Bill McGuire, Professor of Geophysical and Climate Hazards at University College, London has just outdone all the fraudsters before him (by a considerable margin) in today’s UK Telegraph. There is a tremendous amount of material to work with, but I am just going to concentrate on one piece at a time.
He described Alaska, where average winter temperatures have already risen by three degrees centigrade in the last half century,as “the canary in the cage”. Earthquakes and seismic shocks have increased there over recent decades as ice sheets have thinned,and landslides have become more frequent as permafrost biding rock to mountainsides has thawed. There has also been a similar increase in landslides in the Alps, the Caucuses and in New Zealand.
This is what the University of Alaska has to say about Alaska warming.
If a linear trend is taken through mean annual temperatures, the average change over the last 6 decades is 3.0°F. However, when analyzing the trends for the four seasons, it can be seen that most of the change has occurred in winter and spring, with the least amount of change in autumn.
Considering just a linear trend can mask some important variability characteristics in the time series. The figure above shows clearly that this trend is non-linear: a linear trend might have been expected from the fairly steady observed increase of CO2 during this time period. The figure shows the temperature departure from the long-term mean (1949-2011) for all stations. It can be seen that there are large variations from year to year and the 5-year moving average demonstrates large increase in 1976. The period 1949 to 1975 was substantially colder than the period from 1977 to 2011, however since 1977 little additional warming has occurred in Alaska with the exception of Barrow and a few other locations. The stepwise shift appearing in the temperature data in 1976 corresponds to a phase shift of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from a negative phase to a positive phase.
When analyzing the total time period from 1951 to 2001, warming is observed, however the 25-year period trend analyses before 1976 (1951-1975) and thereafter (1977-2001) both display cooling, with a few exceptions.
McGuire is being wildly dishonest about Alaska warming, which occurred almost overnight 35 years ago. It had nothing to do with CO2. And Alaska is coming off a record cold and snowy winter – with record sea ice.
Record smashing cold in interior Alaska, Fairbanks – Capital Weather Gang – The Washington Post
So Very, Very Cold In Alaska For January with Impressive Records
Feb 1, 2012; 1:33 PM ET
The month of January has gone down as one of the coldest on record for portions of Alaska, especially the central and western sections. If you live in the states and wonder where all the cold air has been, this is where some of it has been residing.
Some of the coldest low temperatures of the month occurred in the last few days.
Fort Greely: minus 50 on Jan. 29
Eagle: minus 58 on Jan. 29
Circle Hot Springs: minus 58 on Jan. 29
Kandik River: minus 64 on Jan. 29
Chicken: minus 59 on Jan. 29
Fort Yukon: minus 66 on Jan. 31Many places had either the coldest January on record, or one of the coldest, and some places set the coldest month ever on record.
AccuWeather.com – Ken Clark | So Very, Very Cold In Alaska For January with Impressive Records
As far as earthquakes go, the largest earthquake in North American history occurred forty eight years ago in Anchorage. It had nothing to do with glacial loss. Complete BS from the professor.
As far as glacial loss goes, Alaska’s most famous glacier retreated more than five feet per day from 1789 to 1874. It obviously had nothing to do with CO2.
Explorer Captain George Vancouver found Icy Strait choked with ice in 1794, and Glacier Bay was barely an indented glacier. That glacier was more than 4000 ft. thick, up to 20 miles or more wide, and extended more than 100 miles to the St.Elias Range of mountains.
By 1879 naturist John Muir found that the ice had retreated 48 miles up the bay.By 1916 the Grand Pacific Glacier headed Tarr inlet 65 miles from Glacier Bay’s mouth.
College profs seem to think that acting like Bernie Madoff is OK, but I disagree.
I think Richard Keene covered this topic in his ICCC7 presentation. He concluded no warming in Alaska, and strong correlation with the NP Index of the PDO. http://climateconferences.heartland.org/
He was doing the same about tsunami warnings a year ago but it got less publicity. He’s basically touting for money to set up a ‘A global databank could warn of natural disasters’, and a government position (like he used to have 2004)
Last years report – http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/may/08/earthquake-tsunami-early-warning
His whole professional existence is riding on shrill alarmism, his only other option is custodian at an all boys school.
For global warming to cause earthquakes, wouldn’t that mean that it was causing tectonic plates to move around more rapidly? Is that where the missing heat has gone?
And all of this after only 0.5 degrees or so! (if it really has been even this much).
It’s as if an entire social class is going off the deep end.
“Very interesting,” as Sanjuro said …