ENVIRONMENTAL AND ENERGY DIVISION NEWSLETTER 1 FEB. 2016

If you need older URLs contact George at [email protected]. Please Note: “This newsletter contains articles that offer differing points of view regarding climate change, energy and other environmental issues. Any opinions expressed in this publication are the responses of the editor alone and do not represent the positions of the Environmental and Energy Engineering Division or the ASME.” George Holliday

A. ENVIRONMENT 1. RECORD FOOD STOCKPILES CONFOUND CLIMATE ALARMIST PREDICTIONS With the pause in global temperature rise continuing well into its 18th year, polar bear populations and Arctic and Antarctic ice levels on the increase, and hurricane land strikes at historic lows, the list of horribles climate alarmists can trot out to scare the public is dwindling. Thus it didn’t surprise me at all to see one of the leading mainstream media voices of climate hysteria, The New York Times, run a nearly 1,300-word commentary misleadingly titled, “Our Deadened, Carbon- Soaked Seas.” The story told was not new. The authors – Richard W. Spinrad, chief scientist of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Ian Boyd, chief scientific advisor to the British government’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) – claim oceans are acidifying as they soak up human carbon dioxide emissions, threatening numerous ocean species including oysters, corals, and even clownfish. Not so fast! As e-mails released by NOAA in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Steve Milloy at junkscience.com attest, the Times actually pushed the authors to make their piece more alarming and its findings more certain than evidence for the dangers of ocean acidification (OA) actually justify. And boy did NOAA and DEFRA respond to the suggestion. In an attempt to satisfy the Times’ request for examples of existing damage, each agency circulated drafts of the op-ed internally asking their colleagues to provide examples of present harms resulting from OA. One researcher suggested they cite damage to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef as caused by acidification and the final op-ed did so, saying, “In the past three decades, the number of living corals covering the Great Barrier Reef has been cut in half, reducing critical habitat for fish and the resilience of the entire reef system.” NOAA’s claim stems from a 2012 paper that analyzed 27 years of data, finding the Barrier Reef’s coral cover was down from 28% to 13.8% by area, meaning half the initial coral cover had been lost. That paper concluded the losses occurred due to cyclones (48%), crown-of-thorns starfish (42%), and coral

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bleaching (10%). The paper attributed no part of the decline to OA. Parts of the northern reef not affected by any of those factors suffered no decline in coral cover. The researchers determined the coral overall would have grown by nearly 3% a year absent cyclones, starfish, and bleaching. The internal emails reveal NOAA’s Dr. Shallin Busch, who works in the agency’s Ocean Acidification Program, warned, “Given my knowledge of the literature, OA is more of a future problem than a problem right now for the Great Barrier Reef. I think it is important to resist the NYT editor’s impulse to say that OA is wreaking all sorts of havoc right now, because for ecological systems, we don’t yet have the evidence to say that.” When asked for help in providing examples of present damage from OA, Busch responded honestly, one might say scientifically, “Unfortunately, I can’t provide this information to you because it doesn’t exist. As I said in my last email, currently there are no areas of the world that are severely degraded because of OA or even areas that we know are definitely affected by OA right now … the study of the biological impacts of OA is so young that we don’t have any data sets that show a direct effect of OA on population health or trajectory.” Spinrad and Boyd should have listened to Busch. When writing about the harm to oysters and other shellfish, Spinrad and Boyd linked to OA a decade-old spike in baby oyster deaths in the West Coast fishery. Yet, as they and the Times should have been well aware, research showed the infant oysters had been killed by fecal contamination of sewage that had washed into the oyster beds. Ever the gadfly to the alarmists’ OA trope, Busch noted shellfish production in the Washington oyster industry has in fact risen since climate alarmist first began to warn of an OA “crisis.” As I noted in the February 20, 2015 edition of Climate Change Weekly, a comprehensive study published in 2015 in Bioscience reported, “There is, as yet, no robust evidence for realized severe disruptions of marine socioecological links from ocean acidification to anthropogenic CO2, and there are significant uncertainties regarding the level of pH change that would prompt such impacts.” If one needs further proof OA can’t be linked to shellfish damage, one need look no further than the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Since EPA issued its endangerment finding, asserting human greenhouse gas emissions pose a threat to human health and the environment, it has taken every opportunity it could to flex its regulatory muscle to limit emissions. Yet when a lawsuit was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, opening the door for EPA to impose upon the Pacific Coast stricter Clean Water Act protections due to the supposed harms caused by OA to shellfish in the region, EPA demurred, saying there was insufficient evidence of harm to shellfish to warrant using CWS to further restrict greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps most important, as noted in a recent paper by Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, marine species arose, evolved, and thrived through millions of years when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were many times higher than at present, and surveys of the research literature show the effect of lower pH has a net beneficial impact on the calcification, metabolism, growth, fertility, and survival of calcifying marine species, even when pH is lowered well beyond what is considered a plausible change due to rising human carbon dioxide emissions. In short, contrary to the Times’ recent scaremongering, OA does not rank high among the serious threats facing the world’s oceans and fisheries. -- H. Sterling Burnett SOURCES: The Quadrant, The New York Times, Frontier Centre for Public Policy, Climate Change Weekly #160, and Climate Change Weekly #137

2. UNNATURAL CLIMATE CONSENSUS A number of scientists on both sides of the climate debate say the Paris climate agreement will do little to reduce global warming. Many scientists who believe humans are causing warming view the proposed

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emissions reductions as insufficient to prevent dangerously higher temperatures. Scientists who regard climate variations to be relatively insensitive to carbon dioxide emissions say the Paris accord will not alter global temperatures because no carbon reduction policies would. Climate scientist Judith Curry argues we don’t understand the natural factors that affect climate well enough to shape an effective climate policy. Global climate models are unable to account for key natural factors including major volcanic eruptions, solar cycles, and long-term oscillations in the ocean. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 assessment noted, “the rate of warming over the past 15 years ... is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951.” The observed rate of warming in the early twenty-first century was slower than climate model predictions, and the discrepancy between climate model predictions and the observations is growing. Curry writes, “Until we have a better understanding and predictive capability of natural climate variability, we don’t have a strong basis for predicting climate change in the decades or century to come. Whether the climate models are correct or whether natural climate dominates, it appears that the Paris agreement will turn out to be phenomenally expensive but ultimately futile in altering the course of the 21st century climate.” SOURCE: The Financial Post

