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Since 1998, there has been an unexplained "standstill" in the heating of the Earth's atmosphere. Writing in Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this will reduce predicted warming in the coming decades. But long-term, the expected temperature rises will not alter significantly. The slowdown in the expected rate of global warming has been studied for several years now. Earlier this year, the UK Met Office lowered their five-year temperature forecast. But this new paper gives the clearest picture yet of how any slowdown is likely to affect temperatures in both the short-term and long-term. An international team of researchers looked at...

HHS:'Telework' Gives Gov't Employees More Time for 'Planning and Preparing Healthy Meals' May 17, 2013 By Terence P. Jeffrey (CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says it wants as many as 20 percent of its workers to "telework," use an "alternative work schedule," or do both, in order to "reduce green house gas emissions," decrease "employee stress," and give these government workers more time for "planning and preparing healthy meals." So says one of the HHS "performance measures" detailed in an appendix to the department's latest strategic plan. HHS's performance measure "4.D.05" says: "Increase the percent...

Scientists have long used ancient shorelines to predict the stability of today's largest ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica believing, for example, that markings of a high shoreline from 3,000,000 years ago during a warm period on Earth were evidence of a high sea level due to ice sheet collapse at the time. This assumption has, in turn, led many to hypothesize that if the world's largest ice sheets collapsed before, the same could very well happen again as the Earth continues to warm again. More than ever, however, this theory is at risk of disintegrating under the weight of...

A noted climatologist and recently-retired NASA research chief has entered the EU’s energy policy debate, with a warning that any re-industrialization strategy that increases fossil fuels use can only be short-term, irrational and economically wasteful. In a wide-ranging interview with EurActiv, James Hansen branded the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) “ineffectual” and flawed, and accused energy firms of preferring government bribes over investments in clean technology. Hansen, whose Congressional testimony on climate change in 1988 first popularized the issue in the United States, also said that approving the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to bring tar sands fuel from Canada to...

An overwhelming 97 percent of climatologists endorse the idea of human-caused global warming. As if the backing of NASA, 18 independent American scientific societies, and an intergovernmental panel established under the United Nations weren't enough to quell the protests popping up in comment sections across the Internet, a new study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters confirms — once again — that climatologists almost unanimously believe that climate change is directly related to human-made carbon emissions. Researchers pored over nearly 12,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers from 1991 to 2011. These papers, according to Michael Todd at Pacific Standard, represented the...

A blast of wet and chilly weather left some hilly areas of the UK cloaked in snow as well as spring blossom on Wednesday.... Among areas affected was the hamlet of Anchor, close to the border between Shropshire and Wales. Landlord Mike Steedman, who has run the Anchor Inn for the past 17 years, said he could not remember snow falling in the area during May....

IT'S A SCENE that could be from a '70s horror movie: A wave of ice crystals relentlessly marching towards homes in Minnesota in the United States. The massive ice floes have also destroyed 12 homes and damaged another 15 in Canada, which boarders Minnesota. According to emergency officials, a total of seven homes in Ochre Breach were "literally crushed" by the ice that rose up within minutes pushed by strong winds, Winnepeg Free Press reports. A resident caught footage of a wave of ice that creeped off another lake in Minnesota - as foam froze and was pushed ashore by...

Secretary of State John Kerry speaking today in Stockholm, Sweden on climate change “I also want to say that we appreciate Sweden’s partnership because these challenges in Europe and North Africa and Central Asia simply do not belong to one nation; they’re shared by all of us and they affect all of us. ...... So Sweden is way ahead of the curve. And I have to say that I regret that my own country – and President Obama knows this and is committed to changing it – needs to do more and we are committed to doing more. And we...

Earth's global thaw has reached Mount Everest, the world's tallest peak, researchers said today (May 14) at the Meeting of the Americas in Cancun, Mexico. Glaciers in the Mount Everest region have shrunk by 13 percent in the last 50 years and the snowline has shifted upward by 590 feet (180 meters), Sudeep Thakuri, a graduate student at the University of Milan in Italy, said in a statement. Located in the Himalaya Mountains on the border between China and Nepal, Everest's summit is 29,029 feet (8,848 m) above sea level. Thakuri and his colleagues tracked changes to glaciers, temperatures and...

.. Record low temperatures set at Toledo OH... A record low temperature was set at the Toledo Express Airport on Sunday may 12 2013. The temperature dropped to 30 degrees at 1140 PM EST breaking the old record of 34 degrees last recorded on may 12 1969.The temperature at the Toledo Express Airport remained seasonably cold overnight and registered 30 degrees at 145 am EST this morning. This equals and sets a new record low of 30 degrees which was last recorded on may 13 1946.... Frost advisory in effect from midnight tonight to 9 am EDT Tuesday...The National Weather...

