wattsupwiththat--2020-05-05--The Scientific Case for Vacating the EPA’s Carbon Dioxide Endangerment Finding

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ’ s ( EPA ) 2009 “ Endangerment Finding ” from carbon dioxide ( CO2 ) and other greenhouse gases grants the agency a legal mandate that can have profound and far-reaching effects .
The Finding is based largely on a Technical Support Document that relies heavily upon other mandated reports , the so-called National Assessments of global climate change impacts on the United States .
The extant Assessments at the time of the Endangerment Finding suffered from serious flaws .
We document that using the climate models for the first Assessment , from 2000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of random numbers—and that the chief scientist for that work knew of this problem .
All prospective climate impacts in the Endangerment Finding are generated by computer models that , with one exception , made systematic and dramatic errors over the climatically critical tropics .
Best scientific practice would be to emphasize the working model , which has less warming in it than all of the others .
Instead , the EPA relied upon a community of wrong models .
New research compares what has been observed to what is forecast , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will be modest—near the lowest extreme of the prospective range given by the United Nations .
The previous administration justified its policy choices by calculating the Social Cost of Carbon [ dioxide ] .
We interfaced their model with climate forecasts consistent with the observed history and enhanced the “ fertilization ” effect of increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 .
We find that making the warming and the vegetation response more consistent with real-world observations yields a negative cost under almost all modeled circumstances .
This constellation of unreliable models , poor scientific @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Social Cost of Carbon argue consistently and cogently for the EPA to reopen and then vacate its endangerment finding from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases .
The Environmental Protection Agency ’ s ( EPA ) 2009 “ Endangerment Finding ” is the basis for comprehensive regulations of carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act.1 It is based on another EPA report called a Technical Support Document ( TSD ) , which , as this paper will show , is seriously flawed because it is based upon climate models that are making @ @ @ @ @ @ @ subsequent impact models based on them are also unreliable .
These project , among other things , changes in crop yields , ecosystems , and social systems caused by changes in climate .
Further , the EPA did not follow best scientific practices in determining either the course of future climate or the cost of current and future carbon dioxide emissions .
Subsequent to the Endangerment Finding , the Obama administration justified its interventionist policies with its calculation of a figure known as the Social Cost of Carbon ( SCC ) .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ damages supposedly caused by an incremental ton of carbon dioxide ( CO2 ) , the principal contributor to human-induced climate change , emitted in a given year .
Discernible in neither economic nor meteorological data , social cost values are guesstimates produced by computer programs called “ integrated assessment models ” ( IAMs ) .
What IAMs “ integrate ” is a speculative model of how carbon dioxide emissions will change the climate with a speculative model of how climate change will affect consumption , GDP , and health .
Only one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Framework for Uncertainty , Negotiation , and Distribution ) , contains an explicit term to account for the fertilization effects of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide .
All of the IAMs are based upon a warming that is too great—in which sensitivity to carbon dioxide is too high—based upon recently observed data .
Here , we will see that more realistic values for climate sensitivity and the fertilization effect of carbon dioxide , along with realistic discount rates , can produce a SCC that is negative , or something that could be considered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concept of “ endangerment ” into question .
We will show that multiple and internally consistent lines of evidence , such as an inability to define serious costs with realistic model parameters , and two tragic flaws in the supporting “ science summary ” documents that underpin the original finding , should compel the EPA to reconsider and then vacate its 2009 Endangerment Finding .
The Endangerment Finding was produced in response to a 2007 Supreme Court decision , Massachusetts v. EPA , that the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1992 empowered the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , if the agency found that they endangered human health and welfare .
The case against the EPA was originally brought by 12 states and several environmental advocacy organizations .
It eventually came before the District of Columbia appellate court , which upheld an original decision in favor of the EPA ’ s choice not to regulate CO2 , on the grounds of scientific uncertainty as to the amount and effects of climate change actually caused by increasing atmospheric concentrations .
The appellate court decision was split 2-1 , with a vigorous dissenting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Supreme Court granted a writ of Certiorari to Massachusetts v. EPA on June 26 , 2006 .
Judge Tatel ’ s dissent was highly influential when the case came before the Court , argued on November 29 , 2006 .
The decision , a narrow 5-4 verdict , was announced on April 2 , 2007 .
The majority held that the Clean Air Act did grant the EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as “ air pollutants.
” The timing was late in President George W. Bush ’ s second term @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President Barack Obama did not , placing global warming as his second highest priority in his first inaugural address ( behind national health care ) .
His EPA issued a preliminary “ finding of endangerment ” less than three months later , on April 17 , 2009 , and a final finding was announced on December 7 , 2009.2 That date coincided with the opening of the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change ( UNFCCC ) , also known as the Rio Climate Treaty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ adopt a new emissions reduction protocol to replace the failed 1997 Kyoto Protocol , but it failed to do so .
The Endangerment Finding is backed by a Technical Support Document , which itself was largely based on the Fourth Assessment Report ( AR4 ) of global warming by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ) 3 and the second National Assessment of climate change impacts on the United States by the U.S .
Global Change Research Program ( USGCRP ) .4 Both of the foundational documents for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ future climate—a large series of computer simulations of global climate with enhanced greenhouse gases , known as general circulation models ( GCMs ) or Earth system models ( ESMs ) .
The output of these models is then used to drive “ impact ” models , which apply to the many aspects of life , projecting changes in migration , death , nutrition , mental illness , among others .
If the GCM/ESMs can be shown to be fatally flawed , then their prospective climate forecasts are useless .
Therefore , any forecasts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; they may even have negative utility , because impact models have their own error terms and those interact multiplicatively with the errors in the GCM/ESMs .
The application of this error cascade to policy can provoke unneeded suffering and impose grotesque and gargantuan opportunity costs .
In this eventuality , the Endangerment Finding becomes an exercise in expensive rhetoric .
The final version of the Technical Support Document , published on December 7 , 2009 , relied heavily upon a document published by the U.S Global Change Research Program , “ Global @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” , also known as the Second National Assessment ( NA-2 ) report .
Since then , it has become clear that the models used for prospective climate in that report made significant systematic errors in the three-dimensional tropical atmosphere with significant implications concerning the reliability of subsequent forecasts for temperature and precipitation over large expanses of the planet .
The first National Assessment ( NA-1 ) was published in 2000 .
Thomas Karl , Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ’ s ( NOAA ) National Climatic Data Center ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Marine Biological Laboratory , and Thomas R. Peterson , also of NCDC led the National Assessment Synthesis Team ( NAST ) .
Like the subsequent NA-2 , it had a fatal flaw .
The design of the NA-1 was similar to the succeeding Assessments .
All future impacts were generated from the output of general circulation climate models .
At the time NA-1 was under development , NAST had eight GCMs to choose from to describe 21st century climate .
They chose two : a ) the Canadian Climate Centre model , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. of all eight , and b ) the model from the U.K. Hadley Center , a part of the Meteorological Office , which produced the largest precipitation changes .
In our peer review of the draft NA-1 , my then-colleague Chip Knappenberger and I looked at how well those two models could do the simplest of tasks—simulating 10-year running means of coterminous U.S. temperature averages over the 20th century , such as , for example , 1900-1909 , 1901-1910 , and so on .
