Tag Archives: climate alarmist

Seek and Ye Shall Find

Fact-checking the fact-checkers

From Climate Scepticism

BY MARK HODGSON

The Guardian has taken it upon itself to explore “the myths and realities surrounding EVs”. The heading to the article asks “Do electric cars pose a greater fire risk than petrol or diesel vehicles?” and I think we know the answer the Guardian will come up with. They start by telling us that the Luton Airport car park fire resulted in lots of speculation that the fire might have started in an electric vehicle. (Indeed, we at Cliscep speculated about it too, though we did – and continue to – keep open minds on the question). However, we are told that this “theory was quickly doused by the Bedfordshire fire service, which said the blaze appeared to have started in a diesel car.” And so we see how this is going to pan out. The claim has been doused, but has it? The support for that claim is the fire service told us that the fire appeared to have started in a diesel car. So far as I am aware, nobody has yet definitively established that this is the case, even though the blaze occurred almost six weeks ago. The most recent discussion on the internet seems to be an article in the Daily Sceptic, which makes the following observations:

Was the Luton airport fire caused by an electric vehicle? The official line is that it was a diesel-powered vehicle. However, a video of the fire in its early stages has been noted by many on social media to appear to show a Range Rover Evoque ablaze on the passenger side at the front.

The Range Rover Evoque has mild hybrid EV (MHEV) models which have been recalled in at least one country because of a fault that caused the lithium ion battery located under the passenger seat to short and catch fire.

The Telegraph‘s Allison Pearson notes there “was none of the thick black smoke you would expect with a diesel fire”.

It seems odd that no further details – such as confirmation of the make and model of the car – have yet been put into the public domain. Is that because they would confirm it was a hybrid and detract from the official ‘diesel vehicle’ line?

It may be that it will ultimately be shown to have started in a diesel (or hybrid) car, but as of the time of writing, that isn’t the case. There are no hard facts yest in the public domain. We simply don’t yet know for sure one way or the other. So at this early stage, the lie is given to the Guardian’s claim that it “has spoken to experts and looked for hard data where possible to address some of the most common criticisms of electric vehicles…”. It might have looked for hard data, but it relies on a statement that something appears to be the case to rubbish a negative story about EVs.

Still, the issues to be considered are fairly set out:

The claims about electric car fires fall into two broad categories. The first is that fires are more common in electric cars, while the second is that when fires break out, they are more damaging.

If electric cars do pose more of a fire risk than petrol or diesel, that would have a host of consequences. One could be a requirement for larger car park spaces to stop fires spreading, while the Conservative MP Greg Smith, who serves on the transport committee, said in July that EV owners should pay higher insurance premiums to cover the extra costs to firefighters.

And so it’s obviously crucial to establish that EVs are less prone to spontaneous combustion than the internal combustion engine (ICE) alternative. In order to achieve this, we are treated to a claim by Colin Walker, the head of transport at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit think tank, to the effect that EVs are much, much less likely to set on fire than their petrol equivalent. He tells us (without evidence – or at least none that is cited in the article) that many, many fires in petrol and diesel cars “just aren’t reported”. If they aren’t reported, how does he know about them? How does he know how many such fires there are? By definition, if his claim is correct, we lack hard data. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, by the way, isn’t simply a “think tank”, as the Guardian would have it. Rather, it’s a climate alarmist campaigning organisation, as its “Who we are” web page makes clear, with funding being provided by, inter alia, the European Climate Foundation, the Quadrature Climate Foundation, and (previously) the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, the Climate Change Collaboration, the Oak Foundation and the Tellus Mater Foundation. Mr Walker is no doubt sincere, his claim may be correct, but the claims made on his behalf by the Guardian provide absolutely no hard data to back up the assertion that ICE vehicles are far more likely to burst into flames than are EVs.

The next paragraph rather seems to make the case against Evs, rather than to offer a defence:

Fires can start in several ways. Car batteries store energy by moving lithium ions inside a battery cell but if cells are penetrated or if impurities from manufacturing errors cause short-circuits, then unwanted chemical reactions can start “thermal runaway”, where cells heat up rapidly, releasing toxic and flammable gas. In petrol cars, fires can start via electrical faults causing sparks or if the engine overheats because of a fault in the cooling systems, potentially igniting flammable fuel.

So a battery fire in an EV can start “thermal runaway” “releasing toxic and flammable gas” (sounds pretty alarming) while an electrical fault in a petrol car might “potentially” ignite flammable fuel.

