Sunspeck counts after all, debate rages…Sun DOES NOT have first spotless calendar month since June 1913

31 08 2008

UPADATED AT 8:30AM PST Sept 2nd-

More on SIDC’s decision to count a sunspeck (technically a “pore”) days after the fact. NOAA has now followed SIDC in adding a 0.5 sunspot where there was none before. But as commenter Basil points out, SIDC’s own records are in contrast to their last minute decision to count the sunspeck or “pore” on August 21.

There is an archive of the daily SIDC “ursigrams” here:

http://sidc.oma.be/html/SWAPP/dailyreport/dailyreport.html

If you select the ursigrams for August 22 and 23, you get the reported data for the 21st and 22nd:

August 21:

TODAY’S ESTIMATED ISN : 000, BASED ON 07 STATIONS.

SOLAR INDICES FOR 21 Aug 2008
WOLF NUMBER CATANIA : 011
10CM SOLAR FLUX : 067
AK CHAMBON LA FORET : ///
AK WINGST : 004
ESTIMATED AP : 005
ESTIMATED ISN : 000, BASED ON 14 STATIONS.

August 22:

TODAY’S ESTIMATED ISN : 000, BASED ON 11 STATIONS.

SOLAR INDICES FOR 22 Aug 2008
WOLF NUMBER CATANIA : 013
10CM SOLAR FLUX : 068
AK CHAMBON LA FORET : ///
AK WINGST : 003
ESTIMATED AP : 003
ESTIMATED ISN : 000, BASED ON 11 STATIONS.

In both cases, the daily estimated “International Sunspot Number” based on multiple stations, not just the Catania Wolf Number, was 000. So how did SIDC end up with positive values in the monthly report?

UPDATED at 2:42 PM PST Sept 1st –

After going days without counting the August 21/22 “sunspeck” NOAA and SIDC Brussels now says it was NOT a spotless month! Both data sets below have been recently revised.

Here is the SIDC data:
http://www.sidc.be/products/ri_hemispheric/

Here is the NOAA data:
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/MONTHLY

The NOAA data shows July as 0.5 but they have not yet updated for August as SIDC has. SIDC reports 0.5 for August. It will be interesting to see what NOAA will do.

SIDC officially counted that sunspeck after all. It only took them a week to figure out if they were going to count it or not, since no number was assigned originally.

But there appears to be an error in the data from the one station that reported a spot, Catania, Italy. No other stations monitoring that day reported a spot. Here is the drawing from that Observatory:

ftp://ftp.ct.astro.it/sundraw/OAC_D_20080821_063500.jpg
ftp://ftp.ct.astro.it/sundraw/OAC_D_20080822_055000.jpg

But according to Leif Svalgaard, “SIDC reported a spot in the south, while the spot(s) Catania [reported] was in the north.” This is a puzzle. See his exchange below.

Also, other observatories show no spots at all. For example, at the 150 foot solar solar tower at the Mount Wilson Observatory, the drawings from those dates show no spots at all:

ftp://howard.astro.ucla.edu/pub/obs/drawings/dr080821.jpg

ftp://howard.astro.ucla.edu/pub/obs/drawings/dr080822.jpg

Inquires have been sent, stay tuned.

Here is an exchange in comments from Leif Svalgaard.

——-

REPLY: So What gives Leif….? You yourself said these sunspecks weren’t given a number. I trusted your assessment. Hence this article. Given the Brussels folks decided to change their minds later, what is the rationale ? – Anthony

The active region numbering is done by NOAA, not by Brussels. The Brussels folks occasionally disagree. In this case, they did. Rudolf Wolf would not have counted this spot. Nor would I. What puzzles me is this:
21 7 4 3
22 8 4 4
The 3rd column are ’spots’ in the Northern hemisphere, and the 4th column are ’spots’ in the Southern hemisphere [both weighted with the 'k'-factor: SSN = k(10g+s)]. But there weren’t any in the south. The Catania spot was at 15 degrees north latitude, IIRC. Maybe the last word is not in on this.

