The Week That Was: 2021-11-27 (November 27, 2021)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” – Albert Einstein
Number of the Week: 4300 Years Ago
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: After the UN Conference of Parties, COP 26, ended with a whimper, a number of diverse topics appeared. The common element they have is they raised issues with the central theme of the UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), that carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations are the primary cause of climate change and that human CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming.
In no particular order these issues include: one, a questioning of Willie Soon’s use of machine learning to feel confident enough in patterns observed to forecast a diminishing solar intensity; two, a paper by two researchers at the Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy Science that on first review appears to support the work of van Wijngaarden and Happer on Earth’s thermal radiation of five most abundant greenhouse gases; and three, two papers appearing in AAAS Science Advances that question IPCC’s claims in its Summary for Policymakers of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6, SPM, 2021) that there was no climate change for 2000 years, until after the industrial revolution and its use of fossil fuels.
These papers seem remarkable because since the mid-1990s, AAAS Science has had the editorial policy of not publishing anything that questions the “wisdom” of the IPCC. This policy followed by other journals as well has led to many highly questionable “bandwagon” studies that can be described as science fiction.
Also, TWTW will mention efforts of others questioning the IPCC process as well as the absurdity of the energy policies of the Biden administration. But first, a wide-ranging interview of physicist and philosopher Christopher Essex by Calvin Beisner will be presented.
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Belief in the Ignorance of Experts: The blurb under the video of Christopher Essex by Calvin Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance For The Stewardship of Creation reads:
“’Just follow the science!’ That exhortation gets used to silence anyone who questions anything from COVID lockdowns and mask and vaccine mandates to catastrophic manmade climate change to Darwinism to atheism. Challenge official public policy on lockdowns, masks, and vaccines, or on catastrophic global warming, and you’re a ‘science denier.’ Challenge Darwinism or atheism, and you’re a ‘science denier.’ But just what is science? How can it contribute to our understanding of our world—and how we get along with each other? Tonight’s wide-ranging discussion features Dr. Christopher Essex—no, not the country music singer/songwriter Christopher J. Essex, but Christopher Essex the professor of both physics and applied mathematics at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, co-author with Dr. Ross McKitrick of Taken By Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy, and Politics of Global Warming (one of my favorite books on climate change), and all-round creative and challenging thinker. The conversation will go far beyond climate change to the whole state of scientific activity today.”
The interview is wide-ranging with a number of succinct comments by Essex. Some of them are presented below in an effort to encourage readers to watch the entire interview, which is one hour and forty minutes. Comments by TWTW in brackets.
- There is no such thing as average temperature of the earth. An average is a statistic, not a measurement. Temperature indicates a state (condition) which is not meaningful.
[NOAA’s Climate.gov., no longer reports a single temperature and states: “Earth’s temperature has risen by 0.14° F (0.08° C) per decade since 1880, and the rate of warming over the past 40 years is more than twice that: 0.32° F (0.18° C) per decade since 1981.” https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature. (updated Aug 12, 2021)]
- The more Essex learns about thermodynamics of radiation the less he feels humanity knows.
- When at St. Peters the most striking thing he observed were the Sierpiński triangles in the floor. These are fractals (never ending patterns), not Euclidean and deal with coping with the problems of infinity and considered modern mathematics. Here they were in a floor built five hundred years ago.
[Such patterns started appearing in the decorative geometry in Italy in the 12th & 13th centuries known as Cosmatesque and date back to the third century BC Greek geometer Apollonius of Perga.]
- Essex is suspicious of probability and statistics.
[As Ross McKitrick has shown, using tools of descriptive statistics for inferential statistics is a giant leap, which advocates of dangerous CO2-caused global warming have misunderstood. Descriptive statistics explain the characteristics of a sample of a population. Where inferential statistics rely on probability theory to suggest underlying characteristics of the entire population. The IPCC’s greenhouse gas attribution process is based on a misunderstanding of the Gauss-Markov (GM) Theorem and the conditions needed for unbiased and efficient rules for calculation. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00382-021-05913-7 ]
- The IPCC claims very small changes in temperature are significant. But these are tiny when compared to daily, seasonal, and annual changes.
- The models do not build the effect of water vapor until later, but it is an integral part of the greenhouse effect. You cannot throw it in later and expect the model to predict. [this is done after falsely balancing CO2 with aerosols to meet surface temperatures]. Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas. He designed a completely good atmospheric model with only water vapor, the other gases have minimal effect.
- People doing modeling first recognized they were working with “cartoons” but lost track of that.
- Making policy is a far deeper problem and working with computers to see into the future is a deeper problem than many realize, even experts. Numerics are a question of recipes.
- Computers are not an oracle. Mathematics goes beyond computers.
[The weather-based mathematical modeling has not progressed for about 40 years and climate science has stagnated. The approach by van Wijngaarden and Happer uses different mathematics and databases and seems to meet the physical description of what is occurring in the atmosphere.]
- With weather-based models there is a symmetry problem. What is conserved in the differential equations is not the same that is conserved in the discrete maps (graphs).
- Along with Richard Lindzen, Essex believes the highly used Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) concept does not matter. ECS does not exist in nature; it’s a value in models. As a result, we have computational overstabilization, trying to stabilize problems in the models, etc. As a result, long term dynamics is gone
- A big problem is over interpreting the models and not understanding their limits. Anyone who has a tool must understand the limits of the tool.
[After a discussion on the closure problem in turbulence which goes back to the 19th century and that the influence of clouds completely overwhelms the effect of greenhouse gases (at least in the real atmosphere), Essex discusses the corruption of science and states that it has happened. For example, the claim that there is a consensus is a corruption. There is no one view.]
- Scientists engage in a duality, they must be humble, not to fool themselves, yet they have the arrogance to tackle the mysteries of the universe. This requires humility.
- A good definition of science is the belief in the ignorance of experts, [the quote from Richard Feynman]. We Need to see evidence and reasoning, see for yourself.
- Highly educated people get caught up in herds, including scientists. Ordinary people often don’t.
