Recent Developments in climate science

Written by Alan Moran on March 4, 2024. Posted in Current News

A review and commentary on topical matters concerning the science, economics, and governance associated with ‘climate change’

All the IPCC’s climate models have overstated forecast against actual temperature increases; the closest is Russia’s INM CM5, which has the least amplification of the CO2 effect by water vapour.

All the models are programmed to produce a temperature increase as CO2 increases.

None match the observations.

Ned Nikolov produces evidence that recent warming was NOT related to human ‘carbon’ emissions at all. Instead, it was likely driven by cosmic forces impacting cloud formation.

Adriana Dutkiewicz et al show that an all-time low in (volcanic) CO2 emissions is what was responsible for the Ice Age 700 million years ago when atmospheric CO2 fell to below 200 parts per million, less than half today’s level.

Jennifer Marohasy points to different temperature reconstructions for the Arctic by Russian and American climate officials. The Russians generally show the evident cooling for the Arctic region from 1940 through to 1975.

Russian reconstructions also show a Medieval Warm period, while the Americans flatten the early part of the 1000 years long record, obliterating the Medieval Warm period, and remodel instrumental temperature data onto the end of the proxy temperature series creating what has become known as the ‘hockey stick’.

Rupert Darwall, traces Michael Mann’s fraudulent reconstruction of the temperature record, on which the ‘hockey stick’ is based. But a Washington jury found for him and against Mark Steyn essentially for questioning the merits of the confected ‘hockey stick’ graph in which present temperatures were said to be unprecedented over the past 1000 years.

Mann’s lawyers closing remarks were intimidating, ‘These attacks on climate scientists have to stop, and you now have the opportunity….’

Judith Curry deflates the hype about a possible collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet from global warming, pointing out that the sheet has been cooling for 4100 years

In response to a complaint by independent climate researcher Paul Homewood, the Met Office has acknowledged that “there is no evidence yet for an increase in wind gust strengths, although these are projected to increase with future climate change.”

Climate politics

Farmer protests in Brussels, Paris, Germany and Spain are calling for the EU to scrap agricultural and environmental regulations, including defraying the costs of the green new deal, exacerbated by cheap imports.

EU President Ursula von der Leyen, said, “Our farmers deserve to be listened to” and the demand for farmers to reduce pesticides, nitrogen, methane and other emissions by a third has been removed.

Also announced was a delay in rules that would have forced farmers to set aside land to encourage biodiversity and soil health. But the EU Parliament has passed a law requiring renaturation of 20 percent of the EU’s land and sea areas. Here is Nigel Farage’s analysis.

A “Reckless Renewables” protest in Canberra focussed on power facilities and transmission lines disadvantaging farmers. Esewhere, media publicity was given to landowners supporting solar farms for providing income and even for offering alleged but dubious benefits for sheep grazing.

Farmer protests have led Elon Musk to resurrect his ‘carbon’ tax proposals but he does so without specifying the tax rate. His goal is to replace the ad hoc interventions – which include a tax equivalent on energy of $10 billion a year in Australia.

A $100 billion a year Australian carbon tax is proposed by veteran socialists Garnaut and Sims, financed by the Superpower Institute. This would be a $90 per tonne tax to be levied on top of existing imposts, already over $10 billion a year, which are destroying energy intensive industries.

Last month saw the collapse of nickel, which due to energy costs cannot compete with rival suppliers like Indonesia powered by coal-generated electricity. The proposed new tax would be used partly to compensate consumers for the costs involved in the ‘energy transition’ and partly to shift industry to a ‘carbon’-free future.

Economist Ed Shann says the proposal would, “effectively destroy Australia’s big export industries before replacement industries have been built. In an act of amazing self-harm, we would do overnight what it took Argentina decades to do.”

Meanwhile the escalating government-imposed energy costs are forcing Australian governments to subsidise their favoured “emerging” industries, prompting an AFR journalist to comment, “whatever the government comes up with, it will be a sobering day when Australia’s golden goose needs a subsidy to stay competitive.”

With Russian gas largely stopped, prices are much higher in Europe and a US “pause” in new gas export approvals can only exacerbate this. Even so, the German government, led by Green Party Chancellor Olaf Scholz, is to subsidize 15 to 20 new more gas plants in order to offset the unreliability of its wind/solar supply which has grown on the back of subsidies.

Meanwhile, France is being threatened by the EU Commission for not planning sufficient renewable capacity in its swing back to nuclear.

Governments in Germany and six other EU countries are to provide a total of 6.9 billion euros in state support to companies developing energy from hydrogen.

Wind and solar, at 26 per cent, reached new highs in EU energy supply last year; coal (falling by 26 per cent) and gas (down 15 per cent) combined were 29 per cent of total supply.

However, wind and solar businesses are facing difficulties – Orsted the world’s largest developer has written-off £3.3bn from its wind farm assets.

Demonstrating how politicians pass laws without thinking through their ramifications, the UK Labour Party has ditched its pledge to spend £28bn a year on ‘green’ investment.

For its part the Conservative Government is cutting back its “net zero” timeline and planning to scrap its tax on gas boilers.

See more here regulationeconomics.com

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