——–

Hmm….apparently there’s some backstory to this. There is a debate raging in comments to this story, be sure to check them. – Anthony

# MONTHLY REPORT ON THE INTERNATIONAL SUNSPOT NUMBER #
# from the SIDC (RWC-Belgium) #
#——————————————————————–#

AUGUST 2008

PROVISIONAL INTERNATIONAL NORMALIZED HEMISPHERIC SUNSPOT NUMBERS

Date Ri Rn Rs
__________________________________________________________________

1 0 0 0
2 0 0 0
3 0 0 0
4 0 0 0
5 0 0 0
6 0 0 0
7 0 0 0
8 0 0 0
9 0 0 0
10 0 0 0
11 0 0 0
12 0 0 0
13 0 0 0
14 0 0 0
15 0 0 0
16 0 0 0
17 0 0 0
18 0 0 0
19 0 0 0
20 0 0 0
21 7 4 3
22 8 4 4
23 0 0 0
24 0 0 0
25 0 0 0
26 0 0 0
27 0 0 0
28 0 0 0
29 0 0 0
30 0 0 0
31 0 0 0
__________________________________________________________________

MONTHLY MEAN : 0.5 0.3 0.2

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

ORIGINAL STORY FOLLOWS:

Many have been keeping a watchful eye on solar activity recently. The most popular thing to watch has been sunspots. While not a direct indication of solar activity, they are a proxy for the sun’s internal magnetic dynamo. There have been a number of indicators recently that it has been slowing down.

August 2008 has made solar history. As of 00 UTC (5PM PST) we just posted the first spotless calendar month since June 1913. Solar time is measured by Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) so it is now September 1st in UTC time. I’ve determined this to be the first spotless calendar month according to sunspot data from NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center, which goes back to 1749. In the 95 years since 1913, we’ve had quite an active sun. But that has been changing in the last few years. The sun today is a nearly featureless sphere and has been for many days:


Image from SOHO

And there are other indicators. For example, some solar forecasts have been revised recently because the forecast models haven’t matched the observations. Australia’s space weather agency recently revised their solar cycle 24 forecast, pushing the expected date for a ramping up of cycle 24 sunspots into the future by six months.

The net effect of having no sunspots is about 0.1% drop in the TSI (Total Solar Irradiance). My view is that TSI alone isn’t the main factor in modulating Earth’s climate. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 328 Comments »

Categories : Uncategorized

Gustav’s progress via near realtime satellite imagery

31 08 2008

As many of you may know, I produce a variety of weather imagery maps for web and broadcast in SD and HD. Since there is a lot of interest in the path of hurricane Gustav, I thought I’d post a near-live image, which will update every 30 minutes.

Click image for full size or animate this image: Click for loop>>>

What is interesting to note, is that as of this writing, Gustav seems to be losing organization. The eye, which was well defined just before making landfall on Cuba, seems very nebulous. Watch and wait.

Update: 3:30PM PST, while there was some weakening earlier, it now looks like signs of increased angular momentum are showing up in the satellite imagery. A defined eye may appear again.


Comments : 80 Comments »

Categories : weather

Arctic Ice Growth, 2008 – How Much?

31 08 2008

A Guest Post By Steve Goddard

In my most recent article in The Register, and also posted here on WUWT, I incorrectly speculated that NSIDC graphs appeared to show less growth in Arctic ice extent than had actually occurred.  My calculations were based on counting ice pixels from Cryosphere Today maps.  Since then, I have had further discussions with Dr. Walt Meier at NSIDC and William Chapman at Cryosphere Today, to try to understand the source of the problem.   Dr. Meier has confirmed that counting pixels provides a “good rough estimate” and that NSIDC teaches pixel counting to CU students as a way to estimate ice extent.  William Chapman has confirmed that the projection used in CT maps is very close to what it appears and to what I had assumed it to be.  It is an astronaut’s view from about 5,000 miles above the north pole.

What I have learned

In 2008, CT and NSIDC maps show excellent agreement – as can be seen in this video which overlays an August 14 NSIDC map on top of the August 14 CT map.  The borders of ice extent are nearly identical in the two maps. (The videos show overlays of the two maps.)

The discrepancy occurred in August, 2007, when agreement between NSIDC and CT was not so good.  The equivalent video from August 15, 2007 shows that the CT map was missing a significant amount of low concentration ice on the Canada/Alaska side.  I have since confirmed from AMSR maps and NASA satellite photos that the NSIDC map is probably more accurate than the CT map.

The reason that CT provides their side-by-side image viewer is apparently to encourage visitors to make a visual comparison of two dates, which is exactly what myself and others here did when we observed the discrepancy vs. NSIDC graphs.  The human brain is quite good at making estimates of relative areas from images, and pixel counting is nothing more than a way to quantify what has already been observed.  Since writing The Register piece I have made adjustments to the CT pixel counts for map distortion, and as I expected that makes the discrepancy slightly larger.

