“It is generally accepted that the climate warms during periods of strong solar activity (e.g., the Medieval Warm Period) and cools during periods of low solar activity (e.g., the Little Ice Age).” — Lyu et al., 2016

Graph Source: WoodForTrees.org

Scientists are increasingly tuning out the claims that the Earth’s temperatures are predominantly shaped by anthropogenic CO2 emissions, or that future climate is destined to be alarmingly warm primarily due to the rise in trace atmospheric gases.  Instead, solar scientists are continuing to advance our understanding of solar activity and its effect on the Earth system, and their results are progressively suggestive of robust correlations between solar variability and climate changes.

For example, in 2016 alone, there were at least 132 peer-reviewed scientific papers documenting a significant solar influence on climate.  Among them there were 18 papers that directly connected centennial-scale periods of low solar activity (the Little Ice Age) with cooler climates, and periods of high solar activity (the Medieval Warm Period and the Modern Warm Period [20th Century]) with high solar activity levels.  Another 10 papers warned of an impending solar minimum and concomitant cooling period in the coming decades.

And this trend of scientists linking climate changes to solar forcing mechanisms — and bypassing an anthropogenic explanation — continues to rage on in 2017.

If only we would all just use our rational, scientific minds. Then we could get past our disagreements. It’s a nice thought. Unfortunately, it’s wrong.

Yale behavioral economist Dan Kahan has spent the last decade studying whether the use of reason aggravates or reduces partisan beliefs. His research shows that aggravation easily wins. The more we use our faculties for scientific thought, the more likely we are to take a strong position that aligns with our political group. That goes for liberals as well as conservatives.

Rather than use our best thinking to reach the truth, we use it to find ways to agree with others in our communities.

Tear up that old textbook. A pyramid-shaped carbon molecule that contradicts one of the most basic chemistry lessons we learn at school has been studied for the first time. It contains a carbon atom that bonds to six other atoms instead of the four we have been told carbon is limited to.

Atoms form molecules by sharing electrons. Carbon has four electrons that it can share with other atoms. But in certain conditions, carbon can be stretched beyond this limit, says Moritz Malischewski, a chemist at the Free University of Berlin who synthesised and studied the molecule, called hexamethylbenzene.

These days, even shipwreck museums showcase evidence of climate change.

After diving recently among Key West’s fabled ship-destroying barrier reefs, I immersed myself in exhibits from the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, the fabled Spanish galleon that foundered during a ferocious hurricane in 1622. The Mel Fisher Maritime Museum now houses many of the gold, silver, emeralds and artifacts that Mel and Deo Fisher’s archeological team recovered after finding the wreck in 1985.

Also featured prominently in the museum is the wreck of a British slave ship, the Henrietta Marie. It sank in a hurricane off Key West in 1700, after leaving 190 Africans in Jamaica, to be sold as slaves.

The number one experiment quoted as proof of the greenhouse effect is Tyndall’s experiment.  Specifically the absorption experiment described in his 1861 Bakerian lecture to the British Royal Society.^[1]

In Tyndall’s experiment various gases are introduced into the gas observation chamber and it is noted that some gases (“greenhouse gases”) absorb more “calorific rays” (infrared) than others. This absorption is referred to as “proof of a greenhouse effect”.

It was the result of several months work on his part. But in fact Tyndall’s experiment shows nothing more than that EMR from a warmer object is absorbed by a colder one. Such absorption is not proof of a greenhouse effect.

It was a surprise to see the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.org, hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, finally post something about me this week after my last ten years of intensely dedicated effort toward searching for the truth in climate variation and earthquake prediction.Though I had hoped they would do a somewhat respectable job, it was as I feared, far from it.

In their first ever page about me dated 4 January 2017, one cannot miss the top line slanderous categorization:
“John Casey (global-warming denier)”

A new study that only looked at ocean temperatures is being trumpeted as disproving the global warming pause–it doesn’t.

According to a new study, the rate of ocean warming for the past 19 years was rising nearly twice as fast than originally measured, but land temps still show a global warming pause. Previously, sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were rising at 0.07C per decade, but the new paper shows it’s actually .12C. But the new paper has flaws being glossed over by mainstream #News outlets to push the #Climate Change narrative. The study was published in #Science Advances and is open to the public.

