Drought Gisborne 2017
That’s religion
Crikey! Rachel Stewart admits she lost her rag, but her wrathful polemic is completely out of touch with the real world. Her froth-flecked fulmination is a fine example of a bible-bashing religious rant aimed at sinners. Get the faithful moving: climate change is a mission; all hands on deck.
It was all quite inspiring but fact-free. Still, fact isn’t a requirement when taking umbrage. What matters is the perceived wrong or injustice—using “perceive” in its sense of “seeing what is not there”. When we compare Miss Stewart’s claims with the facts they don’t match up.
Rachel Stewart’s modest, unostentatious assertions
RS: I ended up swearing at him and walking away. It was not my finest hour, and I can offer no excuse for it.
We accept.
RS: My conclusion is this … the planet continues to burn.
No, that’s wrong. For about 20 years there’s been no significant warming, such that scientists call it a hiatus and discuss at length what caused it. In an article in February last year Dr David Whitehouse made some simple yet penetrating observations:
The hiatus is good for science. It tells us about natural climate variability of which our knowledge is still very limited. It holds valuable scientific information and in climate science, with [its] huge political and economic implications, we need all the information we can get. There are over 40 explanations for the warming hiatus proposed by scientists, from small volcanoes, ocean movements [and] effects in the stratosphere [to] data gathering problems and many more. They can’t all be right [but] they are all a valuable contribution to a scientific mystery. It shows us that the real science is not settled.
The Wikipedia entry on the hiatus has over 90 references to studies, from highly respected climate scientists including Bob Carter, James Hansen, Kevin Trenberth and Thomas Karl, and organisations including the UK Met Office and the IPCC. Finally, there are many places where 50 or so papers are listed offering explanations of the pause, hiatus or slowdown.
How long do we wait?
It’s disingenuous of Rachel Stewart to say “the planet continues to burn” and thus to suggest warming has occurred during a pause in warming; no less than a contradiction in terms. To clarify: the temperature has gone up over the 20 years, but insignificantly, and far less than the models predicted. The models are thus falsified, even if warming resumes.
Judith Curry asks: How long do we need to wait to separate a climate change from the usual variability of weather from year to year?
The gradual rise in the global surface temperature from 1978 to 1998 appeared to confirm the statement in IPCC2007 p. 10 that, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations”.
In 2009 the American Meteorological Society asked whether the growing pause “[falsified] climate predictions”. They suggested that an observed absence of warming of at least 15 years would be sufficient.
As the plateau continued climatologists extended the time scale (didn’t you just know this would happen?). Santer (2011) said at least 17 years are required to identify human contributions. The World Meteorological Organization has adopted a 30-year interval while the American Meteorological Society uses “several decades or longer.” Now Solomon, as reported by Tollefson (2014), is saying that 50 to 100 years are needed to recognize a change in climate.
Snowflakes
There’s more evidence of a pause. In the IPCC’s latest report, AR5, the WGI Technical Summary mentions the word ‘hiatus’ 19 times in describing the temperature hiatus over, as they say, “the past 15 years.” Their data ended 5 years ago in 2012 and the hiatus does not seem to have ended, so for 20 years the models have been wronger than a wrong ‘un. The global mean surface temperature has meandered about for the last 20 years until last year, when it rocketed about 0.5 °C, surprising everyone and scaring the hell out of snowflakes who thought we were burning. Just like Rachel: “the planet continues to burn.” But the temperature immediately plummeted right back to where it started. There was no increase. Not that you’d hear that from the Herald.
The snowflakes remember the rocketing up and forget the plummeting down. Last year’s rocketing temperatures weren’t caused by global warming, just a well-documented but unpredictable weather event called El Nino.
In my view 20 years of no significant temperature rise, after all the hoopla about the end of the world, the costly annual jamborees, the demands for money, the guilt trips they’ve put on us, think of the children, the electricity and petrol price rises and the power stations they’ve shut down, after 20 years of all that but no temperature increases to justify it we are justified in saying the climate models have failed. We can now tell these fraud merchants to go back to their sheds or caves or wherever they came from.
We can run the world from now on, thank you.
You can see both the 20-year meandering from about 1996 and last year’s artificial burn in this UAH graph:
UAH graph to January 2017
RS: Just about every bit of bad news is directly linked to climate change. Everything.
No, that’s wrong and it’s sad. That’s projection, which can ruin your day.
RS: Drought in the east of the country needs to be called what it is: the new norm.
No, that’s wrong. The east coast experiences regular droughts, as anybody knows who takes the trouble to look in a library. It’s not caused by your SUV, either, since part of the cause is seasonal changes in sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean. The regular Hawkes Bay droughts are well documented.