Because CT maps showed less ice in 2007, the increase in 2008 ice extent appears to be much greater. There is little doubt now that the NSIDC reported ice growth is absolutely correct.  But wasn’t the ice supposed to shrink this year due to an excess of “thin first-year ice?”  In May, NSIDC’s mean forecast (based on previous year’s melt) was that Arctic ice extent would be 13% lower than last year.  (NSIDC has more recently posted on their web site some reasons why they believe the May estimates didn’t work out.) Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 108 Comments »

Categories : Uncategorized

Sun poised to make history with first spotless month since 1913

30 08 2008

Many people that have have an interest in the interaction between the Sun and Earth have been keeping a watchful eye on several metrics of solar activity recently. The most popular of course has been sunspot watching.

The sun has been particularly quiet in the last several months, so quiet in fact that Australia’s space weather agency recently revised their solar cycle 24 forecast, pushing the expected date for a ramping up of cycle 24 sunspots into the future by six months.

On August 31st, at 23:59 UTC, just a little over 24 hours from now, we are very likely to make a bit of history. It looks like we will have gone an entire calendar month without a sunspot. According to data from NOAA’s National Geophysical Data Center, the last time that happened was in June of 1913. May of 1913 was also spotless.

With the current space weather activity level of the Sun being near zero, and the SOHO holographic imaging of the far side of the sun showing no developing spots that would come around the edge in the next 24 hours, it seems a safe bet to conclude that August 2008 will be the first spotless month since June 1913.

Here is the sun today,  at 09:14UTC August 30th:

Click for a very large image

Some people who watch the sun regularly might argue that August wasn’t really spotless, because on August 21st, a very tiny plage area looked like it was going to become a countable sunspot. Here is an amateur astronomer’s photo of the event: Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 156 Comments »

Categories : Science, solar

Uh-oh

30 08 2008

A Yogi Berra moment – “it’s deja vu all over again…“

From NHC Public Advisory #25

DATA FROM AN AIR FORCE RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS HAVE INCREASED TO NEAR 150 MPH…240 KM/HR…WITH HIGHER GUSTS. GUSTAV IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON HURRICANE SCALE. SOME FLUCTUATIONS WITH AN OVERALL SLIGHT STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS…AND GUSTAV COULD REACH CATEGORY FIVE INTENSITY DURING THIS PERIOD. GUSTAV IS FORECAST TO REMAIN A MAJOR HURRICANE THROUGH LANDFALL ALONG THE NORTHERN GULF COAST.

Here is my own hurricane track imagery of Gustav and Hanna:


Click for a Hi Definition image

I’m sure this will become mass-media fodder again for the ever popular “global warming causes more damaging hurricanes”, but it is important to note that NHC’s own science officer, Christopher Landsea, co-authored a paper that claims otherwise. So have other scientists.


Comments : 63 Comments »

Categories : weather

Global Warming behind Austrian Encephalitis Case

30 08 2008

More Signs of the Apocalypse

From Medindia.com
Posted online: Friday, August 29, 2008 at 2:48:25 PM

Report Confirms Four Austrians Suffer Tick-borne Encephalitis from Cheese

Medical experts confirmed on Thursday that four people recently fell ill with tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) in western Austria after eating homemade goats’ cheese.

A shepherd in western Vorarlberg province, who had checked into hospital in July with flu-like symptoms, was found to have the illness following a blood test.

But the man said he had noticed no tick bites, the usual method of transmission, two experts from the Institute of Virology at Vienna Medical University wrote in an article published Thursday.

Doctors finally traced the cause of the illness to the cheese, which the shepherd had made from unpasteurised goat’s and cow’s milk on an isolated pasture at over 1,560-metre (5,120-feet) altitude.

Three other members of his family, who had not been on the pasture, also exhibited flu-like symptoms and headaches.

Further tests found that one of the goats, whose milk had been used to make the cheese, as well as other animals who had eaten leftovers, had developed TBE anti-bodies, meaning they had also been infected.

Ticks were believed until now to be found only below 1,350-metre altitude, but this may have changed due to global warming, the experts said.

Cases of TBE infections via dairy products were reported in recent years almost exclusively in Baltic countries.