- You have to stop being afraid! The doom that will come to get you, is not the one you are expecting.
The above is a sample of what was discussed. TWTW readers may benefit from watching the entire interview. It reinforced the efforts by TWTW to question everything, including assumptions, physical evidence, reasoning process, and conclusions. Even though mathematics is the language of science, mathematics and logic are not sufficient for understanding. This was demonstrated when scientists attempted to apply Newtonian Mechanics to the behavior of matter and energy on the atomic and subatomic scale. An entirely new pattern of thinking was needed – Quantum Theory. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Role of the Sun: Last week’s TWTW discussed the paper by Soon and twenty-two co-authors: “How much has the Sun influenced Northern Hemisphere temperature trends? An ongoing debate” and Soon’s presentation at the Heartland Conference on his paper with two co-authors on “Results of hindcasting and forecasting solar activity cycles.”
Writing in Watts Up With That, Leif Svalgaard asserted that Soon was “arguing that there has not been any trend in solar activity in the past 300+ years.” “To my eye there is no difference between our reconstruction and theirs [based on Machine Learning], except that we have error bars, and they don’t. It is amazing how people’s bias can cause them to draw contrary conclusions from [almost] identical data.”
To TWTW, Svalgaard misinterprets Soon’s presentation and paper. He did not state that there was no pattern in solar activity. Soon stated that he was not sufficiently comfortable with the patterns observed to make forecasts. The Machine Learning technique gave him additional assurances that he was not deceiving himself, “you are the easiest person to fool.” Further, the technique uncovered a 5.5-year pattern, which was underreported. See links under Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
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Partial Verification? Advances in Fundamental Physics published a paper by Boris Michhailovich Smirnov and Dmitri Alexandrovich Zhilyaev of the Institute for High Temperatures of the Russian Academy Sciences titled “Greenhouse Effect in the Standard Atmosphere.”
On first review, the paper uses the same database, but a different approach than the work of van Wijngaarden and Happer and reaches roughly the same conclusions — limiting CO2 emissions is a relatively worthless exercise. Part of the abstract reads:
“…Radiative parameters of molecules are taken from the HITRAN database, and an altitude of cloud location is taken from the energetic balance of the Earth. Within the framework of this model, we calculate the parameters of the greenhouse effect…”
The issue here is the calculation of the role of the clouds. There is no generally accepted theory on cloud formation and their role in climate. The van Wijngaarden and Happer paper using the HITRAN database was based on clear skies calculations. Until there is such a cloud theory verified by other techniques and validated by physical evidence, it is difficult to draw any final conclusions concerning Russian paper. However, it makes several key points in the conclusions. [References not included here.]
- “In this evaluation as well as previous evaluations, we have a contradiction with the results of climatological models in the analysis of the Earth’s greenhouse effect, according to which the increase in the global temperature differs by five times.”
- “We show, so the large difference results from ignoring, in climatological models, the Kirchhoff law, according to which radiators are simultaneously the absorbers. In this case, we take the change in the radiative flux created by CO2 molecules as the change of the total radiative flux.”
- “We proved early that atmospheric CO2 molecules are not the main radiator of the atmosphere. From these evaluations, it follows that water molecules in the atmosphere may be responsible for the observed heating of the Earth.”
See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Surprising Papers: The editors of Science Advances have published several papers that appear to contradict the editorial policy of Science. Both journals are controlled by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which has been highly politicized since the 1990s. These papers question the claims that carbon dioxide is the primary cause of global warming. The abstract of the paper about the intrusion of Atlantic waters into the Arctic Ocean between Greenland and Svalbard (the Fram Strait, a deep passage in the Greenland Sea) reads:
“The recent expansion of Atlantic waters into the Arctic Ocean represents undisputable evidence of the rapid changes occurring in this region. Understanding the past variability of this “Atlantification” is thus crucial in providing a longer perspective on the modern Arctic changes. Here, we reconstruct the history of Atlantification along the eastern Fram Strait during the past 800 years using precisely dated paleoceanographic records based on organic biomarkers and benthic foraminiferal data [found in sediments]. Our results show rapid changes in water mass properties that commenced in the early 20th century—several decades before the documented Atlantification by instrumental records. Comparison with regional records suggests a poleward expansion of subtropical waters since the end of the Little Ice Age in response to a rapid hydrographic reorganization in the North Atlantic. Understanding of this mechanism will require further investigations using climate model simulations.”
As Paul Homewood writes: “Of course, the idea that Arctic warming since the 19th [century] is largely a natural phenomenon has huge ramifications. Not least the fear that the ice will one day return.”
The second paper has to do with the collapse of the advanced rice based agricultural Liangzhu culture in the Yangtze River Delta, about 4300 years ago. The abstract reads:
The Liangzhu culture in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) was among the world’s most advanced Neolithic cultures. Archeological evidence suggests that the Liangzhu ancient city was abandoned, and the culture collapsed at ~4300 years ago. Here, we present speleothem records from southeastern China in conjunction with other paleoclimatic and archeological data to show that the Liangzhu culture collapsed within a short and anomalously wet period between 4345 ± 32 and 4324 ± 30 years ago, supporting the hypothesis that the city was abandoned after large-scale flooding and inundation. We further show that the demise of Neolithic cultures in the YRD occurred within an extended period of aridity that started at ~4000 ± 45 years ago. We suggest that the major hydroclimatic changes between 4300 and 3000 years ago may have resulted from an increasing frequency of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation in the context of weakened Northern Hemisphere summer insolation.
The primary records are from speleothems (structures formed in a cave by the deposition of minerals from water, e.g., a stalactite or stalagmite.) No relationship to CO2 is discussed. This study may reinforce the Svensmark Hypothesis that changes in solar activity may change climate such as temperature and rainfall by shifting the Intertropical Convergence Zone. (NIPCC, 2008, p. 11-13] See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy – NIPCC, Challenging the Orthodoxy, and Changing Climate – Cultures & Civilizations.
