Latest Hurricane Earl Info

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Anthony Watts

As a service to my readers, here is a collection of related satellite graphics, loops, and other info about Hurricane Earl now skirting the East Coast.

http://cache1.intelliweather.net/imagery/KPAY/sat_atlantic_640x480.jpg

You can animate the sat loop Continue reading →


Posted in hurricanes, weather | 14 Comments

Where are the solar power projects?

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Anthony Watts

Electric towers and power lines cross the proposed site of a BrightSource Energy solar plant near Primm, Nev. The presence of existing towers make the area a prime site for solar development.

From the Ventura County Star:

ROACH DRY LAKE, Nev. — Not a light bulb’s worth of solar electricity has been produced on the millions of acres of public desert set aside for it. Not one project to build glimmering solar farms has even broken ground.

Instead, five years after federal land managers opened up stretches of the Southwest to developers, vast tracts still sit idle.

Continue reading →

Posted in Government idiocy, energy | 55 Comments

Study: Ammonium as ice core proxy shows strong Medieval Warm Period in the tropics

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Anthony Watts

The MWP has been vigorously argued to be a regional northern hemisphere phenomenon only, but this new study finds it in South America. In this new paper they write:

“The most striking features in the reconstruction are the warm temperatures from ∼1050 to ∼1300 AD compared to the preceding and following centuries, the persistent cooler temperatures from ∼1400 to ∼1800 AD, and the subsequent rise to warmer temperatures which eventually seem to exceed in the last decades of the 20th century the range of past variation.

While the onset of the warm period around 1050 AD is almost consistent within the dating error (±60 years at 1000 AD) with the perception of a Northern Hemisphere (NH) MWP from 950 to 1100 AD, it is remarkable to note that it seems to have lasted about 200 years longer in the tropics.”

Figure 7. Reconstructed tropical South American temperature anomalies (normalized to the 1961–1990AD average) for the last ∼1600 years (red curve, smoothed with a 39‐year Gaussian filter). The shaded region envelops the ±2s uncertainty as derived from the validation period. Poor core quality precluded any chemical analysis for the time interval between 1580 and 1640 AD

When I first saw this paper (PDF here h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard) I was intrigued by the idea, especially since it demonstrated the MWP very well. The authors also say that “The last decades of the past millennium are characterized again by warm temperatures that seem to be unprecedented in the context of the last ∼1600 years.”

But then a question arose in my mind; how well have they separated all of the Ammonium from worldwide Ammonium fertilizer use (which started in the late 1800′s)  from the proxy samples? They do touch on the subject, but I’m not convinced that they have separated the impact. They cite Mann and Jones in the references, and use principal component analysis methods (PCA) so that makes me wonder even more. Perhaps McIntyre or Jeff Id can have a look to see how the PCA was carried out, since I’m no expert in it. Continue reading →

Posted in Science, paleoclimatology | 26 Comments

Open Sea Ice Thread

Posted on September 1, 2010 by charles the moderator

With Sea Ice News # 20 closed here is a place for ongoing discussing the 2010 season.

That’s it. I may add a picture later.

Posted in sea ice | 33 Comments

New weather satellite passes shakedown, operational

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Anthony Watts

It’s always a bit of a worry when you have development times of years, and the lifetimes of operational satellites are just about as long as the development and launch time for new ones. This is good news for weather monitoring.

GOES 15 image of Earth
This visible full-disk image of the Earth was captured by GOES-15 on August 27, 2010 at 1800 UTC (2 p.m. EDT). At that time Hurricane Danielle, Tropical Storm Earl and a tropical wave were occurring in the Atlantic Ocean basin. Credit: NOAA/CIRA

From NOAA press release: NASA and NOAA’s Newest GOES Satellite Ready for Action

GREENBELT, Md. — NASA and NOAA’s latest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-15, has successfully completed five months of on-orbit testing and has been accepted into service. The satellite has demonstrated operational readiness of its subsystems, spacecraft instruments and communications services. GOES-15 is the third and final spacecraft in the GOES N-P Series of geostationary environmental weather satellites.

Continue reading →

Posted in Technology, space, weather | 5 Comments

Personalized energy systems

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Anthony Watts

Could be another pie in the sky idea, but one could always hope. – Anthony

A new catalyst could help speed development of inexpensive home-brewed solar energy systems for powering homes and plug-in cars during the day (left) and for producing electricity from a fuel cell at night (right). Credit: Patrick Gillooly/MIT

BOSTON — The era of personalized energy systems — in which individual homes and small businesses produce their own energy for heating, cooling and powering cars — took another step toward reality today as scientists reported discovery of a powerful new catalyst that is a key element in such a system. They described the advance, which could help free homes and businesses from dependence on the electric company and the corner gasoline station, at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, being held here this week. Continue reading →

Posted in Technology, energy | 74 Comments

When warmistas attack

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Anthony Watts

NOTE: Predictably, Joe Romm has turned this post into a personal bashing of me over at his Climate Progress blog. For some eye opening viewpoints from his side of the argument, have a look at the 495 comments on his parent blog “Think Progress” here.

