Merchants of Doubt

Global Temperature: the Big 3

The title is a bit of a pun, since it refers to both the “big 3” global temperature data sets — NASA, NOAA, and HadCRUT4 — it also refers to the third year in a row global temperature has set a new record.

NASA, NOAA to Announce 2016 Global Temperatures, Climate Conditions

Climate experts from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will provide the annually-scheduled release of data on global temperatures and discuss the most important climate trends of 2016 during a media teleconference at 11 a.m. EST Wednesday, Jan. 18.

The teleconference panelists are:

Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York

Deke Arndt, chief of the global monitoring branch of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information in Asheville, North Carolina

Media can participate in the teleconference by calling 888-323-5258 (toll-free in the United States and Canada) or 415-228-4837 (international) and use the passcode “climate.”

Audio of the briefing, as well as supporting graphics, will stream live at:

http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio

Ivanka

Seems there’s a twitter account worth reading:

It’s here: https://twitter.com/ivanka/status/821286796491362304

You can read more about it here.

Coping with Sea Level Rise

The people of Tampa Bay, in order to prepare for all the problems that will come with sea level rise, responded to Florida’s 2015 Peril of Flood Act by having their Climate Science Advisory Panel (CSAP) produce a Recommended Projection of Sea Level Rise in the Tampa Bay Region. They proposed multiple projections, which were then used to estimate how the region, its people, and its facilities were at risk in a recently released study by the Tampa Planning Commission.

Global Warming’s Record Year

It is widely publicized that 2016 will certainly break the record for yearly average global temperature. Again. This will be the third year in a row we’ve set a new record. It’s time we paid attention.

I’ve often emphasized that just because Earth shows an indisputable warming trend, that doesn’t mean every year will be hotter than the one before. In addition to trend, there is also a lot of fluctuation in things like global temperature. So we shouldn’t expect each year to break the temperature record.

But we did in 2014. We did again in 2015, by a substantial margin. We did again in 2016, by a substantial margin. The third year in a row of record-breaking global temperature will probably get the most attention, but it may not be the most important or most worrisome record set last year.

Sea Surface Temperature — NOAA Vindicated

Ever since NOAA released their latest update to sea surface temperature, version ER-SSTv4 (Extended Reconstruction Sea Surface Temperature version 4), it — and they — have been the target of vicious attack. It has come not just from climate denier bloggers, but from politicians like Lamar Smith (R-TX, chairman of the House committee on Science, Space, and Technology). The accusations haven’t been limited to error, rather they have focused on claims of outright fraud by NOAA scientists, saying, without any justification whatever, that the new version was an attempt to deceive, simply because it shows faster recent warming than other versions.

But new research has not only vindicated them, it establishes that their latest update shows every sign of being the best sea surface temperature data set yet. As in, the best.

Tony Heller’s Snow Job: Part 2

Tony Heller has replied to my previous post. I don’t think he likes me very much.

Tony Heller’s Snow Job

How would we expect global warming to affect the world’s amount of snow cover?

Global Warming 2016: Arctic Spin

The useful thing about a canary in a coal mine is that it warns you of danger before the danger kills you.

When 2016 began last January 1st, the average temperature throughout the Arctic was fully 18°F (10°C) hotter than usual for New Year’s day, and the extent of sea ice in the Arctic was lower than ever before recorded for that date:

The extra-high temperatures and extra-low sea ice with which the Arctic started the year, was just the beginning.