Climate models can be good tools for predicting future sea ice levels — unless, of course, they are completely wrong. In the case of Antarctica, the climate models were dead wrong, according to a new study by Chinese scientists published in the journal Cryosphere. The study found that most climate models predicted Antarctic sea ice coverage would shrink as the world warmed and greenhouse gas levels increased. The opposite happened. Most climate models analyzed in the study predicted Antarctica would shrink between 1979 and 2005, but instead south pole sea ice levels increased during that time. Going a step further, sea ice levels have only increased since 2006, hitting all-time highs for sea ice coverage in September of last year. --Michael Bastasch, The Daily Caller, 2 March 2015
2634 Low Max Records Broken or tied from 19 Feb 2015 to 25 Feb 2015 according to the NOAA. (That is 15% of all the measurements for that period). --Sunshine Hours, 28 February 2015
From 2007 to 2010, Syria suffered a debilitating drought that brought crop failure and livestock mortality to as much as 60% of the country and displaced up to 1.5 million people. A year later, Syria descended into chaos. A repressive regime and the spread of the 2011 Arab Spring were the overt drivers of the conflict, but some scientists argue that drought played a powerful role. Now, a new study finds that human-induced climate change has increased the likelihood of such a severe drought occurring in the region two- to threefold. --Carolyn Gramling, Science Magazine, 2 March 2015
It has been claimed for more than a decade that global warming will contribute to increased conflict, primarily due to competition for scarce resources. Global warming has been blamed for the Arab Spring, the current conflicts in Syria and Sudan, etc. They haven’t said anything about what’s going on in the Ukraine yet. One of the problems is that both conflict and weather extremes are rare, so looking at regional patterns can’t provide adequate numbers to justify authoritative pronouncements. It would appear to me that those believing that climate change is a contributor to conflict may be intuitively making sense, but they do not appear to have numbers on their side. --The Lukewarmer's Way, 13 February 2015
Israel and Jordan on Thursday signed a landmark agreement designed to provide the drought-plagued Jordanians with drinking water and to slow the decay of the Dead Sea. Under the terms of the pact, a pipeline will be laid between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea and a desalination plant will be built in the Jordanian port town of Aqaba. "This is the most important agreement since the peace treaty with Jordan," the official went on to declare. "It's the high point of a productive cooperation between Israel and Jordan that will help rehabilitate the Dead Sea and offer solutions to Jordan's water supply crisis." --i24 News, 26 February 2015
The world’s largest and cheapest reverse-osmosis desalination plant is up and running in Israel. Desalinated seawater is now a mainstay of the Israeli water supply. Whereas in 2004 the country relied entirely on groundwater and rain, it now has four seawater desalination plants running; Sorek is the largest. Those plants account for 40 percent of Israel’s water supply. By 2016, when additional plants will be running, some 50 percent of the country’s water is expected to come from desalination. “This is indeed the cheapest water from seawater desalination produced in the world,” says Raphael Semiat, a chemical engineer and desalination expert at the Israel Institute of Technology, or Technion, in Haifa. “We don’t have to fight over water, like we did in the past.” --David Talbot, MIT Technology Revie, 18 February 2015
The U.S. Democratic witch hunt against scientists skeptical about official climate science threatens to blow up in the faces of the Inquisitors. It lays bare the totalitarian mentality behind the radical climate agenda. Nobody must be allowed to dissent from “the consensus.” Nobody understood the totalitarian mentality better than Orwell. It not merely outlaws dissent, but attempts to crush even private doubt – “thoughtcrime.” In its milder democratic form it merely castigates its opponents for being motivated by self-interest, whereas it only seeks power for itself to do good. --Peter Foster, Financial Post, 27 February 2015
