate from flood risk areas and green spaces will have to be built on to accomodate those that have to migrate. If areas do flood regularly then homes should be built that can handle to flooding. People around the world build floating homes or homes on 'stilts'. In order to survive we have to change and adapt.

Blaming the Environment Agency and stirring up trouble won't achieve anything. Ye old cottages and boring boxes are the past as far as housing is concerned.

http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/uks-exceptional-weather-in-context/

The History of Climate Science

If you think climate science is something new that began when the first computers were used to model the weather, then think again. Try out this interactive history timeline and discover how it all started some 200 years ago. You can scroll the timeline through the years and just click on an event to view the details. Starting in 1800 when Herschel discovered infrared radiation in sunlight, the multimedia application takes you through some key stages in science that led to the realisation that CO2 kept us warm and the degree of warming depended on the amount of the gas in the atmosphere.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-science-history-interactive.html

The sad case of The Daily Mail

This weeks Daily Mail and Ed Miliband brouhaha highlights the long running failings of the Daily Mails attitude towards journalism and the reporting of news.

Many years ago (decades) I once read the Daily Mail, but unfortunately my need for true knowledge and news was scuppered by the Mails journey away from news reporting, and instead towards an extreme form of manipulative politics, bad science reporting and a dumbing down of content to appease gossip and extremism. This change applies far more to it's online Mail persona than the paper one and in some respects the elderly generation who don't use the internet are being conned, because they don't see the exploitative images and articles published online.

I don't regularly read any national newspaper today, there is no point. I have direct access to opinions around the world and I don't need a jounalists opinion on climate science or renewable energy or on other issues.

The Mail can never be forgiven for misrepresenting climate science and environmental issues in it's journey to attract American readership and a fawning UK readership.

I remember reading in the mail a number of years ago about a new 'green' fridge technology, the article was completely neutral and received no comments. A few months ago the Mail reported on the same technology, this time a deep seated political rant was present in the article and like many 'online' articles it attracted extremist comments from American political sources.

One way of judging the Mail is by doing a quick search of climate science using Google, the following list of online Daily Mail headlines appeared on 04/10/13:

• World temperatures have barely risen in the past 15 years.
• MIT scientist ridicules IPCC climate change report, calls findings 'hilarious incoherence'
• The poster boys of climate change thrive in the icy Arctic: Polar bears defy concerns about their extinction
• It's not as bad as we thought - but global warming is still a disaster, warn UN experts
• Climate change models may not have been accurate after all as study finds most widely overestimated global warming

The summation of those headlines is a basic indicator of the political stance The Daily Mail takes on climate science and climate change. It isn't one based on reporting facts that paint the true picture, it's one based on having a political view and then reporting a story to fit that political view. This of course results in misrepresenting the true picture.

Even if the Mail wishes to attract a certain audience with articles about celebs, it doesn't excuse the political campaign against climate science and renewable energy, or using numerous people in this nation as scape goats for political purposes.

Learn about climate change from the experts

If you are interested in learning about climate change and environmental issues for free and from the worlds top scientists, then Coursera is the place to go. Check out the following free online courses:

Energy, the Environment, and Our Future - Dr. Richard B. Alley (8 weeks)

Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast - David Archer

Climate Literacy: Navigating Climate Change Conversations - Dr. Sarah Burch and Dr. Sara Harris

Climate Change - Prof. Jon Barnett, Prof. John Freebairn, Prof. David Jamieson, Dr. Maurizio Toscano, Prof. Rachel Webster and Prof. David Karoly (11 weeks)

Introduction to Sustainability - Dr. Jonathan Tomkin (8 weeks)

The courses are designed for a few hours study every week and are conducted online.

Over 70% of the population want renewable energy and CO2 emissions reductions

To highlight the fact how much out of touch some politicians are, this week saw the publication of a study by researchers at Cardiff University that shows broad support for renewable energy and carbon emissions reductions.

The report shows that 74% of the public are concerned about climate change, 79% want to see a reduction in fossil fuel use in the next few decades, 81% wanted to reduce their energy use, 85% supported solar energy and 75% supported wind energy.

What is surprising about the report is that it's findings come at a time when expensive and aggresive political campaigns are being conducted in attempts to halt investment in renewable energy.