3. CLIMATE ALARMISTS INCREASINGLY EMBRACE AUTHORITARIANISM Professor Nico Stehr, founding director of the European Center for Sustainability Research, notes there are many threats to democracy – including the widespread, growing feeling of not being heard or represented by the political class. Some climatologists, including many who believe human-caused global warming poses a catastrophic threat to the planet, say democracy itself is a hindrance to sound climate policy. They say democracies are increasingly proving themselves incapable of delivering strong and timely policy responses to exceptional global threats. Stehr quotes Australians David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith, who write in The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy, “We need an authoritarian form of government to implement the scientific consensus on greenhouse gas emissions.” James Hansen, James Lovelock, and Eric Hobsbawn have all written the democratic process is not working when it comes to climate change. In his book The Vanishing Face of Gaia, Lovelock went so far as to demand democracy be abandoned to meet the challenges of climate change, which he deemed “a state of war.” Stehr notes this is not the first time intellectuals have called for rule by educated elites. Economist and social philosopher Friedrich Hayek remarked on the paradoxical development, noting as “ignorance” of science falls, “people who are intoxicated by the progress of knowledge, so often become enemies of freedom.” Stehr also observes climate alarmists’ pessimistic assessment of the ability of democracies to cope with climate change, as with other purported instances of exceptional circumstances, is linked with an optimistic assessment of the potential of central planning. And really, is it any surprise that as the public becomes less supportive of their cause, the climate alarmists become less interested in the opinions of the public? SOURCE: Global Warming Policy Foundation

4. OBAMA BREAKS REGULATION RECORDS Bureaucrats in the Obama administration added a record number of pages to the federal rule book in 2015, carrying out the president’s directives to work around Congress when necessary to push his big- government agenda on issues such as climate change.

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In 2015, the administration added 81,611 pages to the Federal Register, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Clyde Wayne Crews, the highest total on record and the third time Obama has crossed the 80,000-page level during his presidency. Crews noted with the exception of President Ronald Reagan, who managed to limit the Federal Register to under 50,000 pages of new rules and regulations per year, the number of pages in recent years has generally been around 70,000. Under Obama it’s been averaging more like 80,000. The administration proposed 2,334 rules and finalized 3,378 rules and regulations in 2015. Major rules issued by the administration in 2015 included a number aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions, such as the Clean Power Plan regulations on new and existing power plants, and new efficiency standards for commercial air conditioners. About the administration’s regulatory onslaught Crews said, “[The] president has made clear he’s going to go around Congress when he gets the chance. Just the sheer volume, the size of the Federal Registry, has never been this high.” SOURCE: Washington Times

5. THE CLIMATEERS NEW PAUSE EXCUSE BORN OF DESPERATION: ‘THE SATELLITES ARE LYING’ Add another one to the huge list of excuses for “the pause” in global temperature. Reader “Al Gorez” emails: The climate alarmists have come up with a brilliant new excuse to explain why there has been no “global warming” for nearly 19 years: the satellite data is lying. And to prove it they’ve come up… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/15/the-climateers-new-pause-excuse-born-of-desperation-the- satellites-are-lying/

6. PRESIDENT OBAMA: 3 YEAR MORATORIUM ON NEW COAL MINES Guest essay by Eric Worrall President Obama has just announced a 3 year moratorium on leasing federal land for new coal mines, pending a review of the impact of coal on the global climate. According to Scientific American; Obama Halts Federal Coal Leasing Citing Climate Change. The U.S. temporarily halts coal leasing on federal lands… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/16/president-obama-3-year-moratorium-on-new-coal-mines/

7. CALL FOR ASME PAPERS Track 8: Energy 2016 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition Phoenix, Arizona, November 11-17, 2016

8-14 Carbon Capture and Storage Organized by Dr. Chuanwei Zhuo, Cabot Corporation, [email protected] PURPOSE AND SCOPE Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is one of the technologies expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Efficient, economic, and environmentally friendly solutions are always being sought. This symposium brings together the work of prominent researchers in the field with the emphasis on both CCS fundamentals and applications. Main areas of interest are engineering challenges of CCS, and progress made in recent years in terms of novel materials, processes and applications.

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Papers, extended abstracts and technical presentation are solicited in areas including but not limited to: • CCS system - general (control, behavior, response, interaction with power generation and transmission systems, etc.) • Materials developed for CO2 capture, separation, purification, transport, storage, and applications • Gas capture (separation) from large point sources (power generation, natural gas processing, heavy industries, hydrogen production, etc.) • Gas compression/dehydration • CO2 transport and transport system maintenance • Beneficial reuse of CO2 (e.g. enhanced oil recovery (EOR), urea application, food industry, beverage carbonation, carbonate/bicarbonate, biomass processing) SUBMISSION DEADLINE: March 7, 2016

See Conference website for detailed Publication Schedule http://www.asmeconferences.org/IMECE2016/Author/NewAbstract.cfm

Sponsored by ASME Energy Division, Advances Energy Systems Division and Environmental Engineering Division Email From: ASME, 2 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Arne Feldman

COMMENTS A. Robert M. Carter, RIP: A splendid fellow and a great friend of scientific integrity passed this week. He inspired and encouraged many scientists to question the unsubstantiated claims that atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, mainly carbon dioxide (CO2), are the dominant cause of climate change. As a geologist he knew better. He demonstrated that the CO2 hypothesis does not stand up to rigorous testing, thus needs to be discarded or changed. Lesser characters have labeled this testing as “cherry-picking”; confusing the use of selected data to advocate a particular hypothesis (guess) with testing a hypothesis against all relevant data. If a hypothesis fails one dataset, then it cannot be a generally acceptable scientific hypothesis. Some of the testaments to Bob’s influence are largely unknown, such as Steven McIntyre’s acknowledgement of Bob Carter’s encouragement to continue to explore the deficiencies of Michael Mann’s 1998 interpretation of temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere for the past 1,000 years – the so-called hockey-stick. The hockey-stick was a critical part of the Third Assessment Report (AR-3) of the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), 2001. Although not used in subsequent reports, the hockey-stick has not been withdrawn, illustrating that the reports of the IPCC need a rigorous scientific audit. Joining S. Fred Singer and Craig Idso, Bob became a co-editor and co-author of the reports of the Nongovernmental International Panel for Climate Change (NIPCC). His significant contributions and writing skills can be seen, particularly in the last report Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming. For his politically unpopular scientific views, Bob experienced various slights and abuse by the politically motivated. But no one has been able to challenge the scientific credibility or integrity of this singular man. Please see links under Challenging the Orthodoxy – Robert M. Carter and Censorship. ****************** Hottest Year? On Friday and Saturday, January 22 & 23, nature delivered about two to three feet (0.6 to 0.9 meters) of snow to the Washington DC Area and areas in the mid-Atlantic region. In some areas, this

