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Tuesday, August 16, 2016

GWPF Newsletter: Big Chill: ‘Substantial Cooling’ Predicted Within The Next Few Years








New NASA Survey Finds Antarctica Covered in More Ice Than Previously Thought

In this newsletter:

1) Big Chill: ‘Substantial Cooling’ Predicted Within The Next Few Years
Daily Star, 14 August 2016
 
2) New NASA Survey Finds Antarctica Covered in More Ice Than Previously Thought
Interesting Engineering, 12 August 2016

3) Colder Than Christmas: German August Temperatures Shatter Old Records
No Tricks Zone, 12 August 2016
 
4) Europe Hit With Frigid Weather, Snow In August
Daily Caller, 12 August 2016
 
5) Christopher Booker: The Climate Change Brigade Are Wrong Again
The Sunday Telegraph, 14 August 2016
 
6) And Finally: Two Olympic Gold Medals For Climate Hysteria
Jo Nova, 14 August 2016

Full details:

1) Big Chill: ‘Substantial Cooling’ Predicted Within The Next Few Years
Daily Star, 14 August 2016
Joshua Nevett

Climate boffins believe the UK’s topsy-turvy climate is in for a chilly twist within the next few years as three major forms of climate change trigger “substantial cooling”.
 



Drastic changes in ocean conditions, greenhouse gases and a weakening of the sun threaten increasingly worsening winters of blistering blizzards and severe snowstorms for years to come.

This cocktail of climate threats, paired with “hasty climate policies”, could mean “rolling blackouts” in the UK over the next few years, plunging the country into long period of darkness.

These “worse case scenario” climate threats will hit the elderly hardest, leaving “some pensioners alone in the dark” on a freezing nights resigned to a “lonely death”.
 


An intense La Nina weather front could wreak havoc on the UK’s climate, photo Getty

It is thought these will be brought about for the most part by a massive decrease in solar activity, meaning fewer “sunspots” and solar flares to warm up earth.

Scientists recently warned the sun’s activity is at its lowest for 100 years, meaning earth is experiencing eerily similar conditions to the period when the last mini ice age hit.

This drop in sunspot activity leads to a so-called Maunder Minimum, which is believed to be responsible for the cripplingly cold winters Europe experienced three centuries ago.

The last time Britain entered a Maunder minimum period was in the 1600s, when temperatures sunk so low, London’s river Thames froze over.

Drawing on 400 years of sunspot observations, experts believe we are heading for a similar temperature “minimum”.

However, Grahame Madge, meteorologist for the Met Office, told Daily Star Online although a “grand solar minimum” is expected, it will do little to counteract global warming caused by man-made change.

Another major factor in the predicted cool down could be the switch from an usually strong El Nino to a La Nina weather front in the pacific ocean.

Meteorologist for AccuWeather Tyler Roys told Daily Star Online La Nina could contribute to the chilly mix.

He said that the onset of La Nina – which is associated with cooler temperatures – has a much more drastic effect on weather in the British Isles and could spell a climate cool down.

He said: “Looking at the similarities of 1998 to last years El Nino event, one can assume there could be such a drop off.”

La Nina has more of an effect on the weather for the British Isles than El Nino does.

“A La Nina that is based over the eastern Pacific Ocean tends for favour a cooler and drier then normal weather pattern for much of western Europe.”

The Met Office said the onset of La Nina from 2017 is likely to “buck the trend” in terms of record breaking global temperature averages, predicting a cool down across the globe.

Full story

2) New NASA Survey Finds Antarctica Covered in More Ice Than Previously Thought
Interesting Engineering, 12 August 2016
Trevor English

Antartica is one of the most ice-covered locations in the world, but it is also one of the world’s largest land masses. Previous estimates by researchers placed the level of uncovered land in Antartica at about 1%. However, a new survey in part by NASA shows that this estimate was rather generous and the continent is covered in a lot more ice than previously thought. Researchers from Cryosphere have shown that only .18 percent of the entire continent is not covered by ice and snow, which is surprisingly low. With this new figure, researchers will monitor this survey over time to see the effects of climate change and global warming.
 

mars surface
[Image Source: NASA]

“With effects ranging from influencing ocean currents to raising sea level, Antarctica plays a large role in the global climate system. Researchers are using a variety of methods to understand how Antarctica will react to a changing climate, but limited information on ice thickness and what lies beneath the ice makes this work challenging.” ~ NASA

This new research has been put off for a while, and it may surprise you that this is the first time we have had an accurate representation of Antartica’s land mass. Automated techniques were used in the new study to allow seamless data collection as well as the automatic removal of clouds over the continent to make the snow and ice readings more accurate. The NASA and US Geological Survey satellite was used for the new study, which corrected previous ice and snow calculations in comparison to land mass.

Full post

3) Colder Than Christmas: German August Temperatures Shatter Old Records
No Tricks Zone, 12 August 2016
P. Gosselin

A blast of polar air swept across central Europe from Wednesday through Thursday, sending temperatures tumbling to record low levels for mid August in parts of Germany.




Yesterday many locations saw new all-time mid August records set for the lowest “high” recorded, with many places failing to reach 15°C. Meteorologists called the cold for this time of year “unusual”.

Frost at the peak of summer!

German meteorologist Domink Jung wrote here yesterday that a number of German stations recorded surface frost, “and that in the middle of peak summer” and that “it was colder than Christmas day 2015”.