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Three Essays: CLINTEL, is an independent group of scholars from 26 countries which operates in the fields of climate change and climate policy with the main objective of generating knowledge and understanding.” It “operates in the fields of climate change and climate policy.” It was founded in 2019 by emeritus professor of geophysics Guus Berkhout and science journalist Marcel Crok. Its “main objective is to generate knowledge and understanding of the causes and effects of climate change as well as the effects of climate policy on welfare and wellbeing of society. It issued three short, understandable essays for the major groups attending the COP 26 conference:
- Message to Heads of Government who attended COP26
- Message to the Young People who attended COP26
- Message to the climate scientists who attended COP26
See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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Load Balancing: The UK is further down the path of destruction of affordable, reliable electricity than the US. It passed legally binding foolish laws such as the 2008 Climate Change Act, thanks to “experts” such as economists who manipulated numbers to deceive the public and politicians. A classic example of the need to believe in the ignorance of experts. The promoters of offshore wind power are failing to deliver reliable wind power at the low-cost they promised. The wind promoters make the exaggerations of real estate promoters such as Donald Trump appear modest.
Andrew Montford discusses the problem of stabilizing power (balancing the load) in the UK with significant wind power.
“The cost of stabilising the grid and keeping the lights on has been rising alarmingly in recent years – it was £1200 million in 2019 and reached around £1792 million in 2020.”
Montford proposes a contest for those who comes the closest at guessing the cost of keeping the lights on in the UK in 2021 when the final bills arrive around February of next year. See links under Seeking a Common Ground, Questioning European Green and Energy Issues – Non-US.
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Follow the Herd: Not to be outdone in ignorance, the “experts” in the Biden Administration appear to be following the herd in shutting down reliable energy in favor of false expectations and calling it leadership. Now, after asking OPEC to expand productions to keep prices down, which OPEC refused, the administration is releasing oil from the Strategic Oil Reserve.
Despite many in Washington, the US became a net exporter of oil in 2019. Independent oil producers broke the OPEC monopoly. Independent producers are not the lowest-cost producers, but they can prevent prices from spiraling upward. As this administration works to destroy the US economic strength in oil and gas production, the Secretary of Energy laughs when asked what is the administration doing to stop rising gasoline prices? Then she falsely claims OPEC controls the price of oil. If it does, the Biden Administration gave it the control.
Then we have others in Washington such as the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Director Eric Lander who, according to The Hill said:
“’Science and technology have done things once thought impossible: making solar energy the cheapest energy and dramatically lowering the cost of wind power and batteries,’ OSTP Director Eric Lander said in a statement. ‘Now we need to do the same with smart grid technologies, clean hydrogen, fusion power, and more — to make carbon-neutral energy the cheapest energy, so it’s always the easy choice — by driving the virtuous cycle of invention and deployment that brings down costs.’”
Where is the proof of concept? In the UK? Acting before the technology exists is living in fantasyland, or today’s Washington. See links under Washington’s Control of Energy and Change in US Administrations.
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Number of the Week: 4300 Years Ago: About 4300 years ago climate change began the collapse of the Liangzhu culture in the Yangtze River Delta. This was among the most advanced cultures in the world at that time. Called the Neolithic Period, or New Stone Age, humans were no longer dependent on hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants. Characteristics of the Neolithic Period included domestication of animals, agricultural practices, modification of stone tools, and pottery making. Climate change needs to be understood, not falsely attributed to human CO2 emissions.
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
Leif Svalgaard Responds to Willie Soon
By Leif Svalgaard, WUWT, Nov 23, 2021
Solar variations controversy
By Judith Curry, Climate Etc. Nov 21, 2021
Climategate Continued
Climategate: Never Forget (11th anniversary)
By Robert Bradley Jr. Master Resource, Nov 22, 2021
“Today, the Internet is the primary check on the excesses of the politicized UN/IPCC process. Cancel and ignore as they might, the blogosphere is driving the climate-science debate in real time against the Malthusian establishment.”
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-IIb/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels
By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019
http://store.heartland.org/shop/ccr-ii-fossil-fuels/
Download with no charge:
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/
Download with no charge:
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Global Sea-Level Rise: An Evaluation of the Data
By Craig D. Idso, David Legates, and S. Fred Singer, Heartland Policy Brief, May 20, 2019
Greenhouse Effect in the Standard Atmosphere
By Boris Michailovich Smirnov and Dmitri Alexandrovich Zhilyaev, Institute for High Temperatures of Russian Academy Sciences, Izhorskaya, Moscow, Russia, Advances in Fundamental Physics, Oct 27, 2021 [H/t John McClaughry]
Physicists: Climate Model Error Overestimates CO2 Impact On Global Temps By Factor Of 5
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Nov 22, 2021
See link immediately above.
Just What Does “Just follow the Science” Mean?
Interview of Christopher Essex by Calvin Beisner
Video
Two decades on the battlefield – more important now than ever
By Joe D’Aleo, CCM, AMS Fellow, ICECAP, Nov 22, 2021
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-blog/two_decades_on_the_battlefield_more_important_now_than_ever/
Climate Change is much more than CO2 and CO2 is much more than Climate Change
COP26 Trilogy: Message of CLINTEL to Heads of Government, Young people and Scientists
By Clintel Group, Amsterdam, November 2021
“Threatening the living standards of new generations is the true climate emergency.”
The Arctic Ocean began warming decades earlier than previously thought, new research shows
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 27, 2021
Link to paper: Rapid Atlantification along the Fram Strait at the beginning of the 20th century
By Tommaso Tesi, et al. AAAS Science Advances, Nov 24, 2021
Climate Quiz
The Great Climate Change Debate is one of the “hottest” issues before the public and policy makers today. How much do you know about the subject? Or possibly, the real question is one attributed to American humorist Will Rogers: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” Find out your Climate IQ by taking our Climate Quiz: the answers may surprise you.