They could not do it .
The answers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ assuming the 20th century average value .
In other words , the models added errors to the raw data .
What they did was ex- actly analogous to a student taking a four-option multiple choice test and getting less than 25 percent correct .
The NA-1 models actually supplied “ negative knowledge ” .
You knew less about 20th century U.S. climate by using them .
I emailed Karl my result , as we were on good professional terms .
He responded that indeed we were correct and that further , the models @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of one , five , 10 ( which we analyzed ) , 20 , and 25 years .
Using climate models that do not work to assess the effects of climate change ( with subsequent policy recommendations ) is a scientific malpractice.5 ( Karl and Melilo were also on the team that assembled NA-2 , along with Anthony Janetos of the environmental advocacy group World Resources Institute .
NA-2 also had systematic problems . )
Systemic Flaws in the Second National Assessment The 2009 Second National Assessment of climate change impacts in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ principal U.S-specific reference in the Technical Support Document for the Endanger- ment Finding .
The weakness of NA-2 was apparent in its draft form .
As one of these authors ( Michaels ) and Chip Knappenberger noted in public comments submitted on behalf of the Cato Institute : Of all of the “ consensus ” government or intergovernmental documents of this genre that [ we ] have reviewed in [ our ] 30+ years in this profession , there is no doubt that this is the absolute worst of all .
Virtually every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ represent a complete survey of a relevant literature .
There is an overwhelming amount of misleading material in the CCSP ’ s [ Climate Change Science Program ’ s ] “ Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States.
” It is immediately obvious that the intent of the report is not to provide an accurate scientific assessment of the current and future impacts of climate change in the United States , but to confuse the reader by a loose handling of normal climate events ( made seemingly more frequent , intense , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) presented as climate change events .
Additionally , there is absolutely no effort made by the CCSP authors to include any dissenting opinion to their declarative statements , despite the peer-reviewed literature being full of legitimate and applicable reports that provide contrasting findings .
Yet , quite brazenly , the CCSP authors claim to provide its readers— “ U.S .
policymakers and citizens ” with the “ best available science.
” This proclamation is simply false .
The uniformed reader ( i.e.
, the public , reporters , and policy-makers ) upon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ] to believe that a terrible disaster is soon to befall the United States from human- induced climate change and that almost all of the impacts will be negative and devastating .
Of course , if the purpose here is really not to produce an unbiased review of the impact of climate change on the United States , but a political document that will give cover for EPA ’ s decision to regulate carbon dioxide , then there is really no reason to go through the ruse of gathering comments from scientists knowledgeable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ science that is relevant is selected work that fits the au- thors ’ preexisting paradigm.6 In 2012 we published an addendum in the form of a palimpsest that featured a point-by-point rebuttal of specific faulty statements in the NA-2.7 For example , under “ Key Finding ” # 7 , NA-2 says : 7 .
Risks to human health will increase .
Harmful health impacts are related to increasing heat stress , waterborne diseases , poor air quality , extreme weather events , and diseases transmitted by insects and rodents .
Reduced cold @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health infrastructure can reduce the potential for negative impacts .
( p.89 ) 8 7 .
Life expectancy and wealth are likely to continue to increase .
There is little relationship between climate and life expectancy and wealth .
Even under the most dire climate scenarios , people will be much healthier and wealthier in the year 2100 than they are today .
( pp .
139-45 , 158-61 ) 9 We urge readers interested in documenting the problems between NA-2 and the endangerment finding to do their own side-by side comparisons of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Appendix 1 .
Despite all of the problems noted above , the Endangerment Finding was declared final on December 7 , 2009 .
The next section looks at some critical findings subsequent to its publication , which will be important to any attempt to vacate it .
Read the rest of the article here .

From The Competitive Enterprise Institute
Patrick J. Michaels • April 21, 2020
View Full Document as PDF
Executive Summary
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2009 “Endangerment Finding” from carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases grants the agency a legal mandate that can have profound and far-reaching effects. The Finding is based largely on a Technical Support Document that relies heavily upon other mandated reports, the so-called National Assessments of global climate change impacts on the United States.
The extant Assessments at the time of the Endangerment Finding suffered from serious flaws. We document that using the climate models for the first Assessment, from 2000, provided less quantitative guidance than tables of random numbers—and that the chief scientist for that work knew of this problem.
All prospective climate impacts in the Endangerment Finding are generated by computer models that, with one exception, made systematic and dramatic errors over the climatically critical tropics. Best scientific practice would be to emphasize the working model, which has less warming in it than all of the others.
Instead, the EPA relied upon a community of wrong models.
New research compares what has been observed to what is forecast, and finds that warming in this cen- tury will be modest—near the lowest extreme of the prospective range given by the United Nations.
The previous administration justified its policy choices by calculating the Social Cost of Carbon [dioxide]. We interfaced their model with climate forecasts consistent with the observed history and enhanced the “fertilization” effect of increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2. We find that making the warming and the vegetation response more consistent with real-world observations yields a negative cost under almost all modeled circumstances.
This constellation of unreliable models, poor scientific practice, and exaggerated estimates of the Social Cost of Carbon argue consistently and cogently for the EPA to reopen and then vacate its endangerment finding from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Introduction
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2009 “Endangerment Finding” is the basis for comprehensive regulations of carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act.1 It is based on another EPA report called a Technical Support Document (TSD), which, as this paper will show, is seriously flawed because it is based upon climate models that are making large systematic errors. Therefore, the subsequent impact models based on them are also unreliable. These project, among other things, changes in crop yields, ecosystems, and social systems caused by changes in climate. Further, the EPA did not follow best scientific practices in determining either the course of future climate or the cost of current and future carbon dioxide emissions.
Subsequent to the Endangerment Finding, the Obama administration justified its interventionist policies with its calculation of a figure known as the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC). The SCC is a monetary estimate of the damages supposedly caused by an incremental ton of carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal contributor to human-induced climate change, emitted in a given year. Discernible in neither economic nor meteorological data, social cost values are guesstimates produced by computer programs called “integrated assessment models” (IAMs). What IAMs “integrate” is a speculative model of how carbon dioxide emissions will change the climate with a speculative model of how climate change will affect consumption, GDP, and health. Only one of these models, known as FUND (for Framework for Uncertainty, Negotiation, and Distribution), contains an explicit term to account for the fertilization effects of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. All of the IAMs are based upon a warming that is too great—in which sensitivity to carbon dioxide is too high—based upon recently observed data.
Here, we will see that more realistic values for climate sensitivity and the fertilization effect of carbon dioxide, along with realistic discount rates, can produce a SCC that is negative, or something that could be considered a net benefit, certainly calling the concept of “endangerment” into question.
We will show that multiple and internally consistent lines of evidence, such as an inability to define serious costs with realistic model parameters, and two tragic flaws in the supporting “science summary” documents that underpin the original finding, should compel the EPA to reconsider and then vacate its 2009 Endangerment Finding.
History of the Endangerment Finding
The Endangerment Finding was produced in response to a 2007 Supreme Court decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, that the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1992 empowered the EPA to regulate emissions of carbon dioxide, if the agency found that they endangered human health and welfare.
