"Leading fund managers could be breaking the law if they refuse to take into account the threats posed by climate change"

Fund managers who ignore climate risk breaching 'fiduciary duty': "Leading fund managers could be breaking the law if they refuse to take into account the threats posed by climate change, a leading UN official said yesterday."

NCDC: Contiguous US average temperature plummeted 2.9F in 2013

NCDC 2012 Overview:

In 2012, the contiguous United States (CONUS) average annual temperature of 55.3°F

NCDC 2013 Overview:

In 2013, the contiguous United States (CONUS) average temperature of 52.4°F

Deval’s getting warmed up with another way to soak us | Boston Herald

Deval’s getting warmed up with another way to soak us | Boston Herald: "So the way it works now is, if it’s hot, it’s climate catastrophe. If it’s cold, it’s climate catastrophe. If it rains a lot, or if it’s not raining — well, you get the picture.

Why do you think the same moonbats pushing climate catastrophe also want to legalize pot? It’s a lot easier to put this three-card monte game over on couch potatoes who are so stoned they can’t remember what happened 10 minutes ago."

‘Climate Change’: Unpacking a Political Term (looking through the looking glass) — MasterResource

‘Climate Change’: Unpacking a Political Term (looking through the looking glass) — MasterResource: "“Climate Change. A term, which attempts to take the natural weather pattern and attribute it to the activities of humans. Heavily adopted recently for use to promote cave living, the idea that humans are a noxious virus on planet Earth, and the practice of greater separation between the rich and the poor. I know the weather pattern is natural and everything we’re experiencing now has been experienced before, but I still feel all warm, fuzzy knowing that electricity companies are responsible for Climate Change and are being taxed accordingly because of it.”"

EU retreats on global warming while US pushes ahead | The Daily Caller

EU retreats on global warming while US pushes ahead | The Daily Caller: "“It is becoming obvious that Europe’s unilateral climate policy, the whole green agenda of the last 20 years, has turned into an unmitigated fiasco,” Dr. Benny Peiser, director of the UK-based Global Warming Policy Foundation, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Even EU leaders are beginning to accept reality.”"

The scientific abomination that is the “Circumpolar Monitoring Framework for Polar Bears” | polarbearscience

The scientific abomination that is the “Circumpolar Monitoring Framework for Polar Bears” | polarbearscience: "In short, Arctic government representatives at the Moscow forum agreed that all future polar bear research should be constrained by the premise that increases in global temperatures over the next century will occur exactly as predicted by climate models and will negatively affect polar bears precisely as predicted by models devised by polar bear biologists. Under the plan, subpopulations that are already showing predicted effects of global warming will get the bulk of research funds, while regions that are paradoxically not responding as predicted will get much less money for research and survey efforts. "

MoveOn Recruits "FrackingFighters" to Combat Climate Change

MoveOn Recruits "FrackingFighters" to Combat Climate Change - The Green Optimistic: "FrackingFighters receive a $500 grant to use for a campaign, a toolkit of materials like banners and clipboards, and training from experienced organizers."

So how do you get a temperature record from a place where there is no temperature record? Easy. You make it up!

GREENIE WATCH: "I was particularly fascinated by their claim:  "The 15-year 'pause' myth? Completely debunked".  Since even many prominent Warmists accept the pause as fact this is a good example of Nuccitelli refusing to retreat an inch from Warmism.  No contrary evidence or argument can move him.  He is the perfect dogmatist.

But what is the basis of his dogmatism in this instance?  I followed back his links and his basis for rejecting the pause is a paper by Cowtan & Way which said that the orthodox HADCRUT record was erroneous because it left out the temperature record in areas where there was no temperature record  -- such as parts of the Arctic and Antarctic.

So how do you get a temperature record from a place where there is no temperature record?  Easy.  You make it up!  They used a statistical estimation technique called "kriging" to produce the missing figures but in the end it's all just a guesstimate.  And that the missing areas all showed lots of Warming is just a coincidence of course!  Since nobody doubts that the vast Antarctic has been cooling overall the kriging has obviously not captured the facts."

