Recent Updates

Andy May 2:59 pm on May 1, 2021  

A Review of Temperature Reconstructions

By Andy May

This is an update to a 2016 post; the original post is here.

We often hear that the planet is warming faster than ever before, or at the fastest rate since the beginning of the industrial era! Is it true? We haven’t had thermometers for very long. How do thermometer readings compare to temperature proxies like ice cores and tree rings? Greenland is a good place to start, we see the high resolution Greenland ice core temperatures all the time. How accurate are they? How do Greenland temperatures compare to temperatures elsewhere?

In previous posts (here and here), I’ve compared historical events to the Alley and Kobashi GISP2 Central Greenland Temperature reconstructions for the past 4,000 years. Unfortunately, these two reconstructions are very different. Steve McIntyre suggested I consider a third reconstruction by Bo Vinther. Vinther’s data can be found here. Unfortunately, Vinther is significantly different from the other two. Nothing agrees very well.

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Andy May 6:20 am on May 1, 2021  

The CO2 Shift; Ice Age to Gas Age

Guest Post by Renee Hannon

Introduction
This post examines CO2 data collected from Antarctic ice cores and compares CO2 measurements in both ice age and gas age. The age of trapped gas in ice varies dramatically across the Antarctic and is dependent on accumulation rates. To compensate for this age difference, peer reviewed studies use a simple method of shifting CO2 measurements from the core ice age to match a younger CO2 gas age.

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Andy May 7:26 am on April 28, 2021  

Clouds and Global Warming

By Andy May

This post is inspired by an old post on the CERES cloud data by Willis Eschenbach that I’ve read and re-read a lot, “Estimating Cloud Feedback Using CERES Data.” The reason for my interest is I had trouble understanding it, but it looked fascinating because Willis was comparing CERES measured cloud data to IPCC modeled cloud feedback. I love obscure, back-alley comparisons of models and data. They tend to show model weakness. I learned this as a petrophysical modeler.

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Andy May 6:08 am on April 26, 2021  

Unsettled, Steven Koonin’s new book

By Andy May

I was honored to be chosen by NYU Professor Steven E. Koonin to review his wonderful new book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What it Doesn’t, and Why it Matters. According to Amazon.com, if you order the Kindle version (Koonin, 2021) now, it will download on May 4th. Professor Koonin sent me a near final draft to read and comment on in November and I nitpicked it a bit, but the draft was in good shape even then. It is better now. I received a signed early copy a couple of weeks ago, but I pre-ordered a Kindle version anyway for easy access, and I recommend you do as well. This is an important book, not only because Koonin is a brilliant and famous physicist, but also because of the content. It is a good overview of the science, but also important philosophically.

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Andy May 11:00 am on March 26, 2021  

Best Climate Change Temperatures

By Andy May

I just gave an informal Zoom talk to a small group on measuring climate change through temperatures. The host, Dave Siegel, recorded it and has posted the presentation here, if you want to view it. It is about 15 minutes, plus some discussion afterword.

The PowerPoint slides can be downloaded here, and the slides with my notes can be downloaded here.

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Andy May 2:42 pm on March 19, 2021  

National Review wins, Michael Mann loses!

By Andy May

The D.C. Superior Court dismissed Michael Mann’s lawsuit against the National Review today in a definitive way. The National Review was sued by Mann over a blog post that Mark Steyn posted in 2012 criticizing Mann’s work. Mark Steyn was not a National Review employee, and no one at the magazine had reviewed the post before he put it up.

Rich Lowry, the NR editor in chief, said: “It’s completely ridiculous that it took us more than eight years to get relief from the courts from this utterly meritless suit.”

Read more here.

Update:

Lots of discussion around the details of the lawsuit. Mann’s original complaint against the National Review and Mark Steyn can be downloaded here.

Mark Steyn updates us on the progress of the lawsuit here. One of the previous judges in the case had this to say:

The main idea of Defendant [Steyn]’s article is the inadequate and ineffective investigations conducted by Pennsylvania State University into their employees, including Jerry Sandusky and Plaintiff [Michael E Mann].

Indeed.
Andy May 10:01 am on February 20, 2021  

The Texas Energy Disaster

By Andy May

I live in Texas and write about climate science and energy, so I get a lot of questions about the recent problems. My wife and I are OK, we have a natural gas powered generator and did not lose power like most people did earlier this week. We also had a broken pipe, but it was outside the house, and I was eventually able to cap it, with the help of a neighbor, after the normal (for me) three trips to the hardware store and two failed attempts.

As usual these days, discussions of natural events quickly devolve into useless political arguments about who or what is to blame. Little thought is put into the technical or scientific issues, instead everything is viewed through the prism of Democrat or Republican political agendas. Ideology trumps common sense. Thus, we have Democrats blaming natural gas shortages and coal downtime and Republicans blaming the wind power collapse. What really happened?

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Andy May 9:40 am on February 17, 2021  

A Critique of Bill Gates’ New Book

By Andy May

Bill Gates just published a new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. He begins his book with the assertion that “To stop the warming and avoid the worst effects of climate change—and these effects will be very bad—humans need to stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.” He continues that every country will need to change its ways and every activity in the modern lifestyle involves releasing greenhouse houses, so every person must change. He then warns us that if we keep on living the way we do, the impact of all of this will be catastrophic.

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Andy May 5:10 pm on February 10, 2021  

CMIP6 and AR6, a preview

By Andy May

The new IPCC report, abbreviated “AR6,” is due to come out between April 2021 (the Physical Science Basis) and June of 2022 (the Synthesis Report). I’ve purchased some very strong hip waders to prepare for the events. For those who don’t already know, sturdy hip waders are required when wading into sewage. I’ve also taken a quick look at the CMIP6 model output that has been posted to the KNMI Climate Explorer to date. I thought I’d share some of what I found.

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Andy May 10:28 am on February 6, 2021  

The problem with climate models

By Andy May

In my last post, on Scafetta’s new millennial temperature reconstruction, I included the following sentence that caused a lot of controversy and discussion in the comments:

“The model shown uses a computed anthropogenic input based on the CMIP5 models, but while they use an assumed climate sensitivity to CO2 (ECS) of ~3°C, Scafetta uses 1.5°C/2xCO2 to accommodate his estimate of natural forcings.”

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