Image copyright: EPA

Icy temperatures across Europe have left more than 20 people dead and blanketed even the Greek islands and southern Italy in snow.

Italy saw ferries and flights cancelled and schools in the south are expected to close on Monday. Turkey has also been badly affected. The Bosphorus was closed to shipping as a heavy snowstorm hit Istanbul. At least 10 people died of cold in Poland. Night temperatures in Russia plunged to minus 30C. Normally milder Greece has witnessed temperatures of minus 15C in the north where an Afghan migrant died of cold last week and roads were closed.

In Athens, the temperature failed to rise above 0C and several of the islands were covered in snow. Some of the Greek islands are home to thousands of migrants and many are being moved to temporary housing and heated tents.

Kate Humble and the BBC have been at it again. Hotfoot from their polar bear deception, they have now been up to their necks in global warming propaganda in Yellowstone Park.

The series ostensibly looks at how wildlife copes with the enormous extremes between winter and summer there. However, as the iPlayer screed shows, the underlying theme is climate change. This is the summary of Episode 3 : The Blazing Summer:

NASA’s top climate scientist singled out as architect of the biggest data fraud of all time. Alleged anti-science con artist Gavin Schmidt (pictured) is named and shamed for deliberately falsifying global temperatures since 2000 and DOUBLING the actual level of warming to fit a political agenda.

If true, respected climate analyst, Tony Heller, recently spotted on President-elect Donald Trump’s radar, may have provided the incoming U.S. administration with compelling evidence of a criminal fraud. This would be fitting vindication for Trump who has for years dismissed man-made global warming as “a hoax.”

Heller has been on the attack against Schmidt (director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which studies the changing atmosphere) since he took over from former top dog James Hansen who retired in April 2013. Skeptics believe fellow climate alarmist activist Hansen groomed Schmidt for the job.

In 2011 a Japanese Research Institute published an important satellite map of sources of CO2 emissions. It was virtually ignored by the mainstream media, but that has become an inverse measure of its significance to the climate debate. It showed a pattern that most would not expect because of the misleading information presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) amplified by most media. Producers of the research illustrate the problem.

“The head of the research institute, Yasuhiro Sasano, says he hopes the map will help display how much each region needs to reduce its CO2 emissions in the future.”

This is only a politically correct comment because the map illustrates the exact opposite, CO2 emission reduction is not required where the IPCC recommend. At the time John O’Sullivan (Principia Scientific International) correctly drew attention to this dilemma, however, the results are logical if known science is applied.

Image copyright: CCFE

A question mark hangs over a world-leading laboratory that has pioneered research into fusion for nearly 40 years.

The Culham Centre for Fusion Energy near Oxford is largely funded by the EU and dozens of its scientists come from outside the UK. Since the vote for Brexit, many at the centre have become “extremely nervous” amid uncertainty about future financing and freedom of movement.

Five researchers have already returned to continental Europe with others said to be considering their positions. Fusion is the process that powers the Sun and a decades-long quest has attempted to replicate it here on Earth to provide a clean source of energy.

A steady decline over more than two decades has resulted in a 25 percent drop in the overall cancer death rate in the United States. The drop equates to 2.1 million fewer cancer deaths between 1991 and 2014.

A steady decline over more than two decades has resulted in a 25{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} drop in the overall cancer death rate in the United States. The drop equates to 2.1 million fewer cancer deaths between 1991 and 2014.

As America enters a brave new era of climate realism under President Trump three fatal flaws in catastrophic man-made global warming theory could influence policymakers.

The biggest elephant in the room? Despite huge rises in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels global temperatures have barely risen – up by less than ONE degree in 100 years. And keep in mind that with the known error margin for thermometer readouts the reality could be a ZERO overall change. So much for that threatened ‘climate catastrophe.’

This is cold, hard fact in stark contradiction of what greenhouse gas theory says, that cornerstone of alarmist science. That tells us more CO2 should equate to a hotter climate. Looking for scientific reasons to explain the failure of the doomsday prophecy Canadian astrophysicist and climate analyst, Joseph E. Postma points us towards three paradoxes in the ‘science’ of the greenhouse gas theory:

A green campaign group has agreed not to repeat misleading claims about the health and environmental impacts of fracking after complaints to the advertising watchdog.

Friends of the Earth spent more than a year trying to defend its claims, which were made in a fundraising leaflet, but has been forced to withdraw them.

The group’s capitulation is a victory for a retired vicar and a retired physics teacher who have been working for years to expose what they believe is scaremongering about a safe technique for extracting shale gas.

The Rev Michael Roberts and Ken Wilkinson complained about Friends of the Earth’s claims to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which also received a complaint from the fracking company Cuadrilla.