The case against the EPA was originally brought by 12 states and several environmental advocacy organizations. It eventually came before the District of Columbia appellate court, which upheld an original decision in favor of the EPA’s choice not to regulate CO2, on the grounds of scientific uncertainty as to the amount and effects of climate change actually caused by increasing atmospheric concentrations.
The appellate court decision was split 2-1, with a vigorous dissenting opinion by Judge David S. Tatel. The Supreme Court granted a writ of Certiorari to Massachusetts v. EPA on June 26, 2006. Judge Tatel’s dissent was highly influential when the case came before the Court, argued on November 29, 2006. The decision, a narrow 5-4 verdict, was announced on April 2, 2007. The majority held that the Clean Air Act did grant the EPA authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as “air pollutants.”
The timing was late in President George W. Bush’s second term, which deferred substantive action. Incoming President Barack Obama did not, placing global warming as his second highest priority in his first inaugural address (behind national health care). His EPA issued a preliminary “finding of endangerment” less than three months later, on April 17, 2009, and a final finding was announced on December 7, 2009.2 That date coincided with the opening of the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations 1992 Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), also known as the Rio Climate Treaty. The 2009 meeting was supposed to adopt a new emissions reduction protocol to replace the failed 1997 Kyoto Protocol, but it failed to do so.
The Endangerment Finding is backed by a Technical Support Document, which itself was largely based on the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of global warming by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)3 and the second National Assessment of climate change impacts on the United States by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP).4
Both of the foundational documents for the TSD have only one method to predict future climate—a large series of computer simulations of global climate with enhanced greenhouse gases, known as general circulation models (GCMs) or Earth system models (ESMs). The output of these models is then used to drive “impact” models, which apply to the many aspects of life, projecting changes in migration, death, nutrition, mental illness, among others.
If the GCM/ESMs can be shown to be fatally flawed, then their prospective climate forecasts are useless. Therefore, any forecasts of changed impacts are worse then useless; they may even have negative utility, because impact models have their own error terms and those interact multiplicatively with the errors in the GCM/ESMs. The application of this error cascade to policy can provoke unneeded suffering and impose grotesque and gargantuan opportunity costs. In this eventuality, the Endangerment Finding becomes an exercise in expensive rhetoric.
Are The National Assessments Tainted?
The final version of the Technical Support Document, published on December 7, 2009, relied heavily upon a document published by the U.S Global Change Research Program, “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States”, also known as the Second National Assessment (NA-2) report. Since then, it has become clear that the models used for prospective climate in that report made significant systematic errors in the three-dimensional tropical atmosphere with significant implications concerning the reliability of subsequent forecasts for temperature and precipitation over large expanses of the planet.
The first National Assessment (NA-1) was published in 2000. Thomas Karl, Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), Jerry Melilo of the Marine Biological Laboratory, and Thomas R. Peterson, also of NCDC led the National Assessment Synthesis Team (NAST). Like the subsequent NA-2, it had a fatal flaw.
The design of the NA-1 was similar to the succeeding Assessments. All future impacts were generated from the output of general circulation climate models. At the time NA-1 was under development, NAST had eight GCMs to choose from to describe 21st century climate. They chose two: a) the Canadian Climate Centre model, which produced the greatest temperature changes over the U.S. of all eight, and b) the model from the U.K. Hadley Center, a part of the Meteorological Office, which produced the largest precipitation changes.
In our peer review of the draft NA-1, my then-colleague Chip Knappenberger and I looked at how well those two models could do the simplest of tasks—simulating 10-year running means of coterminous U.S. temperature averages over the 20th century, such as, for example, 1900-1909, 1901-1910, and so on. They could not do it. The answers the models gave were worse than simply assuming the 20th century average value. In other words, the models added errors to the raw data. What they did was ex- actly analogous to a student taking a four-option multiple choice test and getting less than 25 percent correct. The NA-1 models actually supplied “negative knowledge”. You knew less about 20th century U.S. climate by using them.
I emailed Karl my result, as we were on good professional terms. He responded that indeed we were correct and that further, the models exhibited the same failure on running means of one, five, 10 (which we analyzed), 20, and 25 years. Using climate models that do not work to assess the effects of climate change (with subsequent policy recommendations) is a scientific malpractice.5 (Karl and Melilo were also on the team that assembled NA-2, along with Anthony Janetos of the environmental advocacy group World Resources Institute. NA-2 also had systematic problems.)
— Patrick Michaels
Systemic Flaws in the Second National Assessment
The 2009 Second National Assessment of climate change impacts in the United States (NA-2) is the principal U.S-specific reference in the Technical Support Document for the Endanger- ment Finding. The weakness of NA-2 was apparent in its draft form. As one of these authors (Michaels) and Chip Knappenberger noted in public comments submitted on behalf of the Cato Institute:
Of all of the “consensus” government or intergovernmental documents of this genre that [we] have reviewed in [our] 30+ years in this profession, there is no doubt that this is the absolute worst of all. Virtually every sentence can be contested or does not represent a complete survey of a relevant literature.
There is an overwhelming amount of misleading material in the CCSP’s [Climate Change Science Program’s] “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States.” It is immediately obvious that the intent of the report is not to provide an accurate scientific assessment of the current and future impacts of climate change in the United States, but to confuse the reader by a loose handling of normal climate events (made seemingly more frequent, intense, and damaging simply by our growing population) presented as climate change events. Additionally, there is absolutely no effort made by the CCSP authors to include any dissenting opinion to their declarative statements, despite the peer-reviewed literature being full of legitimate and applicable reports that provide contrasting findings. Yet, quite brazenly, the CCSP authors claim to provide its readers—“U.S. policymakers and citizens” with the “best available science.” This proclamation is simply false.
The uniformed reader (i.e., the public, reporters, and policy-makers) upon reading this report will be [led] to believe that a terrible disaster is soon to befall the United States from human- induced climate change and that almost all of the impacts will be negative and devastating. Of course, if the purpose here is really not to produce an unbiased review of the impact of climate change on the United States, but a political document that will give cover for EPA’s decision to regulate carbon dioxide, then there is really no reason to go through the ruse of gathering comments from scientists knowledgeable about the issues, as the only science that is relevant is selected work that fits the au- thors’ preexisting paradigm.6
In 2012 we published an addendum in the form of a palimpsest that featured a point-by-point rebuttal of specific faulty statements in the NA-2.7 For example, under “Key Finding” #7, NA-2 says:
7. Risks to human health will increase. Harmful health impacts are related to increasing heat stress, waterborne diseases, poor air quality, extreme weather events, and diseases transmitted by insects and rodents. Reduced cold stress provides some benefits. Robust public health infrastructure can reduce the potential for negative impacts. (p.89)8
Our addendum notes:
7. Life expectancy and wealth are likely to continue to increase. There is little relationship between climate and life expectancy and wealth. Even under the most dire climate scenarios, people will be much healthier and wealthier in the year 2100 than they are today. (pp. 139-45, 158-61)9
We urge readers interested in documenting the problems between NA-2 and the endangerment finding to do their own side-by side comparisons of both NA-2 and our response, shown in Appendix 1.