THE CLIMATE AND WEATHER OF HAWKE’S BAY, 3rd edition, by P.R. Chappell, NUMBER 58 in the NIWA SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY SERIES, ISSN 1173-0382, says on page 38:
The Hawke’s Bay region experienced a major drought between November 1997 and June 1998. … The Hawke’s Bay region also experienced major droughts in 2002-03, for three consecutive years from 2006-07 to 2008-09, and during the summer and early autumn of 2012-13. … A drought of similar severity to the 2012-13 drought hit the central Hawke’s Bay region in 1945-46.
The introduction to the Chappell report summarises the frequency and severity of the crippling droughts:
Rainfall is extremely variable in spring and summer when westerly winds prevail over the country. In most years insufficient rainfall (dry spells) results in a total depletion of soil moisture to the extent that plant growth ceases. [emphasis added]
So it’s not “the new norm”, it’s the old norm—and it’s not hard to discover this, Miss Stewart.
Here’s more confirmation from Relationship between Climate Modes and Hawke’s Bay Seasonal Rainfall and Temperature, a report prepared by NIWA for the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council, June 2015, NIWA CLIENT REPORT No: AKL2015-016 (pdf, 4.2MB).
Although climate change is not directly assessed in this report it should be noted that the climate cycles described above will be superimposed on top of the impacts of climate change.
If NIWA didn’t bother assessing the effect of climate change, they clearly thought it wouldn’t affect Hawke’s Bay weather yet. Which gives the lie, again, to Rachel’s angry spluttering about a “new normal” caused by avoidable human interference in the climate. In addition, Hawkes Bay Today announced only today “Dry conditions still not a drought in Hawke’s Bay.”
Koalas falling from the trees
RS: Anyone notice the heat in Australia last week? Officially the temperatures reached the high 40s. Unofficially, private temperature gauges were showing low 50s, and reports of cattle dropping down dead and koalas expiring and falling out of trees, started filtering through.
No, that’s wrong. We’ve had reports from friends in Oz and they haven’t heard this.
RS: Our own New Zealand summer has been beyond unusual. Wind. Endless, relentless, intense.
No, that’s wrong. You’re seeing the whole country through the lens of a single back yard.
RS: Extreme weather is now common.
No, that’s wrong. Warming, Miss Stewart, as reported by the IPCC (know who they are?) in their Special Report, Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) may have occurred since 1950. Let me repeat that: warming may have occurred. It doesn’t sound very confident, does it? But that may have caused a little increase in extreme weather, or it may not.
That’s what the IPCC says, Miss Stewart, I’m not making this up. Where do you get your facts from? The IPCC predicts extreme weather will become common in the future but its Special Report (SREX) says it hasn’t happened yet. Have a look at it.
RS: Climate change is like having your head in a furnace and your feet in the fridge. “Averages” will become meaningless.
No, that’s wrong. Hope you regain control of your marbles. Averages will never be meaningless; they mean the mean. Heh, heh.
RS: ultimately, unless we tackle climate change and right now, there’ll be no human rights or environment to actually fight for.
No, that’s wrong. The religious essence of the global warming cult is laid bare. “This is the defining issue of the age,” they say. “Nothing is more important,” they say, “Not water supply, food security, basic health care, nothing. This is all we care about.” But there’s not a single shred of evidence.
Slothful
You might be surprised, Rachel, how readily we absorb evidence. To give you a hint, note how quickly we dismiss those who have none. Please stop whinging that’s it’s our fault when you don’t have any evidence for that — but do some research. Who knows? You might learn something.
Fortunately, as I write this the rain has been all around me for hours, gently soaking the Bay of Plenty and easing the latest dry spell on the east coast, and the forecast is for another three days of rain.
Miss Stewart’s research for this distasteful, fact-free rant was slothful. Rather underlines the Herald’s descent into muckraking, gossipy tabloid.
Oh, she quotes Darwin, claiming he describes the dairy farmer she argued with.
RS: To me, he perfectly represents Darwin’s words: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
Well, climate is nothing but change, yet nothing has changed, we can see that. The UAH graph of temperature observations shows no temperature rise, sea level rise is normal, rainfall hasn’t changed, storms haven’t increased, droughts haven’t increased, hurricanes are way down, Arctic sea ice has recovered (and it didn’t melt, it was shoved into the Atlantic by the wind).
There’s no drama to any of this, it’s all business as usual, except that the angry woman’s misrepresentations (climate change is everything, extreme weather is now common, we must fight climate change, fossil fuels are burning the world) press the truth out of shape.
Views: 110
Lies.
ANd this is how non-facts appear. Drought has not been declared in Gisborne this year.
Yes, this is a dry summer…. no rain December and January and many days in the low 30s, but we received decent rain last week and it rained all day yesterday and is still raining today. The forecast ahead is for rain next week and no high temperatures.