Esteemed American climate scientist, Dr Judith Curry, posts a strongly-worded rejection of climate alarm.  In a long and detailed blog post the Georgia Tech professor explains why she changed her position from being a prominent promoter of man-made global warming to outspoken dissenter. She singles out government researchers as main culprits for mixing politics and science.

Dr Curry writes:

I’m having another “Alice down the rabbit hole” moment, in response to the Scientific American article, the explication of the article by its author Michael Lemonick, Scientific American’s survey on whether I am a dupe or a peacemaker, and the numerous discussions in blogosphere.

My first such moment was in 2005 in response to the media attention associated with the hurricane wars, which was described in a Q&A with Keith Kloor at collide-a-scape.  While I really want to make this blog about the science and not about personalities (and especially not about me),  this article deserves a response.

Solar scientists have shown from the historical record that sunspot activity correlates well with climate change on earth. Fewer recent sunspots fits well with times of global cooling.

The chart above shows a weakening trend of sunspots in solar cycles 22, 23 and 24. These are the latest in a sequence dating from 1755, when extensive recording of solar sunspot activity began. Note that the peak of solar cycle 24, which occurred in 2014, is only about half that of solar cycle 22, which peaked about 1989.

This portends global cooling—not global warming. Sunspots are dwindling to lows not seen in 200 years. In 2008, during the solar minimum of cycle 23, there were 266 days with no sunspots. This is considered a very deep solar minimum. You can check out pictures of sunspots—or their absence—day after day for recent years at http://tinyurl.com/6zck4x.

Just in case you may have been tempted to allow your feelings of guilt and angst over your carbon footprint to subside, the New York Times is back with another polar bear alarm to boost your fear and anxiety quotient. The Times is not alone of course; The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Independent, National Geographic, and others are also sounding the hue and cry about the supposed demise (once again) of the furry, cuddly, hoary, Arctic killers. And, naturally, their lachrymose stories about these darling endangered icons are picked up and repeated, unchallenged, by countless other outlets in the establishment media echo chamber.

The ocean “acidification” narrative that claims humans are gradually lowering pH levels in sea water with their CO2 emissions may rest on presumptions, hypotheticals, and confirmation bias — not robust, observational scientific evidence.

A paper by Wei et al. (2015) published a year ago in the Journal of Geophysical Research effectively illustrates the vacuousness of the ocean “acidification” paradigm.

In the paper, the authors assert that “model calculations” (yes, calculations from modeling) have indicated oceanic pH levels may have decreased (i.e., lowered pH = less alkaline = more “acidic”) since the 1800s by a total of about 0.1 as consequence of the rise in anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

After years of imposed “scientific consensus” on global warming, a number of skeptical climate scientists are hopeful that their views may finally get a hearing under the new administration.

Georgia Tech scientist Judith Curry, for instance, labelled a “climate heretic” by Scientific American for her contrarian views, sees a light at the end of the long Obama tunnel.

“Here’s to hoping the Age of Trump will herald the demise of climate change dogma, and acceptance of a broader range of perspectives in climate science and our policy options,” she wrote last month on her popular blog Climate Etc.

Government funded scientists and their partners in crime in the media say we should be worried about “record low Arctic sea ice”

Arctic sea ice extent is exactly the same as it has been in all recent years, and is more than 300% of the “record low.” It is about 10% below the 1981 to 2000 mean. Why would anyone be worried about this?

Ocean and Ice Services | Danmarks Meteorologiske Institut

The Arctic is extremely cold. Scientists and journalists who say otherwise should be sent to live there.

Most of all, they need to stop lying about the climate.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013’

Read more at realclimatescience.com

It might feel like there is never enough time, but Earth has gained 27 seconds since the 1970s – an astronomical quirk which is causing a headache for timekeepers.

On New Year’s Eve, experts at the National Physical Laboratory(NPL) in Teddington, London, will add a leap second to UK time to account for the fact that the Earth is now spinning more slowly. Immediately before midnight, dials will read 11:59:60 as clocks around the world pause for a second to allow the Earth’s rotation to catch up with atomic time.

In 2010, we published what is now a best-selling (and award-winning) book Canada Rocks-The Geologic Journey aimed at telling the dramatic story for a public audience of how Canada (and North America) has evolved over the last 4 billion years.

It was a milestone in our professional and personal lives as we went on many field trips to fill in gaps in our own understanding and in the process stepped well beyond our own areas of expertise. We learned much about this fantastic country and its geology.

What is patently obvious from reviewing Canada’s ancient history is that scientists still do not have an adequate understanding of Earth’s complex systems on which to base sound economic and environmental policy.