Some Passing Observations on Climate, Economic Progress, and Fossil Fuels

From Scientists see stronger evidence of slowing Atlantic Ocean circulation, an ‘Achilles’ heel’ of the climate in the Washington Post. All emphases are mine:

A growing body of evidence suggests that a massive change is underway in the sensitive circulation system of the Atlantic Ocean, a group of scientists said Thursday. The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), a system of currents that includes the Florida Current and the Gulf Stream, is now “in its weakest state in over a millennium,” these experts say.

The enormous flow has been directly measured only since 2004, too short a period to definitively establish a trend, which makes these indirect measures critical for understanding its behavior.

The late climate scientist Wallace S. Broecker wrote in 1997 that the AMOC is the “Achilles’ heel” of the climate system, citing evidence that it has switched on and off repeatedly over the course of Earth’s history, with the power to flip warming periods to intense cold in the Northern Hemisphere.

Scientists do not expect anything so severe in our future, especially because greenhouse gases will continue to cause offsetting warming. 

The current study’s conclusions are, by necessity, only as good as the proxies are. And the complexity of different currents in the Atlantic, as well as different definitions of the AMOC, can call into question what the proxies are actually measuring, said Marilena Oltmanns, an oceanographer at the National Oceanography Center in Britain.

This seems to indicate that, far from causing a “climate crisis” due to global warming, the use of fossil fuels may be saving us from a new ice age, at least in the Northern Hemisphere.

And from Accuweather: Gulf Stream is weakest it's been in more than 1,000 years, study says --

The weakening of the Gulf Stream, formally known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), can be mostly pinned to one catalyst, the researchers said: human-caused climate change.

But, If the Gulf Stream was weaker 1000 years ago, then on what basis is it claimed that human-caused climate change is the "one catalyst" leading to the current weakening of the Gulf stream? 1000 years ago, no one burned fossil fuels. And even if the current weakening can be “pinned” on “human-caused climate change,” so what? Man has been through this before, and survived just fine. How much better off are we today than 1000 years ago? How much better will man be 1000 years after the current bout of weakening of the Gulf Stream?

Climate change discussion is full of people playing fast and loose with their rhetoric. I have noticed many more examples of contradictions in the “climate crisis” model.

Related Reading:

Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All by Michael Shellenberger

False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet by Bjorn Lomborg

Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom by Patrick Moore

Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters by Steven E. Koonin

The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters & Climate Change by Roger Pielke Jr.

New U.N. Study Shows Climate Catastrophists Getting More Open About their Totalitarian Designs

"Market Failure" to Blame for Invasion of the Polar Vortex?

I've responded to a lot of letters pumping catastrophic human-caused climate change and calling for massive government intervention into the economy—and in particular against fossil fuels—as the solution. But the New Jersey Star-Ledger letter Cold Weather Reflects Unstable Climate has got to be read to be believed. Submitted by Joseph Robertson, a volunteer for some outfit called the Citizens Climate Lobby, the letter claims that

Science has clearly shown that excess thermal energy "loads the dice" for added release of climate energy through unusual weather events: We are operating in a climate system unlike any seen throughout the entire history of the human species . . .

I left these comments:

I won't even comment on the nonsense spewed in the first two paragraphs, which rediculously imply that these types of cold waves are something unusual and new. That's covered pretty well below. The last paragraph is my concern:

"We need solutions that will reduce negative human impact on the global climate-energy balance, and stave off devastating climate destabilization. We can do this by correcting the market’s failure to price carbon emitting fuels honestly and transitioning to the more robust, more democratic clean energy economy."

To translate: When someone claims "market failure" in support of some government economic intervention, what they're really saying is, "I don't like the choices others make, so I'm going to impose my choices on them at the point of a gun"—i.e., by law.

The bogus idea that carbon emitting fuels are not priced "honestly" is based on the fallacy that all of the external effects of fossil fuel use are negative. But, what about the vastly greater positives? What about the water purification and delivery systems, waste disposal systems, central heating and air conditioning, illumination, transportation, advanced healthcare and high tech, just to name a few of the modern marvels that support our living standards and life expectancies, the highest and longest in the history of mankind? None of that is possible without reliable, plentiful, economical energy provided primarily by fossil fuels. And if weather extremes really are getting worse—a dubious assumption—how is mankind to protect itself against these extremes without that steady, reliable energy? How will once again placing people at the mercy of nature's hostile forces, as they were before the industrial revolution, an improvement? With the return of such misery, who the hell would care about imperceptibly less "extreme" weather?

