GWPF Newsletter: Antarctic Sea Ice Growth Due To Fewer Clouds, Chinese Scientists Find

Trump Administration Might “Re-Examine” Climate Modeling

In this newsletter:

1) Antarctic Sea Ice Growth Due To Fewer Clouds, Chinese Scientists Find
Xinhua News Agency, 26 April 2019
 
2) Trump Administration Might “Re-Examine” Climate Modeling
Scientific American, 10 May 2019 

 
3) The Little Ice Age: Unexplained Climate Change
Marcia Wendorf, Interesting Engineering, 15 May 2019 

4) Germany To Miss 2030 Climate Goal By Wide Margin Without Action Across Economy
Clean Energy Wire, 16 May 2019 
 
5) Taxpayers Face €150 Million Bill As Ireland Fails To Meet 2020 Climate Target
Irish Mirror, 15 May 2019  
 
6) Alberta Premier Jason Kenney Says Provincial Carbon Tax Will Die May 30
National Post, 14 May 2019

7) Electric Car Sales Stall After UK Govt Cuts Subsidies
The Times, 13 May 2019
 
8) Green Mega Flop: Tesla’s Solar Business Approaches Terminal Decline
Seeking Alpha, 6 May 2019 
 
9) And Finally: Brazil Cancels Another UN Climate Change Event
Fox News, 15 May 2019 

Full details:

1) Antarctic Sea Ice Growth Due To Fewer Clouds, Chinese Scientists Find
Xinhua News Agency, 26 April 2019

BEIJING, April 26 (Xinhua) — Researchers have discovered that lower cloud coverage in the Antarctic can promote sea ice growth.

Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center 
 
Unlike the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice in the warming climate, Antarctic sea ice witnessed a modest extension over the past four decades, according to the paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres.
 
The researchers from China and the United States found that Antarctic sea ice had a strong rebound from 2011 to 2012.
 
“We quantified the effects on sea ice growth via a thermodynamic model based on reanalysis and satellite data and concluded that lower cloud coverage cooled the sea surface and accelerated the sea ice storage,” said Wang Yunhe, a researcher from the Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
 
“Clouds are like a down jacket for the Antarctic to preserve heat during winter,” said Bi Haibo, a researcher from the institute. “Fewer clouds mean more heat is lost from the ocean.”
 
Rapid temperature decline and thicker sea ice in the Antarctic during the winter in 2011 was mainly due to fewer clouds, he said.
 
Full story
 
2) Trump Administration Might “Re-Examine” Climate Modeling
Scientific American, 10 May 2019
 
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler used an overseas gathering of environment ministers this week to hint that the United States might overhaul the way it uses climate data and modelling. 

 

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler delivers a speech at the G7 Environment Meeting in Metz, France, on May 6, 2019. Credit: Jean-Christophe Verhaegen Getty Images

Five days after his assertion was included in an official document from the Group of Seven meeting in Metz, France, it remains unclear if Wheeler revealed a potential policy to reexamine climate modeling.

It’s become common for the United States to have its own climate and energy paragraph in multilateral statements, and on Monday, Wheeler broke away from the six other nations on issues like the Paris Agreement, providing support for poor and climate-affected countries, and overseas investments in fossil fuels.

That much was normal. It’s happened ever since President Trump took office in January 2017.

But Wheeler added something new that’s raising concern among some environmentalists that the United States might be formally questioning climate science inside federal agencies.

“The United States reaffirms its commitment to re-examine comprehensive modeling that best reflects the actual state of climate science in order to inform its policy-making decisions, including comparing actual monitored climate data against the modeled climate trajectories on an on-going basis,” says the U.S. portion of the communiqué.

Greens who follow the G-7 process were dismayed. […]

Meyer and others suggested that Wheeler might be referring to plans within the White House to convene a task force within the National Security Council to undermine the scientific underpinnings of the National Climate Assessment. But that proposal—to be spearheaded by William Happer, a senior director on the National Security Council—has yet to be accepted by Trump. NSC didn’t respond to inquiries (Climatewire, Feb. 21).