Despite all of the problems noted above, the Endangerment Finding was declared final on December 7, 2009. The next section looks at some critical findings subsequent to its publication, which will be important to any attempt to vacate it.
Read the rest of the article here.
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wattsupwiththat--2020-05-06--New Paper: Body condition of Barents Sea polar bears increased since 2004 despite sea ice loss

A recent paper that attempted to correlate pollution levels and body condition in Barents Sea polar bears reports it found body condition of female bears had increased between 2004 and 2017 despite a pronounced decline in summer and winter sea ice extent .
This result explains all the fat female polar bear photos coming out of the Svalbard region in recent years .
However , it is totally at odds with predictions of catastrophic declines in polar bear numbers in the Barents Sea and assertions that Barents Sea bears are one of the most vulnerable to the effects of global @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; Hamiltion and Derocher 2019 ; Regehr et al .
2016 ; Stern and Laidre 2016 ) due to a dramatic loss of sea ice ( see map below ) .
And that is before the high levels of sea ice in the region I ’ ve been reporting on here , here , here , here , and here .
Prior to this 2019 publication , all we have been provided with are body condition values for adult males ( 1993-2019 ) – showing them to have been doing well in recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Now , after years of loud public hand-wringing from polar bear activists , we find out that all along , adult females have been doing even better in recent years than they were before 2005 when there was more summer and winter ice .
Therefore , contrary to expectations , Barents Sea and Chukchi Sea bears have been shown to be thriving with less sea ice – and for Barents Sea bears it ’ s a lot less ice .
This map shows compares recent ( 1979-2014 ) declines in ‘ summer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Laidre 2016 , Fig .
12 ) .
Western and Southern Hudson Bay bears ( green ) are claimed to be doing poorly despite the smallest change in summer sea ice while Chukchi Sea bears are thriving under the same low ice loss ; in contrast , Barents Sea bears are thriving ( numbers increasing , body condition improving ) despite living through the most dramatic summer ice declines in the Arctic ( purple on the map ) .
See also Regehr et al .
2016 and here .
Oddly , the 2019 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a paper published last month about ‘ space-use ’ of polar bears in the Barents Sea ( Blanchet et al .
2020 ) , cites Lippold et al .
2019 as evidence that Barents Sea polar bears have not shown signs of “ decreases in overall body condition “ .
Watch the pea… What Lippold et al .
actually say , in their abstract , is this [ my bold ] : Later in the paper ( pg .
988 ) , they had this to say [ my bold ] : “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bears from the Barents Sea has increased after 2005 , although sea ice has retreated by ∼50 % since the late 1990s in the area , and the length of the ice-free season has increased by over 20 weeks between 1979 and 2013 .
These changes are also accompanied by winter sea ice retreat that is especially pronounced in the Barents Sea compared to other Arctic areas .
Despite the declining sea ice in the Barents Sea , polar bears are likely not lacking food as long as sea ice is present during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feed extensively from April to June when ringed seals have pups and are particularly vulnerable to predation , whereas the predation rate during the rest of the year is likely low.
” Note this statement : “ Despite the declining sea ice in the Barents Sea , polar bears are likely not lacking food as long as sea ice is present during their peak feeding period.
” Martyn Obbard and colleagues ( 2016 : 29 ) said essentially the same thing to explain why the body condition of Southern Hudson Bay polar bears @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ice declines in recent years .
And I have said something very similar – many times – to explain why summer sea ice decline has not had a devastating effect on polar bears ( Crockford 2017 , 2019 , 2020 ) , a conclusion I arrived at from my review of the polar bear literature ( including Obbard ’ s paper ) .
Probably more than any other statement , it has been my insistence that summer sea ice is not essential polar bear habitat that I have been publicly disparaged and denigrated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Harvey et al .
2018 ) .
It was undoubtedly also instrumental in the loss of my adjunct professor status .
Yet it is what the evidence shows .
Bottom line : Contrary to predictions , this new paper documents that the body condition of Barents Sea polar bears has improved significantly between 2005 and 2017 despite the most profound decline in summer sea ice of any polar bear subpopulation , which is consistent with a marked but non-statistically significant increase ( 42 % ) in population size ( Aars 2018 ; Aars @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , 2019 , 2020 ) .
Aars , J .
2018 .
Population changes in polar bears : protected , but quickly losing habitat .
Fram Forum Newsletter 2018 .
Fram Centre , Tromso .
Download pdf here ( 32 mb ) .
Aars , J. , Marques , T.A , Lone , K. , Anderson , M. , Wiig , Ø. , Fløystad , I.M.B.
, Hagen , S.B .
and Buckland , S.T .
2017 .
The number and distribution of polar bears in the western Barents Sea .
Polar Research @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Marcot , B.G .
& Douglas , D.C. 2007 .
Forecasting the rangewide status of polar bears at selected times in the 21st century .
US Geological Survey .
Reston , VA. Pdf here Crockford , S.J .
2017 .
Testing the hypothesis that routine sea ice coverage of 3-5 mkm2 results in a greater than 30 % decline in population size of polar bears ( Ursus maritimus ) .
PeerJ Preprints 19 January 2017 .
Doi : 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v1 Open access .
https : //peerj.com/preprints/2737/ Crockford , S.J .
2019 .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Global Warming Policy Foundation , London .
Available in paperback and ebook formats .
Crockford , S.J .
2020 .
State of the Polar Bear Report 2019 .
Global Warming Policy Foundation Report 39 , London .
PDF here .
Hamilton , S. and Derocher , A.E .
2019 .
Assessment of global polar bear abundance and vulnerability .
Animal Conservation 22 ( 1 ) :83-95. doi:10.1111/acv.12439 Harvey , J.A.
, van den Berg , D. , Ellers , J. , Kampen , R. , Crowther , T.W.
, Roessingh , P. , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ J. M. , Post , E. , Lewandowsky , S. , Stirling , I. , Balgopal , M. , Amstrup , S.C. , and Mann , M.E .
2017 .
Internet blogs , polar bears , and climate-change denial by proxy .
Bioscience 68 : 281-287 .
DOI : 10.1093/biosci/bix133 Open Access , available here .
Supplementary data file available here and the data for the principal component analysis is available here and ( h/t to R. Tol ) , the R code is available here Corrigendum here ( issued 28 March 2018 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ issue .
Lippold , A. , Bourgeon , S. , Aars , J. , Andersen , M. , Polder , A. , Lyche , J.L.
, Bytingsvik , J. , Jenssen , B.M.
, Derocher , A.E.
, Welker , J.M .
and Routti , H. 2019 .
Temporal trends of persistent organic pollutants in Barents Sea polar bears ( Ursus maritimus ) in relation to changes in feeding habits and body condition .
Environmental Science and Technology 53 ( 2 ) :984-995 .
Obbard , M.E.
, Cattet , M.R.I.
, Howe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Newton , E.J.
, Kolenosky , G.B.
, Abraham , K.F .
and Greenwood , C.J .
2016 .
Trends in body condition in polar bears ( Ursus maritimus ) from the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation in relation to changes in sea ice .
Arctic Science 2:15-32 Doi 10.1139/AS-2015-0027 http : //www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/AS-2015-0027 # .VvFtlXpUq50 Regehr , E.V.