The report highlights the fact that some politicians and councillors prefer to ignore the general population and seek comfort from their political fan base for support, they promote their ideas via marketing exercises (planning consultations for their pet projects) funded at public expense and allegedly for public benefit.

Even the BBC have started spreading misinformation about climate science, as highlighted at the weekend when Andrew Neil interviewed Ed Davey at the weekend. Neil suggested that The Consensus Project was flawed. However one of the authors of the paper defended the work pointing out that the criticism had been rejected. The paper is one of a number of papers that clearly show that 97% of climate research papers support the fact that we are the cause.

The fact is, cutting CO2 emissions is an unavoidable job that has to be done.

Ed Davey today attacks the press

Ed Davey today is attacking the press for their continuing misrepresentation of climate science for political purposes.

The draft of his talk has been sent to the media and the highlight is probably this paragraph:

"This is destructive and loudly clamouring scepticism born of vested interest, nimbyism, publicity seeking contraversialism or sheer blinkered, dogmatic, political bloody-mindedness..."

Yes indeed our national press are not interested in presenting news and facts, but instead are just mouth pieces of an extreme element of politics and business. Some of the more vocal supporters of the movement against our future and green prosperity are based in the US or on a wrecked privately owned Channel island.

The 'political bloody-mindedness' comment is very appropriate, since many of these press people and politicians are married to political ideology. They are not interested in a changing world and a future that is not theirs, but ours.

The damage being done is ignored in order to exploit short term goals that they believe is important in order to sustain their own power base. Political party activists go about blogging and commenting to keep the creeking political system going so that they can keep their position in society.

The political 'bloody-mindedness' is also rife across Hampshire, with councils deliberately blocking renewable energy projects and power hungry councillors getting themselves into multiple positions of responsibility, deliberately blocking solar farms and instead pushing through or promoting carbon intensive projects.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22745578
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/06/03/ed-davey-climate-change-secretary_n_3377023.html?1370254179&utm_hp_ref=uk

Ed Davey's speech:
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/edward-davey-speech-climate-change-acting-on-the-science

The Consensus Project - confirms we are the cause of anthropogenic climate change

The Consensus Project
On Twitter
On Facebook
Research Paper - Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature
Sky News article
Reuters article
ERL article
Al Jazeera (interview, video)

Thin Ice - new film release this month

It's not a secret that scientists involved in climate change and global warming research have been under attack for a number of years now. Some have been insulted, some have been threatened with physical violence, some have been threatened with hanging or prison. A new film created by a scientist about the scientists has been produced and is due for release on 22nd April. Here is the trailer:

The movie web site has more info:
thiniceclimate.org

Some sample clips:

Description of CO2 and the Greenhouse Effect

Digging a snow pit in Antarctica

Cold wet weather - caused by global warming?

Over the last 12 months we have seen miserable weather. Dull, cloudy, cool and wet (to an extreme in some places).

The question is, what is causing it?

There appears to be growing evidence or early indicators that the warming of the Arctic and melting of sea ice are looking like significant factors (along with some others such as the Arctic Oscillation) in generating the cold weather this winter and spring. Last year we saw some extreme weather caused by the jetstream moving further south than normal. This pushes the warm weather further south and draws the colder wetter weather down over the UK.

The same problem is causing the cold weather this spring. The jetstream is further south than normal, sucking cold weather south with it.

In 2010 the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research sent out a press release on new research that indicated a tripling in probability that reduced sea ice cover in the Arctic will cause extreme cold winters over Europe and North Asia.

Last year, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research announced similar findings, stating "Even if the current weather situation may seem to speak against it, the probability of cold winters with much snow in Central Europe rises when the Arctic is covered by less sea ice in summer"

And in the Guardian yesterday Jennifer Francis, professor at the Rutgers Institute of Coastal and Marine Science was reported as saying that a growing number of researchers think that the shrinking ice and exposed warming seas of the Arctic are responsible for pushing the jetstream south. She warned in September last year that the shrinking ice could result in a cold winter.

As the evidence builds up, it could be that the initial effects of the extreme aspects of global warming are that we (the UK) have colder duller winters and springs. We will have to wait and see what summer brings this year and more importantly how often this type of weather occurs..