We turn to Norway for the next round in the defence of EVs. As is well known, Norway is a country where new EV sales represent a very high proportion of all new car sales. And so the Guardian assertion that “[i]n Norway, which has the world’s highest proportion of electric car sales, there are between four and five times more fires in petrol and diesel cars, according to the directorate for social security and emergency preparedness” seems pretty compelling. At least it does at first sight. It’s difficult to find detailed information from the internet (so intent are search engines on pushing pre-EV information at searchers) as to what proportion of cars in use are EVs and what proportion are ICEs. Statista offers some useful information , however. They suggest that in Norway in 2022 there were 1,135,538 diesel cars on the road; 822,133 petrol cars; 599,169 EVs; 348,969 “other” and just over 200 running on gas or paraffin. At face value, then, the Guardian is on to something (assuming their statistics are correct – they provide no link to assist curious readers in checking it out), since the number of ICE fires are said to exceed EV fires by four or five to one, while the number of ICE vehicles on the road exceeds EVs by just three or four to one. However, even then, the comparison isn’t direct, since most EVs are likely to be new or relatively new, while most ICE vehicles are likely to be relatively or very old. Old cars are more likely to develop faults (including faults leading to fires) than new ones are, so unless and until we have data covering older EVs, these statistics are interesting, but far from conclusive. At this stage, we are simply not comparing like with like. Incidentally, I have searched the website of the Norwegian Directorate for social security and emergency preparedness without success for the report to which the Guardian refers. It occurs to me that if the report dates from 2021 or earlier, then ICE cars would then have outnumbered EVs on Norway’s roads by four or five to one (2021), by between six and seven to one (2020), by around nine to one (2019) or by as much as twelve to one (2018), in which case, far from supporting the Guardian’s claims, the report would actually undermine them. But the Guardian doesn’t provide a link to the report, doesn’t tell us its date (crucial information), and I can’t find it. So much for hard data.

Next we are treated to a statistic from Sweden, which even the Guardian more or less acknowledges doesn’t count for much:

The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency this year found that there were 3.8 fires per 100,000 electric or hybrid cars in 2022, compared with 68 fires per 100,000 cars when taking all fuel types into account. However, the latter figures include arson, making comparisons tricky.

I would go further. If the former number excludes arson and the latter number includes it (as appears to be the case), then citing the numbers is simply pointless. They establish nothing.

Next up are some numbers from Australia (the Guardian has apparently searched the world in its quest to prove that EVs are safe):

Australia’s Department of Defence funded EV FireSafe to look into the question. It found there was a 0.0012% chance of a passenger electric vehicle battery catching fire, compared with a 0.1% chance for internal combustion engine cars.

I followed the link since one was provided in this case. While the findings are broadly in line with the claims made by the Guardian, they are considerably more tentative than the Guardian’s phraseology suggests. Here is what EV FireSafe’s website actually says:

Our intial [sic] research findings, based on global EV battery fires from 2010-2020, indicate a 0.0012% of a passenger electric vehicle battery catching fire.

While it’s difficult to find a similar stat for internal combustion engine (ICE) passenger vehicles globally, a range of country-based reports we found suggest there is a 0.1% chance of an ICE vehicle catching fire.

That’s potentially useful indicative information, but it hardly represents compelling hard data, and doesn’t, so far as I can see, begin to justify the weight put on it by the Guardian. Furthermore, the website in question also stresses the problems with thermal runaway when EV batteries ignite; that an EV lithium traction battery burns hotter than an ICE vehicle; that EV fire behaviour is different and presents new challenges; that it’s not smoke, it’s a vapour cloud of highly flammable gases; that EV traction battery fires may require more resources; that The location of an EV battery makes fire harder to extinguish; that best practice is to allow a traction battery to burn out; and that EV traction battery fires can reignite, hours or days later.

Finally, the case for the defence of EVs concludes by telling us that Tesla “says the number of fires on US roads involving Teslas from 2012 to 2021 was 11 times lower per mile than the figure for all cars,, the vast majority of which have petrol or diesel engines.”

Again, a link was provided, so I followed it. And while the claim made in the Guardian is broadly correct, it does misrepresent the facts in one possibly important respect – it wrongly claims to be comparing Tesla car fires with ICE car fires per mile travelled. In fact, Tesla compares Tesla car fires with “data from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and U.S. Department of Transportation shows that in the United States there is a vehicle fire for every 19 million miles traveled.” That’s vehicles, not cars, so presumably includes buses, lorries and all other vehicles using the roads. It also, by definition, presumably includes EV fires, if it’s a database of all vehicle fires, so that will skew the figures somewhat, and will reduce the ratio from 1:11 to a smaller number, though admittedly perhaps not much smaller. The inclusion of vehciles other than cars in the federal data may or may not be relevant – I simply don’t know. Also of potential relevance is how the fires occurred. Tesla make the point that:

In order to provide an apt comparison to NFPA data, Tesla’s data set includes instances of vehicle fires caused by structure fires, arson, and other things unrelated to the vehicle, which account for some of the Tesla vehicle fires over this time period.

I concede that that is a pretty compelling statement. But we don’t know how many of the ICE vehicle fires were the result of, say, multi-vehicle crashes, which might have led to fires. We also don’t know how serious the ICE vehicle fires were compared to the Tesla fires. When a Tesla burns, it burns in a big way.

Then there is the fact that not every EV on the road is a Tesla, and increasingly it seems we can expect to see more and more Chinese EVs on the roads. Are their safety standards as high as Tesla’s? I don’t know. The Guardian doesn’t follow up by considering these questions.

At the end of the Guardian’s case for the defence, the reality is that we have been presented with very little meaningful hard data despite their claim to have looked for it. Perhaps there isn’t much.

In fairness to the Guardian, they do also offer some of the case for the prosecution with a section of the article headed “Any caveats?”. Here they acknowledge that EV fires “can be furious infernos” and acknowledge “the ominous risks of “vapour cloud explosions and rocket flames” when the gases burst out of cells.” And there is a belated recognition of some of the negative findings of EV FireSafe, namely “battery fires require more water to put out, can burn almost three times hotter, and are more likely to reignite.”