, Laidre , K.L , Akçakaya , H.R.
, Amstrup , S.C. , Atwood , T.C.
, Lunn , N.J. , Obbard , M. , Stern , H. , Thiemann , G.W.
, & Wiig , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polar bears ( Ursus maritimus ) in relation to projected sea-ice declines .
Biology Letters 12 : 20160556. http : //rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/12/12/20160556

From Polar Bear Science
Posted on May 5, 2020 |
A recent paper that attempted to correlate pollution levels and body condition in Barents Sea polar bears reports it found body condition of female bears had increased between 2004 and 2017 despite a pronounced decline in summer and winter sea ice extent.
“Unexpectedly, body condition of female polar bears from the Barents Sea has increased after 2005, although sea ice has retreated by ∼50% since the late 1990s in the area, and the length of the ice-free season has increased by over 20 weeks between 1979 and 2013. These changes are also accompanied by winter sea ice retreat that is especially pronounced in the Barents Sea compared to other Arctic areas” [Lippold et al. 2019:988]
This result explains all the fat female polar bear photos coming out of the Svalbard region in recent years. However, it is totally at odds with predictions of catastrophic declines in polar bear numbers in the Barents Sea and assertions that Barents Sea bears are one of the most vulnerable to the effects of global warming (Amstrup et al. 2007; Hamiltion and Derocher 2019; Regehr et al. 2016; Stern and Laidre 2016) due to a dramatic loss of sea ice (see map below). And that is before the high levels of sea ice in the region I’ve been reporting on here, here, here, here, and here.
Prior to this 2019 publication, all we have been provided with are body condition values for adult males (1993-2019) – showing them to have been doing well in recent years with no trend in body condition. Now, after years of loud public hand-wringing from polar bear activists, we find out that all along, adult females have been doing even better in recent years than they were before 2005 when there was more summer and winter ice. Therefore, contrary to expectations, Barents Sea and Chukchi Sea bears have been shown to be thriving with less sea ice – and for Barents Sea bears it’s a lot less ice.
This map shows compares recent (1979-2014) declines in ‘summer’ sea ice extent (Stern and Laidre 2016, Fig. 12). Western and Southern Hudson Bay bears (green) are claimed to be doing poorly despite the smallest change in summer sea ice while Chukchi Sea bears are thriving under the same low ice loss; in contrast, Barents Sea bears are thriving (numbers increasing, body condition improving) despite living through the most dramatic summer ice declines in the Arctic (purple on the map). See also Regehr et al. 2016 and here.
Oddly, the 2019 Lippold paper came to my attention because a paper published last month about ‘space-use’ of polar bears in the Barents Sea (Blanchet et al. 2020), cites Lippold et al. 2019 as evidence that Barents Sea polar bears have not shown signs of “decreases in overall body condition“. Watch the pea…
What Lippold et al. actually say, in their abstract, is this [my bold]:
“Body condition [of adult females], based on morphometric measurements, had a nonsignificant decreasing tendency between 1997 and 2005, and increased significantly between 2005 and 2017.“
Later in the paper (pg. 988), they had this to say [my bold]:
“Unexpectedly, body condition of female polar bears from the Barents Sea has increased after 2005, although sea ice has retreated by ∼50% since the late 1990s in the area, and the length of the ice-free season has increased by over 20 weeks between 1979 and 2013. These changes are also accompanied by winter sea ice retreat that is especially pronounced in the Barents Sea compared to other Arctic areas. Despite the declining sea ice in the Barents Sea, polar bears are likely not lacking food as long as sea ice is present during their peak feeding period. Polar bears feed extensively from April to June when ringed seals have pups and are particularly vulnerable to predation, whereas the predation rate during the rest of the year is likely low.”
Note this statement: “Despite the declining sea ice in the Barents Sea, polar bears are likely not lacking food as long as sea ice is present during their peak feeding period.”
Martyn Obbard and colleagues (2016: 29) said essentially the same thing to explain why the body condition of Southern Hudson Bay polar bears had not declined in lock-step with sea ice declines in recent years. And I have said something very similar – many times – to explain why summer sea ice decline has not had a devastating effect on polar bears (Crockford 2017, 2019, 2020), a conclusion I arrived at from my review of the polar bear literature (including Obbard’s paper).
Probably more than any other statement, it has been my insistence that summer sea ice is not essential polar bear habitat that I have been publicly disparaged and denigrated by journalists and colleagues (see also Harvey et al. 2018). It was undoubtedly also instrumental in the loss of my adjunct professor status. Yet it is what the evidence shows.
Bottom line: Contrary to predictions, this new paper documents that the body condition of Barents Sea polar bears has improved significantly between 2005 and 2017 despite the most profound decline in summer sea ice of any polar bear subpopulation, which is consistent with a marked but non-statistically significant increase (42%) in population size (Aars 2018; Aars et al. 2017; Crockford 2017, 2019, 2020).
References
Aars, J. 2018. Population changes in polar bears: protected, but quickly losing habitat. Fram Forum Newsletter 2018. Fram Centre, Tromso. Download pdf here (32 mb).
Aars, J., Marques,T.A, Lone, K., Anderson, M., Wiig, Ø., Fløystad, I.M.B., Hagen, S.B. and Buckland, S.T. 2017. The number and distribution of polar bears in the western Barents Sea. Polar Research 36:1. 1374125. doi:10.1080/17518369.2017.1374125
Amstrup, S.C., Marcot, B.G. & Douglas, D.C. 2007. Forecasting the rangewide status of polar bears at selected times in the 21st century. US Geological Survey. Reston, VA. Pdf here
Blanchet, M.A., Aars, J., Andersen, M., Routti, H. 2020. Space-use strategy affects energy requirements in Barents Sea polar bears. Marine Ecology Progress Series 639:1-19. https://doi.org/10.3354/meps13290
Crockford, S.J. 2017. Testing the hypothesis that routine sea ice coverage of 3-5 mkm2 results in a greater than 30% decline in population size of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). PeerJ Preprints 19 January 2017. Doi: 10.7287/peerj.preprints.2737v1 Open access. https://peerj.com/preprints/2737/
Crockford, S.J. 2019. The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened. Global Warming Policy Foundation, London. Available in paperback and ebook formats.
Crockford, S.J. 2020. State of the Polar Bear Report 2019. Global Warming Policy Foundation Report 39, London. PDF here.
Hamilton, S. and Derocher, A.E. 2019. Assessment of global polar bear abundance and vulnerability. Animal Conservation 22(1):83-95. doi:10.1111/acv.12439
Harvey, J.A., van den Berg, D., Ellers, J., Kampen, R., Crowther, T.W., Roessingh, P., Verheggen, B., Nuijten, R. J. M., Post, E., Lewandowsky, S., Stirling, I., Balgopal, M., Amstrup, S.C., and Mann, M.E. 2017. Internet blogs, polar bears, and climate-change denial by proxy. Bioscience 68: 281-287. DOI: 10.1093/biosci/bix133 Open Access, available here. Supplementary data file available here and the data for the principal component analysis is available here and (h/t to R. Tol), the R code is available here Corrigendum here (issued 28 March 2018). Scheduled for the April print issue.
