Missing News: RIP Freeman Dyson

Freeman Dyson passed away last week (28 Feb). One of the world's greatest thinkers in physics. He was outspoken on many issues. On climate change he was completely unconvinced it was a major problem. He wrote recently:

To any unprejudiced person reading this account, the facts should be obvious: that the non-climatic effects of carbon dioxide as a sustainer of wildlife and crop plants are enormously beneficial, that the possibly harmful climatic effects of carbon dioxide have been greatly exaggerated, and that the benefits clearly outweigh the possible damage.
I consider myself an unprejudiced person and to me these facts are obvious. But the same facts are not obvious to the majority of scientists and politicians who consider carbon dioxide to be evil and dangerous. The people who are supposed to be experts and who claim to understand the science are precisely the people who are blind to the evidence. 

ABC failed to report his passing. The taint of the ideological spin coming from Ultimo so great that the passing of one of our best and brightest goes unnoticed because of his scientific scepticism. Utterly shameful!

RIP FREEMAN DYSON, your equations and words live on.

Dyson's Awards

FRS (1952)[3] Heineman Prize (1965) Lorentz Medal (1966) Hughes Medal (1968) Harvey Prize (1977) Wolf Prize (1981) Andrew Gemant Award (1988) Matteucci Medal (1989) Oersted Medal (1991) Enrico Fermi Award (1993) Templeton Prize (2000) Pomeranchuk Prize (2003) Henri Poincaré Prize (2012)

Missing News: Quality control needed in environmental research

Another missing story:

The need for a formalised system of Quality Control for environmental policy-science

Author links open overlay panelPiers Larcombe Peter Ridd

Abstract

Research science used to inform public policy decisions, herein defined as “Policy-Science”, is rarely subjected to rigorous checking, testing and replication. Studies of biomedical and other sciences indicate that a considerable fraction of published peer-reviewed scientific literature, perhaps half, has significant flaws. To demonstrate the potential failings of the present approaches to scientific Quality Control (QC), we describe examples of science associated with perceived threats to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), Australia. There appears a serious risk of efforts to improve the health of the GBR being directed inefficiently and/or away from the more serious threats. We suggest the need for a new organisation to undertake quality reviews and audits of important scientific results that underpin government spending decisions on the environment. Logically, such a body could also examine policy science in other key areas where governments rely heavily upon scientific results, such as education, health and criminology.

Missing News: Solar impact on climate seven times greater than climate models suggested

Wow, Great Story from Graham Lloyd at the Oz about a new paper by an ABC missing voice Henrik Svensmark:

From The OZ: Cosmic rays, solar activity have greater impact on climate models

The impact of changes in solar activity on Earth’s climate was up to seven times greater than climate models suggested according to new research published today in Nature Communications.

Researchers have claimed a breakthrough in understanding how cosmic rays from supernovas react with the sun to form clouds, which impact the climate on Earth.

The findings have been described as the “missing link” to help resolve a decades long controversy that has big implications for climate science.

Lead author, Henrik Svensmark, from The Technical University of Denmark has long held that climate models had greatly underestimated the impact of solar activity.

He says the new research identified the feedback mechanism through which the sun’s impact on climate was varied.

Read the rest at the link above, or at videnskab.dk you won't read this on "our" ABC.

The paper is here https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02082-2

Abstract:

Increased ionization supports growth of aerosols into cloud condensation nuclei
H. Svensmark 1, M.B. Enghoff 1, N.J. Shaviv2 & J. Svensmark1,3

Ions produced by cosmic rays have been thought to influence aerosols and clouds. In this study, the effect of ionization on the growth of aerosols into cloud condensation nuclei is investigated theoretically and experimentally. We show that the mass-flux of small ions can constitute an important addition to the growth caused by condensation of neutral molecules. Under present atmospheric conditions the growth rate from ions can constitute several percent of the neutral growth rate. We performed experimental studies which quantify the effect of ions on the growth of aerosols between nucleation and sizes >20 nm and find good agreement with theory. Ion-induced condensation should be of importance not just in Earth’s present day atmosphere for the growth of aerosols into cloud condensation nuclei under pristine marine conditions, but also under elevated atmospheric ionization caused by increased supernova activity.