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is one of the deepest snows recorded. Initial reports put the storm surge in some areas along the eastern seaboard above that of Sandy. The storm was not a hurricane, but largely an old fashion Nor’easter. Certainly, this storm is a weather event, not a climate trend. This event is ironic because on January 20 entities in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Washington, DC) and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (New York City) announced with great fanfare that 2015 was the hottest year in their surface temperature records. The true irony comes from trying to make high surface temperatures a climate trend, not a weather event. It is generally acknowledged that the high global temperatures were driven by a strong El Niño event in the tropical central Pacific Ocean (not by one in the eastern Pacific off the coast of South America, where the warmest waters usually occur). As such, the El Niño 2015 is a weather event, not a climate trend. What will these government entities announce when the El Niño fades, as it appears to be fading, leading to cooler global surfaced temperatures? Or more interestingly, what will they announce if the strong El Niño is followed a by a strong La Niña, a cooling event, as is often the case. Will they claim that El Niños are climate trends but La Niñas are weather events? This issue is an example of the logical error of generalizing from the last data point. Adding to the issues raised by the press releases, is the frequent statement “This was the highest among all years in the 1880–2015 record…” Except for Europe and the conterminous 48 states of the US, the coverage of surface-air temperature measuring stations is extremely thin prior to the 1950s and many stations dropped out in recent years. Yet both NOAA and NASA-GISS make no effort in their press releases to alert the public how incomplete their records are. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy, Defending the Orthodoxy, and Measurement Issues. ****************** NOAA v. NOAA: NASA-GISS has long ignored satellite measurements of global temperatures, though they are the most comprehensive, independently verified temperature measurements ever compiled. What is interesting is the NOAA atmospheric measurements that were ignored by the NOAA entity claiming the “hottest year.” According to a NOAA web site on upper air, there are numerous measurements of atmospheric temperature measurements, which were ignored in the press release. There are two datasets of lower troposphere measurements by UAH (University of Alabama in Huntsville) and RSS (Remote Sensing Systems). An additional NOAA web site places the lower troposphere in roughly at the lowest five miles (8km) of the atmosphere. [Since the depth of the troposphere varies with latitude and season, NOAA descriptions will be used.] The report states that for both sets 2015 was the 3rd warmest in the record (since 1979). There are four datasets of mid-troposphere satellite measurements: UAH, RSS, UW-UAH, UWRSS. The UW designation is for modifications of UAH and RSS data made by the University of Washington. The NOAA site states: “The mid-troposphere temperatures are centered in the atmospheric layer approximately 3–10 km [2–6 miles] above the Earth's surface, which also includes a portion of the lower stratosphere.” The site also states there is an overlap of the midtroposphere with the lower stratosphere measurements and that a “third analysis has been performed by Dr. Qiang Fu of the University of Washington (UW) (Fu et al. 2004) to remove the influence of the stratosphere on the mid- troposphere value.” These adjustments are the source of UW modifications. The NOAA site does not mention any adjustments for the apparent overlap with lower troposphere with mid-troposphere measurements. Except for RSS that ranks 2015 as the 4th warmest year, the three other data sets of satellite measurements of the mid-troposphere rank 2015 as the 3rd warmest year; with 1998 as the warmest year (1998 was a very strong El Niño year).

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Based on satellite measurements, NOAA ranks 2015 as the third warmest year or cooler. This is very different than the press release claiming the hottest year. There is no justification for NOAA or NASA- GISS to make press releases ignoring these data. Further, NOAA uses one set of weather balloon data dating back 58 years, RATPAC. This ranks 2015 as the warmest year. In its analysis of the performance of global climate models against observations, UAH uses four sets of balloon data, including RATPAC. The three additional datasets are: HadAT2, RICH, RAOBCOR. See links under Defending the Orthodoxy, Measurement Issues, and http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/upper-air/201513 ****************** Homogenize or Pasteurize? [A bit of humor] In the US dairy industry, homogenization is the process of forcing natural milk through small holes under high pressure to break up relatively large fat molecules into tiny ones. This makes the liquid more uniform and prevents it from separating into milk and cream. Pasteurization is the process of heating milk, cream, or other liquids sufficiently to kill harmful organisms (such as bacteria, viruses, protozoa, molds, and yeasts) but retain some of the beneficial organisms. In treating data, homogenization is used to try to address discrepancies in the data such as interruptions, change of instruments, location, etc. In treating historic sea surface data, Tom Karl, et al. of NOAA may have thought they were homogenizing historic data, making it more uniform; but, were really pasteurizing it (heating it). See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy. ****************** Selective Ignorance: A perplexing attitude expressed by a number of those who consider themselves scientists, or scientifically minded, is that they ignore atmospheric satellite data and only look at surface data “because that’s where people live.” Having had two feet of snow just deposited from the sky influences how one lives. Weather is created by the interplay of the atmosphere and the surface (both land and ocean). Ignoring the influence of changing atmosphere is selective ignorance. In choosing selective ignorance, such scientists become similar to a herd of deer thrashing about in deep snow trying to understand what happened to their browsing area. See comments by Spencer under Challenging the Orthodoxy. ****************** Challenger Expedition. One of the great scientific nautical explorations of the mid-to-late-19th century was the expedition by the H.M.S. Challenger from 1872 to 1876. Equipped with many then-modern instruments, the vessel sailed about 70,000 nautical miles (about 130,000 km) recording then unknown species, depth soundings, and ocean temperature measurements. During the voyage, the middle latitudes of the Atlantic were covered most extensively along with the middle latitudes of the western Pacific (Asia). The Antarctic was touched, south of the Indian Ocean, but the Arctic was not. Other areas not covered were the eastern Pacific, north of Chile, the Indian Ocean, and the east coast of Africa. Two types of thermometers were used, the “Miller-Caselli” and the “reversing.” The former was used extensively, the latter, which gives better readings of ocean temperatures at different depths, was more experimental and became popular later. Given the poor coverage of ocean temperature measurements during this voyage, it is surprising to see a paper using these as a baseline to establish ocean heat content for the beginning of the industrial era (1865). See links under UnScience or Non-Science? ****************** Peak Oil: There is a great deal of speculation as to what will happen to oil prices in the near future. But the scientific issue of peak oil – that the earth will soon run out – is not an issue for the foreseeable future. Fear of exhaustion of oil and natural gas in the near future was misplaced. Production is driven largely by politics, price, and technology. Deep water or deep subsurface extraction, such as in the Gulf of Mexico or off South America, needs high prices to justify the costs. Technology of land-based deep underground hydraulic fracturing of dense shale can continue at moderate prices. Technology used in extracting traditional sources, such as those in the Mid-East can continue at even