By Staff, CO2 Coalition, No date
Climate Alarmist Claim Fact Checks
By Joseph D’Aleo, CCM, ICECAP, Nov 22, 2021
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/political-climate/alarmist_claim_rebuttals_updated/
Defending the Orthodoxy
IPCC AR6: Atmospheric Rivers, Unspun Edition
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 24, 2021
[SEPP Comment: The IPCC writing is confused and obscure, but atmospheric rivers are projected to be more intense in the future!]
The Scientific Process
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Nov 26, 2021
https://realclimatescience.com/2021/11/the-scientific-process/ (Video)
“Climate change deniers are dangerous – they don’t deserve a place on our site”
From the Editors, The Conversation, Sep 16, 2019
“We believe in the free flow of information”
[SEPP Comment: But not from dangerous climate change deniers who produce physical evidence the climate has been changing for hundreds of millions of years!]
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Climate warming forecasts may be too rosy: study
By Marlowe Hood, Paris (AFP), Nov 22, 2021
“’The false precision to climate outcomes given during COP26 may lead countries to believe they are making good progress, when the opposite may be true,’ said first author Ida Sognnaes, a senior scientist at the CICERO climate research centre in Olso.
“At issue is the standard method used to connect the dots between a set of climate policies and the end-of-century temperature increases they might lead to.”
[SEPP Comment: We must exaggerate more!]
Hurricanes expected to linger over Northeast cities, causing greater damage
More storms like Hurricane Sandy could be in the East Coast’s future, potentially costing billions of dollars in damage and economic losses.
Press Release, American Geophysical Union, Nov 22, 2021 [H/t WUWT]
Evolving Tropical Cyclone Tracks in the North Atlantic in a Warming Climate
By Andra J. Garner, Kopp and Horton, Earth’s Future, Nov 22, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Wild speculation using the phony UN IPCC RCP8.5 scenario.]
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Rich Countries’ Climate Policies Are Colonialism in Green
At COP26, developed-world governments are working to keep the global south poor.
By Vijaya Ramachandran, Foreign Policy, Nov 3, 2021
“The Nordics and other rich countries are betting on achieving their climate ambitions without the need for harder-edged policies at home. It is simply too tempting for leaders of rich countries—including those who produce plenty of oil and gas—to impose restrictions on others. Pursuing climate ambitions on the backs of the poorest people in the world is not just hypocritical—it is immoral, unjust, and green colonialism at its worst.”
Václav Klaus’s answers to questions posed by the server iUhli.cz (iCoal)
Interview with the Czech ex-president
The Reference Frame, Nov 26, 2021
Booker On David King
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 24, 2021
“Like many another scientist who strays out of his field of expertise, he ends up speaking with no more authority than a man sounding off in the pub.”
Guest post: What are your favourite climate books?
By Rafe Champion, Jo Nova’s Blog, Nov 25, 2021
After Paris!
Guest post: How COP26 finally recognised the latest IPCC climate science
By Sonia Seneviratne, et al, Carbon Brief, Nov 26, 2021
Biden Taps Strategic Oil Reserve 11 [10] Months After Suspension Of Oil And Gas Leases
By Tristan Justice, The Federalist, Nov 23, 2021
What you see is what you get
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 24, 2021
New White House office to develop climate change policies
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, Nov 24, 2021
Is Jennifer Granholm Even Qualified to Be U.S. Secretary of Energy?
By Daniel Turner, Real Clear Energy, Nov 23, 2021
Biden’s climate power grab via trillions of dollars in annual federal procurement
By David Wojick, CFACT, Nov 26, 2021
Joe Biden’s War Against Alaska Benefits Russia
By Duggan Flanakin, Real Clear Energy, Nov 21, 2021
“After ceding Afghanistan to China, will Joe cede Alaska’s energy riches to Russia?”
Joe Biden Addresses High Gas Prices: Americans Can Save Money If They Buy Electric Cars
By Charlie Spring, Breitbart, Nov 23, 2021
U.S. to release oil from reserves in coordination with other countries to lower gas prices
By Pippa Stevens, CNBC, Nov 23, 2021
Energy chief describes oil reserve release as ‘bridge’ before prices fall
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Nov 23, 2021
“She cited a projection from the Energy Information Agency that said prices were expected to fall next month to an average of $3.16 per gallon.
Problems in the Orthodoxy
African nations cling to fossil fuels despite climate call
By Stephane Barbier with AFP Africa bureaus
Abidjan (AFP) Nov 24, 2021
Needed: A rational and affordable climate policy
By John Constable, Net Zero Watch, Nov 23, 2021
Link to report: Energy Policy: Evidence to the House of Lords (14 September 2021)
By John Constable, GWPF, 2021
Building a Circular Economy Requires Bold Action From Industry, Environmental Groups, and U.S. Policymakers
By Katherine Lugar & Keefe Harrison , Ron Gonen, Real Clear Energy, Nov 23, 2021
Science, Policy, and Evidence
“Hot Talk, Cold Science” and The Dangers of Centralized Planning in the Name of Climate Change
By Kevin Mooney, Real Clear Energy, Nov 21, 2021
The Covid lab leak theory just got even stronger
By Matt Ridley, Rational Optimist, Nov 20, 2021
UK PM Explains how Old Soviet Catchphrases Apply to his Green Revolution
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Nov 12, 2021
Model Issues
New Study: Modelers Got Aerosols All Wrong…CO2 Climate Sensitivity Likely Another 0.4°C Overstated!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Nov 26, 2021
Link to paper: Improved estimates of preindustrial biomass burning reduce the magnitude of aerosol climate forcing in the Southern Hemisphere
By Pengfei Liu, et al. AAAS Science Advances, May 28, 2021
Measurement Issues — Surface
1920 or 2020? Kerang Australia Edition
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 24, 2021
Bad Weather Station Siting – Even on #Yellowstone
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Nov 21, 2021
Changing Weather
Wet Summers During La Niña Cycles
By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Nov 25, 2021
“There was no reason for Brisbane to have flooded, except they got the seasonal forecast so wrong along with the dam management. They weren’t thinking in terms of cycles – they never do.”
