Another Global Warming Scare Bites the Dust: Global population of polar bears has increased by 2,650-5,700 since 2001
Global population of polar bears has increased by 2,650-5,700 since 2001
The official population estimates generated by the IUCN Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) give the impression that the global total of polar bears has not changed appreciably since 2001:
2001 PBSG report 21,500-25,000
2005 PBSG report 20,000-25,000
2009 PBSG report 20,000-25,000
2013 PBSG website 20,000-25,000
However, some accounting changes were done between 2001 and 2009 (the latest report available) that mean a net increase in numbers had to have taken place (see summary map below and previous post here. Note this is a different issue than the misleading PBSG website graphic discussed here).
And while it is true that population “estimates” are just that — rather broad estimates rather than precise counts — it is also true that nowhere do the PBSG explain how these dropped figures and other adjustments were accounted for in the estimated totals.
The simple details of these changes are laid out below, in as few words as I could manage, to help you understand how this was done and the magnitude of the effect. It’s a short read — see what you think.
Polar bear subpopulations as defined by the PBSG: Top, in the 2001 report; Bottom, 2009 report. Map courtesy PBSG, with a few labels added and the subpopulations identified where “accounting” changes or adjustments to estimates took place.SB, Southern Beaufort; NB, Northern Beaufort; VM, Viscount Melville; MC, M’Clintock Channel; LS, Lancaster Sound; GB, Gulf of Boothia; NW, Norwegian Bay; KB, Kane Basin; WH, Western Hudson Bay. Click to enlarge.
Changes in the early 2000s
Between 2001 and 2005 the ‘Queen Elizabeth Islands’ region in northern-most Canada (see map above) was dropped altogether as a distinct subpopulation (along with its estimated 200 bears) and the tentative total of 2,000 bears estimated for ‘East Greenland’ was also dropped (from both minimum and maximum portions of the “21,500-25,000″ range).
In addition, about 1,000 was added to the minimum and about 1,000 subtracted from the maximum totals because a new, more accurate estimate for the Barents Sea became available in 2004, replacing the guess of “2,000-5,000” used in the 2001 report.1
That means between 2001 and 2005, due to accounting and ‘upgrade’ changes only, a total of 1,200 bears was removed from the minimum portion of the global estimate and 3,200 removed from the maximum portion of the global estimate, changes that had nothing to …
World Bank denies electricity to energy poor: Abandons coal plant financing except for ‘rare circumstances’
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http://www.cfact.org/2013/07/04/converting-methane-to-co2-with-bacteria/
When you think about greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide usually comes to mind. But in reality, methane gas is 25 times more potent than CO2 at trapping heat. So it comes as good news that researchers in Canada are now testing bacteria that can consume methane and release CO2 in its place.
…
New Direction: Reuters Downgrades Climate Change Coverage
New Direction: Reuters Downgrades Climate Change Coverage
http://www.thegwpf.org/global-cooling-reuters-downgrades-climate-coverage/
Winds of change are blowing through Reuters’ environmental coverage. One of its three regional environment correspondents “is no longer with the company” and the other two have been ordered to switch focus, people inside the agency say.
A perceptible shift in Reuters’ approach to the global climate change story has attracted international attention. Scientists and climatologists as well as non-governmental and international environment bodies have detected a move from the agency’s straight coverage towards scepticism on the view held by a vast majority of scientists that climate change is the result of human pollution of the atmosphere and environment. They see generally fewer stories on the issue. Some say they have been taken aback by Reuters’ new direction and are concerned that this could contribute to a change in government and public perceptions of climate change.
The three regional environment correspondents – one each reporting on the Americas, Asia, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa – typically covered climate policy, climate science, carbon markets and energy policies and impacts on energy firms, international climate negotiations, deforestation, and climate change impacts on agriculture.
The specialist correspondent for Asia was Singapore-based David Fogarty, who was transferred to more general news reporting before he left earlier this year after two decades with the company including four years on the Asia climate change beat. His opposite numbers in the other two regions are Alister Doyle, based in Oslo from where he has written about the environment for a decade, and Deborah Zabarenko, based in Washington from where she has reported on the environment and climate change since 2006.
Typical of the new focus of environment reporting – insiders say editors and sub-editors have also been steered in the new direction – was a story earlier this year headed ■ Climate scientists struggle to explain warming slowdown. It reported that some experts were saying their trust in climate science had declined because of many uncertainties.
A blog posting on The Guardian website challenged the premise of the report and said warming was in fact speeding up.
Full story…
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Does Caring for “the Least of These” Demand Fighting Global Warming?
David R. Legates, Ph.D.
Recently, my fellow evangelical scientists and academics sent a letter to the United States Congress urging immediate legislation on climate change. In an effort to care for the planet – God’s second greatest gift to humanity – they argue that our uncontrolled use of fossil fuels will disproportionately affect the poor, the vulnerable, and the oppressed.
I applaud their concern for the environment and for those in defense of whom Jesus commanded us to be especially diligent. But their call to reduce carbon emissions would do more harm than good, especially to the “least of these” as referenced by Christ.
Average global temperatures have not risen over at least the past fifteen years. Dr. John Christy, a fellow evangelical Christian and a highly respected climatologist, testified to Congress that in the United States, we have seen virtually no change in daily maximum temperature, while most of the warming is confined to increases in daily minimum temperatures. (Nighttime temperatures are driven by turbulence [or lack of it] near the surface, not CO2 warming. By contrast, daytime maximum temperature is a much better measure of warming from greenhouse gases. The lack of a signal in daily maximum temperature suggests that the rate of warming due to CO2 is relatively small.) That and the lack of warming for at least a decade and a half implies the effect of CO2 warming is much smaller than climate models suggest.
Contrary to claims in the recent letter, a report issued last summer by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on extreme events indicated that droughts “have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter, for example, in Central North America.” The percentage of the United States classified in moderate-to-extreme dryness and wetness as presented by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows high variability but no significant trend. NOAA also concludes that snowfall records show no long-term trend and that recent record snowfalls are the result of natural variability, not global warming. Hurricane activity globally is at a thirty-year low, and the frequency of moderate to severe tornadoes (EF3-EF5) has not increased. Sea levels have been rising at about the same pace since well before greenhouse gases began to rise from fossil fuel emissions.
Draconian legislation to curtail energy use by restricting fossil fuel emissions will have little, if …
July 1936, Thousands Dead From The Heat – Mississippi River Almost Dried Up
July 1936, Thousands Dead From The Heat – Mississippi River Almost Dried Up
St. Petersburg Times – Google News Archive Search…
July 13, 1936: Low CO2 Turned Most Of The US Into Death Valley
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St. Petersburg Times – Google News Archive Search…
1930s Heat Was Global
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http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/07/13/1930s-heat-was-global
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July 13, 1936: Eighteen States Over 105 Degrees
July 13, 1936 : Eighteen States Over 105 Degrees
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/07/13/july-13-1936-eighteen-states-over-105-degrees
Only July 13, 1936 381 out of 949 reporting HCN stations were over 100F. 208 stations were over 105F – in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Arizona, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Arkansas, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, North Dakota, and California Thirty-six stations were over 110F in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, California, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, […]…