Marinelink.com

Although the Soo Locks officially opened for the season March 25, no commercial ships have passed through the locks as they are still being escorted across Lake Superior by the Coast Guard Cutters Mackinaw and Katmai Bay. However, the Vessel Traffic Service operated out of Coast Guard Sector Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., has issued a directive to close the upper St. Marys River to navigation because of heavy ice coverage.

Via

If 40 species a day are going extinct, why are they still talking about passenger pigeons?

Global warming is said to be threatening thousands of animal and plant species with extinction. That, at least, is what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been predicting for years.
But the UN climate body now says it is no longer so certain. The second part of the IPCC’s new assessment report is due to be presented next Monday in Yokohama, Japan. On the one hand, a classified draft of the report notes that a further “increased extinction risk for a substantial number of species during and beyond the 21st century” is to be expected. On the other hand, the IPCC admits that there is no evidence climate change has led to even a single species becoming extinct thus far.

Related.
h/t Bob H

Yet another ‘consensus’ bites the dust.

Growing crops to make “green” biofuel harms the environment and drives up food prices, IPCC admits in dramatic U-turn

No one saw that coming, uh uh.

European Voice;

Last month, the European Commission put forward a proposal to set a 2030 target of 40% emissions reduction from 1990 levels. It wanted a quick agreement, by the June European Council at the latest, so that the EU could go to a UN summit in September with a pledge for a globally binding UN deal.
A new global deal is supposed to be agreed in Paris at the end of 2015. An early pledge by Europe could spur other global powers to come forward with pledges in the following months, increasing the chances of a successful outcome in Paris next year.
But today’s discussions were dominated by the issue of energy independence, and leaders who had pushed for early agreement emerged from the Council acknowledging that the plan for agreement in June is now impossible. “At the European level we are facing a tough discussion,” said Werner Faymann, the chancellor of Austria. “For that reason we’ve agreed to discuss in June and to set a line by October for next year’s [Paris] conference.”

Polar Bear Science;

I’ve finally had a chance to go through all of the details provided with the 2013 PBSG status table (pdf here). It’s just about all good news, once you wade through the spin. Numbers aside, out of the 13 populations for which some kind of data exist, five populations are now classified by the PBSG as ‘stable’ (two more than 2009), one is still increasing, and three have been upgraded from ‘declining’ to ‘data deficient’ (I explain below why this is a promotion).
That leaves four that are still considered ‘declining’- two of those judgments are based primarily on concerns of overhunting, and one is based on a statistically insignificant decline that may not be valid and is being re-assessed (and really should have been upgraded to ‘data deficient’). That leaves only one population – Western Hudson Bay – where PBSG biologists tenaciously blame global warming for all changes to polar bear biology, and even then, the data supporting that conclusion is still not available.

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@ 5:25 a.m., I'm now the only reporter on the Hill covering the all-night Senate debate on climate change. Kinda surreal feeling.

— Daniel Lippman (@dlippman) March 11, 2014

Saskatoon

This weekend, temperatures dropped to minus 50 degrees Celsius with the wind chill overnight, causing the ground frost to move even deeper. The ground frost level is deeper than normal, and the colder the temperature is, the more pressure it puts on the underground pipes, causing them to shift. If there is already a weak spot in the pipe, caused by age, corrosion or previous work, it can break.
A high number of water main breaks occurred this past weekend, keeping staff extremely busy. From Friday evening at 9:00 p.m. until Sunday evening at 9:00 p.m., 15 water main breaks occurred. In addition, a break occurred on the connection pipe at Brevoort Park School, requiring a private contractor for the repair. This activity is well above the average of one-two per day for this time of year.

Related: CITY OFFERS SHOWER FACILITIES AT LEISURE CENTRES DURING WATER MAIN BREAKS
Related: Seventeen years, six months.

Renewable Energy in Decline. A well written synopsis of the renewable rent-seekers and their decline.
The greenies always claim that as the price of oil increases the economics of renewables become more palatable. They forget that it also spurs development in oil extraction.
Oops.
Via Maz2

It’s for the good of the planet.
Via, Manny

“By the long shot this is the most ice we’ve had on Lake Superior in 20 years,” said Jay Austin, Associate Professor at the Large Lakes Observatory in Duluth, Minnesota.
During a typical winter, 30 to 40 percent of the Great Lakes are covered by ice, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson. But this winter, 80 to 90 percent are covered in ice.
That ice coverage, specifically on Lake Superior, is raising concerns.
“With all of this ice, all the sunlight that hits the surface of the lake is going to get bounced back out into space, so it’s going to take longer to get warmer this spring and summer,” Austin said. “The lake is going to just start warming this year when it will start cooling off for next year.”