Apples, oranges, whatever...

A new paper by Kevin Cowtan et al claims that the divergence of models and observations is not as big as we thought.

Global mean temperatures from climate model simulations are typically calculated using surface air temperatures, while the corresponding observations are based on a blend of air and sea surface temperatures. This work quantifies a systematic bias in model-observation comparisons arising from differential warming rates between sea surface temperatures and surface air temperatures over oceans. A further bias arises from the treatment of temperatures in regions where the sea ice boundary has changed. Applying the methodology of the HadCRUT4 record to climate model temperature fields accounts for 38% of the discrepancy in trend between models and observations over the period 1975-2014.

It sounds a bit odd to me, but I don't have a copy as yet, so I'm going to hold off further comment for the minute. One assumes though that even if the findings are sound the divergence of satellite temperatures from the models is unaffected.

Update on Jul 30, 2015 by Bishop Hill

Thanks to readers who have sent the paper along. Here's what the authors have done:

Global averages of the observational temperature records are typically compared to near surface air temperature from an ensemble of climate model simulations...most studies have used the surface
air temperature field from models rather than blended land-ocean temperatures...A true like-with-like comparison would involve blending the air and sea surface temperature fields from the models in a manner consistent with the observational records. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the impact of comparing air temperatures from models with the blended observational data, and to establish guidelines for the determination of blended temperature comparisons.

This seems unexceptionable to me.

Gritters out

The Scotsman is reporting that gritting lorries have been out on the streets in rural Perthshire overnight, with forecasters pointing to the possibility of snow, hail and frost.

It's a worry, this global warming stuff.

Break out the popcorn

Tim Yeo is suing the Sunday Times for libel over its "sting" operation and subsequent articles that alleged that Yeo was offering himself as a parliamentarian for hire.

Story here.

Overriding the benefits

The World Resources Institute blog has a fascinating article about the greening of Ethiopia in recent years. This is largely based on a paper in Science of the Total Environment by Nyssen et al. 

Jan Nyssen, a geographer at the University of Ghent, together with a large team of colleagues reviewed historic photographs of the Ethiopian highlands comparing them to more recent pictures of the same locations. They then assessed the change in greenery in the landscape, using a benchmarking methodology to assign a value, before performing a multiple regression analysis against possible causes.

The upshot of their paper is that these welcome changes seem to be largely the result of human activity - the landscape has greened the most in areas of higher population density. This seems to be related to factors such as the planting of eucalyptus trees in response to market demand for poles as well as more obvious conservation measures such as the use of terracing to prevent water run-off and soil erosion.

Click to read more ...

A new green disinformation campaign

Cluff Resources' underground coal gasification project looks at the moment as if it might have escaped Holyrood's moratorium on fracking projects, and greens have therefore launched a concerted campaign to address this regrettable loophole. The latest development is that Frack Off have obtained a letter written in January by Cluff Resources to Scottish ministers. This is breathtakingly dull stuff. The company introduces themselves, explains how much they are planning on investing and the inquire whether they were covered by the moratorium.

In other words it's a complete non-story. Nevertheless it has been hyped up by the greens, who have characterised it as "holding the country to ransom", and this ridiculous claim has inevitably been given maximum publicity by the BBC's David Miller here. He also follows the corporation's normal policy of getting comments from two separate anti-capitalist environmentalist groups (in this case WWF and FoE) to liven things up, although in fairness they do seem to have tried and failed to get a response from Cluff, whose PR team seems to exhibit the same ineptitude as Cuadrilla's.

Click to read more ...

Panda Leaks

Further to the last post, I've just bought myself a copy of Wilfried Huismann's Panda Leaks, an exposé of some of the problems with WWF. It is based on a German language documentary, which WWF apparently went to considerable lengths to try to suppress, using threats of legal action, injunctions and the like.

Buy it here.

WWF linked to more human rights abuses

Readers will no doubt remember the scandalous tale of WWF thugs attacking forest peoples in Cameroon. But apparently it doesn't stop there. French TV station Canal Plus has recently uncovered widespread human rights abuses in the WWF-sponsored Kanha Tiger Reserve in India. There's a transcript of the programme here.