Lippold, A., Bourgeon, S., Aars, J., Andersen, M., Polder, A., Lyche, J.L., Bytingsvik, J., Jenssen, B.M., Derocher, A.E., Welker, J.M. and Routti, H. 2019. Temporal trends of persistent organic pollutants in Barents Sea polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in relation to changes in feeding habits and body condition. Environmental Science and Technology 53(2):984-995.
Obbard, M.E., Cattet, M.R.I., Howe, E.J., Middel, K.R., Newton, E.J., Kolenosky, G.B., Abraham, K.F. and Greenwood, C.J. 2016. Trends in body condition in polar bears (Ursus maritimus) from the Southern Hudson Bay subpopulation in relation to changes in sea ice. Arctic Science 2:15-32 Doi 10.1139/AS-2015-0027 http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/AS-2015-0027#.VvFtlXpUq50
Regehr, E.V., Laidre, K.L, Akçakaya, H.R., Amstrup, S.C., Atwood, T.C., Lunn, N.J., Obbard, M., Stern, H., Thiemann, G.W., & Wiig, Ø. 2016. Conservation status of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) in relation to projected sea-ice declines. Biology Letters 12: 20160556. http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/12/12/20160556
Stern, H.L. and Laidre, K.L. 2016. Sea-ice indicators of polar bear habitat. Cryosphere 10: 2027-2041.
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wattsupwiththat--2020-05-06--Study: Oxford Academics Promote Covid-19 Renewable Investment Stimulus

According to the Oxford meta-analysis , the least desirable stimulus measures proposed are airline bailouts , traditional transport infrastructure , income tax cuts , reduction in VAT and other goods and services taxes , and rural support policies .
The abstract of the study ; Will COVID-19 fiscal recovery packages accelerate or retard progress on climate change ?
The COVID-19 crisis is likely to have dramatic consequences for progress on climate change .
Imminent fiscal recovery packages could entrench or partly displace the current fossil-fuel-intensive economic system .
Here , we survey 231 central bank officials , finance ministry officials @ @ @ @ @ @ @ countries on the relative performance of 25 major fiscal recovery archetypes across four dimensions : speed of implementation , economic multiplier , climate impact potential , and overall desirability .
We identify five policies with high potential on both economic multiplier and climate impact metrics : clean physical infrastructure , building efficiency retrofits , investment in education and training , natural capital investment , and clean R & D .
In lower- and middle- income countries ( LMICs ) rural support spending is of particular value while clean R & D is less @ @ @ @ @ @ @ analysis of the short-run impacts of COVID-19 on greenhouse gas curtailment and plausible medium-run shifts in the habits and behaviours of humans and institutions .
Essentially their argument is green investment creates lots of jobs upfront , and provides lasting benefits ; for example , they allege renewable energy requires fewer people to maintain once the infrastructure is built , improving economic efficiency .
… A lesson from the GFC is that green stimulus policies often have advantages over traditional fiscal stimulus .
For instance , renewable energy investment is attractive in both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Renewable energy generates more jobs in the short run ( higher jobs multiplier ) , when jobs are scarce in the middle of a recession , which boosts spending and increases short-run GDP multipliers ( which are derived from expanding demand ) .
In the long run , renewable energy conveniently requires less labour for operation and maintenance ( Blyth et al.
, 2014 ) .
This frees up labour as the economy returns to capacity .
The more efficient use of labour and the savings on fuel means that renewables are also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which are derived from expanding supply ) .
… Read more : Same link as above The big unanswered question the study leaves is , if renewable energy has no fuel costs and has lower labor costs , why is it so horribly expensive ?
Why do renewable advocates scream every time someone threatens to cut their government subsidies ?
In the UK , Scotland ’ s Energy Minister Fergus Ewing has criticised the central government for cutting subsidies that support the uptake of renewable energy .
Speaking at a Bloomberg Energy Finance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ saying : “ We are extremely disappointed that the UK government since May has decided to embark on what we can only term as an outright onslaught on renewables through removing planned , tried , tested , promised , clear investment commitments .
“ That ’ s no way to continue to attract investors.
” The obvious answer to this paradox is they need the subsidy money .
There is a hidden cost associated with renewables , a cost which was not discussed by the authors of the Oxford study .
Claims that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or even a short term benefit should be treated with extreme caution , until the renewables sector demonstrates it can thrive and compete without government subsidies or other market distorting mechanisms such as forced purchases of renewable energy .
The last thing we need , at a time when the global economy is stretched to the brink with Covid-19 lockdowns and spiralling medical costs , is to bet everything on trying something new , especially something with as poor a track record of economic return as investments in renewable energy .

Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to the Oxford meta-analysis, the least desirable stimulus measures proposed are airline bailouts, traditional transport infrastructure, income tax cuts, reduction in VAT and other goods and services taxes, and rural support policies.
The abstract of the study;
Will COVID-19 fiscal recovery packages accelerate or retard progress on climate change? The COVID-19 crisis is likely to have dramatic consequences for progress on climate change. Imminent fiscal recovery packages could entrench or partly displace the current fossil-fuel-intensive economic system. Here, we survey 231 central bank officials, finance ministry officials, and other economic experts from G20 countries on the relative performance of 25 major fiscal recovery archetypes across four dimensions: speed of implementation, economic multiplier, climate impact potential, and overall desirability. We identify five policies with high potential on both economic multiplier and climate impact metrics: clean physical infrastructure, building efficiency retrofits, investment in education and training, natural capital investment, and clean R&D. In lower- and middle- income countries (LMICs) rural support spending is of particular value while clean R&D is less important. These recommendations are contextualised through analysis of the short-run impacts of COVID-19 on greenhouse gas curtailment and plausible medium-run shifts in the habits and behaviours of humans and institutions. Read more: https://www.smithschool.ox.ac.uk/publications/wpapers/workingpaper20-02.pdf
Essentially their argument is green investment creates lots of jobs upfront, and provides lasting benefits; for example, they allege renewable energy requires fewer people to maintain once the infrastructure is built, improving economic efficiency.
… A lesson from the GFC is that green stimulus policies often have advantages over traditional fiscal stimulus. For instance, renewable energy investment is attractive in both the short and the long run. Renewable energy generates more jobs in the short run (higher jobs multiplier), when jobs are scarce in the middle of a recession, which boosts spending and increases short-run GDP multipliers (which are derived from expanding demand). In the long run, renewable energy conveniently requires less labour for operation and maintenance (Blyth et al., 2014). This frees up labour as the economy returns to capacity. The more efficient use of labour and the savings on fuel means that renewables are also able to offer higher long-run multipliers (which are derived from expanding supply). … Read more: Same link as above
The big unanswered question the study leaves is, if renewable energy has no fuel costs and has lower labor costs, why is it so horribly expensive? Why do renewable advocates scream every time someone threatens to cut their government subsidies?
