+++Climate sensitivity is low+++

Matt Ridley has an article in the Wall Street Journal which is of incalculable importance.

Mr. Lewis tells me that the latest observational estimates of the effect of aerosols (such as sulfurous particles from coal smoke) find that they have much less cooling effect than thought when the last IPCC report was written. The rate at which the ocean is absorbing greenhouse-gas-induced warming is also now known to be fairly modest. In other words, the two excuses used to explain away the slow, mild warming we have actually experienced—culminating in a standstill in which global temperatures are no higher than they were 16 years ago—no longer work.

In short: We can now estimate, based on observations, how sensitive the temperature is to carbon dioxide. We do not need to rely heavily on ­unproven models. Comparing the trend in global temperature over the past 100-150 years with the change in “radiative forcing” (heating or cooling power) from carbon dioxide, aerosols and other sources, minus ocean heat uptake, can now give a good estimate of climate sensitivity.

The conclusion—taking the best observational estimates of the change in decadal-average global temperature between 1871-80 and 2002-11, and of the corresponding changes in forcing and ocean heat uptake—is this: A doubling of CO2 will lead to a warming of 1.6°-1.7°C (2.9°-3.1°F).

Warming at a snail's pace is a small problem, not a big one.

The Wall Street Journal is paywalled, unless you go via Google. Click here and then click on the first entry on the search results.

Curbs on FOI

The government is considering introducing curbs on FOI requests:

Changes to the cost cap on requests could radically cut the proportion of requests under the FOI legislation that are answered.

Other changes would allow officials to add into the cost their “thinking time” when deciding to give answers further limiting the information that would be released.

One proposal would stop reporters from the same media group from making requests that cost more than £450 or £600 in the same three month period.

Previously the cost limit only applied to the actual requests for information, and not to the person asking for the information.

The latter idea in particular is astonishingly daft. The idea that you should effectively incentivise civil servants to think more slowly almost defies belief.

Some of the biggest brains in Whitehall might seize up completely.

Sea level and the diving horses

There's a fascinating article in the Washington Times (H/T Josh) by Willie Soon and Nils-Axel Morner. They tell the story of one Cyril Galvin, who found a problem with his local tide guage figures.

In examining sea-level changes for 100 years or more from stations on the Eastern Seaboard, Mr. Galvin could not find any acceleration in sea-level rise. University of Florida professor Robert Dean and Army Corps of Engineers analyst James Houston have independently reached this same conclusion.

Click to read more ...

Yeo's speech

Tim Yeo has given a speech in London on energy policy (Telegraph coverage here). Here is the text.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, Britain sparked the first industrial revolution.

By harnessing the force of fossil fuels like coal;

Enterprising British engineers were able to deliver astounding innovations in industry and travel;

Creating huge wealth and prosperity as they forged the modern world.

Click to read more ...

28gate in the Express

The GWPF letter to the BBC has been picked up by the Express this morning, with the main points of the letter covered in a fair amount of detail. The BBC look as if they are going to tough it out.

The Corporation said yesterday: “The BBC’s climate change coverage is balanced and impartial despite pressure from all those who would seek to influence the way this story is reported.”

No questioning of any aspect of climate science then.

The roadmap

This is a guest post by Chris Horner.

Information continues to flow in the struggle to bail out the Hockey Team, piecing together the relevant "context" to ClimateGate. This pursuit is of critical importance to he Team, and "the cause", given the solemn vow that this missing context would explain ClimateGate away as something other than "the worst scientific scandal of our generation". Despite this, and the eagerness of certain among the team to claim "exoneration" where sadly none exists, the Team don't seem to want to be helped.

Click to read more ...

A triumph of hope over repeated failure

Anthony posted this startling image from the IPCC's draft report. It shows the forecasts of atmospheric methane concentrations from the earlier assessment reports and how they have turned out against reality.

Forecasting is difficult. Especially of the future.

Read the whole thing.

Auditing the EPA

The story of how EPA administrator Lisa Jackson took the pseudonym Richard Windsor in an attempt to avoid the reach of the FOIA Act is hotting up. News emerged today that Jackson and senior colleagues received this memo from auditors

This memorandum is to notify you that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Inspector General, plans to begin an audit of certain EPA electronic records management practices. This assignment is in response to a congressional request.

