About ten years ago, frogs were allegedly disappearing all over the world. At the time, the perceived cause focused on “global warming” re-termed “climate change,” and more recently “climate disruption” and “climate chaos.”

Whatever the terminology used, the frogs’ demise was determined to be the harbinger of a worldwide “climate catastrophe” in the making. The “consensus” scientific opinion at the time fingered carbon dioxide (CO2) and the then-widely claimed “global warming” as the cause of the problem.

Attack on the Frogs

But the demise of the frogs turned out to be more arcane. It was not “warming” of any sort but a fungal infection called chytridiomycosis (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) which caused the problem. That virus was spread all over the world, even into the most pristine environs of the world’s jungles from the use of virus-infected South African Clawed Frog (Xenopus sp.) samples used in common pregnancy tests.

Indeed, some frog species were close to extinction then, like the Panama Golden Frog (PFG, actually a toad, Atelopus zeteki) and its relatives. These species had never before experienced anything like the B. dendrobatidis and were (biologically) unprepared for its effects, but nature is tough and a few specimens survived, now with more determination and new-found natural defenses against the virus attack.

Record Antarctic Ice Extent Throws Cold Water On Global Warming Scare … Antarctic polar ice extent has set another new record, defying alarmist global warming claims. Surpassing the greatest month-of-April ice extent in recorded history, the new record throws cold water on alarmist claims that the Antarctic ice cap has crossed a melting point of no return. – Forbes

Dominant Social Theme: The Earth is melting! The Earth is melting!

Free-Market Analysis: In the past few days we’ve read numerous articles about how the Antarctic is melting and that it is too late to stop it now. Being long-time analysts of dominant social themes, we didn’t take the meme seriously even though it was repeated over and over again. But the news was so shrill and repetitive that we finally decided to look into it further. What we found was actually fairly chaotic. There are several sets of facts seemingly being presented. The following BBC article is representative of the confusion.

It begins this way:

Esa’s Cryosat mission sees Antarctic ice losses double … Antarctica is now losing about 160 billion tonnes of ice a year to the ocean – twice as much as when the continent was last surveyed. The new assessment comes from Europe’s Cryosat spacecraft, which has a radar instrument specifically designed to measure the shape of the ice sheet.

The melt loss from the White Continent is sufficient to push up global sea levels by around 0.43mm per year. Scientists report the data in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The new study incorporates three years of measurements from 2010 to 2013, and updates a synthesis of observations made by other satellites over the period 2005 to 2010.

Earlier this year we reported that amateur astronomers had observed and photographed the recent shrinking of Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot. Now, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope concur:

“Recent Hubble Space Telescope observations confirm that the spot is now just under  10,250 miles (16,500 km) across, the smallest diameter we’ve ever measured,” said Amy Simon of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, U.S.

Using historic sketches and photos from the late 1800s, astronomers determined the spot’s diameter then at 25,475 miles (41,000 km) across. Even the smallest telescope would have shown it as a huge red hot dog. Amateur observations starting in 2012 revealed a noticeable increase in the spot’s shrinkage rate.

The spot’s “waistline” is getting smaller by just under 620 miles (1,000 km) per year while its north-south extent has changed little. In a word, the spot has downsized and become more circular in shape. Many who’ve attempted to see Jupiter’s signature feature have been frustrated in recent years not only because the spot’s pale color makes it hard to see  against adjacent cloud features, but because it’s physically getting smaller.

As to what causing the drastic downsizing, there are no firm answers yet:

“In our new observations it is apparent that very small eddies are feeding into the storm,” said Simon. “We hypothesized that these may be responsible for the accelerated change by altering the internal dynamics of the Great Red Spot.” 

What first began as ‘rumored’ science on conservative websites is now being reinforced by what can only be described as the foremost authority on the Expanding Universe.  The thought that there was a Non Expanding Theory has been introduced by a trained engineer, who has turned rouge astronomer.

  The following quote from Dr X does add credibility to this challenge to eight decades of ‘settled’ science:

    Dr X has “admitted that the expanding universe might be an illusion, but implied that this was a cautious and colorless view.  Last week it was apparent that he had shifted his position even further away from a literal interpretation of red shift, that he now regards the expanding universe as more improbable than a non-expanding one.” [1]

What gives this Dr X usurper, along with that engineer turned rogue astronomer, the right to challenge this cornerstone of modern astronomy ?

The identity of the mysterious Dr X is none other than “Mount Wilson Observatory’s brilliant Astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble,” who with coworker Milton LaSalle Humason first observed the red-shift of light from distant stars.  Continuing, “It was assumed that the distant nebulae were retreating in all directions.”

