New paper debunks claims that fossil fuel use could cause a mass extinction: Published in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology finds that ‘The total amount of carbon needed [to cause a mass extinction] exceeds the modern fossil fuel reservoir’

New paper debunks claims that fossil fuel use could cause a mass extinction

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/10/new-paper-debunks-claims-that-fossil.html

Climate alarmists have claimed that Earth is on its way to the 6th mass extinction as a result of use of fossil fuels. However, a paper published today in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology finds that “The total amount of carbon needed [to cause a mass extinction] exceeds the modern fossil fuel reservoir.” In other words, even if the highly-exaggerated effects of CO2 on climate were correct, and even if the entire reserve of fossil fuels was burned, a mass extinction from climate change still would not occur.

Initial assessment of the carbon emission rate and climatic consequences during the end-Permian mass extinction

Ying Cuia, , , , 
Lee R. Kumpa, 
Andy Ridgwellb

a Department of Geosciences and Earth System Science Center, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, United States
b School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, University Road, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK

Highlights

We model the carbon isotope record of the Permian-Triassic event in a novel way.

The result is a continuous record of carbon addition and extraction.

The peak rate of carbon addition is smaller than the present fossil fuel burning rate.

The total amount of carbon needed exceeds the modern fossil fuel reservoir.

Determining the source of carbon needs better constraints on the ocean temperature.

Abstract

Numerous lines of geochemical and stable isotopic evidence indicate that the end-Permian mass extinction was accompanied by abrupt climate change induced by CO2 addition. Catastrophic end-Permian Siberian volcanism may have released a large amount of CO2 into the atmosphere and pushed the Earth’s system beyond a critical threshold, causing the mass extinction. However, the injection rate, total amount and source of CO2 are largely unknown. We conducted a suite of simulations using the recently published carbon isotope records and U–Pb ages from Meishan section in Zhejiang province, China. An Earth System Model of Intermediate Complexity (cGENIE; http://www.genie.ac.uk) was used to extract the pattern of CO2 release needed to replicate the observed carbon isotope excursion across the Permian-Triassic boundary. This analysis leads us to suggest that the source of CO2 must have been significantly heavier than typical biogenic or thermogenic methane to explain the significant warming that occurred during and after the extinction event. Nevertheless, as with the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, end-Permian rates of CO2 addition were likely small compared with modern fossil-fuel …

New study finds the natural Pacific Decadal Oscillation controls tornado activity, not CO2 – ‘Higher CO2 is correlated with fewer severe tornadoes’

New study finds the natural Pacific Decadal Oscillation controls tornado activity, not CO2

http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2013/10/new-study-finds-natural-pacific-decadal.html

A new study finds that the severity and locations of tornadoes is strongly influenced by the natural Pacific Decadal Oscillation, with more severe tornadoes occurring during the warm phase and fewer during the cold phase. The cold phase of the 60-year Pacific Decadal Oscillation [PDO] started in the year 2000, and would explain why the US is currently experiencing the fewest tornadoes on record, and why higher CO2 is correlated with fewer severe tornadoes. 

CO2 has nothing to do with tornadoes

Pacific Ocean Temperature Influences Tornado Activity in US

Oct. 17, 2013 — Meteorologists often use information about warm and cold fronts to determine whether a tornado will occur in a particular area. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has found that the temperature of the Pacific Ocean could help scientists predict the type and location of tornado activity in the U.S.

Laurel McCoy, an atmospheric science graduate student at the MU School of Natural Resources, and Tony Lupo, professor and chair of atmospheric science in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, surveyed 56,457 tornado-like events from 1950 to 2011. They found that when surface sea temperatures were warmer than average, the U.S. experienced 20.3 percent more tornadoes that were rated EF-2 to EF-5 on the Enhanced Fuijta (EF) scale. (The EF scale rates the strength of tornadoes based on the damage they cause. The scale has six category rankings from zero to five.)

McCoy and Lupo found that the tornadoes that occurred when surface sea temperatures were above average were usually located to the west and north of tornado alley, an area in the Midwestern part of the U.S. that experiences more tornadoes than any other area. McCoy also found that when sea surface temperatures were cooler, more tornadoes tracked from southern states, like Alabama, into Tennessee, Illinois and Indiana.

“Differences in sea temperatures influence the route of the jet stream as it passes over the Pacific and, eventually, to the United States,” McCoy said. “Tornado-producing storms usually are triggered by, and will follow, the jet stream. This helps explain why we found a rise in the number of tornadoes and a change in their location when sea temperatures fluctuated.”

In the study, McCoy and Lupo examined the relationship between tornadoes and a climate phenomenon called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). PDO phases, …

Polar Bear expert: September sea ice ballyhoo and why it doesn’t matter to polar bears – ‘It is the extent in June that is important to polar bear survival. June is the end of the critical spring feeding period for polar bears – healthy bears eat more seals over a shorter period of time from March to June than any other time of year’

September sea ice ballyhoo and why it doesn’t matter to polar bears

http://polarbearscience.com/2013/10/20/september-sea-ice-ballyhoo-and-why-it-doesnt-matter-to-polar-bears/

The end of September sea ice summary from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) finally became available late last week (October 3, “A better year for the cryosphere”).
The summary figure NSIDC provides are the average ice extent for the month (not the maximum achieved at the end of the month), which are compared to previous years.
[There has been considerable ice growth since the end of September (updated daily here].
Here is why the September extent doesn’t matter to polar bears: it is the extent in June that is important to polar bear survival. June is the end of the critical spring feeding period for polar bears (see previous post here) – healthy bears eat more seals over a shorter period of time from March to June than any other time of year. After the end of June, most bears have enough fat to survive a fast of 4 months or more.
In contrast to September – when many bears are taking a time-out on shore – ice extent for June over the last 30 years or so provided an extensive hunting platform for polar bears throughout the Arctic. To show you how extensive, I’ve constructed a composite of ice maps from selected years (Fig.1, below).