The article concludes with a verdict, which was rather more balanced than I expected, albeit it’s much kinder to EVs than my own verdict:

Despite the increased danger once a battery fire is burning, the probability of being caught in an EV fire appears overall to be much lower than for petrol or diesel cars, based on currently available data – although this could change as more people get electric cars.

Walker said it was possible that the prevalence of fires in EVs could increase as the average age of batteries on the roads increases. However, at this point, it appears that they would have to multiply by many times to be worse than internal combustion engines.

I am pleased to see the acknowledgement that as EVs age, the data could well become much more negative with regard to EV fires. However, the claim that ICE fire numbers are worse (by many times) than ICE fire numbers simply isn’t borne out by the data provided in the article.

The Fifth National Climate Assessment Report is Driven by Government Deception & Climate Alarmist Politics

From Watts Up With That?

Guest essay by Larry Hamlin

The U.S. Government recently released the Fifth National Climate Assessment report which falsely claims that:

“The climate change signal is “even clearer today than it was five years ago,” Hayhoe said. In the U.S., people across all regions are experiencing hotter temperatures and longer-lasting heat waves, with nighttime and winter temperatures warming the fastest.”

“Anyone who willfully denies the impact of climate change is condemning the American people to a very dangerous future. Impacts are only going to get worse, more frequent, more ferocious and more costly,” Biden said.

Tuesday’s assessment paints a picture of a country warming about 60% faster than the world as a whole, one that regularly gets smacked with costly weather disasters.”

One of the primary exhibits supposedly supporting these flawed alarmist claims contained in the report is shown below which is alleged to represent the U.S. and Global changes in surface temperature anomalies between 1895 to 2023.

As indicated in the text supporting this graph the average temperature anomaly year 1895 to 2023 data for the U.S. is a hodgepodge of CONUS Only data (light blue), then a mix of CONUS + Alaska data (medium blue line beginning in 1926), then a mix of CONUS + Alaska plus Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and other U.S. Affiliated Islands (dark blue lines beginning in 1951). 

These absurd changes contaminate the extensive NOAA Contiguous U.S. temperature database record by combining  climate region data from geographically isolated areas representing the arctic (with large arctic amplification present in Alaska but not being present in the Contiguous U.S.) and tropical global climate regions all located thousands of miles distant from the Contiguous U.S. (shown below).

This contrived distortion and deception hugely impacts the Contiguous U.S. temperate climate region data outcomes leading to the government reports erroneous claims regarding the climate behavior of the “country”.

The Fifth National Climate Assessment report graph below (with the years between year 1965 and 2023 further highlighted on the right display for better comparison) shows the “All US” graph which results from the ridiculous data hodgepodge created by combining geographically isolated disparate climate regions located thousands of miles away from the Contiguous U.S temperate climate region.

Note that the “All US” trend graph completely crosses the 0-degree temperature anomaly line in about 1985 leading to false claims that the “country” experienced rapidly rising temperatures from that time.

NOAA’s average temperature anomaly data from the actual Contiguous U.S. (absent the contrived hodgepodge of geographically isolated disparate climate region additions) is shown below (with the data from about year 1970 to 2023 highlighted on the right display for better comparison) with the same timeframe (move the slide bar on the NOAA graph to Jan. 1895) as presented in the governments manipulated National Climate report shown above.

Note that the NOAA average temperature anomaly data which is much more detailed than the compressed and poorly defined average temperature anomaly data in the National Climate Assessment report does not cross the 0-degree average temperature anomaly line at all during the period from 1985 to 2023.

This NOAA average temperature anomaly data shown above completely disproves the contrived and illegitimate claims that the “country” is “warming about 60% faster than the world as a whole” and experiencing “hotter temperatures and longer-lasting heat waves”.

These false and flawed claims result from the government forcing a hodgepodge of geographically isolated disparate climate regions (arctic and tropical regions combined with the Contiguous U.S. temperate climate region) into the Contiguous U.S. database and thereby contaminating the Contiguous U.S. climate database to conceal its measured climate behavior.

The manipulation of this climate data in the Fifth National Climate Assessment report brings to mind the use of deception and distortion employed in the “Hide the Decline” fiasco during the “Climategate” period in 2009.      

Furthermore, the NOAA temperature anomaly data record for the Contiguous U.S. for the summer June through August periods (uncontaminated by geographically isolated climate data from the arctic and tropical climate regions) representing the maximum, average and minimum temperature anomaly data for each yearly summer period since 1895 is readily available and shown below (use Time Scale: 3 Months, Month: August, move the slide bar to Jan 1895 to obtain these graphs).

Note the average temperature anomaly summer period data (middle graph) shows that the most recent years experienced summer temperature anomalies that are no higher than during the “dust bowl” era of the 1930s before the governments climate alarmism propaganda campaign came into existence.  

Additionally, this NOAA temperature anomaly data shows that the Contiguous U.S. average temperature anomaly is being influenced upward not only by the maximum temperature anomaly increases but even more so by the increasing minimum temperature anomaly (steeper slope) outcomes.

This is a clear reflection of Urban Heat Island (UHI) impacts resulting in higher night time minimum temperatures as was demonstrated with data presented by Dr. Roy Spencer from a prior WUWT article.