One interesting fact is that this interview was for Time Magazine and was published as “Science: Shift on Shift” on Dec 14, 1936.  Here you have proof that the ‘father of the Expanding Universe Theory’ had misgivings just years after his 1929 disclosure.  Following the motto of P T Barnum, of “there’s a sucker born every minute” the existing ‘big science’ teams saw an unlimited opportunity to expand astronomy budgets.

The ‘sucker’ in this case is the taxpayer, forced by errant bureaucrats for fund side-show science on an ever expanding universe with ever expanding grants, awards and fellowships.  Bureaucrats do have an affection for expanding concepts, witness the vast expansion of planetary maladies they have been able to ascribe to the ‘expansion of carbon dioxide’ gas in our atmosphere. 

Professor Lennart Bengtsson is the latest scientist to suffer discrimination by the Institute of Physics (IoP) for daring to show evidence contrary to supposed man-made global warming. Terri Jackson,  the founder of the IoP Energy (and climate) Group, says this systemic pattern of discrimination goes back at least to 2009 when she became a notable victim.

But, as was the case with Jackson, once again the Institute denies it has a policy of censoring science. Jackson’s article first appeared in the Times Educational in 2009. The similarity with Professor Lennart Bengtsson is striking and is put into further harsh focus by the latest legal threat by the University of Queensland to censor critics of dubious alarmist research.

Below, Terri Jackson reminds us of her Times Educational article that revealed how these once respected institutions are now gatekeepers serving government-sanctioned science. It is followed by a damning commentary from Jackson, former science adviser to the First Minister of Northern Ireland, who points to the shabby way two other dissenting professors, Murry Salby and Richard Tol, were also victimized.

The University of Queensland has threatened legal action to stop the release of data used in a paper that establishes a 97 per cent scientific consensus on ­anthropogenic climate change.

EPA’s new MATS rule is not based on scientific evidence of benefit from the reduction of mercury emissions; it is nothing but a ruse. The U.S. Government’s “war on coal” claims to be a “war on mercury.” 

While the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) proposed “Mercury and Air Toxics Standards” (MATS) rule is supposed to reduce exposure to “mercury” emissions, this is just a pretext; the real intent is to control “carbon” emissions, or carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, to be more precise.

The Minamata Convention on Mercury, signed by nearly 100 nations a few months ago, aims to reduce emissions of mercury and mercury compounds, (i.e. “total mercury”) to the atmosphere. The Convention derives its name from the town of Minamata Japan, where the “Minamata disease,” a form of neurological poisoning was observed in Japan in the 1950’s and later on also in other locations in Japan.

The Minamata disease was determined to result from “methyl-mercury,” a derivative of the element mercury. Methyl-mercury, in contrast to elemental mercury is a also a common product of microbial action upon other dissolved mercury compounds, especially in ocean and lake sediments of low oxygen content; more on that further down.

With EPA’s use of “mercury” as a way to regulate the coal-using industry it behooves us to look at the whole mercury situation in more detail. What could be the problem with EPA’s attempt to reduce “mercury”?

Mercury or CO2?

EPA uses “mercury emissions” as a convenient mechanism to regulate and discourage the use of coal for electricity generation and heating. However, EPA’s real intent is to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that President Obama frequently terms “carbon pollution.”

The mercury rule is nothing but a red herring to control fossil fuel-derived energy production which is claimed to contribute to “climate change.”

A recent headline in the New York Times says “Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans from Polar Melt.” Other newspapers propagated the story with titles like “Ice sheet collapse ‘unstoppable,’ scientists warn” and “Huge Antarctic ice sheet collapsing.”

The marked slowdown in the past decade of the warm Atlantic Ocean currents that bring mild weather to northwestern Europe may be caused by natural variation and not anthropogenic climate change, as has been previously suggested.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is part of the great ocean ‘conveyor belt’ that ceaselessly circulates sea water, heat and nutrients around the globe. In particular, it transports large amounts of warm water from the tropics to the poles, warming the British Isles and maritime northern Europe along the way (see ‘Current affair’). But since 2004, ocean sensors have detected a significant decline in the strength of the currents and a cooling of the subtropical Atlantic as a result. From mid-2009 to mid-2010, for example, the circulation slowed to two-thirds of its usual strength — and some oceanographers suggested that the drop caused the harsh weather in the United Kingdom and western Europe that winter (see Nature 497, 167–168; 2013).

Climate scientists had speculated that the slowdown is linked to man-made climate change. But an analysis presented last month by a team of British scientists at the annual assembly of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna suggests that the AMOC’s slowing could just be part of natural oceanic fluctuations.