Ugh -- Krugman Bringing Climate-Style Argument by Marginalization to Economics | Coyote Blog

Ugh -- Krugman Bringing Climate-Style Argument by Marginalization to Economics | Coyote Blog: "Climate alarmists have mastered the trick of portraying opposition to their theories as not just being wrong, but being anti-science.  For years many scientists who have not looked into climate science at all have reflexively signed petitions supporting the alarmists, in the belief they were supporting science against anti-science. (By the way, time and again when these physicists and Earth scientists have actually later looked at the quality of climate science work, they have been astounded at the really poor quality garbage they were implicitly supporting -- I know, I am in that camp myself)."

If Chris Turney’s warmists had stayed on their ship they wouldn’t still be at sea | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog

If Chris Turney’s warmists had stayed on their ship they wouldn’t still be at sea | Herald Sun Andrew Bolt Blog: "You see, Turney and the other 51 passengers were rescued at enormous expense from the then ice-bound Shokalskiy and transferred to the Aurora Australis nearly two weeks ago. Their new ship still had other duties to perform for more serious Antarctic researchers, so Turney and his fellow warmists are stuck on board for at least another week before the Aurrora Australis returns to Tasmania.

Here is the new irony - to follow the one about see warmists being trapped by ice they still claim is melting away. It is that Turney and his team would be back on shore already had they not asked for “rescue” by the Australian icebreaker."

The Trouble with Experts

I enjoyed watching this 43-min documentary.  Wine experts couldn't tell red wine from white wine dyed red.

The Trouble with Experts - Watch Free Documentary Online: "Does having expertise actually mean you make better decisions than regular people? Or are they just part of a new cult of expertise, an ever-growing expert industry that's become our latest new religion?"

Ship of Fools in the Antarctic | RealClearPolitics

Ship of Fools in the Antarctic | RealClearPolitics: "It was warmer in medieval times, a Swedish study in December confirmed. The Medieval Warm Period (950-1250 AD) and the Roman Warm Period (250 BC-400 AD) were happy times for humanity. The big chill reminds us it’s cold that kills.

Temperatures fluctuate. They’ve been higher than the 30-year average in 17 years since 1979, lower in 19. But the planet isn’t warming appreciably. Soon we may wish it were. Periods between ice ages have lasted about 11,000 years, on average. Our “interglacial” began 11,000 years ago."

Global warming winner? Brant on North Slope thriving amid changes | Alaska Dispatch

Global warming winner? Brant on North Slope thriving amid changes | Alaska Dispatch: "One possible byproduct of the new goose bounty: another food source for bears. Brown bears have been spotted feeding on goose eggs along the North Slope coastline, Flint said. Meanwhile, there has been some speculation about goose eggs becoming a dietary staple for threatened polar bears.

Polar bears in Canada’s Hudson Bay region have been filmed eating eggs from snow goose nests, and one 2010 study concluded that polar bears in that region could continue to eat the eggs without significantly harming the birds’ population because the egg incubation periods and ice-free periods when bears are on land are somewhat mismatched."

1967 : Scientific American Reported 4 Degrees UHI In DC | Real Science

1967 : Scientific American Reported 4 Degrees UHI In DC | Real Science: "UHI causes temperatures to rise as suburban sprawl spreads. NOAA and NASA have responded by making massive adjustments in the wrong direction.
...
Sometimes when you are a government scientist saving the planet, you just have to commit massive scientific fraud."

1914-1915 Australian Drought Led To Complete Crop Failure | Real Science

1914-1915 Australian Drought Led To Complete Crop Failure | Real Science: "complete crop failure in some districts, and easily the lowest Western Australian wheat yield of the century."