Missing News: Killing an Australian Icon

No mention by the ABC of news from Alice Springs about the administrative murder of a great Australian icon:

Rock climb mostly closed

By ERWIN CHLANDA

The Uluru (Ayers Rock) climb was closed for parts 229 days of the 273 days between January 1 and September 30 this year. That’s 84% of the days.

The reasons for the closures include wind, rain, storms or extreme temperatures, according to Parks Australia, the Federal instrumentality that manages the park. The climb is opened again when rangers deem it safe.

In January and February the climb was closed from 8am every day “due to heat” and longer on 52 of the 59 days in those two months.

A Parks spokeswoman says the climb is closed “for people’s safety” for the following reasons: If the temperature reaches 36 degrees or above; there is a greater than 20% chance of rain within three hours; there is a greater than 5% chance of thunderstorms within three hours; the estimated wind speed at the summit reaches 25 knots or above; more than 20% of the rock’s surface is wet after rain; cloud descends below the summit or for cultural reasons, for example, during a period of mourning.

During the height of the tourist season the climb was closed at some time during the following number of days: May – 20 days, June – 26, July – 10, August – 29.

The climb is now always closed at night, from about 5pm to 7am.

Missing News: What temperatures are BOM recording?

The Australian have been covering and interesting and newsworthy story concerning problems BOM have in recording temperatures (eg Push for probe into weather stations failures). This is their basic role, you'd think by now they could get it right.
Given the importance of temperature in the land of droughts and flooding rains we are astounded that the ABC has failed to provide any coverage.

Jennifer Marohasy has an important series of articles on her blog that outline the problem. See...

Two Decades of Temperature Data from Australia – Not Fit for Purpose

Are Recordings from Electronic Devices Comparable – or Not?

Vindicated: Bureau acknowledges limits set on how cold temperatures can be recorded

Vindicated: Bureau not following WMO guidelines

Bureau Management Rewrites the Rules – Again

Missing News: An Inconvenient Deception: How Al Gore Distorts Climate Science and Energy Policy

ABC recently provided free marketing and uncritical coverage of Al Gore's latest alarmist tome. See for instance:

• Hack
• 7:30 Report
• Sydney Radio
• Brisbane Radio
• Perth Drive Radio
• Melbourne Radio
• One Plus One

Dr Roy Spencer the scientist responsible for developing and interpreting the NASA satellite measurements of global temperature has released an ebook available on Amazon that provides the critical coverage ABC's unquestioning reporters missed out on. The book is titled "An Inconvenient Deception: How Al Gore Distorts Climate Science and Energy Policy". Sadly somehow we doubt it will feature on the ABC.

Al Gore's new movie An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power is reviewed for its accuracy in climate science and energy policy. As was the case with Gore's first movie (An Inconvenient Truth), the movie is bursting with bad science, bad policy and some outright falsehoods. The storm events Gore addresses occur naturally, and there is little or no evidence they are being made worse from human activities: sea level is rising at the same rate it was before humans started burning fossil fuels; in Miami Beach the natural rise is magnified because buildings and streets were constructed on reclaimed swampland that has been sinking; the 9/11 memorial was not flooded by sea level rise from melting ice sheets, but a storm surge at high tide, which would have happened anyway and was not predicted by Gore in his first movie, as he claims; the Greenland ice sheet undergoes melt every summer, which was large in 2012 but then unusually weak in 2017; glaciers advance and retreat naturally, as evidenced by 1,000 to 2,000 year old tree stumps being uncovered in Alaska; rain gauge measurements reveal the conflict in Syria was not caused by reduced rainfall hurting farming there, and in fact the Middle East is greening from increasing CO2 in the atmosphere; agricultural yields in China have been rising, not falling as claimed by Gore. The renewable energy sources touted by Gore (wind and solar), while a laudable goal for our future, are currently very expensive: their federal subsidies per kilowatt-hour of energy produced are huge compared to coal, natural gas, and nuclear power. These costs are hidden from the public in increased federal and state tax rates. Gore is correct that "it is right to save humanity", but what we might need saving from the most are bad decisions that reduce prosperity and hurt the poor.

