Daily Archives: 28. February 2021
Another Large 5.4 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Alaska With Tsunami Warning!
The Active Volcano Tarawera in New Zealand
Stress Testing for Media Bias
I was recently reminded (H/T pHil R) about Michael Crichton’s insight into our vulnerability to media bias. He called it the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect, named after his friend, physicist Gell-Mann.
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
Howard Wetsman MD takes it from there in his article A New Corollary to the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect, suggesting how to approach media reports with critical intelligence. Excerpts in italics with my bolds.
Decoding Climate News
Definition of “Fake News”: When reporters state their own opinions instead of bearing witness to observed events.
Journalism professor David Blackall provides a professional context for investigative reporting I’ve been doing on this blog, along with other bloggers interested in science and climate change/global warming. His peer reviewed paper is Environmental Reporting in a Post Truth World. The excerpts below show his advice is good not only for journalists but for readers. h/t GWPF, Pierre Gosselin
Overview: The Grand Transnational Narrative
The dominance of a ‘grand transnational narrative’ in environmental discourse (Mittal, 2012) over other human impacts, like deforestation, is problematic and is partly due to the complexities and overspecialization of climate modelling. A strategy for learning, therefore, is to instead focus on the news media: it is easily researched and it tends to act ‘as one driving force’, providing citizens with ‘piecemeal information’, making it impossible to arrive at an informed position about science, society and politics (Marisa Dispensa et al., 2003). After locating problematic news narratives, Google Scholar can then be employed to locate recent scientific papers that examine, verify or refute news media discourse.
The science publication Nature Climate Change this year, published a study demonstrating Earth this century warmed substantially less than computer-generated climate models predict.
Unfortunately for public knowledge, such findings don’t appear in the news. Sea levels too have not been obeying the ‘grand transnational narrative’ of catastrophic global warming. Sea levels around Australia 2011–2012 were measured with the most significant drops in sea levels since measurements began. . .The 2015–2016 El-Niño, a natural phenomenon, drove sea levels around Indonesia to low levels such that coral reefs were bleaching. The echo chamber of news repeatedly fails to report such phenomena and yet many studies continue to contradict mainstream news discourse.
I will be arguing that a number of narratives need correction, and while I accept that the views I am about to express are not universally held, I believe that the scientific evidence does support them.
The Global Warming/Climate Change Narrative
The primary narrative in need of correction is that global warming alone (Lewis, 2016), which induces climate change (climate disruption), is due to the increase in global surface temperatures caused by atmospheric greenhouse gases. Instead, there are many factors arising from human land use (Pielke et al., 2016), which it could be argued are responsible for climate change, and some of these practices can be mitigated through direct public action.
Global warming is calculated by measuring average surface temperatures over time. While it is easy to argue that temperatures are increasing, it cannot be argued, as some models contend, that the increases are uniform throughout the global surface and atmosphere. Climate science is further problematized by its own scientists, in that computer modelling, as one component of this multi-faceted science, is privileged over other disciplines, like geology.
Scientific uncertainty arises from ‘simulations’ of climate because computer models are failing to match the actual climate. This means that computer models are unreliable in making predictions.
Published in the eminent journal Nature (Ma, et. al., 2017), ‘Theory of chaotic orbital variations confirmed by Cretaceous geological evidence’, provides excellent stimulus material for student news writing. The paper discusses the severe wobbles in planetary orbits, and these affect climate. The wobbles are reflected in geological records and show that the theoretical climate models are not rigorously confirmed by these radioisotopically calibrated and anchored geological data sets. Yet popular discourse presents Earth as harmonious: temperatures, sea levels and orbital patterns all naturally balanced until global warming affects them, a mythical construct. Instead, the reality is natural variability, the interactions of which are yet to be measured or discovered (Berger, 2013).
In such a (media) climate, it is difficult for the assertion to be made that there might be other sources, than a nontoxic greenhouse gas called carbon dioxide (CO2), that could be responsible for ‘climate disruption’. A healthy scientific process would allow such a proposition. Contrary to warming theory, CO2 levels have increased, but global average temperatures remain steady. The global average temperature increased from 1983 to 1998; then, it flat-lined for nearly 20 years. James Hansen’s Hockey Stick graph, with soaring and catastrophic temperatures, simply did not materialize.