[SEPP Comment: After the essay, one commentator remarks that the late Bob Carter (NIPCC co-editor) was the prime geoscientists on a number of drilling programs off the costs of South America (mainly Peru) and the east coast of Australia. “From this research and contributory mapping, ENSO oscillations have been mapped as occurring for at least the previous 11,000 years.” These patterns are missing in weather models, and climate models.]
Were the Sumas Floods Caused by Global Warming? The Evidence Says No.
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Nov 21, 2021
“Society can not effectively deal with environmental threats when it is provided with hyped or false information. And providing such false information, even in the hope of motivating people to ‘do the right thing,’ has substantial ethical problems.”
THREE Atmospheric Rivers Heading Our Way
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, Nov 23, 2021
Quietest Period On Record For New England Hurricanes
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Nov 26, 2021
BBC and Met Office at war over ‘deep freeze’ winter weather forecasts
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 23, 2021
[SEPP Comment: BBC uses DTN which claims “Simply put, DTN has the most comprehensive weather intelligence expertise in the world. With our global weather station network, we deliver the most hyper-local, accurate, and real-time weather intelligence available.” https://www.dtn.com/weather/]
Below Normal Extremes…2021 Northern Hemisphere Cyclone Activity Below Normal…US Tornadoes Below Normal
By Paul Dorian, Via No Tricks Zone, Nov 20, 2021
“One of the notable findings of the 2021 US tornado season is that it featured no EF-5 tornadoes which are the most powerful of all. In fact, it has now been more than 8 years since the last EF-5 tornado struck in the US which was in Moore County, Oklahoma during May of 2013. According to NOAA, there have been a total of 36 EF-5 tornadoes in the US since 1970 with 14 of those occurring in the 1970s.”
Black Tuesday 1967
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Nov 25, 2021
Alaska Suffering Through Some Intense Cold And There Is No Relief Coming Anytime Soon
By Paul Dorian, WUWT, Nov 23, 2021
Changing Climate – Cultures & Civilizations
Collapse of ancient Liangzhu culture caused by climate change
Press Release, University of Innsbruck, Nov 24, 2021 [H/t WUWT]
Link to paper: Collapse of the Liangzhu and other Neolithic cultures in the lower Yangtze region in response to climate change
By Haiwei Zhang, et al, AAAS Science Advances, Nov 24, 2021
Changing Seas
Catastrophic Sea Level Rise
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Nov 25, 2021
Recent publication: Climate Change: Global Sea Level
By Rebecca Lindsey, NOAA, Climate.gov. Oct 7, 2021
[SEPP Comment: NOAA uses the hockey-stick trick of combining tidal instrument data with satellite data without standardization showing both move in the same direction, to the same extent simultaneously. They do not. The late Tom Wysmuller recognized that the rate of rise of the satellite data is twice that of the tidal instrument data. He believed this was the result of an error in computer programs performing the calculations. NOAA and the University of Colorado’s Sea Level Research Group fail to do basic testing of its programs.]
Seas rise and shores expand
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 24, 2021
“Bookmark this page because if you pass on the information to your alarmist relatives, they will be as astonished as the scientists themselves. And they may accuse the latter of being deniers and report their findings to Youtube and Facebook to make sure they get banned from any further public discussion.”
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
If the South Pole Melted, A Note from Arthur
By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Nov 21, 2021
“It is estimated that this current [Antarctic Circumpolar Current] transports somewhere between 100 and 150 million cubic metres of heat-carrying sea water per second. Without the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, and its impact on planetary heat redistribution, the global climate would be very different.”
Illuminating discussion by Arthur Day
Shipwrecked By The Laughter Of The Gods
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Nov 25, 2021
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” – Albert Einstein
Greenland Ice Sheet Melting No Faster Than Last Century
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 25, 2021
Late freeze-up for W. Hudson Bay polar bears at odds with ice conditions elsewhere
By Susan Crockford, Polar Bear Science, Nov 24, 2021
Melting Arctic sea ice linked to ‘worsening fire hazards’ in western US
By Ayesha Tandon, Carbon Brief, Nov 25, 2021
Link to paper: Increasing large wildfires over the western United States linked to diminishing sea ice in the Arctic
By Yufei Zou, et al. Nature Communications, Oct 26, 2021
“Our analysis (based on observations, climate model sensitivity experiments, and a multi-model ensemble of climate simulations) demonstrates and explains the Arctic-driven teleconnection through regional circulation changes with the poleward-shifted polar jet stream and enhanced fire-favorable surface weather conditions.”
[SEPP Comment: Will the fires decrease with increasing ice?]
Acidic Waters
Heron Island Photo Check
By Jennifer Marohasy, Her Blog, Nov 24, 2021
[SEPP Comment: Are the “bleached” coral really bleached or is it that the red spectrum does not reach below 4.5 meters, 15 feet?]
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
Countries must brace for future food ‘shocks’: FAO
By AFP Staff Writers, Paris (AFP), Nov 23, 2021
Link to report: The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA) 2021
By Staff, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 2021
[SEPP Comment; Despite COVID food supply was resilient. However, low-income countries cannot earn enough to afford healthy diets. Why is the UN suppressing prosperity in areas where it is needed the most?]
Lowering Standards
Help, what is happening with our universities?
By Prof. Dr. IR. Guus Berkhout, Via WUWT, Nov 26, 2021
“The interests of science and politics have become strongly intertwined. As a result, critical thinking and truth-finding have not been the starting point for years.”
Environment Agency Stokes Flood Fears
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 26, 2021
“It is quite irresponsible for the Met Office and Environmental Agency to put their names to this rubbish. Particularly when it is obviously intended for political purposes.”
We’re so sneaky
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 24, 2021
“Amazingly, one of these authors bills herself on Twitter as ‘Senior reporter and global fact-checking lead for BBC News, covering health and disinformation.’ But her ability to recognize a fact in order to check it is not evident from this prose.”
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
Are Extreme Weather Death Tolls Rising?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 23, 2021
“Is it true, or did you hear it on the BBC?”
How the BBC is crushing the climate debate
BBC News is equating criticism of the green agenda with conspiracy theories and science denial.