Carbon dioxide levels indicate rise in temperatures that could lead agriculture to fail on entire continents It is increasingly likely that hundreds of millions of people will be displaced from their homelands in the near future as a result of global warming. That is the stark warning of economist and climate change expert Lord Stern following the news last week that concentrations of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere had reached a level of 400 parts per million (ppm).

The demonized chemical compound is a boon to pant life and has little correlation with global temperature. Of all of the world's chemical compounds, none has a worse reputation than carbon dioxide. Thanks to the single-minded demonization of this natural and essential atmospheric gas by advocates of government control of energy production, the conventional wisdom about carbon dioxide is that it is a dangerous pollutant. That's simply not the case. Contrary to what some would have us believe, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will benefit the increasing population on the planet by increasing agricultural productivity. The cessation of observed...

Carbon dioxide levels have reached its highest throughout human history, recent figures from a US monitoring station show. The level in our atmosphere is now at a record high 400 parts per million, prompting renewed warnings of the ‘huge risks’ of climate change. The shocking figures, which have risen from 270ppm before the Industrial Revolution, is a result of human activity such as burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. The preliminary figures have come from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) monitoring station in Hawaii. The greenhouse gas has not been at such high levels for around three...

Roy Spencer is a climate scientist at the University of Alabama-Huntsville who may be the world’s most important scientist. He has discovered scientific insights and theories that cast great doubt on global warming doctrine. That doctrine has always been dubious and is often defended by attacking the integrity of anyone who dares to raise questions. Spencer is a rare combination of a brilliant scientist and a brave soul willing to risk his livelihood and reputation by speaking plainly. The global warming promoters say we must scrap the world’s energy infrastructure in favor of green energy. They say that burning coal,...

AP article. Whenever I post anything from the AP, it disappears. But the article is lamenting the incredible rise in carbon dioxide. Thoughts?

The governor won’t meet with a leading New Jersey warmist critic. Hello from the Paul Robeson Center for The Arts, located on Paul Robeson Place, just a few blocks down from Princeton University. They like their hardcore communists here in Central Jersey. But they also make really great coffee, which is why I make it a point to meet up with my long-time lefty friend in Palmer Square where we have plenty of options. In print, we’ll call her “Moonbeam,” to prevent our association from destroying her standing in the community, and to make it clear that her environmental policy...

Conservatives may be less likely to buy energy efficient light bulbs if they're packaged as environmentally friendly, new research suggests. In one study, participants were given $2 to spend on a light bulb with a choice between a 50-cent incandescent bulb and a $1.50 compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb. They were told the CFL bulb would last 9,000 more hours and reduce energy costs by 75 percent compared with the old-fashioned bulb. Both liberal and conservative participants were more likely to choose the CFL bulb, the researchers found. But if the CFL bulb was marked with a sticker that said...

Former Vice President Gore on Tuesday said "there's no such thing as ethical oil," slamming the notion that importing oil from U.S. ally Canada was better than doing so from unfriendly nations. “There’s no such thing as ethical oil. There’s only dirty oil and dirtier oil,” Gore told Canada’s The Globe and Mail during a Tuesday event in Toronto. Gore was responding to Globe and Mail Editor in Chief John Stackhouse on whether it made a difference that oil sands from the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would come from a democratic nation. U.S. backers of the Canada-to-Texas pipeline have pointed...

Roy Spencer is a climate scientist at the University of Alabama Huntsville who may be the world's most important scientist. He has discovered scientific insights and theories that cast great doubt on global warming doctrine... --snip-- The pressure that is building on climate doctrine is the failure of the Earth to warm, a trend that has now continued for 16 years. The longer warming is stalled, in the face of constantly increasing CO2, the harder it becomes for the believers to continue believing. Compounding the failure of the Earth to warm is the failure of the oceans to warm for...

NEW YORK—Former President Bill Clinton and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced a new climate initiative Monday to help cities measure their risk for severe weather and natural disasters. The hope is to help curb the impact of deadly storms like Superstorm Sandy, which devastated parts of New York City last October. The project will be run through C40, a coalition of major cities around the world that united to study the impact of climate change on their municipalities. The group, chaired by Bloomberg, merged two years ago with the Clinton Climate Initiative—an offshoot of Clinton’s philanthropic foundation. Known...