As Keenan et al. (2016) found through using global carbon budget estimates, ground, atmospheric and satellite observations, and multiple global vegetation models that there is also now a pause in the growth rate of atmospheric CO2. They attribute this to increases in terrestrial sinks over the last decade, where forests consume the rising atmospheric CO2 and rapidly grow—the net effect being a slowing in the rate of warming from global respiration.
Contrary to public understanding, higher temperatures in cities are due to a phenomenon known as the ‘urban heat effect’ (Taha, 1997; Yuan & Bauer, 2007). Engines, air conditioners, heaters and heat absorbing surfaces like bitumen radiate heat energy in urban areas, but this is not due to the greenhouse effect. Problematic too are data sets like ocean heat temperatures, sea-ice thickness and glaciers: all of which are varied, some have not been measured or there are insignificant measurement time spans for the data to be reliable.
Contrary to news media reports, some glaciers throughout the world (Norway [Chinn et al., 2005] and New Zealand [Purdie et al., 2008]) are growing, while others shrink (Paul et al., 2007).
Conclusion
This is clearly a contentious topic. There are many agendas at play, with careers at stake. My view represents one side of the debate: it is one I strongly believe in, and is, I contend, supported by the science around deforestation, on the ground, rather than focusing almost entirely on atmosphere. However, as a journalism educator, I also recognize that my view, along with others, must be open to challenge, both within the scientific community and in the court of public opinion.
As a journalism educator, it is my responsibility to provide my students with the research skills they need to question—and test—the arguments put forward by the key players in any debate. Given the complexity of the climate warming debate, and the contested nature of the science that underpins both sides, this will provide challenges well into the future. It is a challenge our students should relish, particularly in an era when they are constantly being bombarded with ‘fake news’ and so-called ‘alternative facts’.
To do so, they need to understand the science. If they don’t, they need to at least understand the key players in the debate and what is motivating them. They need to be prepared to question these people and to look beyond their arguments to the agendas that may be driving them. If they don’t, we must be reconciled to a future in which ‘fake news’ becomes the norm.
Examples of my investigative reports are in Data Vs. Models posts listed at Climate Whack-a-Mole
See also Yellow Climate Journalism
Some suggestions for reading critically National Climate Assessment reports is at Impaired Climate Vision
via Science Matters
February 28, 2021 at 12:27PM
Airline Execs Discuss Biofuel with Biden
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to a United Nations report, the early Obama era biofuel push exacerbated widespread food shortages, causing severe hardship in poor countries. But this track record of disaster has not deterred Biden from flirting with biofuels as a path to greener aviation.
Airline CEOs, Biden officials consider green-fuel breaks
By DAVID KOENIG
Chief executives of the nation’s largest passenger and cargo airlines met with key Biden administration officials Friday to talk about reducing emissions from airplanes and push incentives for lower-carbon aviation fuels.
The White House said the meeting with climate adviser Gina McCarthy and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also touched on economic policy and curbing the spread of COVID-19 — travel has been a vector for the virus. But industry officials said emissions dominated the discussion.
United Airlines said CEO Scott Kirby asked administration officials to support incentives for sustainable aviation fuel and technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere. In December, United said it invested an undisclosed amount in a carbon-capture company partly owned by Occidental Petroleum.
A United Nations aviation group has concluded that biofuels will remain a tiny source of aviation fuel for several years. Some environmentalists would prefer the Biden administration to impose tougher emissions standards on aircraft rather than create breaks for biofuels.
…
Here is what the United nations says about the 2009 Obama push for biofuels;
Chapter IV
The global food crisesWhen the global financial and economic crisis hit, a large number of developing countries were still reeling from the economic and social impacts of the earlier global food crisis. In 2008, the cereal price index reached a peak 2.8 times higher than in 2000; as of July 2010, it remained 1.9 times higher than in 2000 (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2010a; 2010b).
Prior to the global financial crisis, concerns about the spikes in food and energy prices were at the centre of public and media attention. Global leaders and policymakers were concerned about the potential welfare impacts of the sharp increases in the prices of food commodities, such as rice, corn (maize), wheat and soybeans, as well as global food security. There was concern about how higher food prices were adversely affecting low-income consumers and efforts to reduce poverty, as well as the political and social stability of poor countries and food-importing countries. These concerns have subsequently heightened with the social tensions, unrest and food riots that have broken out in several countries.