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lower prices. In general, the prices will be bounded by lifting costs in the Mid-East, as the floor, and extraction costs of oil from shale, as the ceiling. In the 1970s, US energy policy was based on “state of the art” energy models. The Models were not validated; were based on a short-term data that was a special case, and were unsuitable for long-range predictions. The global climate models have similar shortcomings: They are not validated; are based on short term data that may be a special case; and are unsuitable for long-range predictions – greatly overestimate the warming of the atmosphere as compared with data from satellites. Unfortunately, governments do not understand these problems of policies based on un-validated models. See links under Energy Issues – Non-US; Energy Issues – US, and Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past? ****************** Electricity for Africa: Western bureaucrats, such as those in Washington, favor “energy savings” over labor intensity. However, the affected public often prefers the labor savings given by electricity use. Writing in the Green Tech Media, Catherine Wolfram gives conclusions reached in a study she and others did on solar generated electricity in rural Kenya. Local solar generated electricity is a favorite among western bureaucrats and politicians. “People want high-wattage appliances, such as irons. The set of appliances owned by home solar households is much more similar to un-electrified households than the households with grid connections. The Center for Global Development describes recent research that makes a similar point. The center found that nearly 90 percent of households in Tanzania that already had ‘access to electricity outside of the national grid, such as solar power’ still wanted a connection to the national grid. The researchers also link to an article that describes villagers with a solar microgrid in India who still want ‘real’ electricity, by which they mean grid-provided power.” Very simply, most home solar systems cannot power labor saving appliances. See links under Energy Issues – Non-US. ****************** False Fracking Claims: Big Green has repeatedly claimed that deep underground hydraulic fracturing of dense shale will contaminate well water. The governor of New York believes it and established a program to prohibit the practice in his state. One of the justifications used was an EPA claim of contamination near Pavillion, Wyoming. The EPA has quietly backed down. Now a report on the claim is finished. Among other issues: The geology is sandstone, not shale. The water wells are shallow and the area is irrigated, which can result in some contamination of water wells. This is another fear from typical over- generalization. Of course Big Green, and the governor of New York, will ignore such studies. See links under Energy Issues – US ****************** Additions and Corrections: Reader Charles Anderson corrects the lack of a billion: “’In August 2013, the White House reported that in FY 2013, US expenditures (including tax provisions and credits) on Clean Energy Technologies were $5.783 billion, Energy Tax Provisions That May Reduce Greenhouse Gases were $4.999 billion, and Energy Payments in Lieu of Tax Provisions were $8.080 [billion], for a total $18.862 billion. Such expenditures created a sustained green lobby for climate change.’ Anderson stated: “When discussing billions, $8.08 seems too trivial to mention! OK, so it is clear you left the billion out that follows it, but at least you now know you are being read and read carefully.” Perhaps we have become jaded about a billion dollars when reviewing the enormous government deficits of the past few years. ****************** Number of the Week: 0.1% Paul Homewood writes that at 5 pm on Jan 19, 2016, the output from the wind farms in the UK, reported by the government distributor, dropped to 72 MW, or 0.1% of the

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consumption of 52.1 GW for that period. The output for the 24-hour period ending at 10:30 pm was better, averaging just 0.3%. The peak wind capacity was not given. On Jan 15, 2016, the power distributor for Denmark, Energinet, DK, announced “For the first time ever, power was supplied to the Danes for a whole day without any of the country's large central power stations being in operation. This has never happened before for a whole day running.” [Boldface added] Why not just build central stations that require minimal back-up? See links under Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind. ################################################### http://www.sepp.org/twtwfiles/2016/TWTW1-23-16.pdf

B. A DECELERATION OF SEA LEVEL RISE ALONG THE INDIAN COASTLINE http://www.cato.org/blog/bright-side-deceleration-sea-level-rise-along-indian-coastline Judith Curry

C. ONGOING RENEWABLES INVESTMENT “CRISIS” IN AUSTRALIA Guest essay by Eric Worrall Aussie Greens are lamenting that banks are still unwilling to lend to green projects, because they are worried about the reliability of political support, and the continuity of the generous government subsidies which make green projects possible. Confidence in renewable energy sector ‘evaporated’ after Abbott cut: Bloomberg Investment in large-scale… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/15/ongoing-renewables-investment-crisis-in-australia/

D. FORMATION OF AN UNUSUAL OFF-SEASON NORTH ATLANTIC HURRICANE From NASA/GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER: The low pressure area known as System 90L developed rapidly since Jan. 13 and became Hurricane Alex on Jan. 14. Several satellites and instruments captured data on this out-of-season storm. NASA’s RapidScat instrument observed sustained winds shift and intensify in the system and NASA’s Aqua satellite saw the storm develop… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/15/formation-of-an-unusual-off-season-north-atlantic-hurricane/

E. BAFFIN ISLAND STUDY DISAPPOINTS: THE ILLUSIVE ‘COUP DE GRACE’ ON THE MEDIEVAL WARM PERIOD Guest essay by Sebastian Lüning. Big news on 4. December 2015 from the Earth Institute of Columbia University. In a press release the institute claimed that climate and human history has to be re-written and climate had no major influence on Viking settlement on Greenland: Study Undercuts Idea That ‘Medieval Warm Period’ Was Global Vikings… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/18/baffin-island-study-disappoints-the-illusive-coup-de-grace-on- the-medieval-warm-period/

F. ONCE AGAIN EL NINO DIDN’T DO WHAT WAS FORECAST. WHY?

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Guest Opinion: Dr. Tim Ball Mark Albright, who reportedly lost his job as Oregon State Climatologist in 2003 apparently because of his views on global warming, drew attention to the failed El Nino based forecast for Oregon. Here is the official prediction. Most of the state remains in drought conditions, and climatologists expect a strong… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/17/once-again-el-nino-didnt-do-what-was-forecast-why/

G. NOTE THAT APPEARANCE OF WARMING IS CREATED BY ADJUSTING RAW, HISTORICAL TEMPERATURES DOWNWARD It is difficult to understand why the measured temperatures back to 1900 were lowered. Don Shaw

H. ARCTIC SPECIES HAVE ADAPTED TO SIGNIFICANT SEA ICE CHANGES Guest Post by Bob Tisdale As expected, annual global lower troposphere temperature (TLT) anomalies in 2015 for both the RSS and UAH datasets ranked a remote third warmest. See Figures 1 through 3. Figure 1 (RSS) # # # Figure 2 (UAH) # # # Figure 3 (RSS-UAH Comparison) RSS data through December 2015 are… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/06/annual-global-lower-troposphere-temperature-tlt-anomaly- update-distant-third-warmest-for-2015/ Don Shaw

I. IT’S OFFICIAL! YOU CAN STOP WORRYING ABOUT “CLIMATE CHANGE” EFFECTS ON THE POLAR BEARS,

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SEALS, AND WALRUS – THEY’VE SEEN IT ALL BEFORE, INCLUDING ICE-FREE SUMMERS Paleoclimate + genetic study confirms: Arctic species adapted to sea ice changes Guest essay by Dr. Susan Crockford A new paper that combines paleoclimatology data for the last 56 million years with molecular genetic evidence concludes there were no biological extinctions over the last 1.5M years despite profound Arctic sea ice changes that included ice-free summers:… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/10/its-official-you-can-stop-worrying-about-climate-change- effect-on-the-polar-bears-seals-and-walrus-theyve-seen-it-all-before-including-ice-free-summers/ Don Shaw

