Top 10 Climate Discoveries of 2014

December 31st, 2014 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

Top 10 lists are popular this time of year, so I gave in to the peer pressure. Here’s my Top 10 list of totally true climate stories of 2014. Kind of like that movie “Fargo”, which was not “based on a true story”, but was a totally “true story”.

10. Weather did not even occur before Henry Ford automated the production of the automobile. No, really, look it up.

9. Climate modelers discovered that the Earth is not warming nearly as fast as their models predicted. A multi-billion dollar effort is now underway to make the climate system warm even faster.

8. The Koch Brothers were discovered to be extraterrestrials out to destroy the Earth. If you haven’t heard that yet…you are one of the stupid people who were deemed to be not trustworthy enough with the information.

7. Global sea ice reached a near record maximum, due to a bust-gut effort by Exxon-Mobil which has been making ice cubes in China and shipping them to the poles.

6. Global warming causes cooling. This had always been expected, but it was finally proved by two French literature graduates who Googled it.

5. It’s Bush’s fault.

4. A viable replacement for fossil fuels was finally discovered: Solar Freakin’ Roadways. (If solar panels tilted toward the sun and kept clean are a good idea, then putting them on the ground and running over them with 10-ton trucks is even better!)

3. Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists surveyed agreed that if the global warming issue (and their government funding) went away, their careers would end.

2. The 420th U.N. climate meeting in Lima, Peru, was finally made carbon-neutral with jet travel fueled by methane gathered from unicorn herds, and carbon offsets purchased from Al Gore which will go toward planting of 5.3 billion trees which never die.

1. Carbon dioxide (necessary for life on Earth) was discovered to be different from carbon monoxide (a poisonous gas). The full implications of this finding are still being investigated, but are not expected to interfere with continuing plans to increase energy prices and keep Third World people from becoming First World.


62 Responses to “Top 10 Climate Discoveries of 2014”

Toggle Trackbacks

  1. Scott Scarborough says:

    On another topic. What has happened with the rewrite of the global warming statement that Christy and Trenbreth are suppose to work on togehter? Do you know what I’m talking about cause I don’t!

  2. Fonzarelli says:

    #5 Aren’t we at the point, now, when we can start saying it’s Obama’s fault?

  3. Cunningham says:

    We will be next tuesday, Fonz…

  4. Dave says:

    Yooper humor at it’s best. Happy New Year!

  5. Robert D says:

    Just awesome Dr. Spencer. Hope you don’t mind if I share it, with link back of course.

  6. RW says:

    Nice list, Roy. Happy new year!

  7. Climate Researcher says:

    May I suggest that 2015 will be the year when astute climate researchers come to the realisation that surface temperatures are controlled by thermodynamic processes (sensible convective heat transfers) as distinct from radiative heat transfer. This is the 21st century new paradigm shift I first wrote about late in 2012. Momentum is gathering as other climate blogs like The Hockey Schtick, Clive Best and Tallbloke get onto the effect of gravity, even though they have not correctly explained the energy transfer mechanisms which can be explained by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. You only have to wonder a little about how the Venus surface warms when the Sun shines to start to realise that it’s not all about radiation absorbed by the surface.

    Have a happy and relaxed New Year, everyone, comforted by the now proven fact that carbon dioxide does not warm at all because valid physics shows that all it can do is cool by a minuscule amount.

  8. ren says:

    Forecast for North America is still unfavorable. Polar vortex will remain shifted, allowing the flow of air from the Arctic to the south.
    http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_z50_nh_f240.gif

  9. bev says:

    “…near record Global Sea-ice…”

    Arctic anomaly -0.5 million sq.km.

    Antarctic anomaly +1.5 million sq.km.

    Because it is Summer in the Southern Hemisphere, the Antarctic anomaly is the one mainly affecting the Albedo of the Earth, at present.
    An extra 0.3% of the Global surface is reflecting sunshine instead of absorbing it. Of course, the Sea-ice area fluctuates, but this is the factual situation at the end of 2014.

    Eyeballing the multi-year charts of the Cryosphere, it looks as though the Arctic anomaly is “mean-reverting” at present, while the Antarctic anomaly is on an upwards trend for some reason. That is merely my feeling, and nothing more.

    • nigel says:

      “…Arctic anomaly is “mean-reverting…”

      That is a reasonable default view.

      I dug out the following from the LA Times of May 16, 1972.