However, attention to the fragile and unsustainable global food security situation was pushed off the centre stage of international concerns and replaced by the global financial and economic crisis and the later push towards budget cuts and fiscal austerity in most major industrialized countries. Unfortunately, the food crisis is still far from over as prices have been rising once again since 2009 (Johnston and Bargawi, 2010). The poor remain especially vulnerable, as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned repeatedly. The FAO’s world food-price index had risen to a record high at the time of writing in early 2011, topping the previous all- time high set in June 2008. As a result, rising food prices have driven an estimated 44 million people into poverty (World Bank, 2011). Furthermore, the food riots in Mozambique in September 2010 and recent protests in several North African countries seem to reflect the continued impacts of high food prices on the poor and other vulnerable groups.
…
Higher energy prices and demand for biofuels
…
As the search for cheaper energy sources continues, the demand for biofuels has increased. A major source of the growth in demand for food crops is for the production of bioethanol and biodiesel. Developed countries annually provide $13 billion in subsidies and protection to encourage biofuels production, which have diverted 120 million tons of cereals away from human consumption for conversion to fuel. In the United States alone, 119 million out of 416 million tons of grain produced in 2009 went to ethanol distilleries. The grain would have been enough to feed 350 million people for a year! An unpublished World Bank report found that biofuels forced global food prices up by 75 per cent—far more than previously estimated (Chakrabortty, 2008).
…
Read more: https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss/docs/2011/chapter4.pdf (PDF Copy here)
Poor countries were already in trouble in 2008, before Obama took office. Obama didn’t start the biofuel push, but Obama poured fuel on the fire, by pushing for more biofuel mandates, further constricting the supply of desperately needed food to the global market.
To his credit, Obama was also the President who pulled back from the precipice, when it became clear how much harm biofuel mandates were causing.
Fast forward to 2021, food supply today seems fairly stable. But as the 2008-10 crisis shows, we shouldn’t take this stability and abundance for granted.
The UN believes the 2008-10 crisis was caused by crop failure, fuel shortages, commodity speculation and biofuel mandates.
How do the conditions which led to the 2008-10 crisis compare to today? In my opinion, the parallels are too close for comfort.
Much of the world has lowered interest rates and passed stimulus bills, to try to prevent a new great depression by flooding markets with cheap money. Low interest rate environments increase the risk of speculative commodity bubbles, like those which occurred in 2007-8.
Biden has moved to restrict fuel supply, by banning federal leases. In time this will feed forward to increased US fuel imports and upward pressure on global fuel prices.
China had significant crop failures in 2020, because a sizeable chunk of their arable land on the Yangtze River got washed a way by the big flood. A lot of levies and infrastructure was also destroyed. China is reportedly buying record amounts of food on the international market. There is a risk the Chinese food buying spree might continue for an extended period, putting pressure on poor countries which need to import food.
Now Biden appears to be flirting with biofuel mandates.
A substantial renewed Biden biofuel push on top of everything else which is happening might be all it takes to fully restore the conditions which led to the 2008-10 food crisis.
via Watts Up With That?
February 28, 2021 at 12:22PM
HR 127 – A Blatant Attempt at Fascist Control
Do we really want an ever more tyrannical government?
___________
For many residents of Amsterdam, the German invasion of May 10, 1940, came as a shock.
“We were trapped,” said Lena Herzfeld, “along with one hundred and forty thousand other Dutch Jews.”
“Unlike France and Belgium, which were placed under German military control, Hitler decided that the Netherlands would be run by a civilian administration,” writes Daniel Silva in The Rembrandt Affair. “He gave the job to Reichskommissar Arthur Seyss-Inquart, a fanatical anti-Semite who had presided over Austria after the Anschluss in 1938.”
“Within days the decrees began. At first, a benign-sounding order forbade Jews from serving as air-raid wardens. Then Jews were ordered to leave the Hague, Holland’s capital, and to move from sensitive coastal areas. In September, all Jewish newspapers were banned. In November, all Jews employed by the Dutch civil service, including those who worked in the educational and telephone systems, were summarily dismissed. Then, in January 1941, came the most ominous Nazi decree to date. All Jews residing in Holland were given four weeks to register with the Dutch census office. Those who refused were threatened with prison and faced consfiscation of their property.