Our objective is to determine whether EPA follows applicable laws and regulations when using private and alias email accounts to conduct official business.

On this side of the pond, these kinds of investigations invariably end in "lessons learned" rather than heads rolling. I wonder how they do things stateside?

Guitar groups are on the way out

This were the legendary words with which Decca Records rejected the Beatles after an audition in 1962. I couldn't help thinking of this when I read Nick Grealy's post this morning on the subject of the size of the UK shale gas resource. Reporting on a presentation made by DECC at a conference earlier this year, Grealy reveals that the Bowland shale may actually be dwarfed by some of its neighbours.

In the Bowland Basin, the total Bowland-Hodder unit is interpreted to reach a thickness of up to 1900 m (6300 ft), but the interval may be much thicker within the narrow, fault-bounded Gainsborough, Edale and Widmerpool basins (Figs. 4 & 5; up to 3000 m / 10000 ft, 3500 m / 11500 ft, and 2900 m / 9500 ft respectively). 

Click to read more ...

GWPF calls for new BBC global warming seminar

This just in:

Lord Lawson (Conservative), Lord Donoughue (Labour) and Baroness Nicholson (Liberal Democrat), three Trustees of the all-Party and non-Party Global Warming Policy Foundation, have called upon the BBC’s new Director-General Designate to convene a new high-level seminar in order to re-assess the BBC’s treatment of global warming and climate policy issues.

Over many years, the BBC’s treatment of climate change issues has been marked by bias, ignorance, credulity and – in the latest episode – unwarranted concealment. The behaviour of the Corporation throughout has failed to measure up to professional standards.

Click to read more ...

Global warming the novella

Andy West's sci-fi novella, launched at WUWT, looks fun:

For anyone nervous of SF geekiness, don’t worry it has no ray-guns or spaceships or time-warps; it’s only loosely SF and has plenty of action too. And those self-evolving memeplexes I mentioned are luridly portrayed, one in particular… Please do not baulk at the first use of the word ‘denier’, the context will become clear. Mention of climate change issues appears only slowly, but fear not there is purpose in this and a lot comes later on to stir minds, or for those already asking healthy questions, still an interesting perspective, a glimpse at depths of social realism, and some parts to revel in too.

New Scientist on the AR5 leak

New Scientist covers Alec Rawls' leak of the AR5 draft, and more particularly the resulting focus on the solar influence on climate. The article can be seen here. Now solar is not really my thing, so I'm feeling my way here somewhat, but it seems to me that the New Scientist piece doesn't really address the argument made.

Rawls' case was based around the following statement from Chapter 7.

Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link. We focus here on observed relationships between GCR and aerosol and cloud properties.

Click to read more ...

The calm after the storm

After the leak of the AR5 Second Order Draft, initial attention was directed at the IPCC's partial retreat on the solar influence on climate. However, the focus seems to have shifted overnight to weather extremes, with Pielke Jr tweeting up a storm.

1/2 Draft IPCC Ch2 bottom line on extremes: "generally low confidence that there have been discernable changes over the observed record"

2/2 con't ...on lack of trends in extremes, exceptions are trends seen in temperature extremes and regional precipitation (but not floods)

Click to read more ...

Propaganda Bureau in print

I've made the Propaganda Bureau - my pamphlet about 28gate - available as a bound hard copy for sending to MPs and the like. It can be bought from:

• Amazon UK
• Createspace (US) for US customers (better margin for me)
• Amazon US

AR5 Second Order Draft leaked

A website called Stop Green Suicide has just published the full second order draft of the Fifth Assessment Report. The big news, it seems, is that solar has been given an increased focus as a climate forcing.

Compared to the First Order Draft, the SOD now adds the following sentence, indicated in bold (page 7-43, lines 1-5, emphasis added):

Many empirical relationships have been reported between GCR or cosmogenic isotope archives and some aspects of the climate system (e.g., Bond et al., 2001; Dengel et al., 2009; Ram and Stolz, 1999). The forcing from changes in total solar irradiance alone does not seem to account for these observations, implying the existence of an amplifying mechanism such as the hypothesized GCR-cloud link.

Read the whole thing. If it's unavailable, try Anthony.

[Updated to link to original source of the leak]