Gov. Jerry Brown put the state’s early wildfire season in global terms Monday, saying the state would have to grow accustomed to more forest fires as a consequence of climate change.

How do you top making national news for bigotry? Trying getting people to “Give Up (Eating) Hamburgers to Stop Climate Change.” For loony lefty syndicated columnist David Sirota, it’s all just another day at the office. Sirota made national news for his bizarre and bigoted hope that the Boston bomber would turn out to be “a white American.” Fresh off that fiasco, Sirota has turned his sights to changing the climate by changing America’s diet. According to Sirota’s May 2 column, “the fastest way to reduce climate change” simply “requires us all to eat fewer animal products.” In case that...

A funny thing happened on the way to the global warming apocalypse. First, temperatures stopped rising, defying the projections of supposed environmental experts. Then, increased oil-and-gas drilling, opposed by climate change true believers, helped reduce U.S. production of carbon dioxide emissions. While environmental alarmists should express relief in being proven wrong, we doubt they'll take that tack. Even some global warming proponents now acknowledge that warming trends stalled beginning in the late 1990s, in spite of increased carbon dioxide emissions. The cause-and-effect link argued by climate-change believers has come under question. New data show the revolution created by hydraulic fracturing...

Updated 2 May 2013 to correct typo on date of previous low tornado countThe 12-month period from May 2012 to April 2013 was remarkable for the absence of tornado activity and tornado impacts in the United States.We can start by looking at the number of EF1 and stronger tornadoes during that period. A final count is available through January 2013 and we have a pretty good estimate of how many occurred in February through April, although final numbers won’t be available until July. Although the 12 month total may change a little bit with the final data, it’s unlikely to...

It will collect radar data for the purpose of understanding changes in the ice NASA will begin testing a new rover tomorrow, which is expected to measure changes in Greenland's ice sheet.  The rover is called GROVER, which is short for Goddard Remotely Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Research. It's a 6-foot-tall, 800 pound, autonomous vehicle complete with solar panels and two repurposed snowmobile tracks.  The solar-powered GROVER will travel Greenland's surface layer collecting measurements in order to help scientists understand changes in the ice sheet. A ground-penetrating radar -- which is powered by two rechargeable batteries -- is placed at the...

At the two-thirds mark for meteorological spring, 2013 was the second coldest spring on record – slightly warmer than 1975. But 1975 had an unusually warm May at 17C. The two warmest months of May were in 1934 and 1896. Both graphs above show the average of all daily temperatures at all US HCN stations, calculated per year. The forecast for the first two weeks of May is well below normal, so odds are that the spring of 2013 will be the coldest on record in the US. This is what Fort Collins looked like at 7pm today (May 1.)

reader “agimarc” writes: As with the Lower 48 states, spring is late and cold here in central Alaska. Fairbanks reported a record low of 2 degrees F above zero Sunday, breaking the previous record of 8 from 1924.Here in Anchorage, looks like we are around 3 – 4 weeks late with ice of local lakes and snow off the ground. Winter was not particularly hard, but it all changed with a very cold April. And at this point it does not appear things will be warming up soon. So much for manmade global warming due to carbon dioxide emissions.Story...

From the Fahrenheit 451 department comes this indictment of California’s higher education’s “tolerance” for opposing views. When I first got the tip on this, I thought to myself “nobody can be this stupid to photograph themselves doing this” but, here they are, right from the San Jose State University Meteorology Department web page:The caption from the SJSU website reads: This week we received a deluge of free books from the Heartland Institute {this or this }. The book is entitled “The Mad, Mad, Made World of Climatism”. SHown above, Drs. Bridger and Clements test the flammability of the book....

by stevengoddard At the two-thirds mark for meteorological spring, 2013 was the second coldest spring on record – slightly warmer than 1975. Data is from here : Index of /pub/data/ghcn/daily/hcn/ But 1975 had an unusually warm May at 17C. The two warmest months of May were in 1934 and 1896. Both graphs above show the average of all daily temperatures at all US HCN stations, calculated per year.The forecast for the first two weeks of May is well below normal, so odds are that the spring of 2013 will be the coldest on record in the US.  This is what Fort...

March 2013 will be remembered for its cold, miserable weather, and Environment Canada confirms that it ranked as the second-coldest March in the last 50 years. "It was so winter-like, my gosh it was even more winter-like than February," said David Phillips, chief meteorologist with Environment Canada. In Regina, the average daily temperature during March measured around -12.3 C. "The normal would be around -5 C," explained Phillips, "and I needn't remind you that last year, the temperature was close to 1 C. So think about it, (that's) 13 degrees colder than it was the year before."