“The census provided the Germans with a map showing the name, address, age, and sex of nearly every Jew in Holland.
“We foolishly gave them the keys to our destruction.”
________
I quote the above passage from The Rembrandt Affair to show you just how insidious the very thought of a bill such as HR 127 can be. Allow such a Nazi-like bill to pass, and a cascade of new Fascist orders is bound to ensue.
To own a gun, you would first need to pass a background check. (If you believe in freedom, or have ever attended a freedom rally, would you be allowed to pass such a background check?)
Then you would need to pass a psych evaluation. (Since I don’t believe in the global warming hoax, would I pass a psych evaluation? What about you? What other politically incorrect attitudes could be used against you?)
Then you would be required to pay -, who knows how much? – for 24 hours of training.
Then you would be required to purchase an insurance policy issued by a government agency at a cost of $800 per year. (What reasons could they manufacture to render you uninsurable? What’s to keep them from doubling the cost of the insurance any time they like?)
What will happen if you violate this blatant attempt at fascist control? A minimum – minimum! – fine of $50,000 and, get this, 10-15 years minimum in jail.
This is insane and completely violates our 2nd amendment. We need to completely annihilate this bill!
Yes, the above is exactly what the bill proposes.
You can see the proposed bill in all its gobbledygook glory for yourself right here:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/127/text
The post HR 127 – A Blatant Attempt at Fascist Control appeared first on Ice Age Now.
via Ice Age Now
February 28, 2021 at 12:05PM
Predicting and planning for the next polar vortex?
‘Texans were clearly not prepared by their federal, state or local governments, or even their local news media outlets, let alone ERCOT, for the magnitude of this polar storm…”
“We’ve spent billions on wind turbines and solar panels that were useless when people most needed electricity.”
– Duggan Flanakin
____________
“News outlets have devoted abundant space to the vicious storms that recently battered Texas and many other US states – and sent wind, solar and other electricity generation down dramatically, just when families and hospitals needed it most,” says Paul Driessen. “In this article, Duggan Flanakin presents background and insights that almost no one has brought up, including successes and failures of organizations Americans rely on for weather warnings and advice on how to prepare for … and survive … Mother Nature’s onslaughts.”
_______
Predicting and planning for the next polar vortex?
We say we can predict and plan for climate chaos 50 years out, but not an imminent vortex?
Duggan Flanakin
Americans know a lot about planning for hurricanes, and about voluntary and mandatory evacuations. They also know that some hurricanes bring major damage to urban and rural areas, and that sometimes (Katrina comes to mind) people’s failure to heed calls to “get outta Dodge” can have disastrous results.
The National Weather Service website explains, whenever a tropical storm forms in the Atlantic or eastern North Pacific [or central North Pacific], the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane Center issues tropical cyclone advisories at least every six hours. Once a hurricane watch or warning is issued, the advisories come every three hours.
When evacuation orders are issued, there are always a few who opt to “ride out the storm,” for fun and excitement, or fearing the theft of their property more than their possible loss of life. Even then, rescue teams risk their lives in dangerous weather to save those losing their crazy gambles with storms.
On January 11, National Geographic warned, “The polar vortex is coming –raising the odds for intense winter weather,” caused by a sudden major rise in temperatures in the stratosphere above Siberia. This polar vortex “could mean frigid winter weather pummeling the U.S. Midwest and Northeast and the mid-latitude regions of Europe.” Not a word about intense cold in the American southwest.
On January 28, NOAA’sClimate.gov website announced, “The POLAR VORTEX is coming!!!!!” NOAA explained that the impetus for this extremely rare event was a “sudden stratospheric warming” [SSW] that occurred on January 5. Such an event happens about six times per decade, NOAA says.
NOAA acknowledged that parts of Europe had already seen very cold weather in the north and stormy weather in the south, but gave no specific warning that disaster was imminent in any specific parts of the United States.
Comparisons to the disastrous 1899 polar vortex
Shortly thereafter, meteorologist Joe Bastardi predicted in his Twitter feed that “Texas is going to be tested on so many levels” by the coming storm. He acknowledged that NOAA’s own forecasting model prompted comparisons to the disastrous 1899 polar vortex incident that dropped temperatures below zero in every U.S. state.