"Market Failure" is statists' rationalization for more tyrannical government. The market—the sum of the voluntary contractual choices between countless consumers and producers—is the only honest pricing mechanism for fossil fuels (or any product). Anything involving force is tyranny and immoral.

Climate ideologues fantasize about a "clean energy" bonanza SOMEHOW coming into existence if we only tax and regulate the fossil fuel industry enough, crippling it as environmentalists have the non-carbon emitting nuclear industry. Well, if "clean energy" like wind and solar can carry the load of industrial civilization, and be economically competitive with fossil fuels, let them prove it. Let Robertson and his ilk produce it themselves and offer it up for sale on the free market, without government intervention—and leave the rest of us who love life free to make our own choices. That is not "market failure." That is liberty and respect.

Don't be fooled. The climate ideologues are not concerned with a livable HUMAN environment, which requires reshaping and improving the planet to human benefit through technology. In the name of "science"—the climate authoritarians' tool of statism—the climate ideologues would impose much higher costs on consumers for the reliable, plentiful energy provided by fossil fuels. And that's the best case scenario. At worst, climate ideologues would force a total transition to an alleged "clean energy economy," and thus collapse our healthy, clean, life-serving industrial economy at great cost to human life. Science was once used to justify eugenics, which led to the Nazi horror—and socialism, which led to the communist slaughterhouse. We should not allow another such gang—the climate ideologues—to commandeer science to justify crippling fossil fuel energy production and bring on an even worse human catastrophe.

As an aside, the recent cold wave is not a common, every winter occurrence. But neither is it that unusual. As the New York Daily News reports:

    The polar vortex, referred by NBC weather icon Al Roker as a "Polar Hurricane," is a weather system that is usually seen in Canada, but has moved south.
    "It's not rare at all," AccuWeather senior forecaster John Gresiak told the Daily News on Monday. "It's an upper-level low pressure system which is usually found over or near the polar regions. I would just describe it as a pool of very cold air."
    Every so often, "the action of the jetstream" and other atmospheric factors can force the vortex south. This polar vortex will only last approximately 24 hours, Gresiak said.
    "While most of the time its in northern Canada, once in a while it will drop further south, and thats [sic] what's happening right now," he said.
    Vortexes can occur "every few years to some extent" in the U.S., but the last one south of Canada this extreme took place in 1994, Gresiak said.
    "It was even colder than it is now," he said.

Just to prove how utterly false the claims of Cold Weather Reflects Unstable Climate is, the Associated Press reported that cold waves of 2013-14 magnitude are becoming less prevalent. As AP reports,

    In the past 115 years, there have been 58 days when the national average temperature dropped below 18. Carbin said those occurrences often happen in periods that last several days so it makes more sense to talk about cold outbreaks instead of cold days. There have been 27 distinct cold snaps.
    Between 1970 and 1989, a dozen such events occurred, but there were only two in the 1990s and then none until Monday.
    "These types of events have actually become more infrequent than they were in the past," said [Greg] Carbin, who works at the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. "This is why there was such a big buzz because people have such short memories."

Or just plain dishonest. If anything, the climate is becoming more stable as it warms.

Related Reading:

The Church of Climate Scientology: How Climate Science Became a Religion—Alex Epstein

Markets Don't Fail—Brian P. Simpson

Growing Antarctic Ice Sheet Belies "Melting Polar Caps" Hysteria

Responding to the NJ Star-Ledger's editorial House GOP Bows to Fossil Fuel Bosses, which I posted on here and yesterday, a correspondent noted that "it's cooler than it's been in 20 years," to which another named Kevin sarcastically replied, "Really? Taken a look at the polar ice caps lately?"

The facts about polar ice caps tell a different story, so I posted this:

Have you, Kevin?