It’s Really, Really Cold. It Must Be Global Warming | The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)

It’s Really, Really Cold. It Must Be Global Warming | The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF): "Between the record low temperatures and the need to rescue researchers whose ship was trapped in a thicker-than-expected Antarctic ice field, the past few weeks have tested the faith of even the most devout global-warming disciples. Their orthodoxy seems to have survived. The same cannot be said for their credibility."

DIDN’T OUR MEDIA TELL US THAT SNOW WAS A THING OF THE PAST?

DIDN’T OUR MEDIA TELL US THAT SNOW WAS A THING OF THE PAST?: "Al Gore repeatedly said, in print, “the Arctic will be ice free by 2013”. Gore made this claim in print in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009.
And it didn’t happen. In fact the Arctic ice cap’s surface area increased by more than 25% in 2012-2013. The much-larger Antarctic ice cap also increased, by about 5% using NASA data. NASA, which is a fully warmist institution peddling the “CO2 hypothesis”, has been forced to admit the Antarctic ice sheet is now at its largest since it started regular satellite monitoring in 1979."

Links

Researchers Alarmed at Rise in German Brown Coal Power Output - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Germany plans to wean itself off CO2-belching coal-fired power stations. But new figures show that coal power output in 2013 reached its highest level in more than 20 years. Researchers blame cheap CO2 emissions permits, and demand urgent reforms.

A reality check on the Northwest Passage 'boom' - The Globe and Mail

The geography and wind currents also mean the passage remains ice covered far longer than other parts of the Arctic.

Sun Editorial: Blast Of Hot Air | The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)

The Met Office says: “There is currently no evidence that links our current storms to climate change.”

Links

Articles: It's Colder? Hotter? Blame Climate Change

Any propagandist worth his salt will tell you: if the old narrative fails, create a new one.

Time Mag's Climate Deception — The Patriot Post

Here's what Time magazine had to say about the now infamous “polar vortex” during the great ice age scare in June 1974: “Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. For one thing there has been a noticeable expansion of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds – the so-called circumpolar vortex – that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world.” Four decades later, they're using the same argument as evidence of global warming. On Monday Time claimed, “[I]t may well be that global warming could be making the occasional bout of extreme cold weather in the U.S. even more likely. Right now much of the U.S. is in the grip of a polar vortex, which is pretty much what it sounds like: a whirlwind of extremely cold, extremely dense air that forms near the poles.” Whatever fits the narrative.

“Clean Energy Economy in Three Charts:” U.S. DOE Misleads Again — MasterResource

“Cost, even if it were accurately calculated, is much different than true ’value’, especially in the case of the intermittent, unreliable electricity from wind. This elementary fact cannot be unknown to energy specialists at the U.S. Department of Energy, or their political leaders. The fact that DOE issued such misleading material is sad. The fact that it is done at taxpayer expense is despicable.”

Record Detroit snowfall - Times three

Record lows follow record snows.

Links

Extreme cold causes numerous water problems around northeast Ohio, freezing Lake Erie - Story

Freezing on Lake Erie caused valves to close, blocking water intake for communities connected to Avon Lake's water system: Medina, Avon, Avon Lake, Sheffield, Sheffield Lake, North Ridgeville, and parts of rural Lorain County.

Can you isolate a volcanic temperature signal in the temperature data? | Hypothesis Testing

The answer appears to be yes, with difficulty.

Links

A slow and bumpy climb | Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis

the most notable aspect of 2013 was the much higher September ice extent relative to the record low for 2012

Video: CEI’s Chris Horner Debates Cause of Big Chill on Hannity

My colleague Chris Horner appeared on Fox News’s Hannity last night to discuss the cause of the big chill that’s gripped much of the nation.

Balog discusses climate change in lecture | The Daily

He also believes glacial melting negatively impacts agriculture on a global scale.