On February 3, Jennifer Gray at CNN announced, “It’s about to get so cold that boiling water will flash freeze, frostbite could occur within 30 minutes, and it will become a shock to the system for even those who are used to the toughest winters.” She went on to say “the coldest air of the season will be diving south, not leaving anyone out. Every single state in the U.S. – including Hawaii – will reach below freezing temperatures on Monday morning” [February 8].
The next day, Austin’s KXAN-TV issued its own “First Warning: Extended Arctic blast coming to Texas.” Emmy-winning meteorologist David Yeomans noted that his actual first warning had come a month earlier – the day the SSW event had occurred.
Yeomans said the cold front would likely slam into Texas by February 9, “cooling us off dramatically by the middle of next week.” While “this pattern may last for an extended amount of time,” Yeomans predicted just “4 to 5 days where local temperatures will remain in the 30s and 40s into Valentine’s Day weekend.” He concluded that, while “some precipitation appears possible …it is too soon for specifics on this Arctic outbreak and potential winter storm.”
Austin – Just the fifth single-digit low in a century
But he did not foresee the impending disaster; nor did most others in the field. And yet actual lowest temperatures in Austin reached 9o F (-13 C) – the lowest in 32 years and just the fifth single-digit low in a century. Not until Valentine’s Day did the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) declare an “energy emergency alert three” that mandated rolling outages.
Texans were clearly not prepared by their federal, state or local governments, or even their local news media outlets, let alone ERCOT, for the magnitude of this polar storm – or for the devastation it could and did cause. People get a warning to prepare prior to hurricanes. But this time there was no urgent demand that people lay in food, turn off or otherwise secure water pipes against a deep freeze, expect water cutoffs, plan for lengthy power and heating outages, and be ready for horrific driving conditions.
Oregon – The most dangerous conditions ever seen in the history of PGE
Lone Star State public officials are getting slammed for their lack of foresight. But Texans are not alone in this disaster. Over 100,000 Oregonians went all week without electric power days after a snow and ice storm swept through that region. Portland General Electric (PGE) spokesperson Dale Goodman, noted that over 2,000 power lines were still down two days after the storm. “These are the most dangerous conditions we’ve ever seen in the history of PGE,” he lamented.
This is after PGE had worked tirelessly to restore power for over half a million other customers who’d been affected by the polar storm. As in Texas and elsewhere, people there died from carbon monoxide poisoning, food spoiled, and many of the 200,000 Oregon customers who lost service were told they may not get their Internet back for weeks. Oregon is much smaller than Texas, with fewer people and colder weather. Portland’s average February temperature is 10o F cooler than Austin’s.
Major power outages in Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky and West Virginia
In the aftermath of this massive storm – which also caused major power outages in Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky and West Virginia – there will be plenty of time to evaluate where forecasts went wrong, assess blame, and determine what damages can and cannot be recovered. Job one right now, however, should be to get people back into their homes, their jobs, their hospitals and their lives. (One Austin hospital lost power and water.) Blame-throwing only gets in the way of human rescue.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called for an investigation of ERCOT, acknowledging that the power grid curators have been “anything but reliable” over the previous 48 hours. “Far too many Texans are without power and heat for their homes as our state faces freezing temperatures and severe winter weather,” he added. “This is unacceptable.” Well, DUH! But they aren’t the only guilty parties.
The nightmare is far from over
Worst of all, the nightmare is far from over. The damages are widespread, and it will be some time before anyone can calculate the actual costs – and the avoidable costs – of this supposedly rare event. Will Texas shrug its shoulders and simply say, “This can’t possibly happen again.” Will Oregonians? Will the entire nation, which will suffer the effects of this loss of energy production and economic vitality in Texas?
Any investigation must begin with the fact that hardly anyone paid attention to warnings that this storm could have major impacts. Perhaps big winter storms need names, like hurricanes do, so that they stand out and can compete with partisan political bickering. Maybe we need a thorough review of all disaster preparedness, including spring floods, summer fires, and summer-autumn hurricanes and tropical storms. We certainly need better prediction, prevention and preparation – including thinning overgrown forests and clearing out dead, diseased and intensely flammable trees.
Will the American people get this kind of response from their elected officials – or from those charged with direct oversight of our land, water and infrastructure, and increasingly our lives and livelihoods? Or will we spend the next two, four or ten years bickering over trivial matters, like a modern Nero fiddling as our nation falls apart and becomes even easier pickings for Mother Nature and predator nations?