UPDATE: It’s over, from MSNBC:

Police shot a gunman who held three hostages for several hours Wednesday at the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, Md., authorities said. They said the hostages were safe and the gunman was in custody. Police said the gunman’s condition was unknown. At least one explosive device went off when he was shot, and other explosive devices could still be in the building in Montgomery County in suburban Washington, D.C., they said.

UPDATE2: MSNBC is now reporting the gunman has been killed.

=======================================

Well, you filthy readers, see what happens when we don’t acquiesce? In case you haven’t heard by now, a gunman named James Lee, an Asian man with a years-long vendetta against the Discovery Channel cable network has entered the building and got an armed hostage taking situation going on right now.

Some news coverage here:

Armed Man Believed to Be Environmental Protester Takes Hostages in Discovery Channel Building

James Lee

Among his demands from the manifesto on his website:

Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the destruction of the planet!

MSNBC reports:

Lee said he experienced an ‘‘awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth.”

Perhaps inspired by Gore, and Dr. James Hansen’s recent call for civil disobedience, we have today’s environmental public relations train wreck turned armed hostage situation.

THE MANIFESTO OF JAMES LEE:
(downloaded before traffic took it down):PDF here at TMZ

The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY:

Continue reading →

Posted in Climate News, media | 261 Comments

Study: Goodbye to Spanish cold nights

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Anthony Watts

Heatwave in Spain, 2004 - Image NASA Earth Observatory

We’ve also heard that “snow will be a thing of the past” too.

Via Euerkalert and the University of Salamanca, some heated worry, sans UHI, and AMO:

Given the impact of climatic extremes on agriculture and health in Spain, researchers at the University of Salamanca (USAL) have analysed the two factors most representative of these thermal extremes between 1950 and 2006 – warm days and cold nights. The results for mainland Spain show an increase in the number of warm days greater than that for the rest of the planet and a reduction in the number of cold nights.

Few studies to date have focused on climatic extremes and the changes occurring in maximum and minimum temperatures and in warm day and cold night variables. Until now, most research studies had analysed average temperature changes on a global scale. These results indicated an increase “most probably” caused by human factors.

Continue reading →

Posted in Climate News | 70 Comments

Global Energy Use in the 21st Century

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Anthony Watts
File:World energy consumption by type 2006.png

World energy consumption by type in 2006 - Image: Wikimedia

Guest Post by Thomas Fuller

This is a great time to talk about energy use worldwide. Not because it’s topical, or politically important, or anything like that.   It’s a great time because the math is easier now than ever before, and easier than it ever will be again.

It’s similar to a time a few years ago when there were almost exactly 100 million households in the United States. It made a lot of calculations really easy to do.   And this year, the United States Department of Energy calculates that the world used 500 quads of energy. Ah, the symmetry.

Continue reading →

Posted in energy | 233 Comments

Klotzbach and Gray: “the next two weeks will be near climatology”

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Anthony Watts

Guest Post by Ric Werme

The CSU Klotzbach/Gray Sep 1-14 hurricane forecast (PDF) is out. This period is the peak of the hurricane season and average conditions are pretty active:

“Climatology” is just the average weather, and “We expect that the next two weeks will be characterized by amounts of activity near (70 to 130 percent of) climatology.”

“Only” average, given that all eyes are on Earl, and a few more on Fiona? While Earl is racking up Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) points now thanks to it being a category 4 storm, the NHC isn’t expecting new storm development, citing a high pressure system and dry Saharan air in the eastern Atlantic. Global models have no more storms in their forecasts.

Continue reading →

Posted in forecasting, hurricanes | 35 Comments

Tropical Trio

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Anthony Watts

A trio of tropical storms can be seen on this satellite image below. Former Hurricane Danielle (at top) has simply become a low pressure system now. Continue reading →

Posted in hurricanes, weather | 14 Comments

Earl and the East Coast

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Anthony Watts

Earl looks to have a path grazing the East Coast of the USA. Cape Hatteras, Long Island, and Cape Cod may be in a portion of the projected path.

Satellite image follows along with a recent bulletin. Continue reading →

Posted in hurricanes, weather | 23 Comments

Chicago Climate Exchange drops 50%, new record low

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Anthony Watts

The only lower price than today’s closing price on a ton of carbon is ZERO

Perhaps reacting to the news yesterday about the IPCC getting taken to the woodshed, the growing number of stories in the MSM about the IPCC failure, and the recent layoffs at CCX, carbon trading has once again been devalued by the market. Amazingly, it lost 50% of it’s value for 2006, 2007, and 2008 “carbon instruments” today. Here’s the CCX front page graph at closing today: Continue reading →

Posted in carbon credits | 81 Comments

RIPCC

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Anthony Watts

Surrounding these recent revelations, some hilarity from the world’s preeminent skeptic cartoonist, Josh. Continue reading →

Posted in Humor, satire | 46 Comments

EPA fines Tesla Electric Motors $275,000 for non-compliance

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Anthony Watts

In bureaucracy, truth is often stranger than fiction. A non polluting electric car company gets slammed with fine for “non compliance” for a car that can’t produce any emissions.