      “Arctic specialist Bernt Barchen says a general warming trend over the North Pole is melting the polar ice-cap and may produce an ice-free Arctic Ocean by the year 2000…Weather across the northern half of the United States would be 20 to 25 degrees [F] warmer than it is now…”

      That would have been nice for Canada as well…think of the saving in galosh struggle.

      But it didn’t happen.

      • bev says:

        “…20 to 25 degrees [F] warmer…”

        Proper predictions! None of your mingy hundredths of a degree!
        Men were men.

  10. dave says:

    “…factual situation…”

    We only know it because of the satellite data which is published on the Internet every day…Thank Goodness.

    The CAGW crowd know that their big tactical mistake was to allow these “Eyes of Ra” to fly.

    • bev says:

      “…tactical mistake…”

      They assumed that new data, whether from satellites or via some other approach, would always confirm they were completely right.

      • dave says:

        “…completely right…”

        We will see whether P. Wadham, Professor of Ocean Physics at Cambridge University, was ‘completely right’ when he told the newspaper, ‘The Scotsman’, on August 29, 2012, that,

        “It is truly the case that it [Arctic summer ice] will be all gone by 2015.”

  11. rah says:

    #4.

    Maximum axle weight on most US truck routes without a special permit is 17,000 lb. A standard 5 axle “18 wheeler” rig can legally gross 80,000 lb. Standard maximum distribution of weight is 34,000 on the trailer tandems, 34,000 on the tractor tandems, and 12,000 on the steer axle though the steer axle and tires can handle more weight(It varies depending to tractor make and tire ratings) if need be the gross still cannot exceed 80,000 lb. The Volvo tractor I’m driving these days carries over 1,800 lbs of fuel when the tanks are full.

    A little bit about pollution control on these trucks. Over the years steady progress has been made reducing all emissions from the big trucks. First they came out with ultra low sulpher fuel. Then from 2008 on ceramic filters have been added that capture the soot. The filters are cleaned periodically by doing a “regeneration” that burns the soot with higher than normal exhaust temperatures. Also the tractors use a urea compound called (Diesel Exhaust Fluid) or DEF. This liquid is used in an SCR (Selective Catalytic Reduction)system that converts the noxious Nitrous Oxides to Nitrogen and water. It is claimed that these systems now make the exhaust from diesel trucks cleaner than the average air quality in large urban areas.

  12. jimc says:

    They seem to be sarcastic, except for #3.

  13. geran says:

    Hilarious! A great way to start the New Year.

    (My favorites are 6,7,8, and 10.)

  14. Steve Case says:

    Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists surveyed agreed that if the global warming issue (and their government funding) went away, their careers would end.

    First chuckle of the day.

  15. Very funny. Thanks, Dr. Spencer.
    Happy New Year!

  16. Glenn Strickler says:

    Happy New Year, Dr. Spencer. It will be fun to see how many people take your top 10 literally.

  17. Patrick49 says:

    “Fake but accurate” explains all.

  18. Texas Rex says:

    I wish that rising energy prices were crippling the third world.
    Instead we have plummeting oil prices that are crippling my oil investments.

  19. mpcraig says:

    Fixed your #9.

    “A multi-billion dollar effort is now underway to make the climate system SEEM TO warm even faster.”

    A new year and I still got it.

  20. Roy Denio says:

    “3. Ninety-seven percent of climate scientists surveyed agreed that if the global warming issue (and their government funding) went away, their careers would end.”

    And that is the biggest driver of AGW. *chuckles*

    Have a happy New Year!

  21. Stephen says:

    I still can’t believe how pumped some people were about that “solar freakin’ roadways” idea.

  22. Doug Johnson says:

    You forgot #11: The only thing humans do is produce and release CO2. Nothing else we do can possibly affect the environment and, if it did, it would be bad. Oh, and #12: Scientists have a good track record at not only predicting but altering the weather. And only in favorable ways.

  23. TRM says:

    In a surprise move both Obama and Gore gave their Nobel Peace prizes back in an attack of conscience not seen before. Of course they kept the money, after all “business is business”.

    The Nobel committee has given both to Joe Bastardi and Piers Corbyn for being able to do with a laptop and their brains what the IPCC and billions of dollars worth of super computers couldn’t do.

    Happy new year everyone!!!

  24. Cary says:

    absolutely a good little blog you wrote Dr. Spencer.