Unfortunately, the article does not say just who the experts are.


Comments : 13 Comments »

Categories : Uncategorized

The Sun remains in a magnetic funk

30 08 2008

While sunspots are often cited as the main proxy indicator of solar activity, there is another indicator which I view as equally (if not more) important. The Average Planetary Magnetic index (Ap), the strength of which ties into Svensmark’s cosmic ray theory modulating Earth’s cloud cover. A weaker Ap would mean less cosmic rays are deflected by the solar magnetic field, and so the theory goes, more cosmic rays provide more seed nuclei for clouds in Earth’’s atmosphere. More clouds mean a greater albedo and less terrestrial solar radiation, which translates to lower temperatures.

I’ve always likened a sunspot to what happens with a rubber band on a toy balsa wood plane. You keep twisting the propeller beyond the normal tightness to get that extra second of thrust and you see the rubber band start to pop out knots. Those knots are like sunspots bursting out of twisted magnetic field lines.

The Babcock model says that the differential rotation of the Sun (the sun being a viscous fluid, the poles rotate at a slower rate than the equator) winds up the magnetic fields of it’s layers during a solar cycle. The magnetic fields will then eventually tangle up to such a degree that they will eventually cause a magnetic break down and the fields will have to struggle to reorganize themselves by bursting up from the surface layers of the Sun. This will cause magnetic North-South pair boundaries (spots) in the photosphere trapping gaseous material that will cool slightly. Thus, when we see sunspots, we are seeing these areas of magnetic field breakdown.

Babcock_model.jpg

Sunspots are cross connected eruptions of the magnetic field lines, shown in red above. Sometimes they break, spewing tremendous amounts of gas and particles into space. Solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CME’s) are some examples of this process. Sometimes they snap back like rubber bands. The number of sunspots at solar max is a direct indicator of the activity level of the solar dynamo.

As many of you may recall, a few months ago, I had plotted the Average Geomagnetic Planetary Index (Ap) which is a measure of the solar magnetic field strength but also daily index determined from running averages of eight Ap index values. Call it a common yardstick (or meterstick) for solar magnetic activity.

solar-geomagnetic-Ap Index
Click for a larger image

I’ve updated the graph today, to include July 2008 Ap data as you can see below: Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 63 Comments »

Categories : Science, solar

Brits Under Attack Due to Global Waming

30 08 2008

From The Sun
By VINCE SOODIN
Published: 26 Aug 2008

TWO British schoolgirls cheated death after being stung by a lethal Portuguese Man O’War.

Paddling Molly Purcell, ten, suffered toxic shock and gasped for breath after the tentacles of the sea creature — which can kill with a single sting — wrapped around her arms and legs.

Pal Amelia Walsh, 12, was left with huge welts on her legs after brushing part of the creature that was draped over a rock.

Medics used freezing water and seawater to flush out the toxins.

Bathers were evacuated after last Friday’s attack at Monmouth Beach, Dorset.

Molly, of Ascot, Berks, said: “I thought I was stung by a bee at first, then suddenly it felt like my arm was on fire. It got worse and worse until I couldn’t stop shaking.”

Last night mum Sheenagh said: “Molly is getting better but her arms are still very swollen.”

Brits were warned last month of seven species of poisonous sea creatures heading for our shores due to global warming.


Comments : 43 Comments »

Categories : Uncategorized

Meier of NSIDC on melt: “it’s not going to make it to the North Pole”

29 08 2008


Current image from Terra Satellite, rotated 90 degrees to improve view, plus annotation and world view inset added by Anthony

Source image is available here at the NASA Terra website

North Pole to remain frozen

By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News

Originally published 02:57 p.m., August 29, 2008
Updated 02:57 p.m., August 29, 2008

Santa can rest easy.

It’s looking like the ice at the North Pole won’t melt to water next month, as had been feared. It would have been the first time in thousands of years that the most northerly place on the planet would have been ice-free.

“It’s quite unlikely at this point,” Walt Meier a research scientist at the University of Colorado’s National Snow and Ice Data Center, said today.

The ice in the Arctic Ocean is at near historic lows, and breaks records every couple of years due to human-caused global warming, the scientists at NSIDC say.