With global temperature data now available for the first three months of 2014, an interesting trend has clearly emerged: global cooling. No longer is it just a hypothesis.  For the first quarter of each calendar year since 2002, it is effectively a fact at reasonably strong statistical significance.  Here is the data:

That downward trend since 2002 has a p-value of 0.097 (r=-0.48), which is below the p=0.10 (90{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}) threshold used in many climate science studies for statistical significance, and very close to the standard p=0.05 (95{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117}) threshold generally employed across the physical and biological sciences.  The same level of statistical significance is obtained regardless of whether parametric or non-parametric trend analysis methods are employed.

Some readers may be looking at this plot and thinking that the global climate data since 1880 looks a lot like a cycle, with a stable period (of neither warming nor cooling) of, say, 140 years in length between the approximately 70-year long alternating cool and warm periods.  It certainly has that appearance.  If such is the case, we would expect a return to “normal” January-March global temperatures by 2050, give or take a decade or two.

In the United States, the January-March 2014 temperature was well below the 20th-century average.  There has been no statistically significant trend in January-March temperatures in the contiguous USA since 1980.  None, for 35 years and counting.  The same lack of trend applies for the December-February temperatures.  Depending on how you define winter, either – or both – of these timeframes is considered the wintertime period.

So there has been absolutely no change in wintertime temperatures in the United States since before Reagan was president, and yet the The Guardian is reporting that the latest National Climate Assessment finds climate change to be a “clear and present danger” and that “Americans are noticing changes all around them … Winters are generally shorter and warmer.”

2014 sees a rise in the number of scientists supportive of the idea of an Electric Universe, a concept that flies in the face of conventional cosmology. Piers Corbyn, world leader in long range weather forecasting, was one of an array of impressive speakers at the EU2014 Electric Universe Conference, New Mexico, helping generate the sparks.

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The characterful British astrophysicist Corbyn cuts an avuncular figure on stage at the EU Albuquerque venue. The plain-speaking Londoner kicked off a zestful presentation by quoting Niels Bohr who famously once said about his atomic theory, “Is it crazy enough?” Corbyn’s point was that the consensus never advances science and often what seems “crazy” at the time has a tendency to prove such mavericks correct.

Anti-establishmentarianism to one side, Corbyn delivered a most informative and entertaining presentation on our planet’s complicated meteorological system and how it reacts to solar and electromagnetic effects from space. The Weatheraction.com frontman Corbyn said that standard meteorology (SM) was consistently failing in outlook, theory, and practice.

“Climate change nonsense ‘theory’ and dangerous policy is part of a bigger problem,” laments Corbyn, who has a legion of loyal customers subscribing to his long range weather forecasting service. He is among a growing number of highly-credentialed independent scientists who say climate science and standard meteorology is in crisis. For too long computer modelling reliant on unrested, untestable hypotheses held the ascendant. A world-leading independent long-range weather forecaster, Corbyn is dismissive of the junk climate computer models that failed to predict the current trend towards apparent global cooling.

And as with other EU speakers, Corbyn’s message was that an empirical approach (evidential) was preferable, as opposed to the ideological approach promoted by corrupt self-interest groups. Even the non-scientists among us are now asking –  isn’t the evidence-based approach best?

The thrust of Corbyn’s argument is that mainstream science academies have become servants of political paymasters. As such, they are no longer reliable agents for the advancement of science. But government science will always serve government policy, not the other way round. That is the nature of the beast as we move inexorably deeper into a post-normal era that desperately needs new science bodies set apart and not beholden to national governments.

If you live in the northern climes, as I do, spring is an overpowering force. After a long winter and weeks of nature seemingly in an eternal slumber, spring arrives overnight, without warning and drawn-out preludes.

In its latest entry on “health repercussions for Canadians of a changing climate” in the Globe and Mail newspaper, Karen McColl raises the alarm bells on “substantial increases in occurrences of extremely hot seasons” in Canada. Apparently, “Clean Air Partnership [CAP], a non-profit that addresses climate-change issues, says maximum temperatures in Toronto are expected to rise 7 C over the next 30 to 40 years.” That is a remarkable claim. A predicted 7 degrees Celsius increase in maximum temperatures over a 30-year period in Toronto equates to a rate of 23.3 degrees Celsius per century. To say that is insanely large would be an understatement.

So how does the historical trend in maximum temperatures for Toronto compare with this hysterical claim? The results are not promising for the Globe and Mail. Using the benchmark Environment Canada Adjusted and Homogenized Canadian Climate Data (AHCCD) database, the mean of daily maximum temperatures during the summer months in Toronto has not increased one bit since 1920. In other words, over the past century, the mean maximum summertime temperatures in Toronto exhibit absolutely no trend. None whatsoever.