posted July 18, 2014 02:20 PM            

Climate data show that global temperatures in 2013 continued their long-term rising trend. In fact, 2013 was somewhere between the second- and sixth-hottest year on record for the planet since record keeping began in 1880, according to the climate report, released Thursday (July 17) by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). (Four groups of scientists, who rely on slightly different methods to calculate global surface temperatures, ranked 2013 slightly differently compared with other years.)

The annual State of the Climate report compiles climate and weather data from around the world and is reviewed by 425 climate scientists from 57 countries. The report can be viewed online.

"You can think of it as an annual checkup on the planet," said Kathryn Sullivan, NOAA administrator.

And the checkup results show the planet ranged well outside of normal levels in 2013, hitting new records for greenhouse gases, Arctic heat, warm ocean temperatures and rising sea levels.

"The climate is changing more rapidly in today's world than at any time in modern civilization," said Thomas Karl, director of NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. "If we look at it like we're trying to maintain an ideal weight, then we're continuing to see ourselves put more weight on from year to year," he said.

Climate scientists blame rising levels of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere for the planet's changing climate. The levels of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii hit 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in 2013. The worldwide average reached 395.3 ppm, a 2.8 ppm increase from 2012, NOAA reports. (Parts per million denotes the volume of a gas in the air; in this case, for every 1 million air molecules, 400 are carbon dioxide.) [In Images: Extreme Weather Around the World]

"The major greenhouse gases all reached new record high values in 2013," said Jessica Blunden, a climate scientist with ERT, Inc., and a NOAA contractor who helped write the report.

Most parts of the planet experienced above-average annual temperatures in 2013, NOAA officials said. Australia experienced its warmest year on record, while Argentina had its second warmest and New Zealand its third warmest. There was a new high-temperature record set at the South Pole, of minus 53 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 47 degrees Celsius).

Here are the highlights from the report:

Sea level continued rising: Boosted by warm Pacific Ocean temperatures (which causes water to expand) and melting ice sheets, sea level rose 0.15 inches (3.8 millimeters), on par with the long-term trend of 0.13 inches (3.2 mm) per year over the past 20 years.

Antarctic sea ice hit another record high: On October 1, Antarctic sea ice covered 7.56 million square miles (19.5 million square kilometers). This beats the old record set in 2012 by 0.7 percent. However, even though the Antarctic sea ice is growing, the continent's land-based glaciers continued to melt and shrink.

Arctic sea ice low: The Arctic sea ice extent was the sixth lowest since satellite observations began in 1979. The sea ice extent is declining by about 14 percent per decade.

Extreme weather: Deadly Super Typhoon Haiyan had the highest wind speed ever recorded for a tropical cyclone, with one-minute sustained winds reaching 196 mph (315 km/h). Flooding in central Europe caused billions of dollars in damage and killed 24 people.

Melting permafrost: For the second year in a row, record high temperatures were measured in permafrost on the North Slope of Alaska and in the Brooks Range. Permafrost is frozen ground underneath the Earth's surface. The temperatures were recorded more than 60 feet (20 meters) deep.

Arctic heat: Temperatures over land are rising faster in the Arctic than in other regions of the planet. Fairbanks, Alaska, had a record 36 days with temperatures at 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius) or warmer. However, Greenland had a cooler than average summer.

posted July 21, 2014 05:56 AM            

July 20, 2014
Yet another #WarmistFail
By Thomas Lifson

Global warming is not going to do it for the left, it has now become obvious to everyone but a few bitter enders like Al Gore and billionaire hedge fund-rich San Franciscan Tom Steyer. The latter may be getting a clue, however. Asche Schow reports in the Washington Examiner:

Billionaire Tom Steyer pledged to raise $50 million to make climate change and opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline a 2014 campaign headache for the GOP.

It's not going very well.

“[Steyer's] super PAC, NextGen Climate Action, has raised just $1.2 million from other donors toward that goal, according to still-unreleased figures that his aides shared with Politico,” wrote Politico's Andrew Restuccia and Kenneth P. Vogel. “And he appears to be struggling to woo wealthy allies in his effort to compete with big-money conservative donors - leading some supporters to question whether his fundraising goal is realistic.”

“So far, the only really big donor to the Steyer cause is Steyer himself,” they added.

This is pretty hilarious. People are noticing that we have gone 17 years without any rise in global temperature, as accurately measured by satellites. It’s harder to panic people when the models you are using utterly failed to predict what has actualy happened.

posted August 03, 2014 11:22 AM            

The Marxist Messiah and his Socialist comrades in Congress and the Loony-Tunes Socialists in the so called "Green" movement think hyping climate change is going to distract voters from the most politically and financially corrupt lawless administration in US history.