That’s weird enough by itself, but even weirder is what else is in the company’s Securities and Exchange Commission report under what they cite as “risks”.

Here’s the relevant page of the report where they talk about risks, including the $275,000 fine from the EPA. Note what is highlighted under that. Continue reading →

Posted in Government idiocy, Technology, carbon credits | 110 Comments

IPCC’s Pachauri should resign for “failures of leadership”

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Anthony Watts

IPCC chairman Dr. Rajenda Pachauri

Guest Post by Thomas Fuller

There is a core of uber-consulting professionals, jetting around the world advising companies, governments and NGO’s. They are well-educated, have impeccable resumes and travel more than George Clooney did in ‘Up in the Air.’ They work for companies like McKinsey, Price Waterhouse Coopers, and a handful of others.

Rajendra Pachauri is one such, coming from the Tata school of consultancy. He is charismatic, projecting leadership qualities and obviously considers himself a polymath, able to lead a secretariat of the UN, continue his professional duties and write a popular bodice ripper of a novel.

Sadly, like so many other uber-consultants, Pachauri’s leadership qualities have been more apparent than real. While others are using the current troubles at the IPCC as a reason to argue for his resignation, they are really more of a symptom of the real problems.

Continue reading →

Posted in IPCC, Opinion | 73 Comments

Does CO₂ heat the troposphere ?

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Anthony Watts

This graphic, seen on many websites, was not part of Vonk's essay, but added by Anthony to visually tag the topic

Guest Post by Tom Vonk

In a recent post I considered the question in the title. You may see it here : http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/05/co2-heats-the-atmosphere-a-counter-view/

The post generated great deal of interest and many comments.

Even if most of the posters understood the argument and I answered the comments of those who did not, I have been asked to sum up the discussion.

Before starting, I will repeat the statement that I wished to examine.

“Given a gas mixture of CO₂ and N₂ in Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium (LTE) and submitted to infrared radiation, does the CO₂ heat the N₂?”

To begin, we must be really sure that we understood not only what is contained in the question but especially what is NOT contained in it.

Continue reading →

Posted in Carbon dioxide, modeling | 210 Comments

Cooler times ahead: indicators show deepening La Niña

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Anthony Watts

As shown by the indicators on WUWT’s new ENSO/SST page there is a deeping of the La Niña that is starting to rival 2008 in depth. While it hasn’t yet reached the level of the 2008 event, indications are that it is possible to match or even exceed it.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/monitoring/nino3_4.png

The graph above from Australia’s BoM took a dip just today, going from last week’s value of approximately -0.9 to -1.4C.

Other NINO index indicators show similar recent drops:

Continue reading →

Posted in ENSO, Sea Surface Temperature | 123 Comments

Announcements

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Anthony Watts

I have a few very important (and personal) announcements to share with the WUWT community because they will impact content and moderation over the next few weeks. Please take a moment to read this.

Continue reading →

Posted in Announcements | 318 Comments

Quote of the [expletive deleted] week

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Anthony Watts

No Swearing sign on Atlantic Avenue, Virginia Beach, VA Photo: Steph Doyle

Gosh, I try to keep a semblance of decorum here at WUWT. I get upset when name calling starts and moderators are trained to clamp down on this sort of thing. That being said, can you imagine the caterwauling that would ensue if I wrote something like this piece below?

Andrew Revkin and I disagree on climate, but we maintain what I deem to be a civil, professional tone when we correspond. That’s how it should be. Foul language isn’t needed to get points across.

Joe Romm at Climate progress just showed his true colors by not only allowing such foul behavior, but actually encouraging it in the form of a guest post that he edited. I don’t buy Romm’s excuse that he was trying to “show some of the real anger over Revkins column”.

In my view, profanity is the last refuge of the disingenuously desperate.

Warning – foul language follows

Continue reading →

Posted in Quote of the Week | 137 Comments

Younger Dryas space impact theory: missing the diamonds

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Anthony Watts

Image courtesy of Doug Kennett

DEEP IMPACT?: This 4 centimeter band of dark sediment uncovered at Murray Spring, Ariz., may indicate a cosmic impact or explosion that kicked off a period of global cooling and a mass extinction in North America. problem is, a researcher can’t find the nanodiamonds.

Via eurekalert: Impact hypothesis loses its sparkle

Shock-synthesized diamonds said to prove a catastrophic impact killed off North American megafauna can’t be found

About 12,900 years ago, a sudden cold snap interrupted the gradual warming that had followed the last Ice Age. The cold lasted for the 1,300-year interval known as the Younger Dryas (YD) before the climate began to warm again.

Continue reading →

Posted in Climate News, paleoclimatology | 111 Comments

As a man, I feel eco-discriminated against…

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Anthony Watts

I’m (almost) always a supporter of ideas that conserve energy or resources. Theoretically then, I’d be for this minimalist bathroom idea show below, made with a minimum of materials, it looks like something from IKEA.

Only one problem…the dual use design is just a wee bit problematic: Continue reading →

Posted in Environment, ridiculae | 149 Comments