Here we go again...

From the BBC:

A mortgage guarantee scheme to help people with small deposits get on the property ladder is set to be announced at next week's Budget. The government will offer incentives to lenders, bringing back 95% mortgages which have "virtually disappeared" during the pandemic, the Treasury says.

An extension to the Stamp Duty Land Tax "holiday" is also on the cards.
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From The Daily Mail:

Biden bombs Syria border crossing and 'kills 22' Iran-backed militia fighters in retaliation to rocket attacks that injured American troops and killed a contractor in Iraq.

The poor sods will be looking back fondly at the Trump years.
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And for a bit of light relief, a "global warming causes cooling" story from The Guardian:

Rahmstorf said: “We risk triggering [a tipping point] in this century, and the [Gulf Stream] would spin down within the next century. It is extremely unlikely that we have already triggered it, but if we do not stop global warming, it is increasingly likely that we will trigger it.”

Research in 2018 also showed a weakening of the AMOC, but the paper in Nature Geoscience says this was unprecedented over the last millennium, a clear indication that human actions are to blame. Scientists have previously said a weakening of the Gulf Stream could cause freezing winters in western Europe and unprecedented changes across the Atlantic.

Little Ice Age never happened - shock.

From here:

Global mean warming [has] reached 1°C above preindustrial for the first time.

It is a signal from the climate system that time is running out if we are to be able to reduce emissions fast enough so as to hold warming below 2°C, and ultimately below 1.5°C by 2100.

This is illustrated with the following chart:


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According to that chart, the Mediaeval Warm Period was barely a blip, and the Little Ice Age was only 0.3C cooler than the MWP.

That's is not how everybody else remembers it, is it?

From here:

Little Ice Age'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.

Follow up question, do the Warmenists have an explanation for why it was so warm between six and ten thousand years ago? No, thought not.

Global Cooling vs Global Warming

As anybody interested in history knows, periods of global cooling, even by a degree on average, lead to food shortages, spread of disease and 'social unrest'. There's no recorded instance of global warming leading to anything bad - those have been times of recovery, expansion and discovery. The people in Doggerland just waded ashore and did the same thing somewhere else.

As anybody interested in pre-history knows, for the last million years or so, planet earth has been in Ice Ages most of the time, interspersed with brief inter-glacial warm periods in approx. 100,000 year cycles. If the pattern persists, we'd assume that temperatures today are as high as they will get (give or take a degree) and will start gradually going down again. We might get a mini ice-age in the next century or a proper Ice Age in the next millennium, who knows what and when. Both will be bloody awful.

Hey ho, say the contrarians, it's global cooling we should be worrying about, not global warming.

The Warmenists blow hot and cold on this, pun intended, and haven't quite worked out which is the scarier scare story:

According to The Guardian:

Roughly every two years we’re treated to headlines repeating the myth that Earth is headed for an imminent “mini ice age.” It happened in 2013, 2015, and again just recently at the tail end of 2017.

Pots, kettles.

The most important takeaway point is that the scientific research is clear – were one to occur, a grand solar minimum would temporarily reduce global temperatures by less than 0.3°C, while humans are already causing 0.2°C warming per decade. So the sun could only offset at most 15 years’ worth of human-caused global warming, and once its quiet phase ended, the sun would then help accelerate global warming once again.

Which is what you expect the Guardian to trot out, fair enough.

Slightly more radically, according to thoughtco.com:

Some scientists believe that an increase in global temperature, as we are now experiencing, could be a sign of an impending ice age and could actually increase the amount of ice on the earth's surface.

The cold, dry air above the Arctic and Antarctica carries little moisture and drops little snow on the regions. An increase in global temperature could increase the amount of moisture in the air and increase the amount of snowfall. After years of more snowfall than melting, the polar regions could accumulate more ice. An accumulation of ice would lead to a lowering of the level of the oceans and there would be further, unanticipated changes in the global climate system as well.

Yup, global warming causes global cooling. So if we actually do enter a mini ice-age, the Warmenists won't accept that it was caused by volcanic eruptions, lack of sun spots, planetary alignments, the shape of the earth's orbit etc, the usual explanations, oh no... That's a win-win argument, and a scarier scare story IMHO.
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As ever, I wish the Warmenists would agree between themselves what their story is, rather than pushing mutually exclusive arguments. They are just as bad as Home-Owner-Ists.

