There were 485 scientific papers published in 2017 that support a sceptical position on climate alarmism. Is the climate consensus crumbling? See http://notrickszone.com/2018/01/04/485-scientific-papers-published-in-20… … or as is (alarmism still flourishes). Doubt is being cast on the idea co2 emissions are the control knob of climate – and on the efficacy of the those models. The 485 papers affirm the position that there are significant limitation and uncertainties inherent in our understanding of climate and climate change. The emphasis is on the fact the science is NOT settled (in spite of what you might have been told).
At https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2018/01/04/englands-soggy-historical-pla… … Britains soggy place names may be telling us how climate will change in the coming years. This refers to Anglo Saxon place names wheeled out by some eager CAGW enthusiast who visualises a wet future – rather than a strictly warming future. Weather will get weather – a bit like the current furore in NE America about the cold weather (caused by CAGW). The trouble with this particular theory is that Anglo Saxon place names originate in the period known as the Late Roman Transgression event. In the Netherlands it is known as the Dunkirk Transgression event (the third one in a sequence). Naturally it was wetter as sea levels were higher (as a result of glacial bounce) but also the water table was higher (as a result of higher rainfall related to a changing jet stream with an origin in a cooler climatic period as the polar region expanded southwards and contracted upon the temperate and desert zones north of the tropical zone, a feature of climate change recurring over thousands of years and not restricted to one period of time). Nothing to do with warming – but the exact opposite. Cooling.
At https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2018/01/04/new-study-identifies-thermome… … refers to a paper by Jeff Severinghaus, a palaeo-climate scientist rather than a recent climate scientist, which referes to quite modest recent warming of the oceans over the last 50 years – around 0.6 degrees C (apparently no reason to dispense with your woolly sweater). It is published in the journal Nature (January 4th 2018) and is a remarkable piece of research – although the conclusions might be overhyped. Severinghaus is based at the Scripps Oceanography department and worked with Swiss and Japanese collaborators. Measuring the average temperature of the oceans is difficult and for this reason some activist climate scientists have had a propensity to claim the missing heat (the failure of a warming trend to continue upwards) is due to the oceans absorbing it. This has apparently been brought into doubt in the study – which is one reason it may be mostly ignored by the big players in the money tree business. The oceans are composed of different layers of different water masses and each has a different temperature. Indeed, it has proven very difficult to get a handle on an average ocean temperature – which in the grand schem of things may not be of much relevance. The new methodology uses the noble gases as retained in air bubbles in cores from Antarctica to calculate ancient average temperatures of the oceans. Previous methods had very large age uncertainties which tended to smooth out the data. Warming of the oceans over the last 50 years has been just 0.1 degree C it is alleged.
They found a dramatic ocean warming exceeding that of the modern era during the Younger Dryas episode – when climate in the northern hemisphere plunged. Why would the oceans warm when the land surface had become colder? The warming episode lasted some 700 years.
The same story is at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/04/new-study-from-scripps-puts-a-cri… … and https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/04/an-instant-global-ocean-thermomen… … but the first one is by guest author David Middletone and he says, 'colour me sceptical about the claim that rates of argon krypton and xenon measured anywhere on the planet or in ice core bubbles yields the average temperature of the world's oceans to withing 0.2 degrees C' … going on to say that warming in the past 50 years, just 0.1 degrees, is half the margin of error the new global ocean thermometer.
Changing tack, at https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/01/03/climate-explainers-colder-winters… … climate explainers (activists attempting to explain why cold is really hot) tell us the cold spell in NE USA is all part of CAGW (aka climate change). Apparently, the warmer Arctic is pushing out lots of cold (even though sea ice is growing in the warming Arctic). They also blame the jet stream which is, they say, wandering over larger periods of time. No mention of the role of the solar wind which affects the position of the jet stream and its inclination to wind up and down in zig zags.
Finally, it seems sea ice is to be measured by a different methodology from this month. Apparently this is to combat the fact it is growing – which contradicts the CAGW prophecies. The new method will reduce the amount of sea ice shown on graphs and maps produced for the general public and researchers alike. You will not be able to compare like with like – or next year with last year (WattsUpWithThat January 5th).