As far as I can tell, this is pretty much business as usual over here…not an exceptional summer at all.. and nothing to indicate that next year or the years thereafter are going to get hotter and drier.
Anyone can check all the facts raised in the article above against the empirical data presented in the IPCC AR5 report under the Technical Summary and the various chapters of Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg1/
The IPCC has a particular write-up about the hiatus (Box 9.2 Climate Models and the Hiatus in Global Mean Surface Warming of the Past 15 Years, page 769):
https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter09_FINAL.pdf
Quite right, Magoo. Thanks, that’s thoughtful.
This paragraph particularly took my attention:
Intersectional feminism? The whole idea of “intersectionalism” is some made up leftist concept where you split up groups into every decreasing groups of “oppressed” people. e.g Black lesbian feminist vs white straight feminists.
So, I agree that compartmentalising ideas and thoughts is counter-productive, but this is exactly what “progressives” have been doing for decades with identity politics.
The idea that we should abandon these concepts and just get on with solving problems (hear hear Ms Stewart) does sound somewhat conservative and un-progressive
One other point I would like to make is to note the dreadful grammar evident in the article, which I’m sure, “Wordshiners” must be cringing at too.
“This paragraph particularly” – I avoided this, didn’t want the research, didn’t want the distraction, but you make good points. But Stewart’s argument that these should be abandoned for the sake of the supreme problem of climate change is impractical. If I have worked extensively in, say, roading I should hardly abruptly switch to climate change, for without years of research I’d be useless. She’s a bit shortsighted here – but undoubtedly passionate.
As for the grammar: yes, a little cringing happening. It’s strongly conversational, which lets you get away with all kinds of informality. Add a little artistic licence here and there and there’s not too much to fault. The worst aspect of the article is the lack of research.
She seems quite fixated on dirty dairying – which is a genuine problem that I have some empathy with – yet conflates that with climate change
it appears that “climate change” has become a proxy for all the things we don’t like about the world
Yes and yes. But I think you can’t do that (proxying). “They” do that with Trump, too. Although he IS pretty bad.
I can complain about grammar. I am part of the Alt-Write
As Dennis so aptly states: Lies.
Ms Stewart quotes from Darwin, but if she had ever read any work by Charles Darwin, she’d recognize that
“”It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” are not his words (or the words of any decent biologist)
https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/people/about-darwin/six-things-darwin-never-said#quote1
They are a modernist-popular take on evolution, promulgated by a business administration professor.
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/05/04/adapt/
Oh no! I’m sorry I let this through. Unbelievable. I simply trusted her to quote Darwin (of all people!) accurately. It doesn’t leave very much she got right, does it? How did you find it? Are you intimately familiar with Darwin? And I assumed Dennis was referring to my contribution, not Rachel’s. btw, the branch of the Treadgolds striking in my direction is related to Darwin’s line, by marriage, in the 18th century. Thank you, thank you. No, it’s nothing, really.
Andy, Alt-Write! Yeah, right! Words fail me.
@Richard Treadgold
It’s easy to find misappropriated quotations nowadays using Google.
I am familiar with Darwin’s writing.
I am also familiar with the misguided concepts of Social Darwinism.
I do not know anyone belonging to the Darwin/Wedgewood/Galton Whanau
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%E2%80%93Wedgwood_family
@Maggy Wassilieff
Yes, I’m constantly checking quotes – except, erm, this one.
I’m not, but it’s an admirably serious chunk of study.
I’m not, but Google has just introduced some idea of it. I have come across the term but never been curious about it.
You have emerged from or partaken of three striking and memorable surnames! Surely fine and interesting company, even if no Darwins adorned it.
Ms Stewart is typical of the ‘snowflake’ generation, who see nothing in the wonder and magnificence of our world but the bits that offend their own fragile sensibilities, all without recourse to empirical evidence, all reported as stridently as possible.
Reminds me of the overwrought female student at a Catholic school I taught in many years ago: the young lady breathlessly approached a teaching Brother and said
‘ Brother, I just heard the human death rate is going up!’
‘No, Young Lady, stay calm, for it is not – it remains at one death per person.’
Perhaps she is a Climate Pause Denier ™.
(tm)? You’re a piece of work, you sceptic! haha
I thought I best trademark the term, as it might go viral. 😉 By “piece of work” I presume you mean piece of artwork. And yes, an old skeptic, and proudly so. Cheers mate!
Climate Hustle (Marc Morano) full documentary, 2016
I hour 18 mins
Free on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekNjKQl5-2c
Thanks for the link to Climate Hustle Andy. I highly recommend everyone not only watches it, but they post it on Facebook and spread the word.