Icecap: cooling will accelerate as the Atlantic joins the Pacific and as the German and Russian scientists predict, the sun continues its dive into a Maunder or at least Dalton like Minimum

Icecap Note: The United States has cooled for what will be 18 years this winter. Every one of the 9 climate regions has a downtrend. We have broken all snow records. See the story on how this decade is already the snowiest ever for high impact east coast snows. The cooling will accelerate as the Atlantic joins the Pacific and as the German and Russian scientists predict, the sun continues its dive into a Maunder or at least Dalton like Minimum. This cooling is related entirely to the cooling Pacific and occurring despite the fact we have not had major volcanic activity since Pinatubo in 1991.As the other dominos fall and if a major volcano occurs, the cold we saw this past week will be commonplace and even more severe. The government’s energy policy threatens to create great pain as we found in the EU where the renewable energy push has ben much greater and energy prices skyrocketed. They have had more severe winters the past 5 years with many pushed into energy poverty and a heavy death toll. The elderly living on a fixed budget and the poor will suffer the most.  Seth, you and Jeff Masters, Andrew Dessler, Katharine Hayhoe and Jennifer Francis can take the blame when that happens.

Links

David Gelernter: The Closing Of The Scientific Mind | The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)

That science should face crises in the early 21st century is inevitable. Power corrupts, and science today is the Catholic Church around the start of the 16th century: used to having its own way and dealing with heretics by excommunication, not argument.

1999 Version Of GISS Global Temperatures Showed That All Global Warming Occurred After 1977 PDO Shift | Real Science

The 1999 version of GISS global station data, showed that there was no long term warming prior to the 1977 PDO shift, and that all global warming occurred between 1976 and 1998.

- Bishop Hill blog - There must be some misunderstanding

Today, the Sunday Times (£) carries a long opinion piece from Adam Boulton on the rise of the sceptics within the Conservative party.

- Bishop Hill blog - Fish's water

With UK climatologists now generally on their best behaviour on the subject of a possible link between extreme weather and global warming, Channel Four news seems to have struggled to find someone credible to push the green line. They seem eventually to have persuaded the weather forecaster Michael Fish to give the sermon and you can see the results below. The line taken by the great man was, in essence, that although all the science has been unable to identify a link (unsurprising since there appears to be no actual evidence of adverse changes in weather extremes to explain), he could feel the causation in his water.

Links

THE HOCKEY SCHTICK: Fossil Fuels to the Rescue in Antarctica

Thanks to modern technology, those stranded researchers didn't meet a fate that has befallen others.

Snow Trolling by Drudge? Or Journalistic Equal Time? « Roy Spencer, PhD

Clearly, interest in weather has been going up; interest in climate has been going down. I wonder why?

If heat waves and droughts really were getting worse, wouldn’t internet search traffic on climate issues be going up? Hmmm? Or was the climate change issue oversold, and now climate fatigue has set in?

Who is behind the ship of fools? » Spectator Blogs

Another question that needs to be asked about Turney’s expedition is how come the only journalists aboard are from the Guardian, which has sent two reporters, the BBC and Radio New Zealand – all eager mouthpieces of the global warming lobby. I would be fascinated to know if anyone else was invited.

The timing of the publication of a paper by Turney’s current employer, the University of New South Wales, is also fascinating. That appeared in Nature on 1 January, claiming that current climate models under-estimate the level of warming, which could reach 4C by 2100.

Links

Power station on fire in Newfoundland caused by cold weather - 190,000 customers lose power

The province had already been grappling with rolling blackouts implemented Thursday evening by the utility as it tried to cope with increased demand because of bitterly cold temperatures. The utility said the rotating outages would continue overnight Saturday and into Sunday.

THE HOCKEY SCHTICK: UK Climate Commission submission: IPCC AR5 Report 'definitely weakens the case for action' on climate

A submission to the UK Energy and Climate Change Committee inquiry into the IPCC AR5 Report points out how the IPCC has deliberately obscured recent evidence that the climate is significantly less sensitive to CO2 than previously claimed, and how the IPCC models significantly exaggerate warming from CO2.

Ice and Cold: Global Warming Believers are Today's Climate Deniers

Who is anti-science now?