By Ben Pile, Spiked!, Nov 24, 2021 [H/t Paul Homewood]
“And the second came from reporters Rachel Schraer and Kayleen Devlin, who are both part of the BBC’s ‘Reality Check’ team of fact-checkers. They claimed to have exposed ‘the truth behind the new climate-change denial’. Both articles are travesties of journalism.”
Media Promotes Badly Flawed Science Spreading It Like Wildfire
By Jim Steele, A Walk on the Natural Side, Nov 22, 2021 [H/t WUWT]
Bottom feeders
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 24, 2021
Oh No! A cold spell now will spawn Climate Change Illiteracy
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Nov 20, 2021
“Friends don’t let friends worry about minor changes in an ever-changing climate.”
Sorry, Axios, No Data Supports the Claim That Climate Change Is Causing More Extreme Weather
By H. Sterling Burnett, Climate Realism, Nov 18, 2021
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Charles’s Dirty Little Secret
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 20, 2021
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
The Deadliest Weather Event In 2020?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 26, 2021
Link to report Disaster Year in Review 2020: Global Trends and Perspectives
By Staff, Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, May 2021
file:///C:/Users/Owner/Downloads/CredCrunch62.pdf
[SEPP Comment: Financed in part by the USAID!]
BOM Erasing Australia’s Past
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Nov 25, 2021
Now it’s heating
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 24, 2021
“And then ‘extreme heat’ even if the temperature doesn’t go up: ‘1bn people will suffer extreme heat at just 2C heating,’ say scientists. Soon we’ll have planetary incineration. And we still won’t have any significant warming. But we will have a scary vocabulary.”
Erasing The World’s Record Temperature
By Tony Heller, His Blog, Nov 25, 2021
[SEPP Comment: More nonsense from Yale Climate Connections.]
Communicating Better to the Public – Protest
April 1st: The Day of Extinction Rebellion’s Great Civil Disobedience Uprising
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Nov 24, 2021
Expanding the Orthodoxy
DARWALL: Climate-Risk Disclosure – A Flimsy Excuse For A Green Power Grab
By Rupert Darwall, Daily Caller, Nov 22, 2021
How China’s clean energy push could help the developing world give up fossil fuels
As a leader on renewable energy technologies, China should help belt-and-road and other developing nations achieve carbon goals, senior policymaker says
Countries like Bangladesh could gain from the green expertise of China, Germany, Britain and the US, researcher in Dhaka points out
By Echo Xie, South China Morning Post, Nov 21, 2021
SCMP: China Offers Renewables and Cheap Nuclear to Poor Countries
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Nov 21, 2021
See link immediately above.
Gross Energy Mismanagement: Energy Expert Warns Of Europe Power Blackouts, “Numerous Deaths”
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Nov 23, 2021
In its rush to net-zero, the West is aligning itself with Chinese human rights abuses
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 23, 2021
“If history teaches anything, it is that we must put a higher value on freedom, or we will find that the final cost to us all becomes too high.”
Britons face £15,000 bill for heat pump upgrade – report exposes ‘significant’ hidden cost
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 22, 2021
Questioning Green Elsewhere
When The Costs Hit Home, Nobody Will Give Up Fossil Fuels
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Nov 19, 2021
Funding Issues
Could An Energy Crunch Lead To A Worldwide Financial Crisis?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 20, 2021
“All in all, who would want to invest billions now when there might be no business in a couple of decades time?”
House passes the largest expenditure on climate in US history
Daily Briefing, Carbon Brief, Nov 22, 2021
The Charity Industrial Complex
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Nov 22, 2021
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
EU parliament greenlights farm subsidy plan
By AFP Staff Writers, Strasbourg, France (AFP), Nov 23, 2021
Losing balance? You bet
By Andrew Montford, Net Zero Watch, Nov 26, 2021
Not Enough Energy To Keep 8 Billion People Warm On A Cooling Planet
By Staff, Cold Climate Change, Nov 21, 2021
New German Coalition Caves In To Greens
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 25, 2021
“Given the increased electrification proposed, Germany will need at least 100 GW of reliable capacity. Gas, biomass and hydro together only provide 43 GW, less than half of that required.
“That means an awful lot of new gas plants will have to be built. There may be a lot of hot air and wishful thinking, but little evidence that this will happen.”
Energy Issues — US
IHS Markit: Banning Exports of US Crude Oil Would Likely Raise Gasoline Prices, Not Lower Them
By Staff, HIS Markit, Nov 16, 2021
“’Removing the 3 million barrels per day of crude that the United States exports to Europe, Asia and elsewhere would deliver a shock to the world market. The lost barrels would have to be replaced from somewhere else. And it is not clear if all of that could or would be replaced in a tight market,’ said VP Burkhard.”
Washington’s Control of Energy
President Biden’s Latest Oil Directives Lead To Nowhere Very Fast
By Tilak Doshi, Forbes, Via WUWT, Nov 26, 2021
“Since its inception, the Biden administration has done just about everything to wage war on US oil and gas. President Biden signed an Executive Order in his second day in office to ‘protect public health and the environment and restoring science to tackle the climate crisis’, cancelling the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline.”
Has Biden Brought An End To U.S. Energy Independence?
By Robert Rapier, Oil Price.com, Nov 22, 2021
Is The U.S. Shale Patch Refusing To Pump For Political Reasons?
By Irina Slav, Oil Price.com, Nov 17, 2021
[SEPP Comment: By stopping pipeline construction, curtailing leasing, and insisting “green” ESG investing, the administration has created great distrust and disruption in the industry. Why believe anything it says?]
Interior recommends imposing higher costs for public lands drilling
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, Nov 26, 2021
“’These trivial changes are nearly meaningless in the midst of this climate emergency, and they break Biden’s campaign promise to stop new oil and gas leasing on public lands,’ said Randi Spivak, public lands director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement.”
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Germany Opposes Nuclear Power for Everyone
By Donn Dears, Power For USA, Nov 23, 2021
“’Germany will work towards an exclusion of nuclear power from the EU taxonomy for sustainable investments,’ the country’s environment minister Svenja Schulze has affirmed.”