J. LETTER FROM CONGRESSMAN ATTACKING CLIMATE SCIENTISTS GENERATES HEATED RESPONSES MARCH 3, 2015 H. STERLING BURNETT H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. worked at the National Center for Policy Analysis for 18 years, most... Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona and ranking member of the House of Representatives Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, sent a letter to seven university presidents demanding information on funding sources, financial disclosure guidelines, and all draft testimony or exchanges relating to the testimony of certain researchers who have testified before Congress on climate change issues. Grijalva’s letter asked about the climate research and funding for seven scholars: geographer Robert C. Balling, Jr., Arizona State University; atmospheric scientist John Christy, University of Alabama; climatologist Judith Curry, Georgia Institute of Technology; historian Steven Hayward, Pepperdine University; climatologist David Legates, University of Delaware; atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and political scientist Roger Pielke Jr., University of Colorado. The letter, plainly intended to intimidate climate scientists who dare to question the Obama administration’s often-stated view that climate change is man-made and dangerous, generated heated responses from science organizations, individual scientists, and other members of Congress. “Sends a Chilling Message” The American Meteorological Society, the national scientific society for the development and dissemination of atmospheric, oceanic, and hydrologic sciences, responded to a letter from U.S. Grijalva with a letter of its own. The letter, signed by Dr. Keith L. Seitter, AMS Executive Director, and dated February 27, is a stinging rebuke of Grijalva’s demands. “Publicly singling out specific researchers based on perspectives they have expressed and implying a failure to appropriately disclose funding sources — and thereby questioning their scientific integrity — sends a chilling message to all academic researchers,” Seitter wrote. “Further, requesting copies of the researcher’s communications related to external funding opportunities or the preparation of testimony impinges on the free pursuit of ideas that is central to the concept of academic freedom.” Seitter goes on to say peer-review, not political inquiries into funding sources, “is the appropriate mechanism to assess the validity and quality of scientific research, regardless of the funding sources supporting that research as long as those funding sources and any potential conflicts of interest are fully disclosed. The scientific process that includes testing and validation of concepts and ideas — discarding those that cannot successfully withstand such testing — is chronicled in the peer reviewed scientific literature. We encourage the Committee to rely on the full corpus of peer-reviewed literature on climate science as the most reliable source for knowledge and understanding that can be applied to the policy options before you.”

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Attacking Skeptics’ Funding Grijalva justified his query by citing recent media attacks on researchers skeptical of the theory greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels for energy are causing catastrophic global warming. The latest media assault began in late February with an article in The New York Times repeating claims made by a long-time Greenpeace staffer, Kert Davies, that Harvard-Smithsonian astrophysicist concealed financial support received by the Smithsonian Institution to support his work. The Times article noted Soon’s work was supported by more than $1.2 million from fossil fuel companies over 11 years. The information was not new, as Davies had been pushing similar stories as early as 1997. The Times reporter failed to mention the funds went to the Smithsonian and not directly to Dr. Soon, and the Smithsonian kept approximately half the money it raised specifically to ensure that Dr. Soon’s research was appropriate and conducted without undue influence by donors. The Smithsonian has said it is investigating the matter. Since its staff negotiated and signed every contract for all of the money raised for Dr. Soon’s work, it presumably already has found there is no conflict of interest on Dr. Soon’s part. The Smithsonian Institution’s charter says all such grant results “must be unclassified, in order not to abridge the institution’s right to publish, without restriction, findings that result from this research project.” The funders neither directed nor had control over the research or the dissemination of its results. Grijalva’s ‘Lysenkoism, Witch Hunt’ Responding to Grijalva’s letter, climatologist David Legates said, “Grijalva was asked why he targeted the seven of us. His response was that we were the most well-published, most often-cited, and had the most impact on public policy in the United States. Not that our research was likely fraudulent, not that we had taken big sums of money from foreign governments, or that we simply had been publishing bad research. None of these were the reason. It was simply that we are too effective with our research and too persuasive with our arguments. Pure and simple. And since we disagree with him and his views, we must be harassed. Maybe that will stop us. “Unfortunately, we have entered into a new age of Lysenkoism,” Legates said. “Lysenkoism” refers to an episode in science history where the scientific process was heavily influenced by the Soviet government in order to reach politically acceptable conclusions. Roger Pielke, Jr., another of the researchers whose funding sources and e-mails Grijalva requested, wrote on his blog that Grijalva should already know he has never received any funding from fossil fuel companies and has no conflict of interest, since he has testified to this before Congress on several occasions. “I know with complete certainty that this investigation is a politically-motivated ‘witch hunt’ designed to intimidate me (and others) and to smear my name,” Pielke wrote. Pielke goes on, “The incessant attacks and smears are effective, no doubt. I have already shifted all of my academic work away from climate issues. I am simply not initiating any new research or papers on the topic and I have ring-fenced my slowly diminishing blogging on the subject. I can’t imagine the message being sent to younger scientists.” John Nothdurft, director of government relations for The Heartland Institute, said the probe into Soon and other climate researchers is part of a campaign to divert attention away from the facts about climate change. “Instead of having a real conversation with the American public about the science and economics of climate change, well-financed advocacy groups and politicians with many ‘conflicts of interest’ of their own would rather direct the public’s focus on who funds nonprofit organizations, independent research institutions, scientists, economists, and other experts,” Nothdurft said. “Apparently it is now a national offense to raise any concerns over certain aspects of the science or economics of policies that purport to deal with human-caused climate change,” Nothdurft said. “This

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witch hunt has nothing to do with ensuring that science is accurate or reliable. These attacks are leveled by people who refuse to engage in civil debate over important matters of science, economics, and public policy. They should not be allowed to win the day.” Even alarmists in the global warming debate say Grijalva has gone too far with his demands. Bob Ward, policy and communications director with the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment in the U.K., a frequent critic of climate skeptics, tweeted, “Politicians should not persecute academics with whom they disagree. No ifs or buts.” Controversial climate researcher Michael Mann, recently sued by the attorney general of Virginia requesting e-mails concerning Mann’s climate research during his time at the state-supported University of Virginia, called the letters from Grijalva and other Democrats “heavy handed and overly aggressive.” Activists’ Funding Goes Unquestioned On her blog, Climate etc., climatologist Judith Curry responded to Grijalva’s letter, arguing if Congress and the press are truly concerned whether funding taints climate research, they should also be asking about funding from large environmental foundations and lobbying groups pushing for government action. Curry asked, “Are we not to be concerned by funding from green advocacy groups and scientists serving on the Boards of green advocacy groups?” Among the potential conflicts of interest not under scrutiny by the media or congressional Democrats are those of Princeton professor Michael Oppenheimer, who has written a number of peer-reviewed papers and testified before Congress on multiple occasions. He previously served as chief scientist for, and is still a science advisor to, the multimillion-dollar lobbying group Environmental Defense. Joe Romm, author of several books on climate change, has also testified on several occasions before Congress concerning global warming. Romm is a senior fellow and chief science advisor at the Center for American Progress, which argues for greater government control over the economy. Neither Romm nor his coauthors filed conflict-of-interest disclosures for their article in Environmental Research Letters, although the journal explicitly requires it, stating, “All authors and co-authors are required to disclose any potential conflict of interest when submitting their article (e.g. employment, consulting fees, research contracts, stock ownership, patent licenses, honoraria, advisory affiliations, etc.). This information should be included in an acknowledgments section at the end of the manuscript (before the references section). All sources of financial support for the project must also be disclosed in the acknowledgments section.” Grijalva himself has taken $78,854 from environmental lobbying groups, according to the imablawg website (http://www.imablawg.blogspot.com/). Pielke tweeted, “Once you tug on the thread of undisclosed financial interests in climate science, you’ll find it more a norm than exception.” H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. ([email protected]) is a research fellow with The Heartland Institute.

