Earth ChangesS


Bizarro Earth

Taiwan Hit by 5.5-Magnitude Underwater Earthquake

A 5.5-magnitude earthquake struck east of Taiwan today, the central weather bureau said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

The undersea tremor hit at 11.44 am (0344 GMT), 77km southeast of eastern Ilan county at a depth of 11 kilometres, the bureau said.

Taiwan, which lies near the junction of two tectonic plates, is regularly shaken by earthquakes.

Mr. Potato

Propaganda USA: Our hellish future as the planet fries

Definitive NOAA-led report on U.S. climate impacts warns of scorching 9 to 11°F warming over most of inland U.S. by 2090 with Kansas above 90°F some 120 days a year - and that isn't the worst case, it's business as usual!

US global warming by 2099
© unknown

If humanity stays near our current greenhouse gas emissions path, then Americans face hell - every state will be red.

The thermometer in this landmark U.S. government report puts warming at 9 to 11°F over the vast majority of the inland U.S. - and that is only the average around 2090 (compared to 1961-1979 baseline). On this emissions path, the IPCC's A2 scenario, most of the inland United States will be warming about 1°F a decade by century's end. Worse, we are on pace to exceed the A2 scenario (which is "only" about 850 ppm in 2100): See U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: "Recent observations confirm ... the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised" - 1000 ppm (Link).

So this part of my not-so-well-funded analysis appears to hold up well: "Yes, the science says on our current emissions path we are projected to warm most of U.S. 10 - 15°F by 2100." (Link)

Comment:
Hellish Future
Definitive NOAA-led report
Americans face hell
landmark U.S. government report
projected to warm most of U.S. 10 - 15°F by 2100
twice as many days per year above 90°F
it'll be above 90°F some 120 days a year
temperatures of up to 122°F would threaten most of the central, southern, and western U.S
East Coast sea levels an extra 20 inches by 2100 - to more than 6 feet
essential report
Joe Romm has outdone himself in this article. Joe is normally one of the most extreme global warming alarmists on the planet, but his identification with global warming appears to be so out of control that one has to wonder how it is possible for him, for anyone, to be so psychologically out of touch with reality.

Just a look at some recent posts from SOTT shows the northern hemisphere summer is in jeopardy. Crop failure and global food shortage is becoming more probable with each passing week. And not due to global warming, but Global Cooling.

What will it take to exorcise the psychological demons from the global warming extremists that are terrorizing the global population and determining the fate of global governmental policy?

The scenario currently with a high probability of coming to be is one of global cooling, food shortages and fuel shortages. Governmental AGW policy which will result in higher food costs and higher fuel costs in a time of socially engineered depression is a formula for disaster. It is a very real scenario that the data is pointing to on an almost daily basis.

Here is a sampling of recent news on crops:

Cold puts Western Canada crops behind schedule
Crops may be at risk - Canada frosts the most widespread in recent memory
Canadian Wheat Output May Fall on Dry, Cool Weather
US: Arkansas Soybean Planting Slowed by Persistent Wetness
US: Not Enough Sunshine, Too Much Rain In Midwest Corn
Poor Spring Weather Lowers Canadian Canola Production Estimate
Crops Under Stress as Temperatures Fall
Southeastern Missouri farmers try to overcome wet spring, soggy crops
Canada and USA agricultural weather issues and changes in our solar cycles
US Winter Wheat Production Lower In Virtually Every State
First Ever Ice Wine in Brazil

And this on food prices:

Concerns mount over sharp rise in food costs

A sampling of current summer weather:

Alberta, Saskatchewan get snow in June
Dickinson North Dakota June snowfall first since 1951
Great British summer goes from sweltering to shivering in just a week
North America Jet Stream, Recent Pattern is Unusual
UK Met Office Summer Forecast: Drowning Again?
Two months of rain in half a day in Britain
Wales: Freak storm brings Newtown to a standstill
Australia: Cold weather smashes records
US: Texas storms flood, cancel flights, shut off power
Canada: Winter still grips 90 per cent of north - migratory birds can't breed
Many forecasters have one word for this summer: COOL
Freak Beijing storm turns day into night
June Winter Wonderland In New Jersey
An exceptionally soggy June for many in US

Recent articles about the state of the sun:

Spotless Sun, new 'Baby Grand' milestone has arrived
Cooler decades ahead, researcher says
Still More on Diminished Solar Activity and Global Cooling
Solar cycle computer model with 98 percent forecasting accuracy a complete failure
Sunspot Minimum at Hand
Romm's Global Warming Fairy Tales
Comment On Joe Romm's Weblog On El Nino and Global Warming
A look at: Solar Wind Flow Pressure - Another Indication of Solar Downtrend?
Little Ice Age II, The Sequel?
A Cheshire Cat - Will Sunspots disappear entirely by 2015?
Mystery of the Missing Sunspots, Solved?

