Is the frequency of tornadoes increasing because of "climate change"? No.

 Biden & others who blame the recent deaths from tornados on climate change should look seriously at the work from the National Weather Service.

• "After removing non-meteorological factors, the annual frequency of U.S. tornadoes through the most reliable portions of the historical record has remained relatively constant."

"

Left wing groups brag that "The Coronavirus Bill Contains ‘The Most Significant Climate Legislation’ Ever"

 "The Coronavirus Bill Contains ‘The Most Significant Climate Legislation’ Ever"

The left wing National Resources Defense Council says, “This is perhaps the most significant climate legislation Congress has ever passed.”

Why is this massive environmental regulation in the Covid bill?

Scientists say: "The sun has entered a ‘lockdown’ period, which could cause freezing weather, famine"

From the New York Post:

Our sun has gone into lockdown, which could cause freezing weather, earthquakes and famine, scientists say.
The sun is currently in a period of “solar minimum,” meaning activity on its surface has fallen dramatically.
Experts believe we are about to enter the deepest period of sunshine “recession” ever recorded as sunspots have virtually disappeared.
Astronomer Dr. Tony Phillips said: “Solar Minimum is underway and it’s a deep one.” . . .
NASA scientists fear it could be a repeat of the Dalton Minimum, which happened between 1790 and 1830 — leading to periods of brutal cold, crop loss, famine and powerful volcanic eruptions.
Temperatures plummeted by up to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over 20 years, devastating the world’s food production. . . .

Remember predictions that higher sea levels were causing islands to disappear?

Smithsonian in 2004: "Global warming threatens to swamp a small island nation"
PBS 2005: "Tuvalu: That Sinking Feeling: Global warming, rising seas"

According to PBS all the scientists agreed with this:

The scientific consensus is that global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions and other "greenhouse gases" is causing rising sea levels around the world. Climate change experts predict that over the next hundred years the sea level, on average, will rise between six inches and three feet.
If so, Tuvalu is doomed, and many coastal areas around the world will be submerged.
Which is why the 9,000 inhabitants of Tuvalu have become this century's version of the canaries in the coal mines, and why FRONTLINE/World reporter Elizabeth Pollock ventured to these remote coral atolls south of the Equator. Is Tuvalu drowning?
On a Fulbright scholarship, Pollock spent a year in the South Pacific, making a documentary with her husband about the effects of global warming. . . .

Now 2018 Phys.org: "'Sinking' Pacific nation is getting bigger: study"

Note that because of erosion islands tend to get smaller over time.  Unless there is continued volcanic activity, wave action and erosion from rain will cause islands to disappear, yet, this island is getting bigger.

In any case, even if island was disappearing because of higher sea levels, wouldn't it have been a lot easier for people to move than change the rest of the world?

"Kill Climate Deniers" — Australia government-funded fantasy play where “guns” solve climate issues by killing off deniers

Well, at least in Australia, government funds are being put to good use.  The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) gave $18,793 to put on a play about how to solve the debate over climate change: shoot to death those horrible deniers.  Apparently, environmentalists feel that the problem is so bad that they are justified in killing those that disagree with them.  And people wonder why their might be opposition to government funding art projects.  And why conservatives have the attitude: you like the art, you can pay for it.  From the Art Hub in Australia:

‘We got really interested in talking about the climate debate, and we were wondering why it was that in Australia the debate had stalled so badly; what is it about this country? And then we moved on to asking what would it take to shift the debate forward again – what would it actually take to generate real political change?’ said Finnigan. 

The answer they came up with (‘though not one that I feel comfortable or very positive about,’ he stressed) was guns. 

Subsequently, Finnigan wrote an action movie-style drama in which Parliament House is invaded by gun-toting eco-terrorists. With the Government held hostage, and facing the threat of imminent execution unless she ends global warming immediately, the embattled Environment Minister has no choice but to defend her ideals – one bullet at a time. 

‘It’s a really fun, really action-packed, really over the top hostage drama, and action film genre piece; and hanging from that are some really important questions about the climate debate,’ Finnigan said. 

‘Essentially, at the bottom line, what happens when our elected government is unable to deal with the problems that we’re facing? We have a huge, world-threatening problem that is taking place over the span of decades on the one hand, and we have a two party system where it’s mostly a media-cycle driven combat between two parties who are focused on the next election. So the tools to not seem to fit to deal with the problem.’

So how cold have the last couple of winters been?: One measure looking at the percent of the Great Lakes that are frozen over

(Click on figure to enlarge.)

