Climate Denial Crock of the Week

NOAA:

Temperatures across the northern U.S. are often above normal during El Niño winters, and it appears that this winter will start that way too. While the outlook has a greater than 50% chance of above-average temperatures in the northern Plains and western Great Lakes for December as a whole, the outlooks for the first 2 weeks of the month favor above-average with even greater confidence (60-80%). The Week 3-4 outlook (released on November 24, 2023) also favored above-average temperatures in that region.

Deutsche Welle:

In the first year of it’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow tried to capitalize on concerns that energy would become scarce in Europe during the cold winter months. The Russians even made a short video to feed these fears, featuring tales of how Germans would freeze without supplies from Russia’s Gazprom.

The Russian state-owned company halted all gas deliveries to Germany in late August 2022. But now, according to a recent study commissioned by the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), only 14% of Germans surveyed believe the upcoming winter could bring supply shortages.

This autumn, 64% of Germans believe they will get through the winter without any major problems — even if the supply situation remains patchy. In fact, 18% believe the situation is quite comfortable and are convinced that Germany will get through the winter without any problems at all. Only 4% were indecisive.

That means “four out of five participants surveyed believed Germany was well prepared for the upcoming winter,” the BDEW reported.

Guardian:

The Ukraine crisis has marked a turning point for Europe’s gas consumption, which is expected to fall again this year as homes and firms embrace efficiency upgrades and heat pumps, according to the global energy watchdog.

A report from the International Energy Agency found that the continent’s developed economies reduced their gas use by 15% in 2022 after Russia cut off flows after its invasion.

European homes and businesses reduced their gas demand by a further 9% in the first three-quarters of this year, which could lead to a steady reduction in gas demand in the coming years, the IEA said.

It found that about 40% of the savings were the result of the mild weather last winter, but the majority were driven by a surge in demand for electric heat pumps and efficiency improvements.

The IEA expects the same trend to emerge in the US after the Biden administration included energy efficiency upgrades in its $369bn (£291bn) green stimulus package.

US homes and businesses are expected to cut their gas use by about 1% a year between 2022 and 2026, despite access to ample domestic reserves, as a result of better efficiency gains and the roll-out of heat pumps to help reduce carbon emissions caused by gas heating.

Andrew Dessler in the Climate Brink:

When I give talks about climate change, I start with one particular plot that encapsulates the gravity of our current climate trajectory more starkly than any other I’ve found. 

I call it the scariest plot in the world:

To understand why this plot is so scary, let’s go over what it tells us about past and future climate change.

A journey through 30,000 years

The plot shows the evolution of the climate, starting 20,000 years ago and ending 10,000 years in the future:

The plot begins in the depths of the last ice age, generally referred to in the climate biz as the Last Glacial Maximum. Temperatures then warmed until the ice age ended 10,000 years ago. This is the beginning of the Holocene, the warm and pleasant interglacial period we are now experiencing, characterized by a warm and stable climate that has allowed human civilization to flourish.

This is all normal for Christmas season, right?

OK, we can all go home now.

Perfectly normal that we’ve had catastrophic tornadoes repeatedly in mid-December now in the Kentucky Tennessee corridor. Frightening video above.

I’m no storm chaser, but this looks pretty big.