Figure 1. Sea ice extent averages for June: 1979 (top left), 1996 (bottom left), 2010 (top right) and 2013 (bottom right). Note that even during the lowest extent on record for June (2010, 10.8 m km2), there was still a considerable amount of ice remaining in all regions where polar bears reside, including Hudson Bay (HB), Davis Strait (DS), East Greenland (EG), Baffin Bay (BB), Barents Sea (BS), Chukchi Sea (CS) and Southern Beaufort Sea (SB), noted on the 1979 map (top left). Maps from NSIDC archive. Click to enlarge.
A bit of variation over time occurred in June but not much: down from 12.6 million kilometers squared in 1979 to 10.8 in 2010, and back up to 11.6 in 2013.
Most importantly, even at the lowest point (2010, 10.8 m km2), there was still considerable amounts of ice remaining in all regions where polar bears reside, including Hudson Bay, Davis Strait, East Greenland, Baffin Bay, Barents Sea, Chukchi Sea and Southern Beaufort Sea.

Here are the numbers (in millions of square kilometers):
June (range 10.8-12.7, a …

Climategate’s Michael Mann finally getting recognition he deserves: Fellow warmist describes Mann’s latest papers as ‘a crock of sh*t’

Mann’s latest papers … were described as “a crock of xxxx”

Key excerpt: ‘The real fireworks came when Mann’s latest papers, which hypothesise that tree ring proxies have large numbers of missing rings after major volcanic eruptions, were described as “a crock of xxxx”.

Update: Michael Mann is fuming, calls his colleague Wilson a “denier” — Mann says Wilson is a “denier” because he is “regurgitating #denialist drivel by the likes of McIntyre etc.”

Mann deletes tweet! Mann: ‘Closet #climatechange #denier Rob Wilson, comes out of the closet big time: http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/10/21/wilson-on-millennial-temperature-reconstructions.html … #BadScience #DisingenuousBehavior’

Shortly afterwards, Mann got into a long and somewhat huffy discussion with Tamsin

Tamsin Edwards responded to Mann: “You are seriously calling Rob [Wilson] a denier for criticizing your work, M? That’s pretty strong to call a prof climate colleague.’

Excerpt via Bishop Hill:

Last week I attended a lecture given by Rob Wilson at the University of St Andrews. This was a two-hour marathon, a format that is excellent if your lecturer is good enough to carry an audience, as it enables issues to be addressed in much more depth than is the norm. In the event, the time shot by, and if you read on you will see why.

Rob was doing a review of the millennial temperature reconstructions, following the story from the First Assessment Report through to AR5. As readers here know, Rob is no kind of a sceptic (a point he repeated over lunch), but on the northern hemisphere paleo studies his position is not a million miles away from mine. In places our positions are identical, as you will see.

Because of the prominence of Michael Mann’s work in the area, some of the lecture was devoted to the Hockey Stick, to the 2008 paper (the “upside down Tiljander” study to the initiated) and to Mann’s most recent area of focus, the influence of volcanoes on tree ring growth. Students learned that the Hockey Stick included a whole lot of inappropriate proxies and heard something of the issues with its verification statistics. The wallpapering of the Third Assessment with Mann’s magnum opus and John Houghton’s claims about unprecedented warmth based on this single study were described as “ridiculous”. “Ultimately a flawed study” was the conclusion, with a gory list of problems set out: inappropriate data, infilling of gaps, use of poorly replicated chronologies, flawed PC analysis, data and code …

Moronic: Greens MP links Australia’s NSW bush fires to climate policy

Moronic: Greens MP links NSW bush fires to climate policy

http://australianclimatemadness.com/2013/10/18/moronic-greens-mp-links-nsw-bush-fires-to-climate-policy/

Greens see an opportunity to make cheap political points
Adam Bandt is a typical Greenie, and because he, like all the rest of them, are on an ideological crusade and generally possess no brains, they are unable to understand even the basic facts about Australia’s contribution to “global warming”, which is why Bandt has claimed on social media that the Coalition’s climate policy will cause more bush fires, like those suffered by many areas yesterday.
Never mind the fact that over 100 homes may have been destroyed and many others damaged by the fires (which were intense due to a strong wind, but not at all unusual or unprecedented), Bandt was more interested in scoring cheap political points:
Why Tony Abbott’s plan means more bush fires for Australia & more pics like this of Sydney http://t.co/bXFaAT6kLf http://t.co/tJyljLIGp4
— Adam Bandt (@AdamBandt) October 17, 2013
And being the brainless greenie he is, he continued to defend the indefensible today:
Mr Bandt said the link between extreme weather events and global warming needs to be recognised.
“Global warming is the biggest threat to Australian life,” he said.
“I don’t want every summer, let alone every spring, for us to be worrying about whether we are going to see these kind of bush fires again, to have to worry about threats to people’s property and threats to people’s safety.”
Not quite sure why Bandt finds this so difficult to comprehend, but Australia’s emissions are 1.5% of the global total. If we reduced that to zero overnight, it would make no difference at all to the climate. As it is, we are only planning to reduce by 5% by 2020, or in other words, 0.075% of global emissions, when the major emitters are doing close to nothing by comparison.
And Bandt thinks that will make a difference to bush fire frequency or intensity?
Idiotic statements like this will ensure the Greens are consigned to the sewer of Australian political history, where they rightly belong.

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