The percent of the Great Lakes that have frozen over provides one measure of how consistently cold the winter has been.  The Great Lakes also cover a very large area of North America so colder temperatures in just Chicago won't get you into the 80 or 90 percent range of the lakes that are frozen over.  The NOAA data used in the top graph only go back to 2009 (which is very similar to 2010).

Currently, the percent of the Great Lakes that are frozen over is the second highest this decade.  The new blast of arctic air headed down this week will surely increase the percent of the Great Lakes frozen above 80 percent and is likely to put the percent frozen over the level in 2014.

Question: Did Chinese agree to global warming agreement because it doesn't change anything or because they know that with Republicans controlling the Senate no treaty will be approved?

The promise of 20% of energy from non fossil fuels actually requires a slower growth rate for those sources than has been true up until now.  Meanwhile, the US has agreed to a dramatically greater reduction in carbon emissions.

As part of its plan, the U.S. said Wednesday it would double the average pace of its carbon-dioxide reductions after 2020, eyeing an overall reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions of between 26% and 28% by 2025, compared with 2005 levels. . . .

But the agreement requires that the Senate pass the UN Treaty.  It seems extremely convenient for China to make this agreement immediately after Republicans take control of the Senate.  It is unlikely that an agreement would have been ratified with the Democrats in control, but with the Republicans there, it will allow Obama to attack them when the treaty is defeated.

The Weather Channel co-founder announces "Man-Made Global Climate Change is a Myth"

Obama ready to go it alone on UN climate change treaty, ignoring the US Senate and ratification

With one title in the New York Times pointing out "Democrats see winning issue in Carbon Plan," it isn't too surprised the Obama administration is just going to ignore the Democrat controlled Senate.  Apparently a UN agreement is being planned for next year (a non-election year) from the Obama administration.  From the New York Times:

The Obama administration is working to forge a sweeping international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions, but without ratification from Congress. . . . 

To sidestep that requirement, President Obama’s climate negotiators are devising what they call a “politically binding” deal that would “name and shame” countries into cutting their emissions. The deal is likely to face strong objections from Republicans on Capitol Hill and from poor countries around the world, but negotiators say it may be the only realistic path. 

“If you want a deal that includes all the major emitters, including the U.S., you cannot realistically pursue a legally binding treaty at this time,” said Paul Bledsoe, a top climate change official in the Clinton administration who works closely with the Obama White House on international climate change policy. . . .

“Unfortunately, this would be just another of many examples of the Obama administration’s tendency to abide by laws that it likes and to disregard laws it doesn’t like — and to ignore the elected representatives of the people when they don’t agree,” Senator Mitch McConnell . . . . 

There is a little irony in the NY Times piece:

The Obama administration’s climate change negotiators are desperate to avoid repeating the failure of Kyoto, the United Nations’ first effort at a legally binding global climate change treaty. Nations around the world signed on to the deal, which would have required the world’s richest economies to cut their carbon emissions, but the Senate refused to ratify the treaty, ensuring that the world’s largest historic carbon polluter was not bound by the agreement. . . .

What isn't mentioned is that even without the Kyoto agreement the US is one country that has actually seen a significant drop in carbon emissions.

Even some Democrats are having a tough time with Obama push:

"Whether it’s the regulatory overreaches that would shut coal out of our energy mix, or this latest end-run around Congress on climate change, these actions cannot stand, and I will work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do everything we can to stop them."

By more than 2-to-1 ratio Americans think cold weather not due to man-cause reasons

The Gallup discussion is available here:

Two in three Americans say their local area is experiencing colder-than-usual temperatures this winter, and one in four say their area is experiencing drought. When asked why they think these extreme weather events are happening, many more say they are attributable to normal yearly variation in temperature or rainfall than to human-caused climate change or global warming. . . .

Climate Change in action for the Great Lakes: In five months we went from fear over "the world’s biggest hot tub" to nearing record ice cover

Given that the world's temperature has been constant for the last 17 years, it is always interesting how temperature changes in particular areas are focused on.  In any case, the fear that we were in a vicious cycle on the great lakes with warming reducing ice cover and that reduced cover meaning even warmer temperatures shows that something was missing from the discussion.  From the International Business Times in October:

Lake Superior, the largest of North America’s Great Lakes, is on its way to becoming the world’s biggest hot tub. According to scientists, climate change is causing the lake to heat up faster than any other lake on the planet. 

James Kitchell, an emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, explained on Public Radio International, or PRI, that the large surface area of the lake, which covers 31,700 square miles, is exactly the reason it's warming faster than the other Great Lakes -- and every other lake, for that matter. . . . 

