According to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), 2013 brought us the second latest start to spring spring in US history. The only recorded year in which the beginning of spring was colder was 1975. Probably not coincidentally, it was in April of 1975 when Newsweek published its infamous “The Cooling World” feature.

See the NOAA data at Real Science.

by P. Gosselin, and NTZ reader Jimbo

“The Earth has a fever,” we were told. “The science is settled and the debate is over. Scientists are unanimous - 97% of them agree: climate change is real, and is happening now, and we’ve got to act quickly.”

Over more than two decades we were told again and again that everywhere was warming faster than everywhere else – especially winters were warming up quickly. Snow was becoming a thing of the past and children soon weren’t going to know what it is.  “The warm winters that we are seeing are just a harbinger of what’s to come,” the media declared just a couple of years ago. The scientists were cock-sure.

Today we are finding that precisely the exact opposite is happening. Winters in Europe have turned colder and more severe. Central Europe has seen its 5th consecutive colder than normal winter in a row – a record since measurements began in the 19th century.

Read the list of failed predictions at: NoTricksZone

By James Taylor

The mainstream media are reporting in breathless fashion about a new paper claiming current temperatures are their warmest in 4,000 years. Already, however, objective scientists are reporting serious flaws in the paper. The media may wish to paint a picture of runaway global warming, but the science tells a completely different story.

Recently graduated Ph.D. student Shaun Marcott has published a paper claiming he compiled a proxy temperature reconstruction indicating current temperatures are their warmest in at least 4,000 years. Proxy temperature reconstructions require careful scrutiny because the proxies are not direct temperature measurements, but represent other data and factors that may or may not have a close correlation with past temperatures. Some proxies are better than others. Also, an agenda-driven researcher can easily cherry-pick certain anomalous proxies that support a predetermined conclusion while ignoring a much larger set of proxies that tell a different story.

Perhaps the most notorious of agenda-driven proxy reconstructions was published by global warming alarmist Michael Mann. As a young, relatively unknown recent Ph.D. graduate, Mann attained wealth, fame and adulation among global warming alarmists after assembling a proxy temperature reconstruction that he claimed showed global temperatures underwent a steady, roughly 1,000-year decline followed by a sharp rise during the 20th century. The media reported on the Mann hockey stick reconstruction as if it settled the global warming debate, but objective scientists pointed out several crucial flaws that invalidated Mann’s claims. Eventually, Congress commissioned distinguished statistician Edward Wegman to review and report on Mann’s methods and conclusions. After assembling a blue ribbon panel of experts to study Mann’s temperature reconstruction, Wegman reported the criticisms of Mann’s reconstruction were “valid and compelling.”

Read the rest at Forbes

By: Larry Bell

President Obama has put salvation from dreaded climate catastrophes on his action agenda hot list. During his inaugural address he said: “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.” He went on to shame anyone who disagrees with this assessment, saying, “Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and powerful storms.”

This sort of scary presidential prognostication isn’t new. He previously emphasized at the Democratic National Convention that global warming was “not a hoax”, referred to recent droughts and floods as “a threat to our children’s future”, and pledged to make the climate a second-term priority.

As much as I hate to nit-pick his doomsday scenarios, it might be appropriate to correct a few general misconceptions before getting back to that “overwhelming judgment of science” stuff.

Read the rest at: Forbes

By: John Ransom

New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences tends to now show that ice melt estimates previously calculated for Greenland have not significantly accelerated- as has been previously postulated- nor has the melt contributed in a meaningful way to the rise of sea levels.

Recently, much of the destruction on the east coast as a consequence of Super-Mega-Hurricane Sandy Gore was blamed on the rise in sea-levels, which have been blamed on…drum roll…global warming.

The newest revelation, amongst many in the last several years that have muffled the global warming chants of  “settled science, settled science, settled science,” confirms that the model generally used to support climate change, global warming and/or Super-Mega-Hurricane Sandy Gore, is neither settled nor scientific.

Read the rest at: Townhall.com

By Mike Ciandella

James Hansen’s been screaming for years that the sky is falling. For years, the Sky has refused to fall. But that’s OK with CNN.