Yet another otherwise honorable cause turns itself into a vehicle for global warming propaganda to exploit the unwary. ‘Young People’s Trust for the Environment‘ (YPTE) is a registered UK charity that has swallowed wholesale junk climate science to become  ‘useful idiots’ doing the work of corrupt Big Green concerns.  Below the fake science YPTE promotes is carefully dissected and publicly exposed.

Earth’s surface receives energy from the Sun, and its heating effect reduces with distance, described by the Stefan-Boltzmann relationship. At Earth’s distance from the Sun, the average temperature is reckoned to be about -18°C as calculated from Stefan-Boltzmann, whereas the actual average temperature is about 33°C higher than that.

A generally accepted assertion is that that 33°C difference is due to the Greenhouse Gas effect, ie the atmospheric gases that are able to absorb IR energy, known as “Greenhouse Gases”, are responsible for that 33°C difference. I haven’t seen any substantiation of that assertion. This article tests that assertion.

The name “Greenhouse Gas” (GG). It is recognised the name is not really appropriate for the heat captured in the atmosphere by such “Greenhouse” molecules as CO2 or H2O, but the name has certainly captured the attention!

In 1924, German biochemist Otto Warburg observed that cancer cells are extraordinarily greedy. Tumours tend to grow rapidly, so it made sense that they had outsized appetites. But Warburg also found that the way they burned, or metabolised, the resources they gobbled so hungrily was different. He was convinced that this change in metabolism defined cancer – and figuring out what drove it would let us beat the disease.

His idea caught on. For much of the 20th century, Warburg’s altered metabolism idea guided approaches to understanding and treating cancer. That all changed in the 1970s, with the discovery that certain gene mutations can cause cancer – and with it a sea change in how we might tackle the disease. Target the genes responsible, the new thinking went, and we could stop cancer in its tracks. Warburg’s ideas largely fell by the wayside.

U.S. wildlife releases a plan to protect polar bears from global warming, despite their numbers doubling over 50 years.

In what one zoologist is calling “fake news,” the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced the final version of a draft report that #Climate Change is the chief threat to polar bears. Released yesterday, the Conservation Management Plan (CMP) is a wide-ranging report to help save the Arctic polar bear as warmer temperatures eat away at their sea ice. And media outlets took the bait and ran misleading headlines using a recycled report from mid-2015.

Just beyond Earth’s home in the solar system, about 94 million miles from the Sun, a coal-black asteroid slowly rotates as it orbits our star. It’s about 1,650 feet across, with a slight bulge around the middle, like a spinning top. Its low density means it’s not solid, but instead it’s likely a crumbly pile of carbon-rich rocks held together by gravity.

The asteroid is called Bennu, and every six years, its egg-shaped orbital path brings it just 185,000 miles from Earth — roughly 53,000 miles closer than our moon. In about 200 years, there’s a 1-in-2,700 chance it could sail close enough for Earth’s gravity to reel it in. That would be very bad.

The impact would excavate a crater nearly three miles wide and 1,500 feet deep. Locations three miles away would be buried under 50 feet of rock raining down. It would trigger a 6.7-magnitude earthquake. But the real damage would come from the air burst, caused by the meteor hurtling through the atmosphere, which could collapse buildings and tear down trees up to 30 miles away.

Some impressive winter events have been taking place all across the northern hemisphere lately. Especially eastern and southeastern Europe have been pounded by massive snowfalls and tremendously cold temperatures. Turkey has been buried by heavy snows and extreme temperatures have gripped the entire USA and vast areas of Russia.

The global warming climate appears to have been hacked by natural factors.

Recently I spoke at the Freedom Force Conference in Phoenix on Climate Change. The person who made the connection between climate and freedom clearly and concisely was former Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus.

He was the keynote speaker at the first Heartland Climate Conference in New York. His opening comment “We have just gone through 70 years of communism, why the hell would you want to go back to that?” brought a standing ovation. He summarized his views in a brief book with the pointed title “Blue Planet in Green Shackles: What is Endangered: Climate or Freedom.”

[STICKY POST] In this live webcast I will be giving a slideshow presentation which demonstrates that the radiative greenhouse effect, upon which climate alarm and even the field of climate science itself is based, does not exist. On both scientific requirements of having theoretical & empirical support, the radiative greenhouse effect is proven to have neither: it is based in false physics and paradox, violates the laws of thermodynamics, and doesn’t produce the empirical observables it predicts and claims responsibility for.

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.