"Sir David Attenborough: Climate change our greatest threat"

From the BBC:

The naturalist Sir David Attenborough has said climate change is humanity's greatest threat in thousands of years. The broadcaster said it could lead to the collapse of civilisations and the extinction of "much of the natural world".

He's right, but for the wrong reasons.

It appears that we are teetering towards the next Ice Age (h/t paulc156). When that starts - in a few centuries or a few millennia - the outcome will be far, far worse (for mankind) than anything that the Warmenists have dreamed up:

Yes... but what happened next?

From the BBC:

"The last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years ago, when the temperature was 2-3C warmer and sea level was 10-20 metres higher than now," said World Meteorological Organization Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.

Jolly good, let's take that at face value.

What strikes me is that they are always telling us that the CO2 concentration in the air is so high that we have reached, or about to reach some sort of tipping point, a point of no return, irreversible climate change, runaway global warming etc.

So why don't they tell us what happened last time CO2 levels were this high? Did temperatures continue shooting up? According to the long term temperature chart here, nothing much happened and we happen to be near the top of a 100,000 year cycle.

So the next Ice Age will be upon us soon enough. Brrr!

"How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic: Responses to the most common skeptical arguments on global warming"

I have stumbled across the Warmenists' equivalent of the the KLN blog.

I read a few just for fun, and the rebuttals of the rebuttals appear as unconvincing and self-referential as ever. I haven't found the catch all diatribe thrown at me on Facebook a couple of days ago, but it's probably in there somewhere for the Warmenists to cut and paste:

I recommend that you give up basing your opinions on this topic from a perusal of propaganda website funded by fossil fuels interests, which assumes the physical chemistry of the global carbon cycle is a hoax and then engages in complex subterfuge to keep scientifically illiterate suckers conned and supportive of the carbon profits agenda, and pick up a climate physics textbook or take a physics MOOC instead.

Repeating those memes like those of the Wattsupwiththat black propaganda site generates embarassment in the eyes of your friends, and harms their perception of your capacity for astute judgement."

That saves them the bother of addressing my actual point, I suppose.

Fun Online Polls: Man-made climate change & Have you turned on the central heating yet?

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Are this year's strong hurricanes and Indian monsoon evidence of man-made climate change?

Yes - 10%
No - 90%

Thanks to all 114 who took part and 8 who re-Tweeted. I'm with the majority on this. It'd be bloody embarrassing if it turned out to be true.

Rapscallion in the comments linked to this fine article.
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Sticking with the weather, the Daily Mash republished their article on central heating, as it seems to do this time every year*.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll:

"Have you turned on the central heating yet?"

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

* One recurring article we haven't seen this year is Ryanair switching to its winter schedule and blaming the reduction in the number of flights on high airport taxes. They've got themselves in to a whole different mess this year.

Fun Online Polls: Bank Holiday Monday weather & refundable deposits

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Is it fair to say that it normally rains on a Bank Holiday Monday?

Yes - 69%
No - 31%

I dislike these superstitions and rules of thumb, but I have to same I'm with the majority on this one.

Sicking with the weather, The Next Ice Age Cometh (full Telegraph article here, but behind paywall).

Faced with the choice, I'd prefer Global Warming.
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A pressure group* called Surfers Against Sewage are now campaigning for deposits on plastic drinks bottles.

* A quick squizz at the Charity Commission website tells us that as worthy as all this sounds, they do get a small share of their total income from government bodies and I know this is mission creep, but hey, let's give them the benefit of the doubt.

This seems like a good idea to me, so that's this week's Fun Online Poll. I'm old enough to remember deposit bottles or getting cash for bringing aluminium cans to a recycling centre (a valuable source of income for tramps, as well). In some countries they have systems to encourage you to recycle valuable materials. In Denmark, you put your empty drinks cans in a machine near the shop and it spits out a few coins.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Merkel & Midges

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

How many more Islamist attacks will it take before Merkel realises it was wrong to let a million of them in?
I'm sure she'll apologise and change tack soon - 2%
A couple more and she'll see sense - 1%
A dozen? - 3%
She'll give it a few more years to see how things pan out - 14%
What? A politician see sense? Never! - 71%
Other, please specify - 10%

Thanks to everybody who took part. I'm in the minority on this one, I reckon she'll do a U-turn fairly soon. Oh, hang on, maybe not.
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These last few weeks I have been bitten by midges more often than in the last twenty years put together and it is bloody itchy.