K. GROWTH RINGS ON ROCKS GIVE UP NORTH AMERICAN CLIMATE SECRETS 3 millimeters of soil deposits detail 120,000 years of climate history From the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – BERKELEY Scientists have found a new way to tease out signals about Earth’s climatic past from soil deposits on gravel and pebbles, adding an unprecedented level of detail to the existing paleoclimate record and revealing a time in… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/12/growth-rings-on-rocks-give-up-north-american-climate- secrets/

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L. INCONVENIENT: ICEBERG CALVING HELPS ‘CARBON SEQUESTRATION’ AND IS ‘HELPING TO SLOW GLOBAL WARMING’ From the UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD and the department of “unknown negative feedbacks” comes this interesting study. While there have been numerous claims that warmer Polar temperatures (due to posited global warming effects) will cause more iceberg calving, I’m sure it will come as quite a shock to those same folks when they discover that there’s… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/11/inconvenient-iceberg-calving-helps-carbon-sequestration-and- is-helping-to-slow-global-warming/

M. THIS JUST IN: ICE AGE POSTPONED DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING! Guest post by David Middleton, featured image borrowed from Meadow Heights PTA. Global warming caused by fossil fuel emissions is blamed by scientists for intensifying storms, raising sea levels and prolonging droughts. Now there’s growing evidence of a positive effect: we may have delayed the next ice age by 100,000 years or more. The… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/13/this-just-in-ice-age-postponed-due-to-global-warming/

N. THE ABJECT FAILURE OF OFFICIAL GLOBAL-WARMING PREDICTIONS Guest essay by Monckton of Brenchley The IPCC published its First Assessment Report a quarter of a century ago, in 1990. The Second Assessment Report came out 20 years ago, the Third 15 years ago. Even 15 years is enough to test whether the models’ predictions have proven prophetic. In 2008, NOAA’s report on the… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/13/the-abject-failure-of-official-global-warming-predictions/

O. THE EPA’S POLITICS IN THE RAW THE AGENCY, IN A DISPUTE OVER ITS ‘COVERT PROPAGANDA,’ SHOWS ITSELF TO BE A POLITICAL ACTOR. BY A.J. KRITIKOS Jan. 13, 2016 6:53 p.m. ET It’s official: The Environmental Protection Agency has violated federal law by engaging in “covert propaganda” and “grassroots lobbying.” That is the finding of a Dec. 14 report by the Government Accountability Office—though EPA bureaucrats are unrepentant. The investigation began in June, after Sen. Jim Inhofe (R., Okla.) requested that the GAO review the EPA’s online activities, including its aggressive promotion of the new “waters of the United States” regulatory rule. Investigators concluded that the EPA illegally used Thunderclap, a social media site, “to correct what it viewed as misinformation.” Government use of social media is not unlawful in itself. But the agency crossed the line by asking supporters to share an EPA-written message on Facebook without attributing it to the government. This failure to attribute caused the violation for “covert propaganda.” Simply put, citizens deserve to know when messages presented to them were created by their government. The violation for “grassroots lobbying” stemmed from an EPA blog post that linked to websites encouraging readers to, for example, “urge your senators to defend Clean Water Act safeguards for critical streams and wetlands.” Federal law prohibits administrative agencies from lobbying the public to

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support or oppose pending legislation. As the GAO report notes, at least a dozen bills in Congress sought to prevent the EPA’s new waters rule from being implemented. At bottom, the report concluded that the EPA’s overtly political actions “preclude a good faith characterization” of the facts. Sen. Inhofe has now requested that the GAO review the way that the EPA promoted its Clean Power Plan, which requires states to cut carbon-dioxide emissions from electricity- generating plants. Executive agencies aren’t supposed to be political. The builders of the administrative state imagined that regulators would be unbiased experts, who would come to objective conclusions about the best policy. That notion has been shown to be woefully naive. Anyone who doubts that the EPA views itself as a political actor should read its response to the investigations. Liz Purchia, a public affairs official, argued in a blog post that the Thunderclap page was properly labeled, and that the EPA never urged the public to contact lawmakers. What’s telling is Ms. Purchia’s tone. She wrote that critics are “grasping at anything to distract from and derail our progress.” She attacked “those who question the well-established science behind climate change.” And she assailed “backward-thinkers” who want the EPA to “operate as if we live in the Stone Age.” Who do we have to blame for this state of affairs, Congress, for one! By passing vague statutes with general goals and authorizing executive agencies to come up with the details, lawmakers have delegated away their exclusive power to make law. Most of the Supreme Court is complicit. Alone among the sitting justices, Clarence Thomas has suggested a willingness to invalidate these unconstitutional delegations. In a concurring opinion last year, Mr. Thomas wrote that the justices “have too long abrogated our duty to enforce the separation of powers.” He lamented the growth of “a vast and unaccountable administrative apparatus that finds no comfortable home in our constitutional structure.” Hear, hear. The questions facing the country don’t lend themselves to objective, expert answers, and choosing what to do with scarce resources always involves trade-offs. The way to take politics out of administrative agencies is simple: Take from them the power to make policy. http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-epas-politics-in-the-raw-1452729229

P. US COURT TO HEAR “CLIMATE DEFENCE” ARGUMENT IN A CRIMINAL CASE Guest essay by Eric Worrall Climate activists on trial for blocking an oil train may be about to set a controversial legal precedent. According to Mother Jones, for the first time in American legal history, activists will be allowed to present their concerns about climate change as a legal defense for their allegedly criminal actions;… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/14/us-court-to-hear-climate-defence-argument-in-criminal-case/

Q. HOW STRONG WAS THAT EL NIÑO OR LA NIÑA? – NO ONE KNOWS FOR SURE Guest Post by Bob Tisdale We recently discussed and illustrated how the differences between sea surface temperature datasets prevented us from knowing which of the recent strong El Niño events (the 1982/83, 1997/98 or 2015/16 El Niños) was actually strongest. See the post here. That post, of course, was intended to counter all of the… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/14/how-strong-was-that-el-nino-or-la-nina-no-one-knows-for- sure/