Myron Ebell, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said a White House meeting last week to brief the president on the Happer proposal “went well.” But he said the concept remains controversial among some senior officials.

“The president is enthusiastic about setting up the Happer commission,” said Ebell, who oversaw the EPA transition team before Trump’s inauguration. But he noted that Wheeler would have been unlikely to reference a program that Trump has yet to bless at an international forum.

Full post

3) The Little Ice Age: Unexplained Climate Change
Marcia Wendorf, Interesting Engineering, 15 May 2019

Between 1300 and 1850, the Earth experienced a Little Ice Age whose cause to this day is not known.



During the period 950 CE to 1250 CE, the earth experienced an unusually warm period, which became known as the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) or the Medieval Climatic Anomaly. At their height, temperatures during that period were similar to those experienced during earth’s mid-20th-century warming period.

Following the Medieval Warm Period came a period of intense cold, which has become known as the Little Ice Age (LIA). The term “Little Ice Age” was coined by Dutch-born American geologist F.E. Matthes in 1939. The LIA began around 1300 CE and lasted until about 1850 CE.

Within that stretch, NASA’s Earth Observatory has described three particularly cold periods: one around 1650, a second around 1770, and the third around 1850.

LIA’s Worldwide Effects

Ice cores, cores of lake sediment and coral, and annual growth rings in trees showed that Greenland, Scandinavia, the British Isles, Europe, and North America all experienced cold, with temperatures dropping 1 to 2 °C (1.8 to 3.6 °F) below the average for 1000 to 2000 CE.

During the LIA, mountain glaciers expanded in the European Alps, New Zealand, Alaska, and the southern Andes. In Switzerland and France, the advance of alpine glaciers wiped out farms and villages. Cold winters and cool, wet summers caused crops to fail, and this leads to famines in much of northern and central Europe.

To the west, sea ice expanded around Iceland, cutting off its harbors and access to imported food. Iceland’s population fell by half. Icelandic sea ice went from zero average coverage before the year 1200, to eight weeks during the 13th century, and to 40 weeks during the 19th century.

In Greenland, the Norse colonies that had made it their home starved, and they vanished by the early 15th century. Greenland was almost completely cut off from the rest of the world by ice between 1410 and 1720. To the south, Lisbon, Portugal received frequent snowstorms.

In North America, between 1250 and 1500, Native American tribes experienced crop failures and began to decline. During the same period in Japan, the mean winter temperature dropped 3.5 °C (6.3 °F), glaciers advanced, and summers were marked by excessive rain and bad harvests.

In the Southern Hemisphere, glaciers advanced in Patagonia and New Zealand.

Causes

The causes of the LIA are still not known, while potential candidates are reduced solar output, changes in atmospheric circulation, and volcanism....

Full post

4) Oh Dear: Germany To Miss 2030 Climate Goal By Wide Margin Without Action Across Economy
Clean Energy Wire, 16 May 2019 

Germany will miss its greenhouse gas reduction targets for 2030 in all economic sectors, if no additional climate action measures are taken, according to a report on Germany’s emissions projections for the years until 2035, commissioned by the federal government.

The projections take into account all climate measures decided by summer 2018. Therefore, it does not include a commission proposal to gradually phase out coal by 2038 at the very latest. The grand coalition’s goal to expand renewables to cover 65 percent of electricity consumption in 2030, and additional renewables auctions are also not included, as a relevant law had not yet been passed at that time.

Germany will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 33 percent by 2020, falling short of the national target of 40 percent, according to the report. Ten years later, international and European agreements require the government to bring down emissions by at least 55 percent below 1990 levels. But the data indicates Germany is on track to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by only 42 percent.

Full post

5) Taxpayers Face €150 Million Bill As Ireland Fails To Meet 2020 Climate Target
Irish Mirror, 15 May 2019 

Bottom of Form
The Government’s failure to meet its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions targets will cost the taxpayer up to €150 million, it has been revealed.

