Jul 06 2011

More Alarmists Silliness In The BBC

Published by at 8:28 am under All General Discussions

The global warming alarmists have clearly decided to throw science aside and simply make up fanciful claims that are ever more incoherent. They have claimed global warming will cause endless flooding and droughts (hard to believe anyone could say this with a straight face). It will cause warming and cooling, more and less weather changes. They have claimed warming has even caused Earth quakes – but have never explained how a supposed 0.8° C increase in the atmosphere’s average temperature (which ranges well over 75°C over the globe) caused the Earth’s crust to be more unstable.

Laughable, incoherent nonsense. Now they are just running around screaming ‘fire!’ – hoping enough gullible people will hand them a couple $trillion dollar$.

Check out this nonsense from the BBC which completely violates all the claims of AGW alarmists and their faulty models:

The lull in global warming from 1998 to 2008 [1] was mainly caused by a sharp rise in China’s coal use, a study suggests.

The absence of a temperature rise over that decade is often used by “climate sceptics” as grounds for denying the existence of man-made global warming.

But the new study, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences [2], concludes that smog from the extra coal acted to mask greenhouse warming.

China’s coal use doubled 2002-2007 [3], according to US government figures.

Emphasis and numbering mine because I want to make a few observations.

[1] The main point of this article is to finally admit global warming is not happening, and has not been happening for a decade. The rest of the article is a poorly crafted stage-craft that tries to provide a cover story for the lack of global warming. As we shall see it is a lame effort, but clearly coordinated.

[2] A paper in a scientific journal is not proof of anything, even though the alarmists still cling to this nonsense. A paper is at best the introduction of an idea or theory, it is not fact by a long shot. What this coordinated paper and BBC piece illustrate is nothing more than how tightly connected big environment and big media are in the anti-fossil fuel political movement.

[3] Another study out is showing China’s coal production has doubled in the last few years. In fact, since 2000 it has almost tripled. But where does that put us globally? Well, it means China has surpassed the US in coal consumption, but not by by much. So is China’s increased use of coal enough to impact the world’s climate so heavily as to stop global warming?

Out of 4.56 trillion tons in the referenced table, China is now at 1.3 trillion tons, up from what I estimate to be 0.4 trillion. That puts China at over 25% of the global amount, up from what was probably 10% – that is a big increase. A key question not answered in the paper is this: has the world’s total coal consumption gone up or down? Did other countries reduce their consumption while China’s grew? Maybe not, since coal prices have risen recently. But how much has it increased – and does the study’s claims hold water?

Let’s see:

Although burning the coal produced more warming carbon dioxide [4], it also put more tiny sulphate aerosol particles into the atmosphere which cool the planet [5] by reflecting solar energy back into space.

[4] Again we have the yet-to-be-proven claim CO2 causes global warming. One would think if the AGW claims to be true, so much increase in CO2 production from those evil fossil fuels would be accelerating warming. But then we get to it …

[5] Apparently the other product of coal burning – particulate matter – is the culprit here. We have been offsetting the CO2 with particulates that reflect the energy back to space before that magical CO2 can trap it! But where has this mechanism been in the AGW models and predictions?

No where. They have no clue how aerosols impact the climate. Yet here they are making a sweeping claim on how coal use can produce particles that offset CO2 warming. One would naturally conclude the path to salvation is through increased use of coal!

But I am guessing (without much risk or concern) that the study does not compare the longevity of aerosols and CO2 in the atmosphere to see which will win out in the end. If CO2 stays in the air longer, it will build up and overwhelm the aerosol effect? Which one stays longer in the atmosphere? A real study would have some theory on this long term aspect of this proposed mechanism. Because if the aerosols stay afloat longer than the CO2, then we have nothing to worry about. China will quickly offset all our recent warming.

But the fact is, this study is so vacuous it dare not make the claim recent cooling is due to coal derived aerosol particulates alone. It does not have the ability to make such a claim, and the kicker comes in the next paragraph:

The researchers conclude that declining solar activity [6] over the period and an overall change from El Nino to La Nina [7] conditions in the Pacific Ocean also contributed to the temperature plateau.

And we hit the point where the stage-crafted misinformation campaign comes crashing down. Because there is no way to show that without [6] lower solar irradiance and [7] a shift in the pacific currents there would be any effect from coal burning in China. This convenient little CYA item bundles all effects into one, without proving what portion of the cooling is caused by any of the 3 elements (coal generated aerosols from China, solar irradiance or ocean currents).

So the BBC headline is another lie of ignorance from the Green Movement. All the study claims is some unknown combination reduced solar energy, shifting ocean currents and aerosols (some of which came from China’s coal usage) offset CO2 driven warming. That is ALL you can honestly claim here.

However, what we can conclude, without any hesitation, is that alarmists now admit the following to be true, or at least highly likely:

  1. Global Warming has stopped over the last decade, despite ever increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere
  2. Solar output has a large impact on climate, possible offsetting (more likely replacing) CO2’s meager influence
  3. Aerosols also have a huge impact on climate, larger than CO2’s meager effects
  4. Ocean currents can also have an overriding influence on climate, beyond any effect CO2 alone can induce

While attempting to salvage the concept of CO2 driven warming (which has been debunked many times over – here for example), this article exposes numerous inconvenient truths. Not only does it mask the admission the current climate models are wrong because they incorrectly reflect the effects of solar activity, aerosols and ocean currents, it also tries to cover up the fact that the alarmists’ decades-old predicted rise in temperature from CO2 has not happened.

But even more glaring, this stage crafted article and journal piece exposed the media created fiction of AGW alarmists and their media co-conspirators. Only a pre-planned media campaign could take such a tortured study in misinformation and conclude coal in china stopped global warming!

More on this silly paper over at WUWT

3 responses so far

3 Responses to “More Alarmists Silliness In The BBC”

  1. WWS says:

    Global Warming – it heats and cools, it causes rain and it causes drought, it causes the snow to fall and causes ice to melt, it slices! it dices! It’s a floor wax AND a desert topping!!! Get yours today!!!

  2. So, global warming/climate change is the New, Improved Veg-O-Matic.

    Good one, Sir. 🙂

  3. Teresa in Fort Worth TX says:

    So….in order to “prevent” global warming, we need to remove all of the scrubbers from those coal-burning plants? The ones that were NECESSARY to prevent acid rain and global cooling?

    Got it.

    (I feel like I’m in an M.C. Escher drawing…..)