"In September of last year, satellite data indicated that Antarctica was surrounded by the greatest area of sea ice ever recorded in the region." [See New Theory for Why Antarctic Sea Ice is Growing—National Geographic, March 23, 2013]

Antarctic ice in growing in size and depth. Why? A warming atmosphere produces more precipitation, which means more snow in colder regions, leading to growing ice sheets. This is a normal balancing pattern that, along with the increased global cloud cover, will eventually reverse the trend and lead to cooling.

Why is arctic ice melting in summer? Because unlike Antarctica, the Arctic is mostly an ocean. Since oceans are warmer than land masses, it only takes minimal warming, such as we've had in the past 150 years, to melt sea ice. That, too, will eventually reverse. In the meanwhile, it's a boon to the global economy: It'll enable fossil fuel companies to exploit the vast quantities of oil that lay beneath the Arctic Ocean.

Related Articles:

Evidence that Demands a Verdict—Joe Bastardi, Accuweather

Erroneous Sea Rise Models—PJ Media

Privatize JPSS

My latest post at The Objective Standard blog opens with:

Although weather forecasters brilliantly predicted Superstorm Sandy’s impact days in advance—thereby saving many lives—in the near future forecasters could see their science take “a significant step back.” 

To find out why--and learn the solution--read Time to Privatize the Weather Satellite Program.

The Heroes That Made Sandy a Predictable "Freak" Storm

I have always been interested in weather. For as far back into my childhood as I could remember, the first thing I'd turn to in the newspaper was the weather map. I actually had a favorite weatherman--Tex Antoine.

So I got particular enjoyment out of writing my latest Objective Standard blog post, The Heroes who Enabled Advance Warning of Sandy. It's about the scientists and inventors behind today's weathermen who gave them the greatly improved means to forecast weather.

As late as the mid-Twentieth Century, AccuWeather's Meghan Evans notes, "there were no weather satellites or radar images to give meteorologists the big picture of weather patterns across the globe."

   Meteorologists painstakingly plotted weather data from widely scattered observation sites and analyzed weather maps by hand.
   It was a labor-intensive process, according to Dr. Charlie Hosler, who first became a meteorologist while in the Navy during World War II. Since then, Hosler worked at Penn State as a professor of meteorology, the head of the meteorology department and the dean of the Earth and Mineral Science College.
   "It was really tough," Hosler said of the early days of meteorology. "You really had to understand the structure of the atmosphere and its dynamics and physics. I had a lot of imagination because you had very few data points. It was like an elephant standing behind a barn and all you can see is its tail and you've never seen an elephant before so you'd have trouble describing the elephant."

And we shouldn't short-change the weathermen who must make judgements based on all of the data modern technology makes available to them today. Steve Politi writes of the chief meteorologist who oversees the New Jersey, Delaware, and Philadelphia region, forecasting storms and their impact on the region:

   "Do I want to do this?"
   Gary Szatkowski had his finger on his mouse — the panic button, essentially, for an entire region — ready to send an emergency briefing about a storm that didn't look like much of a threat in many ways.
   This was Tuesday morning, a full six days before the newly-named Hurricane Sandy touched ground in New Jersey. It was still 300 miles south of Jamaica and drifting south. Most computer models had it moving harmlessly out to sea, and while a few had it curving into the New Jersey coast, no storm in modern history had ever done something like that.
   Still: The potential was too much to ignore. The chief meteorologist at the local National Weather service office in Mount Holly considered what might happen in a worst-case scenario — the wind, the flooding, the historic damage. How could he not put everyone on notice?
   "Our region could be close to the path of a very dangerous storm," he wrote in his briefing on the morning of Oct. 23. "This storm system will bring multiple potential threats to the region."

HERO WEATHERMAN

Gary Szatkowski
Age: 55
Town: Hainesport, Burlington County
Profession: Chief meteorologist at the Mount Holly office of the National Weather Service
Fun fact: Took an interest in weather as a first grader, reading the forecast maps in an afternoon newspaper in Chicago.
Act of heroism: His accurate forecasts, along with his strong warnings and personal pleas to evacuate the coast, likely saved lives.

   He clicked to send it, hoping he had done the right thing. And hoping the storm would prove him wrong.

Sadly, he was dead on.

Related Reading:

NY mostly ignored reports warning of superstorm--AP