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R. WHY WE’RE SUING OBAMA OVER KEYSTONE The president canceled the pipeline in a purely political move that violated the law and the U.S. Constitution. By Kristine Delkus: Jan. 13, 2016 6:50 p.m. ET When President Obama denied a permit in November that would allow our company to build the Keystone XL pipeline, responded that “misplaced symbolism was chosen over merit and science— rhetoric won out over reason.” Last week the company filed a federal lawsuit asserting that the president lacks the power under the U.S. Constitution to prohibit construction of the pipeline. TransCanada also gave notice of its intent to recover damages caused by the administration’s denial of a permit as a violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta). Given the significance of the administration’s decision and our actions in response, further context and explanation are warranted. For 65 years, TransCanada has built oil and gas pipelines in North America. It’s a job the company is good at, and one we much prefer to building lengthy legal filings that could take several years to resolve. Still, when TransCanada in 2008 walked its application for a presidential permit into the U.S. State Department, the company was prepared for an extensive evidentiary process—albeit one that has traditionally been straightforward. Until the Keystone XL pipeline, no U.S. administration had prohibited the cross-border construction of a major oil pipeline. And within the past decade, U.S. regulators approved two very similar, large cross- border pipelines that transport exactly the same type of oil that the Keystone XL pipeline would have carried from the same region in Alberta, Canada, to the U.S. TransCanada already operates the initial Keystone pipeline, which was approved in 2008. And in 2009 the State Department under Secretary Hillary Clinton and Mr. Obama permitted Enbridge, a direct competitor to TransCanada, to build another. Each of these permit reviews took about two years. Keystone XL was very different. For seven years the State Department and eight other federal agencies considered issues related to environmental and economic impact, supply security, stability and relations with Canada, and other factors. The Obama administration’s decision to deny the pipeline explicitly acknowledged that building it would benefit the U.S. economy, create jobs, increase energy security, advance relations with Canada, not harm the environment and cause no significant increase in greenhouse-gas production. Expert analysis concluded, and Secretary of State John Kerry admitted, that approving or denying the pipeline would likely not have a significant impact on oil production in Canada (principally because other transport options and markets exist). But environmental activists made rejection of the project a litmus test of the president’s climate-change credentials. The State Department’s official Record of Decision reasoned that permitting the pipeline to proceed would “undermine U.S. climate leadership” because “the understanding of the international community”—contrary to the administration’s own findings—was that the pipeline would increase greenhouse-gas emissions. Permitting construction would “undercut the credibility and influence of the United States” in negotiating with other countries, including at the coming Paris climate conference. In other words, the pipeline and its benefits were sacrificed to increase the president’s negotiating leverage with other countries. This decision was unlawful in two respects. First, it was contrary to basic principles of constitutional law. The president can exercise only powers granted by a statute or the Constitution. The administration acknowledged that no statute supports its action. Nor does the Constitution. The Supreme Court’s famous 1952 ruling in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, rejecting President Truman’s claim that he could seize private steel mills, sets out the governing principles that also defeat President Obama’s similar claim of unilateral power. Unless Congress expressly or implicitly approves of

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presidential action, the president has no independent power to act unless the matter falls beyond the scope of Congress’s constitutional interests. Article I of the Constitution provides Congress with power over the domestic and international commerce at issue. And in early 2015, both houses of Congress passed legislation—later vetoed by the president—directing that the Keystone XL pipeline be constructed without any further presidential action. Still, even if Congress had not acted, Mr. Obama’s action is unlawful because it falls far outside of the limited tradition of presidential-permit approvals. Presidents have for many decades lightly regulated certain border facilities through a permit-approval process focused on distinctly cross-border and operational concerns. No president before has prohibited construction of a major infrastructure project affecting such extensive domestic and international commerce. Nor has any other president ever claimed the power to block cross-border trade to enhance his negotiating power abroad. Second, the administration’s decision violates international agreements. When the U.S. government signed Nafta, it committed to provide Canadian investors with various protections against unfair, inequitable, and uncompensated expropriatory and discriminatory U.S. regulatory actions. The agreement enables companies, like TransCanada, to recover damages through international arbitration when Nafta’s provisions have been violated. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said on Nov. 3 that “there’s probably no infrastructure project in the history of the United States that has been as politicized as this one.” No doubt—as was the administration’s decision to deny a permit, which rested entirely on the president’s belief that his international reputation and negotiating leverage on climate leadership required the symbolic act of denying the permit. The damage to TransCanada is clear. It has lost the value of the project and incurred significant costs in pursuing what should have been a robust regulatory process based on facts and established criteria, not based on meeting misplaced symbolic political objectives. The administration’s actions harm business and public interests that extend far beyond a particular pipeline. The decision calls into question the entire process for cross-border facility approvals. It strongly suggests that investing in the U.S. is subject to a level of “sovereign risk” usually associated with far less developed economies. Unless they are remedied in court or arbitration, the Keystone decision and the political expediency underlying it will also encourage future administrations to conclude that they, too, can disregard the most basic legal requirements. Ms. Delkus is an executive vice president and general counsel at TransCanada. http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-were-suing-obama-over-keystone-1452729039 Dick Storm

S. SAB RELEASES REVIEW OF EPA’S DRAFT ASSESSMENT OF THE POTENTIAL IMPACTS OF HYDRAULIC FRACTURING ON DRINKING WATER RESOURCES On January 7th, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Science Advisory Board (SAB) released its review of EPA’s June 2015 draft “Assessment of the Potential Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas on Drinking Water Resources.” The review synthesizes available scientific literature and data on the potential for hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas development to change the quality or quantity of drinking water resources, and identifies factors affecting the frequency or severity of any potential changes. In general, the SAB found EPA’s overall approach to assess the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas on drinking water resources, focusing on the individual stages in the HFWC, to be

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appropriate and comprehensive. The SAB also found that the agency provided a generally comprehensive overview of the available literature that describes the factors affecting the relationship of hydraulic fracturing and drinking water, and adequately described the findings of such published data in the draft Assessment Report. However, the SAB identified several areas of the draft Assessment Report 41 that can be improved. The SAB expressed concerns regarding the clarity and adequacy of support for several major findings presented within the draft Assessment Report that seek to draw national-level conclusions regarding the impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources. The SAB is concerned that these major findings are presented ambiguously within the Executive Summary and are inconsistent with the Report. Of particular concern is the high-level conclusion statement that “We did not find evidence that hydraulic fracturing mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.” The SAB found that this statement does not clearly describe the system(s) of interest (e.g., groundwater, surface water) nor the definitions of “systemic,” “widespread,” or “impacts.” The SAB is also concerned that this statement does not reflect the uncertainties and data limitations described in the body of the Report associated with such impacts. The statement is ambiguous and requires clarification and additional explanation. The SAB has recommended that EPA revise the major statements of findings in the Executive Summary and elsewhere in the draft Assessment Report to be more precise, and to clearly link these statements to evidence provided in the body of the draft Assessment Report. The SAB also recommended that EPA discuss the significant data limitations and uncertainties, as documented in the body of the Report, when presenting the major findings. The 133-page review may be reviewed at: http://ppec.asme.org/key-issues/energy/ under the Issue Reports section. ASME

T. HOW FOSSIL FUELS FIGURE INTO OUR FUTURE What Obama didn’t say: ‘Dirty energy’ is improving air quality By Bernard L. Weinstein Last week, President Barack Obama delivered his final State of the Union address. His hourlong speech touted his administration’s accomplishments and challenged the nation to defeat both ISIS and cancer. Surprisingly, only four paragraphs of the address were devoted to energy and climate change. But parsing the president’s words reveals a clear “anti-hydrocarbon” message. Obama did mention that we’ve reduced imports of foreign oil nearly 60 percent during his two terms. But he failed to acknowledge the “shale revolution” that doubled U.S. production in six years and allowed the big drop in imports to happen. What’s more, he refused to lift the ban on oil exports until his hand was forced by his own party, which agreed to support repeal in exchange for an extension of wind and solar tax credits as part of this year’s budget deal. In his speech, he went on to say: “I’m going to push to change the way we manage our oil and coal resources,” meaning he’s going to oppose all leasing of federal lands, onshore and offshore, for energy development. Because of the dramatic drop in prices over the past year, the president didn’t rail against the “obscene” profits being earned by the oil and gas industry, as he has in all of his previous State of the Union speeches. Instead, he argued we need to “accelerate the transition away from dirty energy” — i.e., fossil fuels. But he failed to mention that one of his “dirty fuels,” clean-burning natural gas, which is increasingly used for electric power generation, was primarily responsible for “cutting carbon pollution more than any other country on Earth.” In fact, the president didn’t mention natural gas at all during his speech. Nuclear energy, another clean energy source that currently accounts for 19 percent of our electricity, also went unmentioned.