[SEPP Comment: Sustainability: “the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level.” What can be maintained at a certain rate or level with solar power which goes off every night or wildly erratic wind power?]
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
World’s largest offshore wind farm ‘unprofitable’, government-funded report confirms
Press Release, Net Zero Watch, Nov 20, 2021
Link to article World’s largest offshore wind farm ‘unprofitable’ for Equinor, say government-funded researchers
New Norwegian study challenges Equinor’s profitability from the world largest offshore wind project under construction, located in the UK North Sea
By Ole Ketil Helgesen, Morten Aanestad and Mikael Holter, Upstream, Nov 24, 2021
Britons face record bill as wind farms perform poorly again
By Staff, Net Zero Watch, Nov 25, 2021
Dogger Bank wind farm: Big, New, and essentially worthless, with a value like minus £1 billion
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Nov 25, 2021
“The wind might be free, but collecting it over vast kilometers of ocean is not so easy.”
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
‘Battery arms race’: how China has monopolised the electric vehicle industry
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Nov 26, 2021
[SEPP Comment: The Guardian now recognizes that China dominates key industries for EVs? Will the Biden administration learn?]
Oh Mann!
The Tragedy of the Climate Wars
By Mike Hulme, Issues.org, Spring 2021 [H/t WUWT]
Review of Mr Mann’s new book: The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet
Other Scientific News
DART Mission Launched to Test “Armageddon” Asteroid Deflection Capability
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, Nov 25, 2021
Hubble Witnesses Shock Wave of Colliding Gases in Running Man Nebula
By Staff, NASA, Nov 24, 2021 [H/t WUWT]
Other News that May Be of Interest
My Latest Book, Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid-19, Is Now Available
By Matt Ridley, Rational Optimist, Nov 23, 2021
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
A Politically Incorrect Thanksgiving List
By Roy Cordato, Master Resource, Nov 24, 2021
Letter to a critic: Dear Idiot
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 24, 2021
“So much for that claim. And as with Glasgow, so with everywhere else. The general panic talking point is that we’ve seen 1.2°C of warming since ‘pre-industrial’ times which seems to mean the Crystal Palace Exhibition of the wonders of the steam age rather than before James Watt. Mind you, another 0.3 will apparently finish off the penguins, polar bears and urban civilization. But sometimes it’s hard to focus on the catastrophic impact of such temperature changes because they’re so tiny you can barely even measure them.”
New Olympic Rules means medals for men and people-who-used-to-be-men
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Nov 26, 2021
“Why have separate sex medals if there are no separate sexes?”
“We’re following the science all the way to oblivion. Genes don’t matter. Hormones don’t count, and science is just a PR tool for tribal politics.”
Ridicule: Albatross Divorce Rates
By Rud Istvan, WUWT, Nov 25, 2021
The 30% solution
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, Nov 24, 2021
“So 30% it is, with 97% of scientists agreeing that 99.9% of them agree that we’re all going to die.”
Ridicule: Climate Change Threatens Cranberries
By Rud Istvan, WUWT, Nov 26, 2021
ARTICLES
COP26 Prepared the World to Beat Climate Change
We can bemoan that there is still a gap between our ambitions and actions. Or we can work to close it.
By John F. Kerry, WSJ, Nov. 21, 2021
TWTW Summary: The US special presidential envoy for climate writes:
“In diplomacy and governing, there are few permanent victories, mostly hard-fought opportunities to make continued progress with continued attention. I often think of Benjamin Franklin’s comment to a young citizen after the delegates finished drafting the Constitution in Philadelphia, promising that they had created ‘a republic, if you can keep it.’ After COP26, something similar could be said for climate diplomacy: It was an important breakthrough, if we can follow through on it.
“A gap remains between the ambition the world demonstrated at the climate conference in Glasgow and the actions we need to take to avoid chaos by limiting the Earth’s temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The outcome of COP26 kept the ability to avoid that disaster within reach. At the climate conference, the world finally brought together the coalition we need to win this fight, not only almost 200 governments but the private sector, large organizations, tribal and indigenous communities, and young people. With continued cooperation across this alliance, we are entering the decisive decade of our climate battle prepared for the fight.
“The Glasgow Climate Pact sends a clear signal that the world intends to win it. After years of negotiations, we finally finished the backbone of the Paris Agreement. The implementation ‘rulebook’ attendees agreed to will guide global cooperation, ensuring transparent reporting and aligned emissions timing targets the market has needed and environmental advocates have long sought. The pact’s text also took unprecedented steps by recognizing the need to reduce global carbon-dioxide emissions at least 45% by 2030 so we can reach a net-zero, pollution-free world by midcentury. It included the first-ever calls from a climate agreement to phase down unabated coal and eliminate wasteful fossil-fuel subsidies.
“This climate agreement also called for a doubling of the funding commitment to help developing countries adapt to a warmer world, many of which have caused little of the problem but whose people stand to suffer some of its worst consequences.
“Perhaps most important, at COP26 we reached a newfound global consensus to take wide-reaching action to protect the Earth. Starting this year natural treasures and forests will be better protected. Waters and ecosystems will be healthier. Agriculture will be more resilient. The world will be less polluted and closer to environmental justice.
“At his global virtual summit in April, President Biden laid out ambitious new U.S. climate commitments and challenged others to follow suit by the time we met at Glasgow. As of the close of the conference, countries representing 65% of the world’s economic output are committed to specific actions to hold global temperatures’ rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Even nations that have traditionally been skeptics announced plans to deploy renewable energy and move away from fossil fuels. In the months leading up to COP26, India pledged to deploy 450 gigawatts of renewable energy. Other large economies, including Indonesia, South Africa and Mexico, are prepared to reduce coal or oil dependency providing they can get help with finance and technology. This summer, Saudi Arabia announced an enormous and potentially game-changing plan for a transition into the renewable energy market.