The same UHI minimum temperature climate impact on the average temperature is also reflected in NOAA absolute temperature data for the Contiguous U.S. as shown below from a prior WUWT article.

The NOAA temperature data for both Contiguous U.S. anomaly temperatures and Contiguous U.S. absolute temperatures are shown below that clearly show average temperature anomaly and absolute temperatures in the Contiguous U.S are being influenced upward in summer periods because of resulting UHI occurring in higher population cities of the U.S over the last 100 years.

The Fifth National Climate Assessment report is a scientifically flawed technical document because of its contrived distortion and deception of climate data as described above with these actions undermining the government’s credibility regarding both its climate science objectivity and competence.     

Czech Physicist: Claims Net Zero Would Be Cheap And Easy Are “Completely Insane”

Net zero is nothing more than a green pipe dream pipe dream.

From NoTricksZone

By P Gosselin on 7. November 2023

In an email, Czech physicist Lubos Motl warned claims of Net Zero being “cheap and easy” are naïve, “insane”. 

Globally, the costs would in fact be economically ruinous and explosive in terms of social cohesion.

Here’s the excerpt of what he wrote (edited to remove names):

Some people claim promoting Net Zero would be totally easy and cheap, below $2 trillion (total integrated expenses) – as long as we built a bunch of nuclear power plants. But such claims are completely insane.

All electric cars is basically impossible

First, nuclear power is fine but it is no ‘miracle’ in comparison with coal. Every forcedly shut down power plant – whether it runs on coal or uranium – is a huge waste of money. Equally importantly, for Net Zero, it totally fails to be enough to replace the power plants. You also have cars etc. The replacement of cars by electric vehicles is basically impossible in the decades to come. The market already shows that the demand for EVs has almost evaporated. Instead of the promised exponential growth, the EV makers are probably facing a decline. It is no surprise.

$20 TRILLION every 7 years – just for the cars!

An EV might be said to be comparable to an internal combustion engine (ICE) car when it is running, but to buy it, you still have to pay $15,000 extra above the price of a comparable ICE car.  Such an EV must be replaced every 7 years or so because the battery gets problematic and at that moment, the technology is obsolete so a new EV is better than the old one with a new battery. You simply have an extra $15,000 per car and per 7 years. There are 1.5 billion cars in the world. That is already an extra $20 trillion per 7 years just for the type of the cars. These $20 trillion per 7 years, or $3 trillion every year, still doesn’t include the charging infrastructure plus the extra batteries that would have to be placed on the grid to deal with the non-uniform timing of the charging of the cars.

And the costs above are still underestimates because we will run out of some commodities that are needed – even if we find huge new lithium reserves, they will get more expensive to mine because we must dig deeper, and we may run out of copper, cadmium, something else. And it is just cars.

The nonsense is in plain view

Then you have the cows with the methane etc. Can we replace them by a tech fix? There is no acceptable tech fix, a tiny miraculous solution like nuclear power plants that may turn the ultimate pipedream of Net Zero into reality. I can’t believe that any climate crisis skeptic could switch to the opposite camp in this important issue – which is mainly a policy issue but the rational argumentation needed to figure out that Net Zero is insane with nukes or without is really elementary science and economics.

The real battle is against lunatics

The appropriation of science and the ‘science’ brand by climate alarmist crackpots has been a huge blow to the civilization. 30 years ago, I wouldn’t have believed that something like that was going to happen (the world surely looked like becoming a capitalist U.S. 1980s-style, boring utopia for a century or more!) but it simply did happen. We are in a new world which is fighting different battles and the lunatics’ efforts to impose their idiocy and lies on the economic policies are probably the most important part of the climate-related confrontations now. So it may be more important than ever that somewhat sensible people speak a sufficiently united voice when it comes to the policies.

It is BS that the CO2 is behind the bad individual weather events or extremes and pretty much everyone understands that 1-2 deg C of (uniform) warming per century is not a problem by itself, regardless of the causes of this hypothetical change (my certainty that CO2 added less than 1 deg C in a century is not very certain – but I also think it is not a very important question for applications).

Pseudoscientific delusion: CO2  behind weather events What is terrible is that CO2 has been irrationally blamed for storms and other things that have existed on Earth for billions of years, pretty much with the same distribution (but they are much more globally hyped these days than they used to be), and even this higher-hardcoreness crackpottery is becoming rather mainstream. While people ‘blaming’ CO2 for the (surely beneficial if true) warming seems like an irreversible fact (at least up to the hypothetical moment when the warming really switches to cooling, which it surely could, as far as I can say, but I still think that some warming in the next decades is just a bit more likely), the idea that CO2 witches are behind all sorts of catchy weather events is a more idiotic pseudoscientific delusion that could still be disproved in the eyes of the public and policymakers.

So we should still try. The greenhouse effect, even if it is important, is acting almost uniformly across the globe, across the seasons and day cycles. So it cannot really increase the pressure differences and other variables that are igniting dramatic local phenomena like hurricanes. Ideas that some bans on ICE cars or family houses in Europe and North America will reduce the number of destructive weather events is completely wrong and it is important enough to team up with everybody who still understands that this proposed policy is wrong, nutty, and suicidal.”