… In the UK, Scotland’s Energy Minister Fergus Ewing has criticised the central government for cutting subsidies that support the uptake of renewable energy. Speaking at a Bloomberg Energy Finance conference, Mr Ewing was reported as saying: “We are extremely disappointed that the UK government since May has decided to embark on what we can only term as an outright onslaught on renewables through removing planned, tried, tested, promised, clear investment commitments. “That’s no way to continue to attract investors.” … Read more: https://www.smart-energy.com/regional-news/europe-uk/scotland-slams-uk-renewable-energy-subsidy-cuts/
The obvious answer to this paradox is they need the subsidy money. There is a hidden cost associated with renewables, a cost which was not discussed by the authors of the Oxford study.
Claims that renewables offer any long term economic benefit or even a short term benefit should be treated with extreme caution, until the renewables sector demonstrates it can thrive and compete without government subsidies or other market distorting mechanisms such as forced purchases of renewable energy.
The last thing we need, at a time when the global economy is stretched to the brink with Covid-19 lockdowns and spiralling medical costs, is to bet everything on trying something new, especially something with as poor a track record of economic return as investments in renewable energy.
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wattsupwiththat--2020-05-06--Aussie Resources Minister on the Green Covid-19 Recovery: “Coal can power the restart”

The global academic and mainstream media campaign for Covid-19 recovery funds to be spent on useless green energy projects just received a major setback .
Coal can power the restart , not divestment : Pitt Federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt has lashed the ” misguided ” lenders that have vowed to abandon coal , saying new mining and energy projects will be crucial in waking the economy from its coronavirus slumber .
Mr Pitt urged lenders to act in the best interests of their “ bottom lines ” and shareholders , saying Australia needed to get as many resources projects @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this included further thermal coal mines in Queensland ’ s Galilee Basin , where Adani is building the $ 2 billion Carmichael project .
” Every single job in the future is critical and needs to be delivered , so whatever we have in our project list , we need to get over the line , functional , operational , and paying Australians to go to work , ” he said .
” Adani is another great project for Australia as we move into an economic recovery phase from COVID .
We are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other resource developments to get us back to a pre-COVID footing .
” It is disappointing that some banks and financial institutions continue to indicate their intention to withdraw support for our resources sector through misguided ideological reasons to appease green shareholder activists .
I would strongly encourage them to look to their bottom lines and act in the best interests of all shareholders .
”

Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The global academic and mainstream media campaign for Covid-19 recovery funds to be spent on useless green energy projects just received a major setback.
Coal can power the restart, not divestment: Pitt
Peter Ker
Resources reporterMay 6, 2020 – 12.01am
Federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt has lashed the ”misguided” lenders that have vowed to abandon coal, saying new mining and energy projects will be crucial in waking the economy from its coronavirus slumber.
Mr Pitt urged lenders to act in the best interests of their “bottom lines” and shareholders, saying Australia needed to get as many resources projects into development as possible.
He said this included further thermal coal mines in Queensland’s Galilee Basin, where Adani is building the $2 billion Carmichael project.
…
”Every single job in the future is critical and needs to be delivered, so whatever we have in our project list, we need to get over the line, functional, operational, and paying Australians to go to work,” he said.
”Adani is another great project for Australia as we move into an economic recovery phase from COVID. We are going to need more Carmichael mines and other resource developments to get us back to a pre-COVID footing.
”It is disappointing that some banks and financial institutions continue to indicate their intention to withdraw support for our resources sector through misguided ideological reasons to appease green shareholder activists. I would strongly encourage them to look to their bottom lines and act in the best interests of all shareholders.”
…


wattsupwiththat--2020-05-07--Mars: Noachian River System  May Have Flowed >100,000 Years

The Noachian Period is named after Noachis Terra , an ancient highland region located between the huge Argyre and Hellas impact basins of the southern hemisphere .
This was still a period of heavy bombardment , with numerous asteroid and comet impacts .
These created the Hellas , Isidis and Argyre basins , the largest impact structures still visible on the planet today , as well as many of the craters that pockmark the southern highlands .
At the same time , large-scale volcanic activity was taking place in the Tharsis region and parts of the highlands .
The growth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Arsia Mons , Pavonis Mons and Ascraeus Mons , some of the largest volcanoes in the Solar System – coincided with widespread fracturing of the surface and the creation of the giant rift valley system known as Valles Marineris .
The volcanic eruptions poured ash and gases into the atmosphere .
As the thicker blanket of air trapped more solar heat , the planet warmed .
Clouds probably developed and precipitation rained to the ground .
Many of the valley networks on Mars date from this period , and lakes seem to have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There may even have been a shallow ocean covering at least part of the northern lowlands .
Surface rovers have found evidence to indicate that many rocks were chemically altered by periodic or prolonged exposure to non-acidic ground water .
This led to the formation of clay minerals , known as phyllosilicates .
Meanwhile , as the interior of the planet cooled and its magnetic dynamo shut down , Mars no longer retained a global magnetic field .
Habitable environments gradually became smaller and more localised , but Noachian surface conditions continued to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .

Noachian (4.1 – 3.7 billion years ago) The Noachian Period is named after Noachis Terra, an ancient highland region located between the huge Argyre and Hellas impact basins of the southern hemisphere. This was still a period of heavy bombardment, with numerous asteroid and comet impacts. These created the Hellas, Isidis and Argyre basins, the largest impact structures still visible on the planet today, as well as many of the craters that pockmark the southern highlands. At the same time, large-scale volcanic activity was taking place in the Tharsis region and parts of the highlands. The growth of the Tharsis bulge – home to Arsia Mons, Pavonis Mons and Ascraeus Mons, some of the largest volcanoes in the Solar System – coincided with widespread fracturing of the surface and the creation of the giant rift valley system known as Valles Marineris. The volcanic eruptions poured ash and gases into the atmosphere. As the thicker blanket of air trapped more solar heat, the planet warmed. Clouds probably developed and precipitation rained to the ground. Many of the valley networks on Mars date from this period, and lakes seem to have formed in many basins and craters. There may even have been a shallow ocean covering at least part of the northern lowlands. Surface rovers have found evidence to indicate that many rocks were chemically altered by periodic or prolonged exposure to non-acidic ground water. This led to the formation of clay minerals, known as phyllosilicates. Meanwhile, as the interior of the planet cooled and its magnetic dynamo shut down, Mars no longer retained a global magnetic field. Habitable environments gradually became smaller and more localised, but Noachian surface conditions continued to be favourable for the emergence of life. ESA
Guest “what a cool field trip this would be!” by David Middleton
An ancient river on Mars may have flowed for 100,000 years SPACE 5 May 2020
By Donna Lu We know from images of Mars’s surface that the planet once had plenty of flowing water, but now we’ve found the first evidence of a river that was there for more than 100,000 years. Francesco Salese at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and his colleagues discovered a high rocky cliff in the north-western rim of Mars’s Hellas basin that seems to have been formed gradually by the flow of an ancient river. As rivers moves, they deposit sediment that builds up in layers. The rocky outcrop is 200 metres high – about twice the height of the White Cliffs of Dover – and 1.5 kilometres wide. The sedimentary rocks of the cliff are an estimated 3.7 billion years old. For something of this size to form, it would have required a river that was active for at least 100,000 Earth years. […] “To form these 200-metre-thick deposits we needed conditions that would have required an environment capable of maintaining significant volumes of liquid water,” says Salese. That means the water would have flowed year round, which suggests that Mars once had a water cycle driven by precipitation, similar to that of Earth. […] Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2242630-an-ancient-river-on-mars-may-have-flowed-for-100000-years/#ixzz6LgSTnSPT
The full text of the paper, Salese et al., 2020, is available and literally “rocks!” (Whenever anyone says “literally,” they almost always mean figuratively.)