The above links are just a sampling of what is going on, all the while the global warming agenda is being intensified with a veritable onslaught of mass media and governmental promotion worldwide. Nearly simultaneously the US government and the UK government are releasing reports with skewed and discredited data that even exceeds the psychological manipulation utilized by the United Nations IPCC global warming contrived models.

The sun is in a deep slumber. The mid latitudes of both the northern and southern hemispheres are cooling. The great atmospheric conveyors of water vapor are becoming chaotic and may be shifting further from the tropics. Atmospheric particulates may be increasing from volcanic and meteoric dust. The US government has cut off data streams of incoming meteoric atmospheric explosions.

And the masses have nary a clue as to what is going on as they consume what is spoon fed to them by the great leadership of the world and its right hand man - mass media.

Joe Romm, Al Gore, Michael Mann, Eric Steig, the IPCC, GISS, Hadley Centre, Vicky Pope, Kofi Annan, Prince Charles, Barack Obama, ... Will these people be held responsible if the planet continues to cool, if their is massive crop failure, if people are freezing from lack of fuel and starving from lack of food?

The longer this goes on, the more difficult it is going to be to keep the average person from looking out the window or to keep the average person from noticing what is missing from the dinner table.


Compass

Long cold spell is to blame for lack of shellfish

Guernsey fisherman are struggling to make a living after a reduction in crab stocks.

It is thought that this year's cold spell, which lasted longer than in previous years, might have something to do with the poor amount of shellfish being caught.

Potter Robert Le Noury, who fishes off the west coast of the island, said he was putting down the same amount of pots but was struggling to find any crab.

'This is the slack time of year, but it seems to have dragged on.

'It's worrying whether I will be able to catch them or not and whether the season will be a wipe-out.

Life Preserver

It is a chill season for summer appliances in Kashmir

The consumer durables industry in Kashmir is clouded by a spell of coolness this summer as cold weather has put off consumers from making purchases in summer appliances.

The market for the summer appliances like refrigerators, air conditioners, fans and coolers has dipped approximately by 90 percent, said Shafat Ahmed, a prominent dealer in refrigerators. Shafat, who owns a chain of retail outlets in the city, says the cool weather is inflicting serious damage to his business.

Shafat has stocks worth lakhs ready to be sold. The Valley usually has a limited season of hot days. If the coolness continues our business may freeze for the year. The deteriorating political situation is adding to the problem. As soon as the market stabilizes, abnormal situation in the form of strikes creeps in, he said.
"The fixed costs in the form of salaries, power, telephone bills and other liabilities are a worrying factor in such a slump," he further adds.

Sartaj, his sales executive said that he had never seen the current type of slow down in sales during his eight year service.

Target

Decision-based evidence making - Global warming policy

The Obama administration yesterday released its blockbuster global-warming propaganda document, "Global Climate Change Impacts on the United States." It's a doozy, filled with colour graphics, maps and dramatic pictures. The message: We're all going to climate hell. Action needed now.

Scrolling through the 200-page output reminded me of a funny phrase a policy-wonk friend invented to describe the current state of policy research around the world. He called it, jokingly, "decision-based evidence making." Everybody who hears the phrase cracks up.

The joke, obviously, is a flip version of the slogan "evidence-based decision making," which has been all the rage for years in other fields, notably health care. Google produces thousands of hits for the idea that decisions should be evidence-based.

But the art of policy making has moved on, led by the global warming crusade, which daily produces science reports that turn the original slogan on its head. The new Obama report yesterday joins the Global Humanitarian Forum's recent claim to have found evidence for up to 300,000 annual deaths from global warming (see Peter Foster's article) or the recent MIT climate projections (reviewed here).

Bell

MIT's unscientific, catastrophic climate forecast

When we drive on a long bridge over a river or fly in a passenger aircraft, we expect the bridge and the plane to have been designed and built in ways that are consistent with proven scientific principles. Should we expect similar standards to apply to forecasts that are intended to help policymakers make important decisions that will affect people's jobs and even their lives? Of course we should. Such standards exist. But are they being followed?

The Financial Post asked us to look at a report last month from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, titled "Probabilistic Forecast for 21st Century Climate based on uncertainties in emissions (without policy) and climate parameters."

The MIT report authors predicted that, without massive government action, global warming could be twice as severe as previously forecast, and more severe than the official projections of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The MIT authors said their report is based in part on 400 runs of a computer model of the global climate and economic activity.