Luboš Motl is a Czech physicist who was an assistant professor in physics at Harvard University. His scientific publications focused on string theory, and he is currently a visiting scholar at Rutgers.

Andrew Forrest’s Climate Alarmism: A Misguided Crusade

Billionaire Andrew Forrest’s company, Fortescue Metals Group Ltd., the world’s No. 4 iron ore producer and a major greenhouse gas emitter, is ending its use of voluntary carbon offsets.

From Watts Up With That?

Mining tycoon Andrew Forrest has embarked on a global mission, armed with a quiver of climate warnings and a bow of alarmist rhetoric. His target seems to be the rational and nuanced discourse in the climate debate. Forrest’s arrows, however, seem to be missing the mark, veering into the realms of exaggeration and dramatic flair.

“Andrew Forrest has warned climate experts in Australia that “lethal humidity is here” and needs to be stopped, part of a message he says he was told to spread by the White House, New Delhi and Beijing.”https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/twiggy-takes-his-dark-warning-on-climate-to-universities/news-story/eb55763e5c7092173e319892239b01c6

Forrest’s approach, marked by a sense of urgency and a barrage of alarming statements, seems to be more about creating a spectacle than fostering a genuine and constructive discussion on climate issues. His call for experts to “verify” the journal articles and images he presents appears more as a tactic to bolster his narrative rather than an open invitation for scrutiny and discussion.

“He encouraged the experts in the room to “look up” and “verify” the many journal articles he referenced in his slideshow that were attached to confronting images of “humidity death”.”https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/twiggy-takes-his-dark-warning-on-climate-to-universities/news-story/eb55763e5c7092173e319892239b01c6

His portrayal of “lethal humidity” and the catastrophic impacts of global warming, while vivid, seems to lack a foundation of balanced and objective analysis. The narrative, filled with images of doom and gloom, appears to be a carefully crafted tapestry of alarmist rhetoric.

“Earth’s humidity increases by about 7 per cent per one degree of warming, Dr Forrest warned. “I need everyone to realise that global warming is accelerating. And that is accelerating humidity” which was then driving violent storms, flood and cyclones, he said.”https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/twiggy-takes-his-dark-warning-on-climate-to-universities/news-story/eb55763e5c7092173e319892239b01c6

Forrest’s interactions with global leaders and institutions such as the White House, New Delhi, and Beijing, while intriguing, raise questions about the nature and motive of his climate crusade. Is this a genuine effort to address climate issues, or is there a more nuanced agenda behind this global campaign?

““The resources we’re lacking … is not cash … The argument here is that we’ve got to allocate the capital in the right way. We’ve got to remove all policies that deter the prevention of global warming. I’m here because I’ve spoken to New Delhi. I’ve spoken to Beijing. I’ve spoken to the White House. And they’ve said, get this message out. So I said, I’m gonna do that.”https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/twiggy-takes-his-dark-warning-on-climate-to-universities/news-story/eb55763e5c7092173e319892239b01c6

In conclusion, while Forrest’s intentions might be noble, however misguided, his approach seems to be marred by exaggeration and a lack of nuanced discussion. His climate crusade, while grand in its presentation, leaves much to be desired in terms of fostering a rational and constructive discourse on climate issues.

Major Climate Alarmist Fail: “The Hottest Summer Ever” that Never Was

The “hottest summer ever” is a failure by climate alarmist and the climate boogeyman media. Use your mind and don´t follow the climate propaganda.

From Watts Up With That?

Guest essay by Larry Hamlin

A recent WUWT article addresses the failure by climate alarmist media and scientists to utilize NOAA’s July through August summer maximum temperature data resulting in their false “hottest summer ever” headlines for the year 2023 with this summer characterized in the Times article as having been a “record breaker”.

The L A Times alarmist article referenced in this WUWT post was not based on measured global August average temperatures but instead was built upon the use of global average temperature anomaly measurements (Times article statement shown below).

 “August was about 2.7 degrees warmer than preindustrial averages.” 

The global August average temperature anomaly value represents the statistical temperature difference determined between the year 2023 global August average temperature outcome compared to the global August average temperatures compiled since 1895.

The global August temperature anomaly measure tells us nothing about August average temperature outcomes at any specific location on the globe nor does it tell us anything about August average temperature anomaly measurements at any specific global region. 

The world’s oceans comprise about 70% of the earth’s surface with the land surfaces representing the remaining 30% that are spread out across the far flung 7 continents with the huge distance separations between these continents making the use of global average outcomes to characterize these regions completely invalid.    

Additionally, the Times and other climate alarmist news media falsely characterize the global August average temperature anomaly as representing the “hottest summer ever” when such claims require the use of August maximum temperature measurement data at specific global locations. Likewise, use of summer July through August 2023 maximum temperature data would be required to make “hottest ever” claims regarding the summer of 2023 as noted in WUWT article. 

Another WUWT article shown below followed up on the prior article by addressing NOAA’s recent contiguous U.S. year 2023 September average temperature anomaly and absolute temperature data updates.

The first NOAA graph in this article shows the monthly contiguous U.S. data that include both August 2023 (August proclaimed as the hottest August ever) and September 2023 average temperature anomaly values since 2005 using NOAA’s most accurate USCRN set of measurement stations across the U.S. that are sited away from temperature altering artificial heat sources which plague the majority of USHCN temperature measurement stations.