This spring, it was looking like the ice might retreat so far that the North Pole itself would be ice-free for at least a day in September – the height of the ice-melt season. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 73 Comments »

Categories : Uncategorized

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s op-ed on polar bears and climate change in the NYT

29 08 2008


WOW look at the SIZE of that seal! (photo added by Anthony, not NYT)

Bearing Up

By SARAH PALIN

Published: January 5, 2008,
Juneau, Alaska

ABOUT the closest most Americans will ever get to a polar bear are those cute, cuddly animated images that smiled at us while dancing around, pitching soft drinks on TV and movie screens this holiday season.

This is unfortunate, because polar bears are magnificent animals, not cartoon characters. They are worthy of our utmost efforts to protect them and their Arctic habitat. But adding polar bears to the nation’s list of endangered species, as some are now proposing, should not be part of those efforts.

To help ensure that polar bears are around for centuries to come, Alaska (about a fifth of the world’s 25,000 polar bears roam in and around the state) has conducted research and worked closely with the federal government to protect them. We have a ban on most hunting — only Alaska Native subsistence families can hunt polar bears — and measures to protect denning areas and prevent harassment of the bears. We are also participating in international efforts aimed at preserving polar bear populations worldwide.

This month, the secretary of the interior is expected to rule on whether polar bears should be listed under the Endangered Species Act. I strongly believe that adding them to the list is the wrong move at this time. My decision is based on a comprehensive review by state wildlife officials of scientific information from a broad range of climate, ice and polar bear experts.

The Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, has argued that global warming and the reduction of polar ice severely threatens the bears’ habitat and their existence. In fact, there is insufficient evidence that polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct within the foreseeable future — the trigger for protection under the Endangered Species Act. And there is no evidence that polar bears are being mismanaged through existing international agreements and the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The state takes very seriously its job of protecting polar bears and their habitat and is well aware of the problems caused by climate change. But we know our efforts will take more than protecting what we have — we must also learn what we don’t know. That’s why state biologists are studying the health of polar bear populations and their habitat.

As a result of these efforts, polar bears are more numerous now than they were 40 years ago. The polar bear population in the southern Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s North Slope has been relatively stable for 20 years, according to a federal analysis. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 104 Comments »

Categories : climate_change, politics

Democrats find ‘green’ political convention tough to enforce

29 08 2008
Idling limos and SUV’s waiting for delegates (Credit: Declan McCullagh/CNET News)

From CNET News by Declan McCullagh

DENVER–The Democratic Party has boasted that its convention here will be “the most environmentally-sustainable” gathering in the party’s history, complete with a director of sustainability, low-power lighting in some areas, and calculations of carbon footprints.

Some of the goals include diverting 85 percent of waste that would normally go to a landfill, finding hundreds of people to sort waste into recycling-compost-landfill containers, and devising what The Wall Street Journal described as “lean ‘n’ green” catering guidelines that say food described thusly must not be fried and shall contain three of the following colors: red, green, yellow, blue/purple, and white.

That was the claim. And it has worked to a large extent: a troika of trash containers (again, recycling, compost, and landfill) dot the convention complex, even in areas that aren’t officially part of the event. Drinking straws are made from corn and biodegradable. Room keys for hotels are made of wood. Delegates are buying carbon offsets.

But reality doesn’t always match expectations. Bikes aren’t permitted inside the convention’s security perimeter, so golf carts and other vehicles are used. The wooden card keys proved buggy, and some were replaced with more-reliable plastic. Fried mini-donuts were prominently on sale inside the Pepsi Center. Party VIPs and celebrities told their decidedly non-green town cars and GMC Yukon XL mega-SUVs–rented from limo provider A Class Above Transportation–to idle, with engines and air conditioning on, in the nearby pickup area. (What self-respecting conference-goer wants to climb into a GMC Yukon when it’s a toasty 93 degrees in the shade?)

Plus, a gathering of tens of thousands of people (and perhaps 70,000 for Barack Obama’s Thursday acceptance speech) generate a whopping amount of trash. Even if it’s sorted, recycling Obama-Biden signs takes energy, as does trucking in what the Journal reported to be 900 volunteers to monitor waste cans and perform the trash-separation, thereby taking them away from tasks that might be more productive. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 25 Comments »

Categories : politics

2014-2015 – These years are a repeating theme in solar forecasts

29 08 2008


Sun today – still blank. We are approaching a spotless month of August, 2 days to go.