The warmenists have long been predicting that warmer weather = midges and mosquitos will be able to spread northwards. In my limited experience, it's not any warmer but it is definitely midgier.

So that's the topic of this week's Fun Online Poll, have I just been unlucky or have others noticed this?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

That'll save their bacon.

From The Daily Mail:

Denmark is considering a tax on red meat over fears cattle flatulence was causing climate change.

A government think tank said consumers were 'ethically obliged' to change their eating habits in a bid to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The Danish Council of Ethics said cattle accounted for around 10 per cent of the CO2 released into the atmosphere, while food production makes up around another 20 per cent.

Ho hum, the article only mentions cattle and not pigs.

As we well know (having quickly Googled it), Danish pig farmers export nearly half their output, with a value of DKK 30 billion a year (about £3 billion), so this will knock back domestic demand for "red meat" (presumably more likely to be imported) and hence boost domestic demand for pork and bacon.

Win-win for Danish pig farmers!

"Attorney General Loretta Lynch has 'considered taking legal action against Santa Claus deniers'"

From The Daily Mail:

The United States' top lawyer told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that the Justice Department has 'discussed' the possibility of a civil lawsuit against parents who fail to tell their children that presents are delivered by a kindly old man from the North Pole.

She said any information her office has received has been sent to the FBI in a bid to build a case. Her comments came as she was questioned by Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island. He compared the Father Christmas deniers to parents who do not tell their children that the Easter Bunny brought their Easter eggs - the people the Clinton administration won a racketeering case against.

Whitehouse said: "The similarities between the mischief of Santa Claus deniers pretending that Christmas gifts are purchased by parents or other family members or those who pretend that they put the dollar bill under the pillow when a child loses a tooth or hid the Easter eggs in the yard has been remarked on widely, particularly by those who accept the evidence on where toys, dollar bills and Easter eggs really come from."

The US is also to hold talks with EU officials to raise their concerns about European claims that Father Christmas has his base in Lapland.

Fun Online Polls: Pies and Syria

I have been a bit out of action the last few days, so slightly belatedly: the results to last week's Fun Online Poll:

Does a pie need pastry on the top and bottom to qualify as a pie?

Yes, both 76%
No, a pastry lid is sufficient 24%

Good, we are three-quarters of the way to common sense. The correct answer is bottom and sides are most important. The upper crust, as per usual, is pretty superfluous.

Full write up over at Pub Curmudgeon's.
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Yes, we know that The Guardian have been saying that global warming caused the civil war in Syria for ages, but what's a bit worrying is that somebody who would like to be an unelected head of state is parroting this bullshit (while whizzing round in a private helicopter and living in several fully-staffed castles).

From the first article which is still rational, yes, if does appear likely that the drought in Syria was one of the indirect causes of civil unrest, as starving farmers moved to towns where people are more likely to start revolutions, that's happened quite often in history. But you can just extend this simple connection several steps in both directions.

So this is probably true:

Drought -> civil unrest

But you can't just keep extrapolating and end up with this:

Driving a car -> CO2 emissions -> global warming -> either floods or droughts, depending on what suits your argument -> civil unrest -> violent Islamists (which we've had for four decades) -> terrorism.

So is he right? Or is it more likely The Killer Cornflake Conspiracy?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Oh no! Our shoes and socks will get wet!

From a surprisingly even-handed article in The Guardian:

... recent studies have suggested part of the West Antarctic ice sheet is indeed unstable, triggered by warm water flowing onto the continental shelf for at least a few decades. We don’t yet know if humans have made this more likely, and until now we also haven’t had confidence in predictions of how much sea level rise could result from this region and others that could become unstable from climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change decided in 2013 there was insufficient evidence to make an assessment any more precise than “it would not exceed several tenths of a metre” this century. We predict Antarctic ice sheet instability will most likely contribute 10cm sea level rise by the end of the century but is extremely unlikely to contribute more than 30 cm. So ‘several’, for us, is ‘about three’.