NOAA’s monthly temperature anomaly outcome is calculated based on using monthly average temperature values defined as (Tmax + Tmin)/2 = Tavg with the average temperature value compared to prior year averages over a defined long-term period to determine time dependent differences.

The scale on the right-hand side of NOAA’s graph shows degrees F (the scale on the left is degrees C) with this value determined by taking each monthly Tavg compared to the average Tavg of all like months over a specifically defined period of years. The September 2023 temperature anomaly outcome is +1.93F with this anomaly value exceeded by 4 prior years going back to 2015.   

The anomaly data shows that neither the August nor September 2023 average temperature anomaly outcomes across the contiguous U.S. are trending significantly from prior values with these results clearly not supporting alarmists claims that there is a global “climate emergency”.

The second NOAA graph in the prior article (shown below) indicates the monthly maximum temperature measurements (Tmax temperature values) for the summer months from July through September of year 2023 (in 2023 being 85.36 degrees F) compared to that same summer measurement period for all yearly July through September summer month intervals going back to 1895.

The graph clearly shows that the July through September summer of 2023 was clearly not the “hottest summer ever”. 

NOAA’s July through September yearly summer temperature data on their website is available for maximum, average and minimum temperatures as shown below with NOAA’s data establishing that the increasing trend of Tavg (orange graph with this value being (Tmax+ Tmin)/2 as described above) is clearly driven by the significantly increasing trend of Tmin (blue graph) versus Tmax (red graph).

Shown below is NOAA data for the period from June through August which is considered the “meteorological” summer period versus the “calendar” summer from July through September shown above.

Again, the June through August summer month period was not the “hottest summer ever” as the Tmax data clearly shows. The outcome of Tmin (blue graph) driving increasing Tavg (orange graph) is also clearly present.

The climate alarmist news media and climate activist scientists have been misleading the public with false claims of the “hottest summer ever” based on using summer average temperature anomaly values derived from Tavg while ignoring summer maximum temperatures (Tmax) with the maximum temperature data clearly showing the U.S. has not seen a “hottest summer ever” outcome in year 2023.    

The sharply increasing minimum temperatures are significantly driven by Urban Heat Island impacts (UHI) as described in a recent significant study (shown below) at this WUWT link by Dr. Roy Spencer whose study evaluated how increasing population density around cites over the last 100 years have resulted in artificial heat sources (buildings, roads, airports, vegetation, traffic, air-condition vents, etc.) impacting temperature measurements at stations in these areas across the U.S. 

These artificial heat sources significantly impact measurement of minimum temperatures as the stored heat in these artificial sources contribute to increasing temperatures after the sun has set as reflected by the NOAA graphs above that clearly show increasing minimum temperatures (blue graphs) have been climbing since about the mid 1970s and are driving up average temperature measurements as addressed in Dr. Spencer’s important and comprehensive study. 

The key conclusion from Dr. Spencer’s study is as follows:

“But for the average “suburban” (100-1,000 persons per sq. km) station, UHI is 52% of the calculated temperature trend, and 67% of the urban station trend (>1,000 persons per sq. km). This means warming has been exaggerated by at least a factor of 2 (100%).”

The failure of climate alarmists to use NOAA summer maximum temperature measurements and instead rely on temperature anomaly related analysis using summer average temperatures in making flawed “hottest summer ever” claims is a major error. This error is applicable at global, regional, national, state, county, and city levels.

“A Climate Conversation” on Newsmax Sunday October 15th at 8 PM Central Time

Imagine we have to live in world of no jets, ships, defense, or space program!

From Friends of Science Calgary

Ronald Stein is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.”

Newsmax TV will air a Prime Time Special, titled A Climate Conversation, on Sunday, October 15th, 2023 at 8 PM Central Time that cuts through the rhetoric and propaganda to ask the simple questions. 

https://www.tvinsider.com/network/newsmax/schedule/

The new documentary by Heartland, titled “A Climate Conversation“, is narrated by Colorado radio personality Kim Monson, the film takes an even-handed and scientific approach to the question of man-made climate change and its perceived significance for life on Earth. In it, you will see familiar faces, longtime Heartland advisers, and collaborators.

World leaders should view and listen to the Newsmax Prime Time Special “A Climate Conversation” that cuts through the rhetoric and propaganda to ask simple questions that are addressed by:
• Director: Colton Moyer
• Producer: Walt Johnson
• Narrator: Kim Monson, from the Kim Monson KLZ talk radio host in Denver
• Greg Wrightstone, Executive Director, CO2 Coalition
• Ken Gregory, Director, Friends of Science
• Ronald Stein, P.E., Energy Literacy Consultant

This film is an important vehicle to reach people who have doubts about the climate alarmist narrative but are not yet on our side of the issue. We’re not just preaching to the choir with this film. It is well-argued and persuasive but not confrontational or overstated.

Newsmax reaches more than 100 million U.S. households and is carried by all major cable providers and streaming services.

If your TV provider carries Newsmax TV, you can view the film there, as well as on the Newsmax TV app, or on their website, here.

In the film, “A Climate Conversation” viewers will have a better understanding of why world leaders are continuing to experience a “dangerous delusion” of a global transition to “just electricity” that that they believe will eliminate the use of the crude oil that made society achieve so much in a few centuries.

