The endless and all-compassing terrors of global warming

Want to know what scientists have predicted climate change will do to the Earth? Go to ClimateChangePredictions.org, where they keep a full list of every prediction they can find.

I especially like the category “Having it both ways,” where they list different predictions that insisted on opposite consequences. For example did you know that global warning is going to bring both “less rain” and “more rain”, Other predictions are equally amusing.

Reactions to the Italian conviction of seven earthquake scientists

Two reactions today to the Italian conviction of seven earthquake scientists:

In the first, scientists are appalled. In the second someone asks what I think is at least a reasonable question. Even if we agree that prison is an overreaction in this case, it does seem valid to me that scientists face some consequences for misstating risks in certain circumstances.

The failed predictions of the last half century of scientific doomsayers.

The failed predictions of the last half century of scientific doomsayers.

It is entertaining to read this long list of foolish predictions describing the certain and soon-to-arrive end of humanity. Maybe the best is the prediction of Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC, who in 2007 predicted that “if there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late … This is the defining moment.”

However, it is Ridley’s concluding thoughts about climate change that are maybe the most worthwhile:

We hardly ever allow the moderate “lukewarmers” a voice: those who suspect that the net positive feedbacks from water vapor in the atmosphere are low, so that we face only 1 to 2 degrees Celsius of warming this century; that the Greenland ice sheet may melt but no faster than its current rate of less than 1 percent per century; that net increases in rainfall (and carbon dioxide concentration) may improve agricultural productivity; that ecosystems have survived sudden temperature lurches before; and that adaptation to gradual change may be both cheaper and less ecologically damaging than a rapid and brutal decision to give up fossil fuels cold turkey.

Read the whole thing. It is a truly educational experience.

Ramping way up!

The monthly update of the solar cycle graph produced by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center was released yesterday. I have posted the graph below the fold.

The fast ramp up to solar maximum is continuing. For the fifth month in a row the Sun’s sunspot activity leaped upward. Not only has the sunspot activity once again exceeded the prediction for this particular time period, the activity is shot way above the solar maximum peak predicted for several years hence. This behavior is far different then what we’ve seen during the just completed long and deep solar minimum, when the Sun consistently underperformed the predictions for sunspot activity. Now it appears to be outperforming the predictions.
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The failed predictions of global warming activists

The failed predictions of global warming activists.

In 2005 “the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations University declared that 50 million people could become environmental refugees by 2010, fleeing the effects of climate change.” Three years later . . . Srgjan Kerim, president of the UN General Assembly, said it had been estimated that there would be between 50 million and 200 million environmental migrants by 2010. A UNEP web page showed a map of regions where people were likely to be displaced by the ravages of global warming. It has recently been taken offline but is still visible in a Google cache.

The Sun in April – Steady as she goes!

The monthly updated graph for April of the Sun’s solar cycle sunspot activity was posted yesterday by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. You can see it below.

Though the Sun remained active, you can see that the steep increase in sunspot activity that occurred in March has ceased. At the moment it looks as if the Sun’s sunspot activity is following the most recent scientific prediction, more or less exactly, though the small dip in April puts the numbers slightly below that prediction.

All in all, we still appear to be headed to the weakest solar maximum in two hundred years.

April Sunspot activity

Earth Day predictions from 1970

The predictions of disaster from the first Earth Day, 1970. I especially like this one:

Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions. . . . By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University [emphasis mine]

A consensus was reached and the science was settled!

Remember this the next time some blowhard global-warming pundit tries to claim “the science is settled” today.

Modern climate models can’t predict sudden climate change

A paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters of the American Geophysical Union says that the general circulation climate models used by scientists today to predict things like global warming cannot predict past examples of similar sudden climate change. Key quote from abstract:

These [sudden] shifts are thus noise induced with very limited predictability, and early detection of them in the future might be wishful thinking.