The author goes on to say "Does this mean climate sceptics should be dancing in the aisles, because our study rules out these very high contributions? Not at all."

If we are dancing, some will be dancing barefoot, obviously, because that extra 10cm of water will have made their shoes and socks wet.

Yes, but how will they ever know?

From Reuters:

Polar bear populations are likely to fall by more than 30 percent by around mid-century as global warming thaws Arctic sea ice, experts said on Thursday in the most detailed review of the predators to date.

The report, by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature), estimated there are between 22,000 and 31,000 polar bears in the Arctic and said they will be increasingly vulnerable as their habitat shrinks.

Heads it's natural variations, tails it's global warming.

From The Washington Post:

“This modeled Antarctic sea ice decrease in the last three decades is at odds with observations, which show a small yet statistically significant increase in sea ice extent,” says the study, led by Colorado State University atmospheric scientist Elizabeth Barnes.

A recent study by Lorenzo Polvani and Karen Smith of Columbia University says the model-defying sea ice increase may just reflect natural variability.

If the increase in ice is due to natural variability, Zhang says, warming from manmade greenhouse gases should eventually overcome it and cause the ice to begin retreating.

"Mass immigration is due to climate change"

Over at Comedy Is Free.

Glorious, just glorious.

"Global warming slowdown could last another decade"

From the BBC:

The hiatus in the rise in global temperatures could last for another 10 years, according to new research.

Scientists have struggled to explain the so-called pause that began in 1999, despite ever increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.

The latest theory says that a naturally occurring 30-year cycle in the Atlantic Ocean is behind the slowdown.

The researchers says this slow-moving current could continue to divert heat into the deep seas for another decade.

However, they caution that global temperatures are likely to increase rapidly when the cycle flips to a warmer phase.

I love the concept of the "so-called pause". Either it was or it wasn't.

Jane Moore on top form

From yesterday's Soaraway Sun:

GEORGIA JAGGER, model and daughter of Sir Mick, has posed in a Save The Arctic T-shirt for Dame Vivienne Westwood, who is passionate about climate change.

Just days later, the 22-year old was pictured sunning herself on a Miami beach.

Presumably, she got there by rowing boat.

Tee hee

SS Alarmist trapped in thick ice

Global warming vs Global cooling

I watch a lot of documentaries on the telly about all sorts of things in an eclectic/dilletantish, history, archaeology, science, architecture, engineering, religion, statistics, natural disasters, geology etc, and of course I always look for patterns in these things.

(It's what they say inadvertently which is the most interesting, so programmes about economics ignore land values completely, but in the programmes about new transport infrastructure they always mention increases in land values.)

It is also the rule nowadays that wherever possible, a documentary has to mention "climate change" and they usually sneak it in towards the end, saying "Well, this is a lovely coral reef but it won't be hear any more in a few years because the ocean is become more acidic because of man-made climate change" or some such guff (the oceans are becoming less alkaline and not more acidic, for example).

Now, we all know that since the dawn of mankind, there have been temperature fluctuations of quite a few degrees up and down.

We were actually quite well established during the last Ice Age (which ended on 19 July about 10,000 years ago).

For example, the North Sea was so shallow that the bit between Great Britain and the Netherlands was actually dry land and people lived there quite happily. Once things warmed up and the ice started melting, the North Sea filled up quite quickly again and they all scarpered and set up camp somewhere else. Others took the opportunity to head up to Siberia and cross over into Alaska.

The periods when temperatures fell abruptly are primarily after large volcano eruptions (or that meteor which hit the Gulf of Mexico) because of all the dust in the atmosphere blocking the sun, but the cause is not so important. And it is in these sudden cold periods that everything goes horribly wrong, crops fail, diseases spread, lots of people die etc. Or there are mass extinctions after extreme events.

To sum up, humans are quite good at adapting to quite sudden rises in temperature, this has always been the case and there's no reason to assume that this won't hold in future. But we are rubbish at adapting to sudden falls in temperature.

Ergo, even if the Warmenist predictions are correct (and they aren't), then this is not really a problem, what we ought to be more wary of and be working out contingency plans for are sudden falls in temperature.

Just sayin', is all.