CNN ran a story promoting a Washington Post opinion piece written by Hansen, on Aug. 3. Hansen is an outspoken global warming activist, and a director at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. In the piece, Hansen blames global warming for this year’s high summer temperatures in the United States, as well as for the European heat wave of 2003, the Russian heat wave of 2010, and other extreme weather around the globe in recent years. They include no mention of anyone from the other side of the issue, or even a reference to the fact that there are skeptics of climate change.

Hansen is one of the more hysterical climate change hucksters. In a speech before Congress in 2008, Hansen called for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for “high crimes against humanity,” according to the U.K. news outlet the Guardian.

PRESS RELEASE – U.S. Temperature trends show a spurious doubling due to NOAA station siting problems and post measurement adjustments.

Chico, CA July 29^th, 2012 – 12 PM PDT – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

By Anthony Watts

A comparison and summary of trends is shown from the paper. Acceptably placed thermometers away from common urban influences read much cooler nationwide:

A reanalysis of U.S. surface station temperatures has been performed using the recently WMO-approved Siting Classification System devised by METEO-France’s Michel Leroy. The new siting classification more accurately characterizes the quality of the location in terms of monitoring long-term spatially representative surface temperature trends. The new analysis demonstrates that reported 1979-2008 U.S. temperature trends are spuriously doubled, with 92% of that over-estimation resulting from erroneous NOAA adjustments of well-sited stations upward. The paper is the first to use the updated siting system which addresses USHCN siting issues and data adjustments.

The new improved assessment, for the years 1979 to 2008, yields a trend of +0.155C per decade from the high quality sites, a +0.248 C per decade trend for poorly sited locations, and a trend of +0.309 C per decade after NOAA adjusts the data. This issue of station siting quality is expected to be an issue with respect to the monitoring of land surface temperature throughout the Global Historical Climate Network and in the BEST network.

Read the rest at Watts Up With That

Green Drivel Exposed

By Lorrie Goldstein

Two months ago, James Lovelock, the godfather of global warming, gave a startling interview to msnbc.com in which he acknowledged he had been unduly “alarmist” about climate change.

The implications were extraordinary.

Lovelock is a world-renowned scientist and environmentalist whose Gaia theory — that the Earth operates as a single, living organism — has had a profound impact on the development of global warming theory.

Unlike many “environmentalists,” who have degrees in political science, Lovelock, until his recent retirement at age 92, was a much-honoured working scientist and academic.

His inventions have been used by NASA, among many other scientific organizations.

Lovelock’s invention of the electron capture detector in 1957 first enabled scientists to measure CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and other pollutants in the atmosphere, leading, in many ways, to the birth of the modern environmental movement.

Having observed that global temperatures since the turn of the millennium have not gone up in the way computer-based climate models predicted, Lovelock acknowledged, “the problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago.” Now, Lovelock has given a follow-up interview to the UK’s Guardian newspaper in which he delivers more bombshells sure to anger the global green movement, which for years worshiped his Gaia theory and apocalyptic predictions that billions would die from man-made climate change by the end of this century.

Read the rest at the Toronto Sun.

By Doug Powers

“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” – Barack Obama, June 2008

I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to doubt him.

Here’s the latest from the Everybody panic!! file:

Sea levels are rising much faster along the U.S. East Coast than they are around the globe, putting one of the world’s most costly coasts in danger of flooding, government researchers report.

U.S. Geological Survey scientists call the 600-mile (965-kilometer) swath a “hot spot” for climbing sea levels caused by global warming. Along the region, the Atlantic Ocean is rising at an annual rate three times to four times faster than the global average since 1990, according to the study published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

It’s not just a faster rate, but at a faster pace, like a car on a highway “jamming on the accelerator,” said the study’s lead author, Asbury Sallenger Jr., an oceanographer at the agency. He looked at sea levels starting in 1950, and noticed a change beginning in 1990.

Since then, sea levels have gone up globally about 2 inches (5 centimeters). But in Norfolk, Virginia, where officials are scrambling to fight more frequent flooding, sea level has jumped a total of 4.8 inches (12.19 centimeters), the research showed. For Philadelphia, levels went up 3.7 inches (9.4 centimeters), and in New York City, it was 2.8 inches (7.11 centimeters).

Is Philadelphia next to the Atlantic ocean? If it is these guys probably have a valid concern.

If all the alarmists have been correct for the past few decades, we should be able to buy ocean-front property in Omaha by now.

