Contrary to Global Warming Predictions, Great Lakes Water Levels Now at Record Highs

[merovingian]

Contrary to Global Warming Predictions, Great Lakes Water Levels Now at Record Highs

charles the moderator / 8 hours ago June 29, 2019
June 27th, 2019 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.


It is a truism that any observed change in nature will be blamed by some experts on global warming (aka “climate change”, “climate crisis”, “climate emergency”).
When the Great Lakes water levels were unusually low from approximately 2000 through 2012 or so, this was pointed to as evidence that global warming was causing the Great Lakes to dry up.
Take for example this 2012 article from National Geographic, which was accompanied by this startling photo:

The accompanying text called this the “lake bottom”, as if Lake Michigan (which averages 279 feet deep) had somehow dried up.
Then in a matter of two years, low lake levels were replaced with high lake levels. The cause (analysis here) was a combination of unusually high precipitation (contrary to global warming theory) and an unusually cold winter that caused the lakes to mostly freeze over, reducing evaporation.
Now, as of this month (June, 2019), ALL of the Great Lakes have reached record high levels.
Time To Change The Story
So, how shall global warming alarmists explain this observational defiance of their predictions?
Simple! They just invoke “climate weirding”, and claim that the climate emergency has caused water levels to become more erratic, to see-saw, to become more variable!
The trouble is that there is that there is no good evidence in the last 100 years that this is happening. This plot of the four major lake systems (Huron and Michigan are at the same level, connected at the Straits of Mackinac) shows no increased variability since levels have been accurately monitored (data from NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory):

This is just one more example of how unscientific many global warming claims have become. Both weather and climate are nonlinear dynamical systems, capable of producing changes without any ‘forcing’ from increasing CO2 or the Sun. Change is normal.
What is abnormal is blaming every change in nature we don’t like on human activities. That’s what happened in medieval times, when witches were blamed for storms, droughts, etc.
One would hope we progressed beyond that mentality.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/...-record-highs/

[KingsX]

.

Here is an overview personally emailed to me by a former NASA scientist
who participates in a professional scientific climate change study group.


" The truth lies between those who say there is no global warming caused by humans and those who say the Earth and mankind face rapid and certain catastrophe. My view is that we cannot ignore future warming, but response should be measured, phased, and carefully thought out.

Some points:

1) CO2 produced by fossil fuel burning does cause warming, as does land use practices, cement making, and other ways humans alter the surface.

2) The oceans have been absorbing half of CO2 emitted. Via limestone deposition, they are the ultimate end of dissolved CO2. They also absorb heat. These effects are poorly quantified.

3) By itself, CO2 produces modest warming, about one deg centigrade (1.8 Fahrenheit) for a doubling of atmospheric CO2.

4) The greater effects are produced by feedbacks of the warming. There are many; some warm, some cool. For example, warming evaporates more water into the atmosphere, and that water is a greater greenhouse gas than CO2. But more atmos. water produces more clouds, which reflect sunlight back to space and cool Earth.

5) Many of these feedbacks are poorly understood and some probably not known.

6) Long-term variations in the Sun are generally ignored, as are other natural factors (e.g. changes in ocean currents or cloud cover).

7) The "doom predictors" use computer models of future warming. These model predictions are all over the map, but in past have predicted more warming than occurred. Models range from about 2 to about 8 deg-C total warming for each CO2 doubling. The truth is likely between 2 and 3. But politicians and Greens adopt numbers of 5 to 8, which are unlikely.

Renewable energy (solar and wind) are intermittent, and often not predictable (Sun behind cloud; wind stops blowing). Storing renewable energy is very difficult and that is not likely to change soon. (Today's options are pumped hydro or huge battery groups.) That means fossil fuel plants have to be kept operating in reserve. So more power plants are needed than before.

9) Coal plants cannot be started up quickly, as needed for backups. That leaves natural gas. From fracking the US has a growing NG supply, but not the rest of the world. It requires enormous funding to retire all coal plants, build new NG plants, and new renewable facilities.

10) Further new transmission lines and grid lines to distribute are needed. And when the fraction of renewable into a grid exceeds about 20%, new problems and costs arise. We are talking $$trillions here. It must be a slow phased process.

11) Nuclear energy, which is NOT intermittent and produces no CO2 is being ignored or phased out around the world.

I could go on and on. But you get the picture. Replacing fossil fuel energy is a very difficult, expensive, and disrupting process. It will probably require many decades. And electrical power is only part of fossil fuel CO2 production. There is transportation (oil) and business and home heating (coal, oil and gas). Together these are even bigger than electrical power. "

...

[HouseWolf]

Global warming may be happening, may not. Facts are far from conclusive.
Current evidence says not.The lake level charts are proof nature balances the scales quite well.
Man caused global warming is a fraud created to benefit the predator class.