While the MIT group espouses lofty-sounding objectives to provide leadership with "independent policy analysis and public education in global environmental change," we found their procedures inconsistent with important forecasting principles. No more than 30% of forecasting principles were properly applied by the MIT modellers and 49 principles were violated. For an important problem such as this, we do not think it is defensible to violate a single principle.

Document

Australia leads media debate on global warming

A major country is getting media debate on the science of global warming for the first time ever - thanks to Australia's Senator Steve Fielding. As one of a half-dozen swing votes on Prime Minister Rudd's massive carbon tax bill, Fielding recently spent his own money to attend an international conference of climate skeptics in Washington, D.C.

"It seems every Australian has an opinion on the Rudd government's emission trading scheme," wrote Senator Fielding in The Australian on June 8th, "The one question, however, that no one seems to be asking, is whether or not we even need an emissions trading scheme at all?"

Fielding now has an appointment to talk warming theories with Australia's Environment Minister, Penny Wong. He wants to know how Minister Wong can be sure that humans have caused the recent warming - since global temperatures are now cooling though CO2 levels are still rising.

Senator Fielding says 500 years ago the whole world "knew" the sun revolved around the Earth. Galileo dared challenge the prevailing dogma anyway - and was put under house arrest for the rest of his life.

Galileo's story reminds Fielding of the present debate on climate change. "Opponents of the popular opinion that global warming is a direct result of carbon emissions, a group that includes many notable and distinguished scientists, are often derided and quickly dismissed. As an engineer, I have been trained to listen to both sides."

Bulb

World cooling has set in and it will stay colder for at least 100 years predicts scientist in forecast breakthrough

Astrophysicist Piers Corbyn of WeatherAction.com long range weather and climate forecasters today revealed a major breakthrough in climate forecasting and predicted general world cooling for the next 100 years in direct opposition to The Met office and UN forecast announced on the same day.
I met Piers Corbyn last year when I was in London. I think he's a brilliant man. But I have to put in my two-cent's worth here, because I think we're headed into a cooling period that will last thousands of years, not merely a hundred. Whichever scenario comes true, I think we'll be fighting in the streets for food long before we're covered by ice.
"World cooling is here to stay and the new round of climate alarmism just announced by UK Government ministers and the Met Office of more extreme weather and warming in coming decades driven by mankind has no merit and is defied by the facts and front-line science", said Piers as his forecast from three weeks ahead was confirmed for the formation of the first East Pacific typhoon of the season off Mexico.

"Ministers have been saying a lot about accountability recently so now let's apply that to climate change policy and scrutinize what they are up to in the light of the facts and the application of sound science. "

Evil Rays

An exceptionally soggy June for many in US

Washington - Mud season has been extended. From North Dakota to Long Island, rain after rain after rain has dampened spirits and swamped roads. Picnics and kids' baseball games have been washed out, rescheduled and rained out again. Big-time sports, too.

_ In Farmingdale, N.Y., Tiger Woods' defense of the U.S. Open championship was delayed Thursday as rain pelted an already soaked course and postponed most of the first round until Friday. "Where's my canoe," England's Ian Poulter wrote on his Twitter feed.

_ In Bismarck, N.D., heavy rain swamped streets, stressed storm sewers and stalled vehicles. Roads were shut down, and the roof of a bowling alley collapsed under the weight of water.

_ Rainfall has totaled 5.32 inches so far this month in New York's Central Park, more than double the normal 2.17 inches for the period.

"This has been a very rainy spring," observed Victoria Cahn, 27, dodging puddles on a lunch run from her office on the University of Pennsylvania campus. "Usually in June we have the air conditioning on half the time at least."

The lifelong Philadelphia resident said, "I'm a volunteer sailor on the (1883 tall ship) Gazela ... and we've been trying to find dry time to work outside on the weekends, and it just hasn't been there - we always find ourselves interrupted by a thunderstorm or two."

The City of Brotherly Love has sloshed through 3.40 inches of rain so far this month, far above the 1.81 normal reading.

Cloud Lightning

US: Another round of severe weather in North Dakota

Mother Nature added insult to injury tonight in Abercrombie. After getting 8 inches of rain Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, the city got hit with another round of severe weather tonight and another 2 and a half inches of rain.

20 homes there already had some kind of water damage, some with as much as 4 feet of water; WDAY 6 Reporter Travis Skonseng is live with the latest.

Crews are scrambling with a struggling sewer system that just can't keep up with all the water. The past few days have swamped much of town.

Fire officials are trying to pump out water from the flooded town into fields. Many ditches are already full. Tonight, several inches of water are standing in streets and water is right up to homes.