Read the rest at Michelle Malkin’s blog.

Hat-tip to Climate Depot.

A couple interesting articles popped up today about tampering with the historical temperature data at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). It seems that the real, unfudged data shows a steady cooling trend from 1930 to 1999.

Have a look a these articles from the Real Science Blog:

Why (James) Hansen had to corrupt the Temperature Record

Uncorrupted Temperature Data Showed Cooling from 1930-1999

GISS Blocking Access to Archived Data

From the New Nostradamus of the North blog

A team of “international experts” have published a paper on climate change in this week´s edition of PloS Medicine:

The experts are from institutions in South Africa, Sweden and Germany. They will be highlighting the need to enhance climate and health benefits at the UN level.

This article will focus on views of these authors who feel that a healthy climate can be constantly maintained only by an overall global effort through small-scale and large-scale actions, which must involve active participation of the public health community.

The authors state that there is proof of significant health impacts of climate change in many sectors and these impacts lead to crisis in public health very similar to the impact of tobacco on the health of individuals. The authors highlight that this negative impact on health is because the general population is not sufficiently informed on the importance of public health.

Read the rest at The New Nostradamus of the North

Earth Heating Up

By Bill McAuliffe

By the end of the century, the Twin Cities area could see eight times as many deaths annually due to extreme heat as it does now, according to a study by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

The projected increase — from about 14 per year to 121 by century’s end — would be among the steepest experienced by 40 major metro areas. The authors said that is partly because extremely oppressive heat waves would be more of a shock to northern residents’ systems.

But local officials said the area has already been preparing for extreme heat, developing a plan that involves cooling centers, monitoring of vulnerable residents and a restriction from shutting off electricity to people who haven’t paid their bills. “Minneapolis has a very thorough and very robust plan,” said Pam Blixt, preparedness director for the city health department.

Read the rest at the Star Tribune.

Milk poured down Britain’s kitchen sinks each year creates a carbon footprint equivalent to thousands of car exhaust emissions, research shows.

From the University of Edinburgh

Scientists say the 360,000 tonnes of milk wasted in the UK each year creates greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 100,000 tonnes of CO2. The study by the University of Edinburgh says this is the same as is emitted by about 20,000 cars annually.

The research identifies ways that consumers could also help curb greenhouse gas emissions – by reducing the amount of food they buy, serve and waste. They also suggest the food industry could reduce emissions by seeking more efficient ways to use fertilisers.

Researchers also say halving the amount of chicken consumed in the UK and other developed countries to levels eaten in Japan could cut greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to taking 10 million cars off the road.

Read the rest at Phys.org.

Did Dino-Farts Cause Global Warming?

By Pamela Owen

Dinosaurs may be partly to blame for a change in climate because they created so much flatulence, according to leading scientists.

Professor Graeme Ruxton of St Andrews University, Scotland, said the giant animals spent 150 years emitting the potent global warming gas, methane.

Large plant-eating sauropods would have been the main culprits because of the huge amounts of greenery they consumed.

Read the rest at the UK’s Daily Mail.

Danish researchers have announced a rather wild hypothesis: Perhaps we are getting fatter and fatter because of the increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

By Thomas Hoffman

No, this is not 1 April – and this is not an April Fool’s hoax.

Mad as it may sound, Danish researchers have announced a theory that may not only explain why people all over the world are getting fatter and fatter, but also warn of the serious consequences for life on Earth of continued pollution of the atmosphere by CO2 emissions.

In itself, the theory is quite simple: CO2 contributes to making us fat.

“There’s something in the air”

The theory arose several years ago, when Lars-Georg Hersoug studied the development of obesity among people who had been followed over a number of years in the so-called MONICA studies (Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in Cardio-vascular Disease) in Denmark. These studies have mapped the lifestyles of thousands of Danes.

Hersoug was surprised to see that both fat and thin people taking part in the studies over a 22-year period had put on weight – and the increase was proportionately the same.

Orexins – which are neuropeptide hormones – in the brain stimulate wakefulness and energy expenditure. These hormones may be affected by CO2, and this can cause us to go to bed later, affecting our metabolism so it is easier for us to put on weight. But orexins are also involved in the stimulation of food intake.

Read the rest at Science Nordic.