Here at WUWT, I’ve touched on almost every point in this article below, here are some links for you to review in addition to the piece from Mr. Lawson.  – Anthony

Keenlyside Paper and HP filtering of HadCRUT

Livingston and Penn – Sunspots may vanish by 2015

David Hathaway – What’s wrong with the Sun? (Nothing)

by: Mark S. Lawson, Online Opinion, Australia

Who has noticed that the period 2014-2015 keeps on turning up in the debate on greenhouse science? For that is when greenhouse proponents say the long-delayed global warming apocalypse will start happening. In addition, that general date has turned up in forecasts made by an arch sceptic, and two researchers in the US have forecast that sunspot activity will cease entirely by 2014.

As the two sides do not agree on anything else at all this is odd – odd enough to be worth exploring.

One group to point at the 2015 date is led by Noel Keenlyside of the Leibnitz Institute of Marine Science in the German city of Kiel. As reported in the journal Nature (letters, May 1) Keenlyside and colleagues added the affect of climate cycles to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change models to forecast that global temperatures will remain stable or perhaps even dip down for the next few years, before heading up. The paper does not give a date for the expected kick up in temperatures but in a subsequent interview with the Daily Telegraph in the UK Keenlyside stated that the earth will start to warm again in 2015. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 52 Comments »

Categories : climate_change, solar

McCains rumored VP pick says “don’t spend time on [skeptics]“

28 08 2008

I’ll point out that this is just a rumor. Last week many people were sure that Obama’s VP was going to be Evan Bayh based on bumper sticker printing rumors. Let’s hope this one doesn’t pan out. – Anthony

UPDATE: Speculation has now shifted to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. Her approval rating, according to the Anchorage Daily News, tops 80 percent. Among other things, she supports drilling in Alaska, with limits, she’s pro-life and she’s a fiscal conservative. If she’s the pick, that surely figured into the McCain strategy of hoping to woo upset Hillary Clinton supporters. She’d be a magnet for them.

From Capital Research: Tim Pawlenty, Global Warming Alarmist

August 28th, 2008 by Matthew Vadum

Rumors are circulating that GOP presumptive presidential candidate Senator John McCain plans to select Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty as his vice presidential running mate.Pawlenty certainly talks a good shtick when it comes to free markets, low taxes, and limited government, but his views on climate change and energy policy are downright frightening.

“We should not spend time on voices that say [climate change] is not real,” Pawlenty said even as new evidence surfaces almost daily that undermines the alarmist consensus.

“We should have listened to President Carter” about energy policy, Pawlenty said.

President Jimmy Carter, readers may recall, gave his infamous “malaise” speech (also known as the “Crisis of Confidence” speech) live on television on July 15, 1979.

In it Carter blamed Americans for the problems in American society at that time. He told Americans they were too materialistic and greedy and that they needed to make do with less. He told Americans that turning down their thermostats and wearing sweaters indoors would help solve the nation’s problems.

That was Jimmy Carter’s energy policy.

And Pawlenty says we should have listened to President Carter?


Comments : 91 Comments »

Categories : politics

Fill your gas tank – now

28 08 2008

While it is far from certain yet how strongly these storms will develop and where they will go, production platforms are already shutting down in some parts of the Gulf of Mexico in anticipation of the storm Gustav. Here is the latest satellite image and track overlay from my meteorological business, IntelliWeather:


Click for Hi Definition image

The last time we saw oil platforms shut down in the Gulf, prices at the pump went up almost immediately. Today I noticed a 5 cent jump in prices at my own local gas station from yesterday as crude oil prices push higher.

Here is another wider Atlantic view of the two storms: Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 27 Comments »

Categories : weather

Skeptical Article on Climate in the Old Farmer’s Almanac – cooler times ahead?

28 08 2008

My friend, Joe D’Aleo who runs ICECAP, had the opportunity this year to write an article for the 2009 Old Farmer’s Almanac.  While I’m normally “skeptical” of the long term forecasts printed in the OFA, I’m not of this piece written by D’Aleo, who is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and a Certified Consulting meteorologist.

With 3.3 million copies printed, his article, Is Global Warming on the Wane? ,  will get wide distribution in many venues. The subtitle “Some scientists believe that an extreme cooling episode, potentially a mini-ice age, is imminent. Others think that it may already be under way.” will probably raise a few eyebrows.

