South China Morning Post: ‘People would be idiotic not to question climate science’

Excerpt:

We are frequently told that we should believe that global warming science is irrefutable because the UN Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change report is supposed to be based on the work of 9,136 scientists and their 2,239 peer reviewed articles. However it’s worth bearing in mind that the IPCC is not a scientific organisation. Its charter restricts it to looking for human induced global warming, rather than what occurs as a result of natural climate forces. In practice it is not interested in views which do not support the influence of human activity, specifically carbon dioxide.

However it is not unheard of in the past for the scientific consensus to be wrong. Tom Quirk, a former research physicist and a member of the Australian Climate Science Coalition, notes that for many years it was received medical opinion that “ulcers were caused by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid.”

Subsequently two Western Australians Barry Marshall and Robin Warren proved that they were mostly caused by a bacterium and were better treated by antibiotics and not by surgery and drugs. The pair were awarded the Nobel Prize for their efforts but not before enduring criticism that they were peddling nonsense.

There are parallels with global warming with huge vested interests within the science community, finance, politics maintaining that anyone that denies global warming is idiotic. A huge one trillion US dollar industry has grown up around global warming. Making sense of climate is a difficult and highly complex operation. Climate models attempt to replicate, natural variability ocean currents, the intensity of sun cycles, estimate changes in cloud cover, vegetation and the changes brought on snow and ice cover. Then the impact of increasing levels of man-made C02 are combined with this.…

Sea Ice Update February 17 2014 – Antarctic Sea Ice Extent Still 25% above normal

Sea Ice Update February 17 2014 – Antarctic Sea Ice Extent Still 25% above normal

http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/sea-ice-update-february-17-2014-antarctic-sea-ice-extent-still-25-above-normal/

A quick update for sea ice extent:

Global Sea Ice is 93,000 sq km below the 1981-2010 mean.  That is 0.5% below “normal”
Antarctic Sea Ice is  706,000 sq km above the 1981-2010 mean. That is 25% above ”normal”.  Antarctic Sea Ice Extent actually rose 38,000 sq km from day 46 to day 47. Minimum could be near.
Arctic Sea Ice is 799,000 sq km below the 1981-2010 mean.  That is 5.25% below “normal”.

Graphs below. Click for bigger.

Sent by gReader Pro…

Actual LA Times Headline: ‘Ice storm paradox: It’s colder because the Earth is warmer’

LA Times Excerpt: In just the last couple of years, Americans have experienced epic tornados in the center of the country, a monster storm that flooded Manhattan and ravaged New Jersey, extended drought in the West that threatens agriculture and water supplies, and an unprecedented number of wildfires in forests dried to the flammability of kindling. This winter, frigid polar air has slipped south, freezing much of the country, while in Alaska the season has been unusually warm. There are piles of snow in Atlanta, but a dearth of snow in the Sierra.

Extreme and unusual weather has been rolling in with more frequency all over the world.  Governments in most major countries have moved beyond debate about whether global warming is real. They are now busy making plans to deal with the costly disruptions and lethal disasters that climate change has already begun to bring.…