"When there’s ice on the lakes, a lot of that solar energy is reflected back into the atmosphere, but in the most recent three decades, the duration of ice on the lake has reduced by as much as 50 percent or more," Kitchell said. "The result is that more solar radiation enters and stays in the water column, and the lake warms more quickly." . . .

Now we have this from USA Today:

As of Wednesday morning, 91% of the Great Lakes were ice-covered, which is the second-highest level since records began, according to the laboratory. The previous second place record was in 1994, at 90.7%.

The record of almost 95% was set in February 1979. "It certainly seems like we have a chance to set the record," research lab scientist Anne Clites said in an e-mail Monday, noting that it will depend on the weather over the next two weeks. . . . 

Finally, let me reiterate that since 82% of the time over the last billion years world temperature has been much higher than it is now, you would think that the best guest is that temperatures would rise normally.

UPDATE: Lake Michigan hits record 93.29 percent ice concentration on March 9, 2014.  That is slightly greater than the previous record of 93.1 percent set back in 1977. Researchers began keeping records in 1973

"Greenpeace co-founder: No scientific proof humans are dominant cause of warming climate"

I met Patrick Moore this past summer, and I found him quite impressive.  From Fox News:

A co-founder of Greenpeace told lawmakers there is no evidence man is contributing to climate change, and said he left the group when it became more interested in politics than the environment. 

Patrick Moore, a Canadian ecologist and business consultant who was a member of Greenpeace from 1971-86, told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee environmental groups like the one he helped establish use faulty computer models and scare tactics in promoting claims man-made gases are heating up the planet.
“There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years,” he said. 

Even if the planet is warming up, Moore claimed it would not be calamitous for men, which he described as a “subtropical species.” 

Skeptics of manmade climate change say there is no evidence the Earth is warming. A UN report on the scientific data behind global warming released in September indicated that global surface temperatures have not increased for the past 15 years, but scientists who believe climate change due to man is occurring say it has merely paused because of several factors and will soon resume. . . .

Scientist who lied about polar bears drowning to push global warming forced to take early retirement

For those who have seen Al Gore's movie "an inconvenient truth," one of the more powerful claims was that with ice disappearing, polar bears were drowning.  Well, the guy who was the source for that claim has now been forced to retire early. There have been numerous pieces of evidence that in fact the polar bear populations is not collapsing.  For example, from the Globe and Mail:

The debate about climate change and its impact on polar bears has intensified with the release of a survey that shows the bear population in a key part of northern Canada is far larger than many scientists thought, and might be growing. 

The number of bears along the western shore of Hudson Bay, believed to be among the most threatened bear subpopulations, stands at 1,013 and could be even higher, according to the results of an aerial survey released Wednesday by the Government of Nunavut. That’s 66 per cent higher than estimates by other researchers who forecasted the numbers would fall to as low as 610 because of warming temperatures that melt ice faster and ruin bears’ ability to hunt. The Hudson Bay region, which straddles Nunavut and Manitoba, is critical because it’s considered a bellwether for how polar bears are doing elsewhere in the Arctic. . . .

In my opinion, the Obama administration and their investigation has let him off easy by only making him retire early.  Note that he had been removed from doing further research in the same area.  I am also skeptical that the Obama administration was willing to properly investigate without political bias the charges here.

An Alaska scientist whose observations of drowned polar bears helped galvanize the global warming movement has retired as part of a settlement with a federal agency. 

Charles Monnett was briefly suspended in 2011 from his work with the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement — now known as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management —during an inspector general's investigation into a polar bear research contract he managed. Investigators in their report released last year said the probe was prompted by a complaint from an Interior Department employee who alleged that Monnett had wrongfully released government records and he and another scientist intentionally omitted or used false data in an article on polar bears. 

The agency, BOEM, ultimately found no evidence of scientific misconduct but reprimanded Monnett for improper release of emails that an Interior Department official said were cited by a federal appeals court in decisions to vacate agency approval of an oil and gas company's Arctic exploration plan. 

While Monnett returned to work, his prior research portfolio, which was focused on Arctic issues, had been reassigned, said Jeff Ruch, executive director of the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which helped Monnett with his case. Monnett filed a complaint, seeking to have the reprimand rescinded, to have his name restored to an award for a bowhead whale tracking project and the ability to transfer jobs, a request that the complaint said had not been granted. 

Under the settlement, signed in October but released by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility on Wednesday, Monnett will receive $100,000 but cannot seek Interior Department work for five years. His retirement was effective November 15, at which point the agency agreed to withdraw the letter of reprimand and issue Monnett a certificate for his work on the tracking project. . . .