What follows are some early morning recordings measured at 2 meters above ground surface:

Bad Berleburg: 0°C
Carlsfeld: +1°C
Nürnberg: +2°C

Early morning readings a some locations at 5 cm above the ground surface:
Carlsfeld: -1°C
Braunlange: 0°C
Neuhaus am Rennweg: 0°C
Feuchtwangen: +1°C

Mid August has never seen such cold

Also Swiss meteorologist Jörg Kachelmann at his site writes of “new records: At these locations in mid August it has never been as cold as it is today!”

Full post

4) Europe Hit With Frigid Weather, Snow In August
Daily Caller, 12 August 2016
Michael Bastasch

Northern Europe was hit with some weird August weather in the past week, as summer snows fell in Sweden and a city in Saxony experienced its coldest temperature on record.

Åre, Sweden was hit with summer snow Thursday, and while temperatures across Sweden are expected to stay between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit, ski resort owners were thrilled to see the snow.

“Of course not everyone thinks, as we do, that snow in August smells like longing for winter and skiing. We love the winter even in summer,” Marie Lithén, who owns restaurant Bistrologiskt, told The Local.

Lithén’s colleague Anton filmed snow coming down at their mountaintop restaurant and posted it to Facebook Thursday. By Friday afternoon, the video was seen by more than 303,000 people.

That’s not the only wacky weather to hit Sweden this week. The Local also reported residents of Ljungskile on the country’s west coast experienced the coldest day the area has seen in more than 100 years. Temperatures were below 47 degrees Fahrenheit Wednesday.

“It does feel a bit strange to have to wear your fiber coat when you go outside,” Stig Magnusson, a local weather aficionado, told a local newspaper.

Down in Germany, the city of Carlsfeld was also hit by record low temperatures.

Full story

5) Christopher Booker: The Climate Change Brigade Are Wrong Again
The Sunday Telegraph, 14 August 2016

Only when the Climate Change Act is repealed will we get an end to such childish absurdities.
 

image
Source: Met Office

A few weeks of not abnormally warm summer weather have prompted light-headed journalists to report not only that this could be the “hottest August for years” and “the hottest year on record” but that, thanks to climate change, we can, within 30 years, expect “killer heatwaves” to become “the norm”. This claim was taken from the latest report by that curious body the Committee on Climate Change, which, under the Climate Change Act, has more influence than anyone else on Britain’s energy policy.

This report on the risks posed to the UK by climate change was produced by a special sub-committee chaired by the zoologist Lord Krebs, and made up of a solicitor, a doctor, an engineer, an economist and the former chief executive of the RSPB. None has any expertise in climate science. So their familiar predictions about Britain’s future climate – more floods, extreme weather events, rising sea levels, etc – were simply parroted from elsewhere. Particularly interesting was their claim that “the number of hot days per year has been increasing since the 1960s” and that “heatwaves like that experienced in 2003 will become the norm by the 2040s”. This was taken directly from a particularly excitable report published by the Met Office back in 2004, which described that exceptional European heatwave in 2003 as having probably been the hottest since at least 1500, with a claim that by the 2040s, “half of Europe’s summers are likely to be warmer” while “by the 2060s a 2003-type summer would be unusually cool”.

We have not since then seen anything remotely to equal that 2003 heatwave, which meteorologists at the time explained was entirely natural, resulting from a freakish mass of hot air blown up from the Sahara. But the claim that hot days in Britain have been increasing since the Sixties has been subjected to expert analysis by Paul Homewood on his website, Not A Lot Of People Know That.

Using the Met Office’s own records, he meticulously plotted the days, months and years of greatest heat since the relevant data sets began in 1910. By far the hottest summer was the drought year of 1976, followed by 1911, with 1933 and 1947 not far behind. It is true that the hottest day on record was in August 2003, and that two of the 10 hottest summers were in 2003 and 2006. But what most strongly emerges from these graphs is how remarkably stable the overall trend of our summer heat has been, right back to before the First World War. Easily the summer with the greatest number of days above 29C was 1976. So when the Krebs committee claims that “the number of hot days has been increasing since the 1960s”, as Homewood points out, this may be true.

But it would be equally true to say that since the Seventies, their number has declined. And when Krebs tells us that future temperatures could reach 48C, such nonsense belongs in a comic strip, not in a supposedly serious study. To claim that temperatures like those of 2003 “are expected to become the norm” by the 2040s, is simply selling us snake oil. The only thing which should really concern us about such nonsense is that the Government is legally bound to treat these solemn pronouncements by a bunch of non-climate experts as a guide to Britain’s future energy policy.

Full post

see also — GWPF Climate Briefing: ‘The CCC’s new climate risks report

6) And Finally: Two Olympic Gold Medals For Climate Hysteria
Jo Nova, 14 August 2016

In 2009, in the run-up to the Copenhagen Climate Conference: The 2016 Rio Games predicted to be the last


Global warming could make 2016 Games ‘the last Olympics in the history of mankind’, says Tokyo governor.

“Global warming is getting worse. We have to come up with measures without which Olympic Games could not last long.”

“Scientists have said we have passed the point of no return,” said Ishihara.

August 2016: The 2080 Games predicted to be the last

Move that disaster by 60 years:

“A sobering new study shows that by the 2084 Olympics, rising temperatures will make it practically impossible for most cities to host the summer games.”



How will the Olympics cope with a 1.5C rise?

Answer, easily. Assuming the world warms, the IOC could shift games a whole 400km from Rio, where the average max is 28C in August to  Sao Paulo where it’s 3 degrees cooler. Or they could shift the timing by all of eight weeks. If Moscow held the Olympics in September instead of July the event could survive an apocalyptic nine degree future rise. (Moscow in July has a 24C average max temperature, by September that has fallen to 15C average.)

Full post 

The London-based Global Warming Policy Forum is a world leading think tank on global warming policy issues. The GWPF newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.thegwpf.com.

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