This image is from the New Scientist article:
“This Martian cliff may have been cut by hundreds of thousands of years of water flowing over it
Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University”
Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2242630-an-ancient-river-on-mars-may-have-flowed-for-100000-years/#ixzz6LgTroaUZ
This appears to be an erosional exposure of a sedimentary rock sequence, most likely of fluvial origin, covered by subsequent lava flows.
In this study, we use high-resolution imaging science experiment (HiRISE) image (25 cm/pixel) and topographic (1 m/pixel) data to describe the sedimentary-stratigraphic architecture of a far-larger, 1500-m-wide, 190-m-thick sedimentary succession. The recently identified Izola outcrop is located in the northwestern rim of the Hellas basin (Fig. 1a), a ~2000 km diameter impact structure containing a variety of 3.7 Ga Noachian Fe/Mg phyllosilicate-rich sedimentary intercrater plains, overlain by Hesperian-aged (~3.3 Ga) lava flows19. These intercrater plains offer erosional windows which expose stratigraphic sections with well-preserved channel forms, and which must be older than the ~3.7 Ga overlying plains19. The channel forms and associated sedimentary packages are interpreted as the product of an actively depositing fluvial system, with the final sedimentary architecture suggesting that these Noachian-aged rivers were not typified by high-energy episodic floods, but rather perennial or semi-perennial fluvial flow. The scale and completeness of the sedimentary succession offers a so far unique opportunity to assess the larger scale morphology of an evolving Noachian-aged fluvial system. Salese et al., 2020
The detail of the sedimentary architecture is stunning.
“a Close up of white box indicated in Fig. 2b. b Architectural interpretation of a displaying a number of channels (blue lines). Some examples preserve former channel margins, strong evidence for original channel lateral migration. Channelised packages have associated inclined accretion surfaces (magenta lines), with all packages topped and floored by more extensive fifth-order surfaces (red lines). Fifth-order surfaces possibly archive avulsion events. A previous channel margin (1 + 3) laterally coalesces with the final channel margin (2 + 4) indicating that the original active channel migrated laterally. A nested channel-cut (5) is present within a larger channelised package. c Close up of white box indicated in Fig. 2b. d Examples of inclined accretion surfaces with distinct foreset and bottomset elements (topsets truncated by overlying strata). Downlapping of internal, third-order surfaces suggest multiple accretion phases. Note that line drawings are not attempted in areas where exposure is poor. A third-order surface (7) downlaps the bottomset of an underlying fourth-order surface (6) indicating bar migration. A subsequent fourth-order surface (8) truncates the previous fourth-order surface (6) indicating multiple phases of bar-building activity.” Salese et al., 2020
Hopefully the Mars Perseverance Rover will launch on schedule, this summer. It will explore Jezero crater, where evidence of both clay mineralogy (phyllosilicates) and lacustrine carbonates have been detected. Perseverance will cache rock and regolith samples for future recovery.
Featured Image
Colorful Sediments near Hellas Basin
NASA/JPL
Reference
Salese, F., McMahon, W.J., Balme, M.R. et al. Sustained fluvial deposition recorded in Mars’ Noachian stratigraphic record. Nat Commun 11, 2067 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15622-0
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wattsupwiththat--2020-05-07--Claim: Antarctic Sea Ice Growth Caused by Meltwater

According to climate scientists , less dense meltwater on the surface of the Antarctic ocean reduced convection between the surface and ocean depths , leaving heat trapped in the depths .
One small area of ocean not changed by global warming Climate and marine scientists are observing pervasive warming of the ocean and the land surfaces across the globe .
Since the middle of the 19th century , the average global temperature recorded on the land surface has risen by around one degree centigrade , and by 0.6 degrees across the ocean surface .
Global warming has been most pronounced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
A few years ago , Haumann and Gruber and various colleagues already discovered the reason for this expansion of sea ice in the Southern Ocean .
They noticed that stronger southerly winds over this period propelled more of the sea ice that is being formed along the coast out into the open sea , enhancing the melting there .
The resulting stronger conveyor belt enhanced the transport of freshwater from near the continent out into the open ocean .
This is because when sea ice is being formed from seawater , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the sea ice melts in the summer well away from the coast , the freshwater is released into the surface , reducing the salinity of the seawater there .
This reduction in surface salinity strengthened the vertical stratification of the seawater : the fresher , and in this part of the ocean lighter water stays in the upper 100 m , while the denser saltier water remains below .
In general , the saltier and colder the water , the greater its density and the greater its depth in the ocean .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ between the deeper layers and the surface water , causing the heat to remain trapped at depth .
In addition , the air above the Southern Ocean during winter is generally colder than the temperature of the seawater .
Combined with the reduction of the vertical exchange of heat in the ocean , this ultimately created the observed situation where the surface water cooled and the subsurface warmed .
In addition , the current study went only up to 2011 .
“ We have observed a trend reversal since 2015 .
The sea @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to recede at a rapid rate , ” says the ETH Professor .
“ And this is very much in line with the overall trend of continuing global warming.
“

Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to climate scientists, less dense meltwater on the surface of the Antarctic ocean reduced convection between the surface and ocean depths, leaving heat trapped in the depths.
One small area of ocean not changed by global warming
Date:May 6, 2020
…
Climate and marine scientists are observing pervasive warming of the ocean and the land surfaces across the globe. Since the middle of the 19th century, the average global temperature recorded on the land surface has risen by around one degree centigrade, and by 0.6 degrees across the ocean surface. Global warming has been most pronounced in the alpine regions and the Arctic.
…
A few years ago, Haumann and Gruber and various colleagues already discovered the reason for this expansion of sea ice in the Southern Ocean. They noticed that stronger southerly winds over this period propelled more of the sea ice that is being formed along the coast out into the open sea, enhancing the melting there. The resulting stronger conveyor belt enhanced the transport of freshwater from near the continent out into the open ocean. This is because when sea ice is being formed from seawater, the salt is left behind, whereas when the sea ice melts in the summer well away from the coast, the freshwater is released into the surface, reducing the salinity of the seawater there.
This reduction in surface salinity strengthened the vertical stratification of the seawater: the fresher, and in this part of the ocean lighter water stays in the upper 100 m, while the denser saltier water remains below. In general, the saltier and colder the water, the greater its density and the greater its depth in the ocean.
Smaller heat exchange between the water layers
The stronger stratification reduced the exchange of heat between the deeper layers and the surface water, causing the heat to remain trapped at depth. In addition, the air above the Southern Ocean during winter is generally colder than the temperature of the seawater. Combined with the reduction of the vertical exchange of heat in the ocean, this ultimately created the observed situation where the surface water cooled and the subsurface warmed.
…
In addition, the current study went only up to 2011. “We have observed a trend reversal since 2015. The sea ice around the Antarctic is now starting to recede at a rapid rate,” says the ETH Professor. “And this is very much in line with the overall trend of continuing global warming.“