Missing News: ignoring Haset Sali

The Australian today reports (subscriber access) that ABC News failed to give wider coverage of calls to ban the Burka by Haset Sali.

A former president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils and one of its founders, Mr Sali told the ABC that the Koran did not require women to cover their faces.

“I don’t often applaud Pauline Hanson — whether it’s a stunt or an initiative to highlight something that’s unnecessary baggage that has been dumped in with Islam — (but) it’s about time the myth of the burka being Islamic dress was blown out of the water,” he told the ABC.

“The sooner Muslim women get rid of this hideous garb the better.”

But that, as far as the ABC was concerned, was that. Although the corporation published online reaction to Senator Hanson’s speech from Muslim leaders and community members, it didn’t publish Mr Sali’s comments.

This is a significant news story that once again highlights ABC myopic coverage of anything critical ofIslam.

One reader's comments caught our eye. Simon (presumably from Canberra) lists items covered by ABC TV News in Canberra:

• One story about homosexual marriage.
• One story about climate change.
• One story about Indigenous art, or homelessness and unemployment (both our fault), or their deep spirituality - superior to anything invented by white fellas.
• One story about Muslims in Australia or stuck on Manus Island.
• One story about Safe Schools and how it protects vulnerable students - it really should be how some young person in need of psychological help is denied that help because they are told they are normal.
• A 30-second segment showing Leigh Sales promoting her interview with Tim Flannery about his new Catalyst Programme.
• One story about how Four Corners is going to expose unfair treatment of young offenders who it turns out have caused millions of dollars of damage and are left to run free as Dad, if it is his Dad, is off shagging some other woman and Mum is at home drunk. The story will later be shown to be wrong/unbalanced/deceptive.
• One story about trans-gender parents and how they are so loving.
• One, or two, or three stories about how we don't like Tony Abbott, the Coalition Government, or right-wing extremists like people who go to church and disagree with abortion.
• Two or three or four stories about Bob Brown, Andrew Barr, the Greens, or how Philip Nitzchke is helping people.
• Four stories about Rugby Leaugue and Soccer.
• Thirty seconds of weather.

That will do for the ABC TV News here in Canberra with Dan Borscher, with bizarre basin haircut and slurring of straight forward words.
Don't we fit in a lot in 30 minutes!

Missing News: One Planet enough

ABCs catastrophists at it again promoting this piece of eco-activism as news...

Earth Overshoot Day: We used a year's worth of resources in seven months

It would have been worth asking for a counter opinion. Bjorn Lomborg provides this common sense reply:

One Planet Is Enough

For more than a decade, the World Wildlife Fund and other conservation organizations have performed complicated calculations to determine our total “ecological footprint” on the planet. In their narrative, population growth and higher standards of living mean that we are now using 1.7 planets and are depleting resources so quickly that by 2030, we would need two planets to sustain us. If everyone were to suddenly rise to American living standards, we would need almost five planets. The message is unequivocal – WWF tells us we face a looming “ecological credit crunch”, risking “a large-scale ecosystem collapse.”

But this scare is almost completely fallacious. The ecological footprint tries to assess all our usage of area and compare it with how much is available. At heart, this is a useful exercise, and like any measure that tries to aggregate many different aspects of human behavior, it tends to simplify its inputs.

Read the rest at the link.

100 Missing News items

Our list of ABC's missing climate news is now over 100 items long (this despite our extended WEB). To find out what you may have missed check out our Missing News page on the right. Or simply Click the link: MISSING NEWS.

Missing News: Their ABC, diverse views and the FOI Act

We last posted on missing news items on ABC in 2015. ABC's inherent Green-left bias means that any news item falling outside ABC's collective hive mind ends up classified as doubleplusungood, unfit for Australian consumption. Don't let the facts get in the way and spoil our alarmist fun.