We’ve spent billions on wind turbines and solar panels that were useless when people most needed electricity
We’ve spent billions on wind turbines and solar panels that were useless when people most needed electricity, instead of on winterizing baseload power generation. We’ve spent billions on “climate crisis” models and fear-mongering – but can’t seem to get winter storm forecasts and warnings right. Too many are paying with their lives. When will we get it right?
Duggan Flanakin is director of policy research at the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org)
The post Predicting and planning for the next polar vortex? appeared first on Ice Age Now.
via Ice Age Now
February 28, 2021 at 10:26AM
Faulty Hypothesis? NASA ERB Measurements Don’t Show Significant Radiative Budget Differences
NASA earth radiation budget measurement from satellite data don’t support global warming claims.
Analyst blogger Zoe Phin downloaded and analyzed 10 gigabytes of NASA instrumental data on the earth’s radiation budget (ERB) fully covering the years 2003 to 2019 [site] [data].
High clouds should be warming the planet, and low clouds cooling it, NASA says. Yet 16 years of their own satellite measurements don’t support the claim. Image: NASA.
The idea is to see the effect of clouds at the surface, especially the so-called Upwelling Longwave Radiation (LW_UP).
High clouds supposedly warm the planet
But first, NASA tells us high clouds are much colder than low clouds and the surface and so they radiate less energy to space than low clouds do. And because high clouds absorb energy so efficiently, they have the potential to raise global temperatures. In a world with high clouds, much of the energy gets captured in the atmosphere. High clouds make the world a warmer place. If more high clouds were to form, more heat energy radiating from the surface and lower atmosphere toward space would be trapped in the atmosphere, and Earth’s average surface temperature would climb.
Low clouds said to cool the planet
NASA also adds that low stratocumulus clouds – on the other hand – act to cool the Earth system because they are much thicker and not as transparent. This means they do not let as much solar energy reach the Earth’s surface. Instead, they reflect much of the solar energy back to space (their cloud albedo forcing is large).
NASA adds that stratocumulus clouds radiate at nearly the same intensity as the surface and do not greatly affect the infrared radiation emitted to space (their cloud greenhouse forcing on a planetary scale is small). The net effect of these clouds is to cool the surface.
But 16 years of satellite measurements tell different story!
Zoe looked at 4 different types of observed LW_UP: All, Clr, AllNoAero, and Pristine. All is normal observed sky. Clr (clear) is no clouds. AllNoAero is All minus aerosols. Pristine is Clr minus aerosols.
Since clouds are said to play an important role in Earth’s supposed greenhouse effect, and this effect leads to a supposed serious warming at the surface, we should see a very large difference between all these 4 scenarios.
Very little difference
But when looking at the results, Zoe finds there is very little difference. The difference in surface LW_UP between a Pristine sky (no clouds, no aerosols) and All sky is just 0.82 W/m², she finds.
“I would even argue it might be ZERO. It’s only not zero because a satellite can’t measure the same scenario in the same place at the same time. They can only measure some place nearby or same place at another time,” reports Zoe. “Even if I’m wrong on this, this value is still very unimpressive.”
Hardly changes outgoing surface radiation
Next the former Wall Street analyst looks at downwelling longwave radiation (LW_DN) and longwave radiation at the top of the atmosphere (TOA_LW):and compares the averages side by side for all 3:
Series Average
clr_toa_lw_up 262.503
all_toa_lw_up 237.889
pristine_toa_lw_up 262.979
allnoaero_toa_lw_up 238.168
clr_sfc_lw_dn 317.924
all_sfc_lw_dn 347.329
pristine_sfc_lw_dn 316.207
allnoaero_sfc_lw_dn 346.359
clr_sfc_lw_up 397.445
all_sfc_lw_up 398.167
pristine_sfc_lw_up 397.387
allnoaero_sfc_lw_up 398.129
“Clearly not the case”
According to the greenhouse gas theory, infrared absorbing gases are supposed to be preventing radiation from reaching space, thus causing warming at the surface.
“Well we clearly see that’s not case. If clouds (water vapor + aerosols) hardly changes outgoing surface radiation, then the whole hypothesis is in error,” Zoe concludes. “Less top-of-atmosphere outgoing radiation doesn’t cause surface heating and thus more radiation from the surface, despite the increase in downwelling radiation.”
via NoTricksZone
February 28, 2021 at 10:16AM
Any Connection Between the Gothenburg Excursion and the Layer of Black Ash Around the World?
