Errors in IPCC climate science

I am sure this is not rare – the BBC reports – Snow and winds of 65mph hit Devon and Cornwall. While our TV news last night carried video of snow in the NSW Alps. And I see the Canberra blog RiotACT has photos of snow yesterday in the ACT ranges near Canberra.

As reported by the ABC – Antarctic melting 10 times faster than 600 years ago -
The paper is paywalled at Nature here. Abram et al 2013 – Acceleration of snow melt in an Antarctic Peninsula ice core during the twentieth century
I was kindly given a pdf by one of the authors. Being curious to know if the MWP has been detected in the Antarctic I spent 5 seconds with Google and found these summaries at CO2 Science showing that several studies have detected the Medieval Warm Period in the Antarctic and also around the Antarctic Peninsula. The tip of which is not within the Antarctic Circle.
This chart is from the last Figure in Abram et al 2013. Figure 4 Antarctic Peninsula temperature over the past millennium. a, 11-year moving average of JRI annual temperature anomaly (green) with Gaussian kernel smoothing filters at 5-, 10-, 20-, 30-, 40- and 50-year bandwidths (grey)

I find it interesting that their 1000 year temperature record from James Ross Island does not show a clear Medieval Warm Period.

Thanks to Romanoz for alerting us to this fascinating research – see his comment #5. I now have the 20MB download – Antarctic Climate Change and the Environment – dated November 2009.
Under 2.1.2.7 Atmospheric data derived from ice cores
The last para on page 43 starts – Ice core sea-salt as a potential proxy for mid-latitude winter rainfall variability. The full text on p 43 & 44 is saved here if you click on “Read the rest of this entry” at the end of the post.
Fig 2.8 shows salt content of ice varying from 1300AD and the text says – [ The work in progress indicates that southwest Western Australia experienced periods of higher mean winter rainfall, with high interdecadal variability during 1300 to 1600 AD, followed by lower mean but less variable winter rainfall from 1600 to 1900 AD, which is similar to the past 50 years (Goodwin, in prep.).]

The text ends by saying – [This long record would be of enormous economic benefit to all water users in Western Australia.]

Fig 2.7 shows that in the phase illustrated in panel b, the SW of WA is affected by higher readings of MSLP (mean sea-level pressure) – more finer weather.

So WA water authorities and politicians should take note – there is evidence that pre-1975 SW WA rainfall was not some constant high-rain regime. The post-1975 lower rain regime may be a perfectly normal phase of long term cycles and nothing to do with Greenhouse as they have claimed ad nauseum – Chapter and verse for a decade or more. Read the rest of this entry »

Severe weather continues to cause disruption across parts of the UK, as forecasters warn the cold temperatures will last until mid-April.
And – Snow misery spreads across Europe – experts blaming the Jet Stream being further south than usual.
Kiev after recent snow

I thought the BBC would have known without having to ask the question, that warming can produce floods, rain that will not fill dams, deeper snow, more cold, larger hailstones, worse cyclones and storms – anything that IPCC supporters say.

I notice this sad story from the New Zealand Herald – Bodies of ice-crash trio will be flown to Canada – re the Canadian Twin Otter aircraft lost in the Antarctic that has been found on Mount Elizabeth with no survivors.
Early this morning there were plans to recover the bodies but within a few hours the story changes to “Body recovery delayed until October”.
We still have near five weeks of Summer left and I am puzzled that considering the wealth and resources available to three modern Western nations that these fliers can not be recovered and flown home to their people this Summer. I am puzzled that an assumption is made that next Summer season will be better. Also next October is mid Spring – a season far from predictable – only last October the Australian Antarctic supply ship the Aurora Australis was icebound until early November.
Surely with all our national wealth, power and modern technology and a century of accumulated polar experts experience a watch can be kept on weather conditions at Mount Elizabeth and a recovery tasked if a window of opportunity arises before winter sets in. I see now this Canadian article – Officials halt efforts to recover bodies of Canadians in Antarctica crash.
Looking forward to this story developing as more operational people get involved.
From my perspective I like to see officials reported as making sensible utterances. Saying that “…the aircraft appears to have been on course …” – does not cut it for me – likewise the invoking of winter weather while summer has a month to run defies logic.

Not everybody is putting up with heat waves.
– China’s Extreme Cold Snaps Records
– 80 die in record Bangladesh cold snap
- Mercury dips even lower

Just saw this at ABC online Christmas eve – too busy to respond – I see Anthony Watts with it too.
This neat map and story is at the OurAmazingPlanet.com site.

Unfortunately for the authors of the Nature paper – NASA satellite lower troposphere temperature data by UAH team Spencer & Christy shows cooling over the 1979-2012 period for the 60 degree sector covering West Antarctica with Byrd Station (near 80S – 119W) central.

The trend for the entire zone between 75 & 85 south is also cooling.

A reader asked me if I had any historic snow depth data for Australia and drew my attention to Chiefios blog.
There is a Snowy Hydro webpage with some annual snow depth charts and I have used those charts from Spencers Creek to build a maximum depth time series.
I also have a 1990 report – “The South East Australian Alpine Climate Study” – by CSIRO, University of Melbourne and Alpine Resorts Commission. That has a graphic on page 19, Fig 2.4 Annual maximum snow depth (water equivalent in cm) for Rocky Valley Snow Pole Line 1935 – 1989.
I have digitised those data and let Excel plot the two time series below.

As usual the data do not support the normal media predictions that the ski industry is doomed. We know the Australian ski-fields do not have great heights of mountains above them – the pioneers worked that out – no news there.
But the data does not show any sign that “Global Warming” is wiping out the Australian ski resorts.

This mornings webcam from the ship shows a little clear water off the stern as it works at pushing through pack ice.
See my post from 23 Oct.
Their SitRep pages has them in pack ice in mid October. First reported by the ABC on 23 Oct – has anybody seen a report anywhere else ?
On 31 Oct AAD announced the voyage was delayed.