In our absence from action a guest post at Catallaxy Files takes up the cudgel....
Their ABC, diverse views and the FOI Act 
When is it OK for our national broadcaster to thumb its nose at its own code of practice?  The obvious answer is never, but we know it happens routinely.  So what can the common worker-drone do about it?  Not much, but we can at least try to use existing legislation to draw attention to the more egregious examples.
One such attempt is described here.  Settle back, this is lengthy.

With the ‘splodey-headed ABC-luvvies  fairly busy being maximally outraged by the US citizenry’s choice for their highest public office, it seemed a good time to try and sink the slipper into them over their second most-passionately held world view – our unfolding ”climate disaster” – and their deranged reporting of it.

Read on via the link above. 

Missing News, something for the science show

Odd that this book has not prompted an interview with its author. Oh, that's right it doesn't say the world is going to end, so let's just ignore it then.

The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change Paperback – November 1, 2014

by Roger Pielke Jr. (Author)

In recent years the media, politicians, and activists have popularized the notion that climate change has made disasters worse. But what does the science actually say? Roger Pielke, Jr. takes a close look at the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the underlying scientific research, and the data to give you the latest science on disasters and climate change. What he finds may surprise you and raise questions about the role of science in political debates.

Missing News: Curry snubbed again

if the current crop of ABC reporters were around when Einstein published earlier this century they would have ignored it, claiming the science was settled. If they were around in the 1960s plate tectonics would not get a single mention as it went against the established concensus. With this in mind that the ABC have ignored another published article by Judy Curry comes at no surprise.  The title and abstract are below.

Research Letter

Two contrasting views of multidecadal climate variability in the 20th century†

Sergey Kravtsov1,*,
Marcia G. Wyatt2,
Judith A. Curry3 and
Anastasios A. Tsonis1

DOI: 10.1002 2014GL061416

Abstract

The bulk of our knowledge about causes of 20th century climate change comes from simulations using numerical models. In particular, these models seemingly reproduce the observed nonuniform global warming, with periods of faster warming in 1910–1940 and 1970–2000, and a pause in between. However, closer inspection reveals some differences between the observations and model simulations. Here we show that observed multidecadal variations of surface climate exhibited a coherent global-scale signal characterized by a pair of patterns, one of which evolved in sync with multidecadal swings of the global temperature, and the other in quadrature with them. In contrast, model simulations are dominated by the stationary — single pattern — forced signal somewhat reminiscent of the observed “in-sync” pattern most pronounced in the Pacific. While simulating well the amplitude of the largest-scale — Pacific and hemispheric — multidecadal variability in surface temperature, the model underestimates variability in the North Atlantic and atmospheric indices.

Missing News: that climate sensitivity thing again

ABC have ignored the work of Nic Lewis and Judy Curry, their new paper may change this! The results provide further evidence that human impacts on climate will be minor.

The implications for climate sensitivity of AR5 forcing and heat uptake estimates

• Nicholas Lewis,
• Judith A. Curry

Abstract

Energy budget estimates of equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) and transient climate response (TCR) are derived using the comprehensive 1750–2011 time series and the uncertainty ranges for forcing components provided in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Working Group I Report, along with its estimates of heat accumulation in the climate system. The resulting estimates are less dependent on global climate models and allow more realistically for forcing uncertainties than similar estimates based on forcings diagnosed from simulations by such models. Base and final periods are selected that have well matched volcanic activity and influence from internal variability. Using 1859–1882 for the base period and 1995–2011 for the final period, thus avoiding major volcanic activity, median estimates are derived for ECS of 1.64 K and for TCR of 1.33 K. ECS 17–83 and 5–95 % uncertainty ranges are 1.25–2.45 and 1.05–4.05 K; the corresponding TCR ranges are 1.05–1.80 and 0.90–2.50 K. Results using alternative well-matched base and final periods provide similar best estimates but give wider uncertainty ranges, principally reflecting smaller changes in average forcing. Uncertainty in aerosol forcing is the dominant contribution to the ECS and TCR uncertainty ranges.

