Karl Popper, a philosopher and professor from London School of Economics once likened scientific research to a dark man, dressed in dark, who enters a dark room in search of a dark hat that may not be there. One of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20^th Century, Popper, who died in 1994, captured the soul of this enterprise in this analogy. Not only does it require a different kind of people to go down this path, but even requires a different sensibility to appreciate, and evaluate, scientific research.

Scientists in the Netherlands have found a new excuse as to why sea levels are stubbornly refusing to rise in line with Al Gore’s doomsday predictions: “ocean bottom deformation.”

Apparently, they claim in a study by Thomas Frederikse et al, the weight of the extra water caused by all those melting glaciers and ice caps is so great that it is causing the seabed to sink.

Scientists have known for years that water behaves weirdly. Other liquids like alcohol and oil grow heavier as they’re compressed. But water becomes lighter — ice cubes float in a glass of water, after all.

Other fluids grow denser as they cool. But, oddly, water is most dense at around 39 degrees Fahrenheit, or before it freezes.

A recent New Time Times article about Google’s practice of generating ad revenue via ‘promoted’ search results (“How Climate Change Deniers Rise to the Top in Google Searches” 29 December 2017) had a surprising and disquieting ending about the prospect of internet censorship.

Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) announced it was the hottest ever day in Sydney today (January 8, 2018), then realized it had it wrong, but not before headlines spread across the world. For a million dollars a day you’d think the BOM would check their own “high quality” database.

Ocean temperatures have risen only 0.1 degree Celsius over the last five decades, according to a landmark study some scientists argue could change the way researchers measure the ocean’s temperature levels.

Each layer of water in the ocean has vastly different temperatures, so determining the average temperature is nearly impossible without glossing over important data. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego decided on a different model – they measured the ratio of noble gases in the atmosphere, which are in direct relation to the ocean’s temperature.

Now, the consensus answer is cold, 5 Kelvin or 3 Kelvin. But there are no molecules in outer space so what do the concepts of hot, cold, heat, energy even mean without the kinetic motion of molecules?

The International Space Station (diagram above) has not one, but a redundant pair of ammonia refrigerant cooling, air conditioning, refrigerating/freezing systems. Why? If space is cold? Why not just put that ice tray or margarita blender out on the back step and let outer space do its thang?

The paper identifies that thermal conduction does not include the heat of gases vented from within the planet. Correcting for the Enthalpy carried in these vented gases yields estimates of the planet’s internal heat ranging from 300 to 420 TW, nearly ten times the prevailing view.  Of course, the vast bulk such heat is dissipated into the ocean waters.

The body of ‘hot’ water in the western Pacific which drives the El Niño is centered directly over the Mariana Trench, only exceeded by the North Pole’s Gakkel Ridge as the closet points to the Earth’s great internal heat engine.

Abstract. The Hydride Earth model predictions of geoneutrino flux and intrinsic Earth heat flux are discussed. The geoneutrino flux predicted by the model can be adjusted to the experimental one.

The predicted intrinsic Earth heat flux is significantly larger than model dependent experimental value obtained under assumption that the main heat transfer mechanism is a thermal conductivity.

The BBC has accepted Lord Lawson’s complaint that they made a serious factual error in claiming that reindeer were in “steep decline” because of climate change.

The alarming claim that reindeer populations across Northern Russia were “in steep decline because of climate change”, was made during the first episode of the recent BBC 2 series: Russia with Simon Reeve.

Image copyright: GETTY IMAGES

In Las Vegas this week you can learn a lot about the exciting potential of artificial intelligence. You can also be left wondering whether AI is a triumph of marketing, yet to deliver real improvements to the economy and the way we live.

One of my first stops here was at a University of Las Vegas robotics lab. Scientists there were working on projects ranging from drones to virtual reality, but they were also collaborating with the team behind one of the stars of the robot world.

In today’s crazy world, Western politicians are wasting billions of taxpayer dollars force-feeding costly, unreliable green energy in the bizarre belief that this will somehow change Earth’s climate.

Even more incredible, they fear global warmth and seem hell-bent on creating global cooling. They should study climate history.  It is snow and ice; cold, dry air; and carbon dioxide starvation we need to fear, not a warm, moist, fertile, bountiful atmosphere.

El Niño and La Niña are two distinct phases of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a naturally occurring phenomenon characterized by how water temperatures in the tropical Pacific periodically oscillate between warmer than average during El Niños and cooler during La Niñas.

Polar bear experts who falsely predicted that roughly 17,300 polar bears would be dead by now (given sea ice conditions since 2007) have realized their failure has not only kicked their own credibility to the curb, it has taken with it the reputations of their climate change colleagues.

Record snowfall, a “bomb cyclone” and cold Arctic air have once again stirred up the debate over global warming’s impact on winter weather.

Some climate scientists are pointing the finger at manmade global warming as a culprit behind recent wintry weather, but there’s not a lot of evidence or agreement that global warming is currently driving extreme cold and snow.

The public is being cynically misled by the mainstream media and government scientists about ‘ocean acidification.’ All the CO2 in the atmosphere came from inside the Earth. During the early life of the planet, the Earth was much hotter, and there was much more volcanic activity than there is today.

The heat of the core caused carbon and oxygen to combine to form CO2, which became a significant part of
the Earth’s early atmosphere, perhaps the most abundant component until photosynthesis evolved. Most of the CO2
in the oceans comes from the atmosphere, although some is injected directly from ocean vents.

Eager to criticize President Trump in its news pages last week, the paper of record smugly noted, “It’s Cold Outside. Cue the Trump Global Warming Tweet.”

“With unusually frigid weather gripping much of the Eastern United States this week, President Trump took to Twitter on Thursday to cast doubt on the reality of climate change, but he appeared unaware of the distinction between weather and climate,” the Times wrote.