Viewers will have a better understanding about how crude oil is the basis of our materialistic society, even for the components and equipment for the generation of electricity by wind, solar, coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro are all made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil !

Most folks may know, wind turbines and solar panels only generate occasional electricity, but manufacture nothing for humanity.

The elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss is that crude oil is the foundation of our materialistic society as it is the basis of all products and fuels demanded by the 8 billion on this planet.

• Crude oil derivatives manufactured from raw crude oil are the basis of our materialistic society!

• All the components and equipment for the generation of electricity by wind, solar, coal, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro are all made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil !

• The world populated from 1 to 8 billion in less than 200 years, after human ingenuity discovered how to refine oil derivatives from crude oil that are now the basis of our materialistic society.

• Ridding the world of raw crude oil before we have a replacement to produce the oil derivatives currently manufactured from crude oil, we’re back to the 1800’s, and it could be the greatest threat to the lives of billions of the world’s populations that did not exist before those oil derivatives began supporting more than 6,000 products for society.

Shockingly, very few parents, teachers, students, politicians, and those in the media, have any clues or understanding about the basis of the products in our daily lives from crude oil! Energy Literacy at its best!!!

Viewing “A Climate Conversation” on Newsmax Sunday October 15th at 8 PM Central Time will greatly enhance your energy literacy to be able to have constructive conversations at the dinner table with friends and family.

 https://www.tvinsider.com/network/newsmax/schedule/

Ronald Stein, P.E.

Author | Columnist | Founder at PTS Advance
949-306-6604

Ronald.Stein@EnergyLiteracy.net

https://expertfile.com/experts/ronald.stein
Co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations”
Policy advisor on energy literacy for The Heartland Institute, and The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and National TV Commentator- Energy & Infrastructure with Rick Amato.

Polar Bear and Seal Biology Exposes the Utter Stupidity of Climate Alarmist Environmentalists!

From Jim Steele

As shown here, any critical thinking person knows the alarmist polar bear narratives are just totally false, ignorant and manipulative fear mongering.

It is not ice that bears depend on, but ringed seals. An understanding of seal biology reveals that less ice is good and more ice is bad for polar bears.

Fact 1: Most ringed seals remain in the Arctic Ocean all winter and give birth to their pups on the ice. Bear cubs and adults gain most of their weight feeding on ringed seal pups from March through May, before any significant sea ice melt.

Fact 2: To survive the winter freeze ringed seals must make breathing holes in the sea ice. They can only make breathing holes in thin new ice. New ice mostly forms where ice melts each summer. Old ice that never melted in previous years is too thick to make breathing holes.

Thus, places like Hudson Bay where the sea ice melts completely each year provides ideal habitat for ringed seals and thus polar bears. In contrast due to dominance of thick multi-year ice, in the central Arctic Ocean very few seals and thus very few polar bears are observed!

Fact 3: Seals depend on fish and the fish food web depends on the primary production of photosynthesizing plankton.

Thick ice prevents photosynthesis. Ice free water allows photosynthesis. Research by Lewis (2020) Changes in Phytoplankton Concentration now drive Increased Arctic Ocean Primary Production reported, “primary production increased by 57% between 1998 and 2018” and “increases were due to widespread sea ice loss”.

Thus the truth is, less ice enables a bountiful food web that sustains the bears.

But observe here how the alarmist Polar Bear International totally misrepresented the arctic food web to push a global warming threat by suggesting the foodweb dependends on ice.

The graphic on the left by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme correctly illustrates how phytoplankton are mostly abundant where the ice has melted and is in agreement with scientific research that less ice increased primary production by 57%. Their graphic also shows a minor contribution from ice algae.

Then compare the propaganda graphic by Polar Bear International. Their illustration only show ice algae on and under ice, but deceptively omits the far greater importance of phytoplankton to the food web where there is no ice.

Beware people of these dishonest so-called Arctic scientists.

Each summer wherever ice melts, abundant photosynthesizing plankton generate a bountiful food web that maintains an abundance of ringed seals. Ringed seals are so abundant the IUCN designates them as species of Least Concern.

Due to the lack of solar heating during long Arctic nights, new sea ice will always form each year. Each year ringed seals will make their breathing holes and birthing lairs. And female polar bears and their cubs will emerge from winter hibernations to fatten on baby seals. Global warming has benefitted polar bears!

L A Times Article Falsely Asserts U.S. Had “Record” High Summer Temperatures in 2023

1 Comment

From Watts Up With That?

Guest essay by Larry Hamlin

The L A Times ran an article addressing the year 2023 Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures which falsely claimed that:

“But in Britain and the United States, global records go back to the mid-1800s, and the two countries’ weather and science agencies are expected to concur that this summer has been a record breaker.”

Despite all the climate alarmist politically driven ignorance-based hype about “record” year summer 2023 temperatures the reality of the year 2023 summer temperatures in the U.S. and other global locations are, in fact, disputed by NOAA’s measured data.         

NOAA’s year 2023 U.S. temperature data records covering the NOAA defined 3-month summer June through August period actually shows that U.S. 2023 summer temperatures were far below “record” summer maximum temperature levels regardless of whether one is looking at NOAA’s national, regional, state, county or city summer temperature data.