Low Solar activity cycle and temperature changes

Do you think that the energy being emitted by the sun might determine the earth's temperature?  From Space.com:

The sun's current space-weather cycle is the most anemic in 100 years, scientists say.
Our star is now at "solar maximum," the peak phase of its 11-year activity cycle. But this solar max is weak, and the overall current cycle, known as Solar Cycle 24, conjures up comparisons to the famously feeble Solar Cycle 14 in the early 1900s, researchers said.
"None of us alive have ever seen such a weak cycle. So we will learn something," Leif Svalgaard of Stanford University told reporters here today (Dec. 11) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. 

The learning has already begun. For example, scientists think they know why the solar storms that have erupted during Solar Cycle 24 have caused relatively few problems here on Earth. . . .

As an aside, world temperatures right now are unusually low as compared to temperatures over the last billion or two billion years.  You would almost expect current temperatures to r

UPDATE: Another interesting study was reported in the Daily Caller:

A Swedish study found that the planet was warmer in ancient Roman times and the Middle Ages than today, challenging the mainstream idea that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are the main drivers of global warming. 

The study, by scientist Leif Kullman, analyzed 455 “radiocarbon-dated mega-fossils” in the Scandes mountains and found that tree lines for different species of trees were higher during the Roman and Medieval times than they are today. Not only that, but the temperatures were higher as well. 

“Historical tree line positions are viewed in relation to early 21st century equivalents, and indicate that tree line elevations attained during the past century and in association with modern climate warming are highly unusual, but not unique, phenomena from the perspective of the past 4,800 years,” Kullman found. “Prior to that, the pine tree line (and summer temperatures) was consistently higher than present, as it was also during the Roman and Medieval periods.” 

Kullman also wrote that “summer temperatures during the early Holocene thermal optimum may have been 2.3°C higher than present.” The “Holocene thermal optimum was a warm period that occurred between 9,000 and 5,000 years ago. This warm period was followed by a gradual cooling period.” . . .

Where did billions of dollars in aid for climate change go?

Click to make larger

The Washington Post has this headline: "Wealthy nations pledged billions to help the poor adapt to climate change. Where did it all go?"  

2010-2012: The first $35 billion in climate aid. Between 2010 and 2012, the world's wealthy nations say they provided $35 billion to help poorer countries adjust to climate change, as promised at Copenhagen. (You can see a full breakdown of these pledges from the World Resources Institute here.) . . .The United States, for instance, says it provided $7.5 billion in "fast start" climate finance between 2010 and 2012, spread out across more than a hundred countries. . . .Poorer nations have pressed for more aid to help adapt, particularly since they both face greater risks but are also less responsible for the carbon-dioxide emissions currently in the atmosphere. . . .

Look, I don't think that a warmer planet would on net be very beneficial, but assuming that you believe that it is bad, what is this "less responsible" claim?  Compare CO2 emissions per dollar of GDP for the US and China.  In 2008, CO2 KG per dollar of GDP was 126 percent higher in China than the US.  Earlier data for all countries is available here.

Some of the benefits from warmer temperatures

Temperatures have been rising since the end of the little ice age in 1850.  Professor Richard Tol of Sussex University has a new study:

The chief benefits of global warming include: fewer winter deaths; lower energy costs; better agricultural yields; probably fewer droughts; maybe richer biodiversity. It is a little-known fact that winter deaths exceed summer deaths — not just in countries like Britain but also those with very warm summers, including Greece. Both Britain and Greece see mortality rates rise by 18 per cent each winter. Especially cold winters cause a rise in heart failures far greater than the rise in deaths during heatwaves. 

Cold, not the heat, is the biggest killer. For the last decade, Brits have been dying from the cold at the average rate of 29,000 excess deaths each winter. Compare this to the heatwave ten years ago, which claimed 15,000 lives in France and just 2,000 in Britain. In the ten years since, there has been no summer death spike at all. Excess winter deaths hit the poor harder than the rich for the obvious reason: they cannot afford heating. And it is not just those at risk who benefit from moderate warming. Global warming has so far cut heating bills more than it has raised cooling bills. If it resumes after its current 17-year hiatus, and if the energy efficiency of our homes improves, then at some point the cost of cooling probably will exceed the cost of heating — probably from about 2035, Prof Tol estimates. 