A number House Democrats have written a resolution(PDF) calling on Congress to recognize that climate change will hurt the plight of women more than men; driving women into “transactional sex� for survival — among other horrible fates. Now, nothing causes more transactional sex than poverty, and few conditions bring more poverty to women around the world than limiting capitalism and free trade. One wonders if a poor woman in say, Bangladesh, would be happier and healthier with a car, an air conditioner and processed food rather than that light carbon footprint they now carry? I wish they had a choice.So...

Several House Democrats are calling on Congress to recognize that climate change is hurting women more than men, and could even drive poor women to "transactional sex" for survival. The resolution, from Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and a dozen other Democrats, says the results of climate change include drought and reduced agricultural output. It says these changes can be particularly harmful for women. "[F]ood insecure women with limited socioeconomic resources may be vulnerable to situations such as sex work, transactional sex, and early marriage that put them at risk for HIV, STIs, unplanned pregnancy, and poor reproductive health," it says....

How Does An Ice Age Start? With One Snowflake Illustration by Brian ZinchukThe Empire has decided to invade the ice plant of Earth. April 17, 2013 By Brian Zinchuk Hindsight is 20/20, they say. So looking back several decades, the scientists agreed – if they had to pick a date when it all started, it was 2013. Thirteen is aptly considered unlucky, for it was the year with no summer. Scratch that. It was the first year with no summer. Moods were glum throughout Western Canada that spring. April showers were supposed to bring May flowers. Instead, all the precipitation...

Right now, way too many lawmakers in Washington flat-out refuse to face the facts when it comes to climate change. We're never going to make real progress on this issue unless members of Congress get serious. Instead, some of them have made a habit of publicly mocking it. We thought it was time to call them out for denying what's basic science. Watch this embarrassing video of climate deniers in Congress -- and say you're ready to help hold them accountable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=biUc0D6_UPA The science matters in this. That's the message way too many people in Washington need to hear right...

New technology and a little-known energy source suggest that fossil fuels may not be finite. This would be a miracle—and a nightmare. As the great research ship Chikyu left Shimizu in January to mine the explosive ice beneath the Philippine Sea, chances are good that not one of the scientists aboard realized they might be closing the door on Winston Churchill’s world. Their lack of knowledge is unsurprising; beyond the ranks of petroleum-industry historians, Churchill’s outsize role in the history of energy is insufficiently appreciated. Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911. With characteristic...

Turns Back To Coal, Abandons Emissions TargetsFrom Dr. Benny Peiser at The GWPFThe Japanese government is moving to speed up the environmental assessment process for new coal-fired power plants. According to Japanese media reports, the government intends to make 12 months the maximum period for assessing and approving new coal-fired power plants as its utilities seek to develop more power stations to stem surging energy supply bills. With the government considering the closure of much of the installed nuclear capacity over the medium term, the spotlight is back on coal as the cheapest energy source, notwithstanding plans to cut carbon...

Raleigh, N.C. — It took just 45 minutes Thursday morning for the Senate Commerce Committee to approve a massive rollback of rules and regulations meant to protect the state's environment. Senate Bill 612 would require cities and counties to repeal any rules stricter than state or federal law. It would also require a list of environmental oversight boards and agencies to repeal or rewrite any state rule stricter than federal regulation on any given matter. Those agencies include the Mining and Energy Commission, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Environmental Management Commission, the Commission for Public Health, the...

To begin with I was the only critical voice in New Zealand. Last week I attended a packed meeting of the Press Club in Wellington to hear Lord Monckton tear apart the IPCC and everything connected with it. The University scientists will not listen to him. But one of the organisers of the meeting was from the Music Department. But, surely, we are at the beginning of the end. The globe has stopped warming; even when measured by the botched-up biased system that they favour. The Kyoto Protocol is dead. Emissions by former members are in steady decline compared with...

Paging Seth Borenstein! 9787 new cold and snow records since March 13thIf this were a month of a heatwave across thus USA, like last July, you can bet it would be MSM headlines all over the place and breathless stories from AP’s Seth Borenstein and pronouncements from the Mannian climate cartel about how all this is connected to global warming, er climate change, er climate disruption.Source hereBut nary a peep so far about this cold wave lasting over a month that has generated 9787 records posted by NOAA/NWS.Conversely, here is the list of high temperatures, and high minimum temperatures.Source hereThe...