In this blog I often cite historical perspectives on how people and the press have perceived and written about climate in the past, such as this article from the New York Times that says “the Arctic will soon be an open sea” or this one from the 1933 Monthly Weather Review “IS OUR CLIMATE CHANGING? A STUDY OF LONG-TIME TEMPERATURE TRENDS.”, or this one from 1922 “Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.“

The editors of OFA took a similar view for the beginning of D’Aleo’s article with this timeline of similar events:


Click for the full size image and article

D’Aleo relies heavily on UAH, HadCRUT, and Mauna Loa CO2 data to make his point, which is that climate change is mostly about cycles, oceans, and solar activity. Here is one of the graphs from the article that we’ve seen many times before:

D’Aleo’s also cites the work of David Hathaway, whom we often mention here, and his predictions of solar cycle 25 being weak, along with mentions of the PDO shift

Doug Hathaway, a solar physicist at NASA, believes that solar activity has diminished and will continue to do so for decades. In 2006, he predicted, based on observations of the slowing of the plasma flow on the Sun, that cycle 25 could be the quietest—thus, the coolest—in centuries. Also in that year, Khabibullo Abdusamatov, head of research for the Russian Academy of Sciences, issued an imminent mini-ice age warning based on expectations of a quieter Sun over the next 50 years. Our long-range forecasts also point toward cooling conditions. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 34 Comments »

Categories : Science, climate_change

Cascade snowpack decline? Weather patterns – not global warming

27 08 2008

Man made global warming gets blamed for a lot of things, but often when you look beyond the rhetoric that surrounds such blame, you find simpler answers, such as changes in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.


Mount Shuksan, in the Cascades photo by: Matt Leber

A new study from the University of Washington indicates that climate change may not be the reason snowpack is shrinking in the Cascade Mountains. The finding is in contrast with science and policy that have dominated the discussion of snowpack, flood, and water resources. KUOW’s Phyllis Fletcher has more.

THE NEW STUDY IS AUTHORED BY SEVERAL ATMOSPHERIC SCIENTISTS, INCLUDING KUOW REGULAR CLIFF MASS. MASS SAYS THE AMOUNT OF SNOWPACK HAS NOT CHANGED APPRECIABLY IN THE LAST 30 YEARS. HE AND HIS COLLEAGUES ARGUE THAT MUCH OF THE CHANGE IN THE LAST CENTURY COULD BE ATTRIBUTED TO A WEATHER PATTERN THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GLOBAL WARMING CAUSED BY HUMAN ACTIVITY.

Read complete interview here on the radio station website.

You may also find this report from Nichols College, complete with graphs and tables, interesting.


Comments : 71 Comments »

Categories : climate_change

Help survey a weather station this Labor Day weekend

27 08 2008

As many of you know, I also operate www.surfacestations.org with the goal of completing the survey of all 1221 USHCN climate stations of record in the continental United States. Doing so, we’ve uncovered some very interesting siting and quality control anomalies such as the one below:

That photo above is the USHCN Station for Saint Johns, AZ. I kid you not. The electronic sensor is inside the Stevenson Screen, note the conduit.

So, if you are planning to drive someplace this weekend, you may want to think about surveying weather a station or two that may be along your route. There are still about 600 left to be surveyed in most states. California has been completed, and Florida needs only two to complete the state: Ocala and Key West. Ocala is at the water plant see the map here and is an MMTS electronic sensor, which looks like this:

MMTS unit

Another and newer type of thermometer is the Maximum Minimum Temperature System or MMTS. An MMTS is an electronic thermometer not too different from the type you buy at the local electronics store. The MMTS is a thermistor housed in a shelter which looks similar to a bee hive. This design is similar in functionality

If anyone is traveling near Ocala this weekend, please help me out and get a photos of the sensor placement if you can. Even if this public facility is closed. You may still be able to get photos from the street or through the fence. Or just go there during a weekday when its open and state your business.

How to find a USHCN station near you: Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : weather_stations

Global Warming Creates Crabgrass Menace

27 08 2008

This UC Irvine study with heat lamps on grass plots seems to be almost at a science fair level. Here’s the relevant quotes from the abstract and conclusion:

Our results suggest that an increase in temperature caused by climate change as well as the urban heat island effect may result in increases in N2O emissions from fertilized urban lawns. In addition, warming may exacerbate weed invasions, which may require more intensive management…

The increases in N2O fluxes with warming suggest that soil N2O fluxes could serve as a positive feedback to global warming in turfgrass.