Missing News: Reflections on Rapid Response to Unjustified Climate Alarm

ABC remain in the grip of a fantasy about Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming and ignore reasoned rational debate on the issue. This piece by Atmospheric Scientist Richard Lindzen missing from our Auntie's news and opinion reports:

Reflections on Rapid Response to Unjustified Climate Alarm

Climate alarm belongs to a class of issues characterized by a claim for which there is no evidence, that nonetheless appeals strongly to one or more interests or prejudices. Once the issue is adopted, evidence becomes irrelevant. Instead, the believer sees what he believes. Anything can serve as a supporting omen.

Follow the link for the rest.

Missing News: Pacific decadal oscillation

ABC always quick to pump the CAGW meme so no surprise that they have not covered this research paper that finds natural factors more important:

Atmospheric controls on northeast Pacific temperature variability and change, 1900–2012

 Authors

Significance

Northeast Pacific coastal warming since 1900 is often ascribed to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing, whereas multidecadal temperature changes are widely interpreted in the framework of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which responds to regional atmospheric dynamics. This study uses several independent data sources to demonstrate that century-long warming around the northeast Pacific margins, like multidecadal variability, can be primarily attributed to changes in atmospheric circulation. It presents a significant reinterpretation of the region’s recent climate change origins, showing that atmospheric conditions have changed substantially over the last century, that these changes are not likely related to historical anthropogenic and natural radiative forcing, and that dynamical mechanisms of interannual and multidecadal temperature variability can also apply to observed century-long trends.

Abstract

Over the last century, northeast Pacific coastal sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and land-based surface air temperatures (SATs) display multidecadal variations associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, in addition to a warming trend of ∼0.5–1 °C. Using independent records of sea-level pressure (SLP), SST, and SAT, this study investigates northeast (NE) Pacific coupled atmosphere–ocean variability from 1900 to 2012, with emphasis on the coastal areas around North America. We use a linear stochastic time series model to show that the SST evolution around the NE Pacific coast can be explained by a combination of regional atmospheric forcing and ocean persistence, accounting for 63% of nonseasonal monthly SST variance (r = 0.79) and 73% of variance in annual means (r = 0.86). We show that SLP reductions and related atmospheric forcing led to century-long warming around the NE Pacific margins, with the strongest trends observed from 1910–1920 to 1940. NE Pacific circulation changes are estimated to account for more than 80% of the 1900–2012 linear warming in coastal NE Pacific SST and US Pacific northwest (Washington, Oregon, and northern California) SAT. An ensemble of climate model simulations run under the same historical radiative forcings fails to reproduce the observed regional circulation trends. These results suggest that natural internally generated changes in atmospheric circulation were the primary cause of coastal NE Pacific warming from 1900 to 2012 and demonstrate more generally that regional mechanisms of interannual and multidecadal temperature variability can also extend to century time scales.

Ignoring sanity

ABC continue to ignore the few sane people involved in the climate science "discussion", in favour of climate ignoramuses like the cast of Monday's Q and A.

Prof. Judy Curry should be high on the list of experts called upon to help inform the public about climate change instead ABC continues to ignore her wise council. You can learn from Judy Curry via her blog.

The recent post "JC at the National Press Club"is a must read! or view

Missing News: climate models stuffed (again)

We know ABC is a deadzone for climate science. The only climate science news its activist reporters cover favours alarm and sensationalism. No surprise then that this new paper by Ross McKitrick and Timothy J. Vogelsang has not made it past the gate keepers:

HAC robust trend comparisons among climate series with possible level shifts
Ross R. McKitrick, and Timothy J. Vogelsang