Good news on natural gas is bad news for a Democratic party full of environmental true-believers Much has been said recently about the deep tensions within the Republican party. Far less has been said about a sharp division arising inside the Democratic party. That latter tension was front and center recently when former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Daily News drawing on his experience overseeing extensive natural gas development in Pennsylvania. “If we choose to embrace natural gas, it will help us get past a number of significant economic and environmental challenges,” Rendell wrote....

Behold the coming apocalypse as predicted on and around Earth Day, 1970: "Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind." — Harvard biologist George Wald "We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation." — Washington University biologist Barry Commoner "Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction." — New York Times editorial "Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever...

will always remember the day I woke to the news that more than 2,000 fires were burning in California. I thought I must not have heard correctly. Two thousand fires? How could that be? In the end, the state's brave firefighters, joined by contingents from out of state, won the battle. But not before 11 emergency declarations were issued and more than 400,000 acres burned. Countless lives and livelihoods were ruined. Today, there's a new disaster looming, and although it's not as riveting or dramatic as walls of flames and billowing black smoke, it needs our immediate attention. The draft...

Uh oh, somebody in Germany in a position to influence others in the Green movement has started thinking for himself, shrugging off suggestions from a climate scientist that “its all in his head”.Pierre Gosselin reports about a story by lefty journalist Harald Martenstein of Die Zeit: “I was ready to open my home to the Schröders as soon as they would no longer be able to take the 60°C heat in the shade. But instead it got colder and colder. At Uckermark in the wintertime it was -20°C for weeks.” Martenstein also noticed that Britain had endured its coldest winter in...

After a foray in a cult, one of the first steps on the path back to reality is the process of deprogramming. Could it be that this step is now being self-administered by the German mainstream media? It appears so. Now that the global mean temperature curve has drifted out of and below the IPCC’s projected range, panic is breaking out. The mother of German green weeklies, Die Zeit, appears to be taking measurements at the back of the house in preparation for the installation of a back door! Rahmstorf is back there with them, trying to talk them out...

A recent flurry of eruptions on the sun did more than spark pretty auroras around the poles. NASA-funded researchers say the solar storms of March 8th through 10th dumped enough energy in Earth’s upper atmosphere to power every residence in New York City for two years. “This was the biggest dose of heat we’ve received from a solar storm since 2005,” says Martin Mlynczak of NASA Langley Research Center. “It was a big event, and shows how solar activity can directly affect our planet.” Earth's atmosphere lights up at infrared wavelengths during the solar storms of March 8-10, 2012. A...

A recent NASA report throws the space agency into conflict with its climatologists after new NASA measurements prove that carbon dioxide acts as a coolant in Earth's atmosphere. NASA's Langley Research Center has collated data proving that “greenhouse gases” actually block up to 95 percent of harmful solar rays from reaching our planet, thus reducing the heating impact of the sun. The data was collected by Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry, (or SABER). SABER monitors infrared emissions from Earth’s upper atmosphere, in particular from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances thought to be playing...

The National Weather Service has posted a winter storm warning for far eastern South Dakota, and winter weather advisories in other parts of that region and also southeastern North Dakota. ... Snowstorms have been crossing the Dakotas for the past week, dumping record amounts of snow

**SNIP** The Refugee Council of Australia has told the Australian government that it should create a new refugee category for those fleeing the effects of climate change so that they can be offered protection similar to those escaping war or persecution. The key legal document that defines refugees, the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, defines a refugee as a person who has a well-founded fear of persecution in their homeland because of their race, religion, nationality of membership of a particular group. The convention – forged in 1951 in the aftermath of world war two – does not...

Barely a day after the Washington State Senate voted to fund a study that would explore ways to enforce tougher greenhouse gas emission standards, a respected academic spent nearly two hours presenting scientific evidence suggesting the assumptions on which that legislation was based were wrong. Dr. Don Easterbrook, a professor emeritus of geology at Western Washington University, on Tuesday told the Senate’s Energy, Environment and Telecommunications Committee he was relying on an old maxim in science: “In God we trust; everyone else bring data.” “Well, I’m bringing data,” he said. “You’ll hear very few opinions from me. When I’m finished,...

DPA Much of Germany's energy supply still comes from burning brown coal. Europe's once celebrated cap-and-trade system to limit carbon emissions has languished. The economic crisis has caused the price of emissions licenses to plummet, and a recent remedy to the problem has been rejected by EU lawmakers. Climate policy expert Felix Matthes tells SPIEGEL ONLINE that an opportunity has been squandered. The European Parliament on Tuesday voted down a proposal to make it more expensive for companies to burn fossil fuels, in what environmental advocates are calling a major setback in the fight against climate change.