The evidence of O'Bomber's domestic and foreign policy incompetent bungling along with the bungling incompetence of his Socialist moron comrades in Congress are on display for everyone to see.

Yet, these morons have time to run all over America hyping Man Made Global Warming when there hasn't been any warming in 17 years and indeed, it was hotter in 1936.

No sale morons. There's an election coming and it's desperation time for demoscats.

President Barack Obama’s climate push takes center stage
ANDREW RESTUCCIA
7/29/14

The Obama administration and its supporters fanned out around the country Tuesday to press the case for acting on climate change, arguing on the Hill, at packed Environmental Protection Agency hearings and in a new White House report that the price for doing nothing is far too high.

The climate offensive reflects liberals’ growing belief that reining in greenhouse gases is a winning political issue among Latinos, women and young people, especially if framed as a boost for public health and the economy — even as moderate Democrats struggle to defend President Barack Obama’s policies in key states that could flip the Senate in November.

Not since the failed push to pass a cap-and-trade bill in Obama’s first term have the White House, congressional Democrats and their green allies mounted such a coordinated drive to sell an environmental policy.

At dawn Tuesday, the White House released a report that said inaction on climate change could come with a $150 billion price tag — a message Senate Democrats amplified at a Budget Committee hearing hours later. Then came the day’s big event, as lawmakers, activists and business leaders rallied in Washington, Atlanta and Denver on the first day of EPA’s marathon public hearings on its proposed climate rule for existing power plants.

The rule is the centerpiece of Obama’s climate agenda, and environmental and public health groups showed up at the hearings en masse to champion the cause. So did prominent critics, who denounced the proposal as a reckless gamble with coal-dependent jobs and the reliability of the electric grid.

Outside EPA’s headquarters in downtown D.C., people got free ice cream courtesy of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project and Ben & Jerry’s, greens waved handheld windmills, and competing video billboards aired messages approving and condemning the rule. Supporters and opponents both described the debate in the grandest terms.

“When America sets strong environmental safeguards, that’s when our innovative spirit rises to the challenge,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), one of several lawmakers on both sides who showed up for EPA’s hearing in D.C. “Millions of jobs are created. Millions of Americans are healthier. Our air is cleaner, our water safer.”

Other supporters at the hearing included Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who said climate change is already harming his state. Talk to “fishermen and oyster farmers in Oregon and you’ll hear that climate change … is not some distant threat,” he said. Reps. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Delaware Gov. Jack Markell also testified in favor of the rule.

But Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) challenged EPA officials to come to her state to see how their regulations are harming people in coal country.

“The rule threatens West Virginia’s economic survival,” said Capito, who also testified at the hearing.

An executive of one coal company, Peabody Energy, even called for EPA to “withdraw” the rule.

“We are opposed to any proposal that would punish electricity consumers, have no material benefit under climate theory and act outside the bounds of the law,” company Senior Vice President Fred Palmer said.

Separately, the Energy Department announced steps it will take to keep the nation’s natural gas transmission and distribution systems from leaking climate-warming methane, while the White House and the Agriculture Department said they would take steps to help stem the effects of climate change on farming and food production.

On Capitol Hill, Senate Democrats seized on the new report written by the White House Council of Economic Advisers to push the administration’s argument that its climate change policies will give the U.S. a long-term economic advantage. The report said the costs of countering the effects of global warming increase 40 percent for every decade that policymakers delay taking significant action.

“This isn’t just an environmental issue,” Senate Budget Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said at her panel’s hearing Tuesday morning. “It also poses serious risks to our economy and the federal budget.”

In the House, board members of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission acknowledged during an Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing that the EPA rule could cause some challenges for the nation’s energy network — for instance, if the constrained network of natural gas pipelines can’t accommodate the administration’s desire to see more gas use supplant coal. Building gas pipelines to handle the extra demand “is gonna cost money,” FERC Chairwoman Cheryl LaFleur told lawmakers.

“We also don’t know the unknown cost of leaving climate change unattended to, which is not free,” LaFleur said. “But we’ll be working to make sure that the transition costs of pipeline and transmission — the things we regulate — are done in a reasonable way.”

On the other hand, FERC Commissioner John Norris sniped at Congress for failing to deal with the climate issue, saying inaction was amassing an “atmospheric debt” that must be paid.

“[Grid] reliability will always be one of my highest priorities,” Norris said. “But this rule is a very gradual transition, I believe a very necessary transition.”

Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) denied that Congress had done nothing on the climate issue. “Congress did act by deciding not to act,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s clean air panel held a hearing on the “threats posed by climate change.”