The disclosure has led to the Sinn Fein accusing Fine Gael of persisting with failed policies which have led to the huge payments for carbon credits.

The minister responsible for climate action and the environment, Richard Bruton confirmed that the likely to cost the State to buy carbon credits will be up to €150 million.

Had this country met its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions targets this cash could have been used for the health service or for housing.

Sinn Fein’s environment spokesman Brian Stanley accused Fine Gael of burning taxpayers.

Full story

6) Alberta Premier Jason Kenney Says Provincial Carbon Tax Will Die May 30
National Post, 14 May 2019

EDMONTON — Premier Jason Kenney says Alberta’s carbon tax has about two weeks to live.



Kenney says the Carbon Tax Repeal Act is to be introduced during next week’s legislature sitting and will have a proviso to end the tax by the end of the month.

“By May 30th there will no longer be an Alberta carbon tax,” Kenney said Monday at a news conference outlining some of the legislation coming from his new United Conservative government.

An end to the tax brought in by the former NDP government will put an estimated $1.4 billion a year back in the pockets of taxpayers, he said.

The levy is charged on home heating using fossil fuels and on gasoline at the pumps.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was in Edmonton last Friday, wouldn’t say if his government would immediately charge the federal tax if Alberta ditched its own, but stressed that no province will be exempt.

Full post

7) Electric Car Sales Stall After UK Govt Cuts Subsidies
The Times, 13 May 2019

Drivers in European countries bought twice as many electric cars as their British counterparts last year as the government significantly reduced grants for green vehicles.

Sales of cars powered solely by battery were more than twice as high in France and Germany, adding to concerns over “sluggish” demand in the UK and questions over how the government will reach its targets for phasing out new petrol and diesel cars.

Norway sold three times as many electric cars as Britain while the Netherlands had sales that were 70 per cent higher, even though both countries have much smaller populations.

A report by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (EAMA) also showed that the rise in sales recorded in the UK last year was smaller than for any European country apart from Switzerland. The increase — 13.8 per cent year on year — was about a quarter of the European average.

Last autumn the government made the controversial decision to cut the grant for buyers of new ecofriendly cars, making them more expensive. The grant for pure electric cars was reduced from £4,500 to £3,500 and incentives for plug-in hybrids, which run on a combination of battery power and combustion engines, were abolished.

Electric cars cost up to £10,000 more than their petrol or diesel equivalents and the government has acknowledged that the gulf in price is unlikely to close until the mid-2020s at the earliest.

Full story

8) Green Mega Flop: Tesla’s Solar Business Approaches Terminal Decline
Seeking Alpha, 6 May 2019 

In recent months the pattern of gradual decline in Tesla’s solar deployments gave way to an outright collapse.

Source: Tesla, @TeslaCharts

Elon Musk once contended that Tesla’s (TSLA) energy generation and storage business might one day dwarf its automotive manufacturing business. That prospect has proven increasingly fanciful with each passing quarter.

We have tracked the declining fortunes of Tesla’s solar energy generation division for some time. The company’s Q1 earnings report shows that, despite Musk’s repeated promises of an imminent ramp-up, the solar energy division has only continued to deteriorate.

By and large, investor attention focuses almost exclusively on Tesla’s electric vehicle business. Yet, the slow collapse of the solar division could have serious consequences for the company’s finances and its growth narrative.

Full post

9) And Finally: Brazil Cancels Another UN Climate Change Event
Fox News, 15 May 2019 

RIO DE JANEIRO – After backing out of hosting the 2019 U.N. climate summit, Brazil is now canceling a United Nations climate change event that was to be held in August in the city of Salvador.

Salvador's sustainability secretary says the Environment Ministry told him it didn't want to host the regional climate workshop.

The Environment Ministry says the event was conceived by a previous government as a part of the U.N.'s COP25 conference, which Brazil pulled out of hosting late last year, citing budget reasons.

The decision announced Tuesday is the latest blow to climate change consensus by the government of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

Full story 

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.