...in the Kanha Reserve, 2200 families are affected. Some villages...will be resettled. Others...simply removed, with no place for their inhabitants to stay. From this document we learn that resettlements began forty years ago and that dozens of villages...have been eradicated like the others. We also find that, in the two other reserves on Nouvelle Frontières' tour, people are being moved left, right and centre. 2374 more families. At least 22,000 people resettled. 

 Some of these tribes are apparently thought to have been living in the forest for 20,000 years.

Click to read more ...

Quote of the day, Boyd edition

I see too many studies...assigning causation to climate change when the evidence for this is quite poor...I think this is bad for climate science in general and authors and journal editors need to try to avoid the temptation of headline-grabbing when it is not justified by the evidence.

This comes from Professor Ian Boyd, the chief scientist at Defra, whose blog can be found here. It doesn't seem to be updated often, and the quote is from an old post. But fun nevertheless.

Spanish fail to fly

Interesting news from Spain, where it has been revealed that the country has failed to install a single megawatt of wind power capacity in the last six months. This comes after managing just 27 MW in 2014.

This makes the country's plans to put a further 5000 MW in place by 2020 look just a tad optimistic.

(Link to Spanish language article)

Would you want to let this man near your pension?

Mark Wilson, the boss of insurance giant Aviva has been getting in on the climate alarm act, with a speech to a city audience in which he outlined his shock at the horrors ahead and explained what Aviva intends to do about it. The bare bones of the plan can be seen here, and is headed by this summary of Mr Wilson's thinking.

If we do not take urgent action to limit global temperature increases to within 2°C the impacts upon the economy, society, and our business will be nothing short of devastating.

To which the only plausible response is "drivel". I don't think there is a single reputable scientist who would support Mr Wilson's view. The IPCC doesn't think this. Richard Betts, the head of climate impacts at the Met Office doesn't either. The academic literature is clear that the target is a political convenience. Even Ottmar Edenhofer, who came up with the idea of a target has confirmed that view. "Two degrees brings chaos" is mainly the preserve of the wilder fringes of the green movement.

Click to read more ...

D is for diesel

In my Twitter feed yesterday came something entirely without precedent: a tweet from Lord Deben. This was something of a shock, as the noble lord has hitherto made it a matter of policy never to address me directly, leaving his followers in the slightly strange position of trying to work out who it is that he is insulting.

I assume that this was an error on his part.

He was responding to a tweet from someone who asked rather alarmingly:

Click to read more ...

Energy and climate priorities

The Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee has asked for suggestions of what they should do to hold the government to account in the coming session. Now shorn of any obviously sceptic members one assumes that the committee will simply be asking the government why they aren't making more futile and expensive gestures, but I don't suppose there is any harm in our putting some alternative ideas forward, if only so they can be ignored.

The obvious one to me is to look again at current energy policy in the light of the crash in oil prices, but perhaps readers would like to make some other suggestions. I'll compile the best ones into a letter to the committee.

What am I bid?

Richard Black, whom you  might recall from the obscure BBC past, has recently (24.7.2015)  tweeted that Simon Sharpe, head of the FCO Climate Risk Department, has  suggested  that the risk of a seven degree warming  by 2200  is now more than 50% under "business as usual".

A conclusion made in good time for Paris, then. Any advance on seven degrees, what am I bid? 

Black  also asks the question: "Can the UK run on 100% renewables with no baseload power. Maybe it could..."

TM

Update: 8.27am corrected  figures typo.

Cooked Motl - Josh 337

Apparently John Cook, of Skeptical Science blog, has been impersonating Lubos Motl, see Lubos blog here, also reported on WUWT and the Air Vent, here and here

Why John Cook thought this was a good idea remains a mystery. But then it has been a strange week with Peter Wadhams convinced there is a conspiracy against him. Are the alarmists getting alarmed?

Cartoons by Josh

Hottest May evah?

Don't miss the splendid temperature anomaly map for May published by Paul Homewood.