“The world saw enormous progress on cutting emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas up to 80 times as destructive as carbon dioxide—the single fastest step to slow global warming. In the runup to the conference, President Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a global pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030, and more than 100 nations representing 70% of the world economy quickly signed on.
“Methane was at the core of a significant breakthrough between the U.S. and China at Glasgow. By next year, China agreed to develop a comprehensive and ambitious plan to reduce methane and make best efforts to accelerate the phase-down of coal. Our nations have no shortage of differences, but we must cooperate to solve our climate challenge.
“All elements of the COP26 coalition will have to work together to stave off global warming. No government can fully fund the trillions of dollars necessary to make the transition to clean energy.”
After stating that the private sector is needed, with appropriate subsides, he concludes:
“Add it up, and we have assembled both the team and tactics necessary to beat climate change. Now we all have a choice. We can bemoan that there still exists a gap between the world’s climate ambitions and its concrete commitments, or we can work ferociously to close them. It’s not too late to avoid the worst of a climate crisis. The International Energy Agency tells us that if every one of the Glasgow commitments are fully kept and implemented, it could hold global warming at 1.8 degrees by the end of the century. That’s not 1.5, but it’s progress—if we can keep it.”
there is no link to the Christopher essex interview and according to the Cornwall alliance website it doesnt exist. Have searched web and get everything else other than the suppsed video. The only link to the video is from facebook but I do not subscribe to facebook.
file:///C:/Users/Owner/Downloads/CredCrunch62.pdf
Excellent link! ;)))
“The UK is further down the path of destruction of affordable, reliable electricity than the US.”
Some American states are moving just as fast, such as Massachusetts which has now shut most of its oil, coal and nuclear power plants and the state has a net zero by ’50 law- including all sources of carbon emissions- power, heat, transportation, industry. If I thought I’d still be around in ’50, I’d set up a gambling pool. I’d offer a 10-1 bet that the state won’t be net zero in ’50. But, I’d be 100 in ’50 so I’m not planning on it.
I am not sure that the paper “Greenhouse Effect in the Standard Atmosphere” really offers much at all.
It contains a laughably simple model for clouds, which certainly does not match the real world.
I can applaud an attempt to deal with the effects of increasing CO2 concentrations in cloudy areas of the Earth, but I doubt that this paper gets close to a proper description of what is happening in those regions.
A strong drop in temperatures across Canada and the Great Lakes in the days ahead.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2021/12/04/0600Z/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=251.43,62.23,469
It’s called “winter”.
Winter, just what kind of winter?
Blue, like Johnny?
Still very high levels of galactic radiation, indicating a weak solar wind magnetic field.
There is currently a strong circulation blockage at about 5 km. This is a very wintry circulation pattern for Europe.
Link not working for Judith Curry article, however I am curious about the quote:
“climate change sceptics have seized upon putative solar effects as an excuse for inaction on anthropogenic …”
There is no presumption of action. It is necessary that action be justified, not that inaction be justified.
You said:
“To TWTW, Svalgaard misinterprets Soon’s presentation and paper. He did not state that there was no pattern in solar activity. Soon stated that he was not sufficiently comfortable with the patterns observed to make forecasts”
Soon showed that there has been no upward trend in solar activity the last 300 years both with a Figure and also with the Herera et al. data [that can be downloaded from a link in the paper], so it stands to reason that he is not comfortable with that since he also maintains that a strong upwards trend in solar activity is a major cause of global warming. So: no trend => no sun-caused global warming. Not a comfortable place to be for a believer of the sun being the major driver of global warming.
“Further, the technique uncovered a 5.5-year pattern, which was underreported.”
The 5.5-year cycle is a pure artifact from the fact that the solar cycle is asymmetric and rises faster than it decays. That gives rise to power at half the 11-year period of the cycle.
That they state this a new physical cycle just shows how ignorant they are about elementary statistics.
What causes the cycle to be asymmetric?
This is poorly understood, even though some models predict some asymmetry, e.g.:
The Astrophysical Journal, 741:1 (9pp), 2011 November 1 doi:10.1088/0004-637X/741/1/1
THE ASYMMETRY OF SUNSPOT CYCLES AND WALDMEIER RELATIONS AS
A RESULT OF NONLINEAR SURFACE-SHEAR SHAPED DYNAMO
V. V. Pipin and A. G. Kosovichev
ABSTRACT
The paper presents a study of a solar dynamo model operating in the bulk of the convection zone with the toroidal magnetic field flux concentrated in the subsurface rotational shear layer. We explore how this type of dynamo may depend on spatial variations of turbulent parameters and on the differential rotation near the surface. The mean-field dynamo model takes into account the evolution of magnetic helicity and describes its nonlinear feedback on the generation of large-scale magnetic field by the α-effect. We compare the magnetic cycle characteristics predicted by the model, including the cycle asymmetry (associated with the growth and decay times) and the duration–amplitude relation (Waldmeier effect), with the observed sunspot cycle properties. We show that the model qualitatively reproduces the basic properties of the solar cycles.
As I continue to closely view the great leading photos in TWTW in my search to find Sasquatch I have made startling discoveries. But I’m not sure from my perspective (through a camera lens) if my perception is relevant to what I perseve to see. Was the photographer focusing on the clouds or the big dead snag out in the desert brush and the cloudy sky just happened to be the background? Is it really a big dead snag or just a relativily small brushy snag close to the camera blocking the ‘sky cloud’ shot? Maybe the photographer was focused on some poor soul standing in the brush with an umbrella or tin foil hat! Maybe even trying to fly a kite! My perception is that even though it was raining in the background there are shadows close by so probably not raining there and shadows too weak to need the umbrella for shade and too brushy to launch a kite. The only other possibility from my perspective is they were wearing a tin foil hat! Anyway, I didn’t find Sasquatch in the photo but I’ll keep looking!
On a bit more serious note. Notice that the rain is falling from seemingly very shallow clouds. Upper level (relatively low) cool wind causing rapid cooling at the top? With detailed local atmospheric/weather conditions the photos offered with this weekly feature could be
worth their weight in goldinvaluable.