Environmetrics

Abstract

Comparisons of trends across climatic data sets are complicated by the presence of serial correlation and possible step-changes in the mean. We build on heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation robust methods, specifically the Vogelsang–Franses (VF) nonparametric testing approach, to allow for a step-change in the mean (level shift) at a known or unknown date. The VF method provides a powerful multivariate trend estimator robust to unknown serial correlation up to but not including unit roots. We show that the critical values change when the level shift occurs at a known or unknown date. We derive an asymptotic approximation that can be used to simulate critical values, and we outline a simple bootstrap procedure that generates valid critical values and p-values. Our application builds on the literature comparing simulated and observed trends in the tropical lower troposphere and mid-troposphere since 1958. The method identifies a shift in observations around 1977, coinciding with the Pacific Climate Shift. Allowing for a level shift causes apparently significant observed trends to become statistically insignificant. Model overestimation of warming is significant whether or not we account for a level shift, although null rejections are much stronger when the level shift is included.

For visiting ABC reporters there is a good summary of the paper by McKitrick at Steve McIntyre's Climate Audit.

Bottom Line

Over the 55-years from 1958 to 2012, climate models not only significantly over-predict observed warming in the tropical troposphere, but they represent it in a fundamentally different way than is observed. Models represent the interval as a smooth upward trend with no step-change. The observations, however, assign all the warming to a single step-change in the late 1970s coinciding with a known event (the Pacific Climate Shift), and identify no significant trend before or after. In my opinion the simplest and most likely interpretation of these results is that climate models, on average, fail to replicate whatever process yielded the step-change in the late 1970s and they significantly overstate the overall atmospheric response to rising CO2 levels.

Missing News: Climate sensitivity

A new GWPF report on climate sensitivity by Nic Lewis and Marcel Crok with introduction by Judy Curry.

Take home message:
"Only in recent years has it become possible to make good empirical estimates of climate sensitivity from observational data such as temperature and ocean heat records. These estimates, published in leading scientific journals, point to climate sensitivity per doubling most likely being under 2◦C for long-term warming, and under 1.5◦C over a seventy-year period. This strongly suggests that climate models display too much sensitivity to carbon dioxide concentrations and in almost all cases exaggerate the likely path of global warming."

"The new information on climate sensitivity suggests that even with relatively high emissions the government’s two-degree limit for global warming is likely to be reached only towards the end of the century."
Once again the tumbleweeds roll around ABC's news room as yet another good news story fails to breach its walls of groupthink.

Missing News: explaining the pause

ABC Science recently published a piece by its highly paid in house expert Dr Karl, titled "No Warming in 16 years". Dr Karl essentially denies the evidence for the hiatus in global temps. In contrast a recent peer reviewed paper in the journal Climate Dynamics provides an explanation for the pause. The paper is co-authored by one of ABC's missing voices Dr Judy Curry.
No surprise that ABC have not reported on the paper.

From the Press release:

A new paper published in a recent online edition of the journal Climate Dynamics suggests that this ‘unpredictable climate variability’ behaves in a more predictable way than previously assumed. The paper’s authors, Marcia Wyatt and Judith Curry, point to the so-called ‘stadium-wave’ signal that propagates like the cheer at sporting events whereby sections of sports fans seated in a stadium stand and sit as a ‘wave’ propagates through the audience.  In like manner, the ‘stadium wave’ climate signal propagates across the Northern Hemisphere through a network of ocean, ice, and atmospheric circulation regimes that self-organize into a collective tempo.

The stadium wave hypothesis provides a plausible explanation for the hiatus in warming and helps explain why climate models did not predict this hiatus. Further, the new hypothesis suggests how long the hiatus might last.   

Missing news: 50 to 1

ABC appears to find news of crowd sourced and community funded projects worthwhile. For instance it recently spent sometime reporting on the use of crowd sourced funding to finance an investigation into the genetic health of sugar gliders (Link Here).

How long then will the ABC, who is supposed to represent the views of all Australians, take to report on a recent community sourced project that demonstrates that it is 50 times more costly to tackle climate change through taxes and emission trading schemes than to do so by adapting to change as it occurs.

To see the results of this community effort and to learn a thing or two about the economics of climate change follow the link below.

http://topher.com.au/50-to-1-video-project/

Well done to topher and the team!