In high school I cut lawns to make money during the summer, and as any lawnboy can tell you, crabgrass is far more hardy than fescue in the heat. We’d spend all summer keeping the crabgrass and other weeds at bay. So this is hardly news. What is news to me is that taxpayer funds would be wasted on such things. With “tipping points”, sea ice loss, ocean conveyor shutdowns, and a whole host of bigger things we’ve been told to worry about, I’m really surprised that anybody is wasting time worrying about our lawn quality in the apocalyptic future that has been portrayed by some. On the plus side, at least they recognize UHI, which I’m sure will upset Peterson and Parker, who tell us it doesn’t exist. – Anthony

From the Orange County Register:

Our lawns could go to the weeds as the planet warms

July 14th, 2008, 3:00 am ·Gary Robbins, Orange County Register

crabgrass-copy.jpgUC Irvine researchers who simulated global warming at the campus arboretum say they’ve made an unexpected discovery: The additional heat caused crabgrass to flourish.

The finding came when plant ecologist Diane Pataki and graduate student Neeta Bijoor heated portions of a research lawn with infrared lamps. Other portions of the lawn weren’t heated during the study, which focused on greenhouse gas emissions.

“There were significantly more crabgrass weeds in the high temperature plots,” says Pataki. “Some of the weeds, including crabgrass, are better adapted for higher temperatures than fescue, the most common lawn grass, because they use a different type of photosynthesis. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Uncategorized

Hanna Montana Gets In the Act

27 08 2008

From the Business & Media Institute

Disney’s New Hannah Montana Album Features ‘Global Warming Anthem’

Teen pop star sings ‘Wake Up America,’ warns the ‘earth is calling out,’ but admits she doesn’t know ‘what all this means.’

By Jeff Poor
8/26/2008 4:57:38 PM

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s two daughters, Malia, 9, and Sasha, 6, are big fans of Hannah Montana – and maybe there’s a reason why.

Teen star Miley Cyrus, known as Hannah Montana in the Disney Channel TV series television of the same name, is now crusading for global warming alarmism. But she admits she isn’t really sure what it means. Disney also owns ABC, a network that often hypes climate change alarmism.

On the 15-year-old singer’s recently released album “Breakout,” she sings that she wants America to wake up and deal with global warming. The song, “Wake Up America” is about taking care of the earth:

Oh, can you take care of her
Oh, maybe you can spare her

Several moments of your consideration
Leading up to the final destination

Oh, the earth is calling out,
I wanna learn what it’s all about,
But everything I read – global warming, going green
I don’t know what all this means, but it seems to be saying

Wake up, America, we’re all in this together
It’s our home so let’s take care of it
You know that you want to
You know that you got to wake up, America
Tomorrow becomes a new day and everything you do
Matters, yeah, everything you do matters in some way

Cyrus is one of the current jewels in the Disney crown. But she isn’t alone. Disney purchased ABC in 1995, but the network recently has acquired a taste for global warming coverage. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Uncategorized

The Flip Side of Cooler Weather

27 08 2008

While we’ve had a number of unusual and anecdotal cold snaps in late summer in the northern latitudes, there are also warm events too. It will be interesting to see how this event is reported by newspapers and other media in the Bay Area. Perhaps we’ll get a firsthand report from Mosher. To watch the temperatures where I live, you can visit my webcam/weather station at www.bidwellranchcam.com – Anthony

URGENT – WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
328 AM PDT WED AUG 27 2008

…NEAR RECORD HEAT EXPECTED THURSDAY ACROSS THE EAST AND SOUTH BAY..

STRONG HIGH PRESSURE AND LIGHT OFFSHORE WINDS WILL BRING
SIGNIFICANT WARMING TO THE GREATER SAN FRANCISCO BAY REGION TODAY
INTO THURSDAY. TEMPERATURES WILL WARM TO SEVERAL DEGREES ABOVE NORMAL
TODAY WITH 80S NEAR THE COAST AND READINGS WELL INTO THE 90S
INLAND. BY THURSDAY RECORD OR NEAR RECORD HEAT WILL BE POSSIBLE
ACROSS MOST OF THE REGION. IN PARTICULAR THE POPULATED AREAS OF
THE EAST AND SOUTH BAY WILL EXPERIENCE SOME OF THE HOTTEST
TEMPERATURES ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON.

h/t to Fred in comments


Comments : 29 Comments »

Categories : Uncategorized

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