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Extolling the virtues of renewable energy, the president stated that “wind power is now cheaper than dirtier, conventional power.” This may be true in some states, but only because of a combination of subsidies and renewable portfolio mandates. If I’m a wind producer receiving a 2.3 cent federal tax credit for every kilowatt-hour I generate, I can sell into the grid at a negative rate and still realize a positive cash flow. This increasingly common practice not only drives up the costs of the subsidies but also imperils the integrity of the power grid. The same is true with heavily subsidized rooftop solar, implicit in Obama’s promise to “give homeowners the freedom to generate and store their own energy.” The president also touted the economic-development benefits from investing in renewable energy, claiming that the “solar industry employs more Americans than coal” while neglecting to mention that the shale revolution created tens of thousands of high-wage jobs and helped pull us out of the Great Recession without any government subsidies. He also suggested we should capture the “social costs (fossil fuels) impose on taxpayers” and use those resources to build a “21st-century transportation system.” Does he mean electric cars or high-speed rail, two other areas with huge federal subsidies? Clearly, renewables have an important role to play in America’s energy future. But energy and environmental policies should be based on reality, not ideology. Here are some facts: Carbon emissions are lower today than they were 20 years ago with an economy that’s 50 percent bigger. Methane releases have plunged 79 percent over the past decade while natural gas production has soared. Wholesale electricity prices have dropped 30 percent over the past year. And after taxpayer subsidies amounting to more than $150 billion during the Obama years, wind and solar account for less than 5 percent of America’s electric-power generation. In short, President Obama appears to have ditched the “all of the above” energy strategy he enunciated several years ago in favor of more subsidies, regulations and mandates. This is unfortunate because market-driven policies have done more to improve the nation’s air quality than all of the past and proposed interventions by the Obama administration. Weinstein is associate director of the Maguire Energy Institute and an adjunct professor of business economics in the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. Houston Chronicle

U. WHAT CAUSES EL NINO WARMTH? JANUARY 1ST, 2016 Dick Lindzen suggested to me recently that this might be a good time to address the general question, “what causes the global-average warmth during El Nino?” Some of you might say, “the sun, of course”. Yes, the sun’s energy is the ultimate source of energy for the climate system, but it really doesn’t explain why El Nino years are unusually warm…or why La Nina years are unusually cool.

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The answer lies in the circulation of the Pacific Ocean, more specifically the vertical circulation of that ocean basin. The short answer is that, during El Nino, there is an average decrease in the vertical overturning and mixing of cold, deep ocean waters with solar-heated warm surface waters. The result is that the surface waters become warmer than average, and deeper waters become colder than average. The opposite situation occurs during La Nina. Importantly, the change shows up in global average ocean computations, based upon ocean temperature data (see our Fig. 3, here); this means that the changes centered in the Pacific are not offset by changes of the opposite sign occurring in other ocean basins. The Details Most of the depth of the world’s oceans is very cold, even in the tropics. Only the near-surface layers are warm, with the rest of the ocean depths being filled up over thousands of years by surface water chilled to low temperatures at high latitudes. (This leads to the interesting observation that the mass-weighted average temperature of the climate system is actually very cold). This average state of warm surface (due to solar heating) and cold depths is continually being offset by vertical mixing processes (wind-driven wave-induced mixing, tidal flows over bottom topography, and other processes). When these processes slow down during El Nino, surface water (mainly the upper 100 meters) becomes warmer than normal. At the same time, the layers below 100 meters become colder than normal (100 m is the global-average depth of this demarcation). In a sense, the deep ocean provides an air conditioner for the climate system, and during El Nino the air conditioner isn’t working as hard to cool the atmosphere. During La Nina, it’s working harder than normal, leading to global-average coolness. Since the atmosphere responds to surface heating, anomalous warmth in the upper ocean layers gradually heats the atmosphere, mainly through increased precipitation heating in response to large rates of evaporation from the warm surface waters. This initially occurs in the tropics where the ocean

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circulation change is the strongest, but then spreads to higher latitudes as well. The warming is not uniform, of course, and a few regions can even experience below normal temperatures…but in the global average, there is warming. The plot of 2015 temperature anomalies shown above reveals there are indeed other things happening (graphic courtesy of Weatherbell.com, annotated by me). It should be mentioned that the map projection greatly exaggerates the actual size of the polar areas compared to the tropics. Note that I have not mentioned Pacific westerly wind bursts, or propagating Kelvin waves, or reduced ocean upwelling, since these are just regional manifestations of the whole process… In the “big picture”, the cause of El Nino warmth is still a reduction in the overall vertical mixing of warm surface waters with cold deep waters. (Reduced upwelling of cold deep water must, by mass continuity, be accompanied by decreased downwelling of warm surface water, which just means an overall reduction in vertical mixing in the ocean.) Does El Nino Warm the Entire Climate System? This is an interesting question that we addressed in our 2014 APJAS paper. The consensus opinion of El Nino and La Nina is that it is just a quasi-periodic oscillation of the climate system that has no long-term impact on global temperature trends. But we demonstrated that as El Nino develops there is an increase in radiative energy input into the global-average climate system which precedes peak El Nino warmth by about 9 months. This is mostly likely due to a small decrease in low cloud cover associated with the changing atmospheric circulation patterns during El Nino (La Nina would have increased cloud cover). Thus, if the climate system goes through a multi-decadal period of increased El Nino activity (and decreased La Nina activity), like what happened after the 1970s, there can be a multi-decadal natural warming trend that is entirely natural in origin as more solar energy is absorbed by the system. This complicates identification and quantification of the human greenhouse gas-forced portion of climate change, leading (in my opinion) to overestimates of the anthropogenic warming effect. Now, everyone who studies the El Nino/La Nina (ENSO) phenomenon comes to a somewhat different conceptual understanding, and I might be missing some important component that others are welcome to point out. But the above represents my view as a result of our analysis of global average ocean temperature fluctuations as a function of depth since the 1950s which was part of our 2014 APJAS paper, as well as our analysis in that paper of CERES satellite radiative budget changes associated with ENSO. Again, my emphasis is on the global-average manifestation of ENSO, which then leads to an explanation of global average warmth associated with El Nino. Regional changes involving Kelvin waves, westerly wind bursts, etc., are not sufficient to explain the net warming effects of El Nino. That instead requires (in my view) a global-average decrease in the mixing of warm surface waters and cold deep waters, as I have outlined above. Roy Spencer

Regards George

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