Looking first at NOAA’s National Contiguous U.S. Maximum Temperature for year 2023 (shown below) we see a maximum temperature of 85.72 F which represents the 109th highest maximum summer temperature of the 129 maximum summer temperatures identified. There are 20 years in which the Contiguous U.S. Maximum Temperature was higher than in 2023 with the highest ever being in 1936 at 87.92 F.

The year 2023 is not even close to being a “record” maximum highest summer temperature for the Contiguous U.S.

Looking next at NOAA’s West Regional Time Series for year 2023 (shown below for the West Region) we see a maximum temperature of 86.6 F which represents the 73rd highest maximum temperature of the 129 maximum summer temperatures identified. There are 56 years in which the West Regional Maximum Temperature was higher than 2023 with the highest ever being in 2021 at 91.2 F.

There are 7 other NOAA Regional Areas which are the Ohio Valley, Upper Midwest, Northeast, Northwest, South, Southeast, Southwest and Northern Rockies Plains of the U.S. with each of these showing that the year 2023 maximum summer temperature is not the “record” highest with these “record” highest maximum years being 1936, 1988, 1949, 2021, 2011, 2020 and 1936 respectively.

The year 2023 is not even close to a “record” maximum highest summer temperature for any of NOAA’s U.S. Regions.

Looking next at the NOAA’s Statewide Time Series Maximum Temperature for year 2023 (shown below California) we see a maximum temperature of 87.9 F which represents the 77th highest maximum temperature out of the 129 maximum summer temperatures identified. There are 52 years in which California’s Statewide Maximum Temperature was higher than in year 2023 with the highest ever being in 2021 at 91.9 F.

Of the 48 States in the Contiguous U.S. 47 did not see a “record” maximum highest summer temperature in 2023. Only Louisiana has a “record” maximum highest summer temperature in year 2023.

California’s year 2023 summer temperature was not even close to a “record” maximum summer temperature.

47 of the 48 Contiguous U.S. States did not have a “record” maximum summer temperature.      

Looking next at NOAA’s County Time Series Maximum Temperature for year 2023 (shown below for Los Angeles County) we see a maximum temperature of 85.0 F which represents the 49th highest out of 129 maximum summer temperatures identified. There are 80 years in which the Los Angeles County Maximum Temperature was higher than in year 2023 with the highest ever being in 2006 at 89.7 F.

There are 58 California counties listed in NOAA’s County Time Series and none these counties had a “record” maximum highest summer temperature in 2023. 

Looking next at NOAA’s City Time Series Maximum Temperature for year 2023 (shown below for Los Angeles) we see a maximum temperature of 72.8 F which represents the 47th highest summer temperature out of the 79 identified. There are 32 years in which the Los Angeles City Maximum Temperature was higher than in year 2023 with the highest being in 2006 at 76.8 F.

There are 9 California cities (including Death Valley) listed in NOAA’s City Time Series and none of these cities had a “record” maximum highest summer temperatures in 2023.

NOAA’s temperature data as identified and addressed in the above discussion for year 2023 clearly indicates that the U.S did not have “record” breaking summer temperatures in year 2023 – not at the national level, not at the nations regional level, not at the nations state level, not at the level of California’s 58 counties, and not at the level of 9 major California cities. 

Despite these outcomes in California and the U.S. climate incompetent alarmist politicians and news media will continue to falsely hype “record breaking heat” as being present across the nation and its states, regions, counties, and cities based on the grossly and completely invalid misapplication of a global wide temperature averaging outcome that cannot define temperature outcomes at specific global regional, national, country, state, county, or city locals. 

Additionally, given the 2023 summer temperature outcomes of the U.S. addressed above it seems unlikely that the Global Region of North American had “record” summer temperature outcomes as hyped by the propaganda driven alarmist media. This outcome is further addressed below.

Alaska highest Maximum Summer Temperatures Peak was 65.3 F in 2004 with the year 2023 maximum summer temperature being only 60.6 F in 2023 making it the 85th out of 99 total yearly maximums as shown below.

The highest reported temperature measured in Canada this year was 41.4 C in British Columbia’s South Coast on August 14, 2023.

Canada’s highest ever reported temperatures are shown below.

This data clearly supports that Canada did not have “record” high maximum summer temperatures in year 2023 which is consistent with the same outcome for Alaska whose territories occupy the same Northern Hemisphere global latitudes as Canada.  

Given that neither the U.S., Alaska nor Canada had “record” high maximum summer temperatures in 2023 it seems extremely probable that neither did the entire North America Global Region.  

But despite this reality in the inane ignorant based climate alarmist political propaganda world the alarmism hype will continue unabated.  

Another Stupid Los Angeles Times Climate Alarmist Propaganda Claim

From Watts Up With That?

Another Stupid L A Times Climate Alarmist Propaganda Claim

Guest essay by Larry Hamlin

The L A Times published yet another false climate alarmist propaganda article (shown below) claiming that the Panama Canal is running dry because of man-made climate change.

The data driven Fact Check reality disputing this flawed claim is shown below that addresses the same phony and flawed claim from the New York Times.

The L A Times can always be counted upon to hype false climate alarmist propaganda devoid of any connection to climate data driven reality.