The greatest benefit from climate change comes not from temperature change but from carbon dioxide itself. It is not pollution, but the raw material from which plants make carbohydrates and thence proteins and fats. As it is an extremely rare trace gas in the air — less than 0.04 per cent of the air on average — plants struggle to absorb enough of it. On a windless, sunny day, a field of corn can suck half the carbon dioxide out of the air. Commercial greenhouse operators therefore pump carbon dioxide into their greenhouses to raise plant growth rates. . . . 

After predictions that Arctic Sea Ice would disappear by 2013, significant increase in ice cover

Given that the world is still relatively cold compared to the average temperature over the last 1 billion years, I would expect that global temperatures would tend to rise.  Still it is interesting to see how wrong the predictions about Arctic Sea ice have been.  From Fox News:

About a million more square miles of ocean are covered in ice in 2013 than in 2012, a whopping 60 percent increase -- and a dramatic deviation from predictions of an "ice-free Arctic in 2013,"the Daily Mail noted. 

Arctic sea ice averaged 2.35 million square miles in August 2013, as compared to the low point of 1.32 million square miles recorded on Sept. 16, 2012, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center. A chart published Sept. 8 by NSIDC shows the dramatic rise this year, putting total ice cover within two standard deviations of the 30-year average. 

Noting the year over year surge, one scientist even argued that "global cooling" was here.
"We are already in a cooling trend, which I think will continue for the next 15 years at least. There is no doubt the warming of the 1980s and 1990s has stopped,” Anastasios Tsonis of the University of Wisconsin told London’s Mail on Sunday. . . .  

"[An ice-free Arctic is] definitely coming, and coming sooner than we previously expected,“ Walt Meier, a glaciologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md, told LiveScience last month. “We're looking at when as opposed to if.” . . .

At about 1:21 into this clip, Michael Mann claims:

We are seeing that in the Arctic right now.  We are seeing that Arctic Sea ice is retreating at a schedule that is decades ahead of what the models were projecting.  We are actually seeing changes unfold faster than what we were expecting. . . .

Mann is basically setting up straw men in his whole presentation, but I am focusing on one here because of the recent news on the Arctic Sea ice sheet. 

So much for Arctic being ice-free in summer by 2013

From the UK Daily Mail:

A chilly Arctic summer has left nearly a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year – an increase of 60 per cent. 

The rebound from 2012’s record low comes six years after the BBC reported that global warming would leave the Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013. 

Instead, days before the annual autumn re-freeze is due to begin, an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shores. . . .

A benefit from higher temperatures?: "China Begins Using Arctic Shipping Route"

World temperatures have been rising since the end of the little ice age ended in 1850.  One of the benefits is that the shipping time between China and London can be reduced by about 2 weeks.  From Business Insider:

The maiden voyage to Europe by a Chinese merchant ship through the "Northeast Passage" will help the world's biggest exporter speed goods to market and is a symbol of Beijing's strategic ambitions in the Arctic.
The emerging Arctic Ocean shipping route north of Russia has been opened up by global warming and cuts thousands of kilometres (miles) -- and many days -- off the journey from China to its key European market.
A vessel owned by Chinese state shipping giant COSCO left the northeastern port of Dalian last week bound for Rotterdam in the Netherlands, on a 5,400-kilometre (3,380-mile) voyage which state media said would take just over 30 days.
That is up to two weeks faster than the traditional route between Asia and Europe through the Suez Canal, according to COSCO.
"It's potentially going to change the face of world trade," said Sam Chambers, editor of SinoShip magazine.
"The Chinese will use the Arctic route in a very big way. It's all about having options, having alternatives in case of emergency," he said. . . .

Al Gore compares those skeptical of man-made global warming to racists, abuse victims, homophobes

Is it reasonable to compare those who don't think that there is significant man-made global warming to those who support apartheid?  How about to those who are upset when two homosexuals hold hands?  How about to an abusive alcoholic father?  If the reverse was true, would people object?  From the Washington Post:

AG: Well, I think the most important part of it is winning the conversation. I remember as a boy when the conversation on civil rights was won in the South. I remember a time when one of my friends made a racist joke and another said, hey man, we don’t go for that anymore. The same thing happened on apartheid. The same thing happened on the nuclear arms race with the freeze movement. The same thing happened in an earlier era with abolition. A few months ago, I saw an article about two gay men standing in line for pizza and some homophobe made an ugly comment about them holding hands and everyone else in line told them to shut up. We’re winning that conversation. 

The conversation on global warming has been stalled because a shrinking group of denialists fly into a rage when it’s mentioned. It’s like a family with an alcoholic father who flies into a rage every time a subject is mentioned and so everybody avoids the elephant in the room to keep the peace. But the political climate is changing. . . .