  25. Gordon Robertson says:

    I think one of the better discoveries came from the IPCC in it’s 2013 review.

    After admitting a hiatus in warming since 1998, they raised their confidence level that humans are causing the warming.

    Huh??

  26. Susan Gates says:

    Thank You Roy. I have been following this as you present this information.

  27. Dr H.Paijmans says:

    Pathetic attempt to avoid the real issue: that 2014 was the warmest year ever.

    Yes, I know, the data are cooked, the communists (i.e. everybody left of Djenghiz Kahn, are to blame, there is no warming, if there is warming it is not our fault and if it is our fault, warming will be shown to be beneficient.

    Get real, people.

    Dr. H. Paijmans

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      “Pathetic attempt to avoid the real issue: that 2014 was the warmest year ever”.

      If you look at the 33 year graph of UAH satellite temperatures on this site it is apparent that 2014 is an average year since 1998. As Roy claimed in another article, people are quibbling over a few hundredths of a degree C.

      The sats cover 95% of the planet as opposed to about 30% for the surface stations, upon which the warmest year claim is claimed. Furthermore, the sats sample bazzillions of data points in one stationary scan whereas surface temps are based on the average of a high and low daily thermometer reading.

      If that’s not bad enough, NOAA/NCDC have cut back the number of reporting surface stations from about 5000 down to about 1000 globally.

      https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/ghcn-the-global-analysis/

      In other words, the surface record is unreliable.

      • Fonzarelli says:

        Gordon, also of note, the Hadley southern hemisphere data is remarkable similar to UAH. The southern hemisphere, of course, is only 20% land, much of that being covered with snow (thus increasing albedo over land). It appears that when it comes to global temps, oceans rule the day…

    • Mike M says:

      “…warming will be shown to be beneficient”

      “Will be shown”, why the future tense? Is history no longer a valid predictor of the future? Go back in time and present us with incontrovertible evidence of any cooler period being better?

      You cannot find any such period so that’s why you lamely couch your prose in the future tense as though hundreds to thousands of years of written history are now illegitimate.

      No Dr. H., I won’t let you get away with your little shell game of ignoring the past. You have zero evidence that getting warmer is bad and your claim of such IS at the very core of your CAGW political scam.

      Warmer is, will be and always WAS better for life on this planet. True of false Dr. H. – more life and FAR more species of life exist in the tropics than at the poles?

    • Werner Brozek says:

      RSS for December is out. 2014 was the sixth warmest on RSS and the flat streak is now 18 years and 3 months on RSS.

  28. dave says:

    “…18 years and three months…”

    Long enough for a child to be born, grow up, leave home – and move back in.

  29. Nathen Edwards says:

    What about the immense tropical forests that convert co2 to carbohydrates which fall and decay into methane?

  30. ren says:

    Polar vortex in the lower stratosphere.
    http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/70hPa/orthographic=-90.28,74.09,419
    17 km height, wind speed up to 190 km / h (the Great Lakes).

  31. Alexandre says:

    Those are the top 10 findings in Dr. Spencer’s year?

  32. arationofreason says:

    Dr Spencer, Surly we must be willing to look at the warming science:

    Reformed Greenhouse Denier

    Evidence supporting the theory of man made climate change is accumulating. Scientists previously from the Penn State University Center for Climate Studies have recently found from study of charred tree ring data that the incomplete burning of wood in the early 15th century had led to a reduction of man-made carbon dioxide leading to the dramatic cooling of the planet. Continued study of increased ice core thickness have led credence to the well accepted theory that possible wood shortages due to mans deforestation may have exacerbated man’s contribution to this decreased CO2 theory of cooling. Other scientific studies expected to be published in prestigious journals such as ‘Climate’ by scientists previously from other prestigious laboratories around the globe have supported the findings that there is 97% agreement in the scientific community of man caused cooling of the planet leading to the well documented ‘little ice age’ beginning in 1500 and lasting until the burst of industrial activity in support of the American Civil war began to rescue the planet from the grips of the serious cooling catastrophe.

  33. David L. Hagen says:

    And none of that swamp land in Florida for sale emits any methane.

  34. Maryann Cassidy says:

    I am not one of the people deemed to be not trustworthy to possess the secret knowledge regarding the Koch brothers’ extraterrestrial origins. Make me a deal.

  35. Loved the content. 🙂

Leave a Reply