I also think the excursion was responsible for creating the Carolina Bays, the millions – yes, millions! – of huge elliptical depressions gouged into the ground at the same time. Many of those depressions were bigger than some modern-day cities.
This article by a long-time reader was triggered by my recent article New Study Warns: Magnetic Catastrophe that Wiped Out the Neanderthals is Due to Hit Again.
___________
Any Connection Between the Gothenburg Excursion and the Layer of Black Ash Around the World?
Michael Jenkins
It is interesting that the Gothenburg Event of about 12,500 years ago seems to have occurred at about the same time, or perhaps 300 years after, the Younger Dryas Impact event. Evidence of the latter continues to pile up, despite continuing resistance by the scientific establishment, of a devastating break-up of comet tail debris around 12,800 years ago, which mostly rained down on and melted much of the 1 to 2-mile thick Laurentide Ice Sheet that covered eastern Canada at the time, with a large but lesser impact on the ice sheet that covered western Canada.
Above that black ash layer around the world, most of the megafauna that existed up till the firestorm and ensuing deluge ceased to appear in the fossil record — mammoths, short-faced bears, giant sloths, saber-tooths, etc. Much like like the way dinosaurs suddenly disappeared from sediments above the K-T boundary layer 65 million years ago.
Many of the megafauna were still thriving, like the mammoths, right up to that point in time when the black layer was laid down around the world, when most of the world’s biomass was burned. Also, interestingly, there are indications that the geological north pole may have been quite a bit further south before the Impact event, somewhere in northern Canada, since we know that Siberia had a much warmer climate at the time, with vast herds of mammoths grazing in Siberia, who were all suddenly flash frozen before their meat could spoil, or before some could finish digesting the buttercup flowers they had eaten hours earlier.
The Siberian climate has remained bitterly cold after that event until thawing of the permafrost about a century ago exposed these killing fields of countless numbers of mammoths that apparently died en masse, and the instant drop in temperature, and perhaps change in the earth’s axis or crust movement pushed Siberia into a frigid northern zone, freezing their huge carcasses in place in temperatures so low and so quickly that the meat and stomach contents didn’t spoil.
What I wonder is whether there might have been any connection between the Younger Dryas Impact and the Gothenburg event, though it is hard to see how the comet impact could have triggered the magnetic reversal 300 years later, if the dating for both events is accurate.
Perhaps it was just the planet’s bad luck to have two such catastrophes in such a short period, wiping out most of the megafauna in North America, and the entire Native American Clovis Culture at the same time. Notably, Africa was largely spared, with relatively few large mammals there going extinct, since it seems not to have been hit by much, if any, of the comet debris.
________
Note from Robert: Yes, I think the Gothenburg excursion is directly linked to the black ash layer around the world, and I think they happened simultaneously. But I have strong doubts of a comet impact. Scientists love to blame comets when they can’t figure out what happened.
I also think the magnetic excursion was responsible for creating the Carolina Bays, the millions – yes, millions! – of huge elliptical depressions gouged into the ground at the same time. Many of those depressions were bigger than some modern-day cities.
See
“The Carolina bays – Giant paw prints in the ground”
https://www.evolutionaryleaps.com/2011/11/the-carolina-bays-giant-paw-prints-in-the-ground-2/
…………
See also:
Carpet bombing the Carolinas
https://www.iceagenow.info/carpet-bombing-the-carolinas/
……..
See also:
Magnetic explosions closer to Earth than anyone thought possible
https://www.iceagenow.info/magnetic-explosions-closer-to-earth-than-anyone-thought-possible/
………
I discuss the Carolina Bays in Magnetic Reversals and Evolutionary Leaps.
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via Ice Age Now
February 28, 2021 at 10:12AM
1970 : US And Soviet Union Worried About A New Ice Age
“The United States and the Soviet Union are mounting large-scale investigations to determine why the Arctic climate is becoming more frigid, why parts of the Arctic sea ice have recently become ominously thicker and whether the extent of that ice cover contributes to the onset of ice ages.”
TimesMachine: July 18, 1970 – NYTimes.com
via Real Climate Science
Posted on February 28, 2021 by tonyheller
February 28, 2021 at 09:40AM