By Blake Snow – FOXNews.com
Image: NASA / Goddard Institute for Space Studies – Maps from NASA’s GISS reveal temperatures where no data exist, thanks to mathematical extrapolation of data.
NASA was able to put a man on the moon, but the space agency can’t tell you what the temperature was when it did. By its own admission, NASA’s temperature records are in even worse shape than the besmirched Climate-gate data.
E-mail messages obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that NASA concluded that its own climate findings were inferior to those maintained by both the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) — the scandalized source of the leaked Climate-gate e-mails — and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center.
The e-mails from 2007 reveal that when a USA Today reporter asked if NASA’s data “was more accurate” than other climate-change data sets, NASA’s Dr. Reto A. Ruedy replied with an unequivocal no. He said “the National Climatic Data Center’s procedure of only using the best stations is more accurate,” admitting that some of his own procedures led to less accurate readings.
“My recommendation to you is to continue using NCDC’s data for the U.S. means and [East Anglia] data for the global means,” Ruedy told the reporter.
“NASA’s temperature data is worse than the Climate-gate temperature data. According to NASA,” wrote Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who uncovered the e-mails. Horner is skeptical of NCDC’s data as well, stating plainly: “Three out of the four temperature data sets stink.”
…
Global warming critics call this a crucial blow to advocates’ arguments that minor flaws in the “Climate-gate” data are unimportant, since all the major data sets arrive at the same conclusion — that the Earth is getting warmer. But there’s a good reason for that, the skeptics say: They all use the same data.
…
Neither NASA nor NOAA responded to requests for comment. But Dr. Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at Weather Underground, still believes the validity of data from NASA, NOAA and East Anglia would be in jeopardy only if the comparative analysis didn’t match. “I see no reason to question the integrity of the raw data,” he says. “Since the three organizations are all using mostly the same raw data, collected by the official weather agency of each individual country, the only issue here is whether the corrections done to the raw data were done correctly by CRU.”
Corrections are needed, Masters says, “since there are only a few thousand surface temperature recording sites with records going back 100+ years.” As such, climate agencies estimate temperatures in various ways for areas where there aren’t any thermometers, to account for the overall incomplete global picture.
“It would be nice if we had more global stations to enable the groups to do independent estimates using completely different raw data, but we don’t have that luxury,” Masters adds. “All three groups came up with very similar global temperature trends using mostly the same raw data but independent corrections. This should give us confidence that the three groups are probably doing reasonable corrections, given that the three final data sets match pretty well.”
But NASA is somewhat less confident, having quietly decided to tweak its corrections to the climate data earlier this month.
In an updated analysis of the surface temperature data released on March 19, NASA adjusted the raw temperature station data to account for inaccurate readings caused by heat-absorbing paved surfaces and buildings in a slightly different way. NASA determines which stations are urban with nighttime satellite photos, looking for stations near light sources as seen from space.
Of course, this doesn’t solve problems with NASA’s data, as the newest paper admits: “Much higher resolution would be needed to check for local problems with the placement of thermometers relative to possible building obstructions,” a problem repeatedly underscored by meteorologist Anthony Watts on his SurfaceStations.org Web site. Last month, Watts told FoxNews.com that “90 percent of them don’t meet [the government’s] old, simple rule called the ‘100-foot rule’ for keeping thermometers 100 feet or more from biasing influence. Ninety percent of them failed that, and we’ve got documentation.”
Read the entire story at Fox News.com
Tom,
Unless you know what the forcing inflicted by the change is you can’t say something is negligible on a % basis, can you? It’s that same rational that leads people (I assume on the other side from you on the argument) to say that 1.6 ppm of CO2 is negligble too.
All I’m saying is that we all know that the difference is potent – from walking on it in the summer to the way that first snow tends to stick onto grass but not sidewalks or roads (for a while at least, and without the aid of salt) during the winter.
The reality is that they both probably have some effect but if your goal is to look for anthropogenic fingerprints in the climate, you should be looking at both.
In other words the effect of pavement is negligible.
Yes, quite. The effect of pavement on climate would appear to be negligible. The effect of pavement on climate stations, however, is profound.
Yes, only 2% of the world, if that, is paved over. Yet well over 90% of USHCN (i.e., the “best of the best”) climate stations are improperly sited (i.e., hugger-mugger with pavement, heated structures, or both) according to the standards of the NWS itself.
Therefore the raw data itself is not to be trusted. As for the adjustments, since the methods, code, and manuals are concealed, they are not even to be seriously considered, far less, trusted. And to base policy of any consequence whatever on such results is absurd on the face of it.
This does not even begin to address the considerable effects of inconsistent equipment, much of it with known problems (both spurious cooling and warming).
If they do happen to be getting it right (which neither you nor I have any way of determining), it would appear at least as likely to be that their gross errors are canceling each other out as it is that their methodology is in any way valid.
Tom,
You imply I am a denier for suspecting that a change of less than 1% of the earths surface might be significant when a change to less than what, .001% of the atmosphere is, according to you, massively significant?
Lets put this in perspective, what % of the earth’s suface temp is due to surface behavior and what % is due to atmospheric greenhouse effect?
In fact the models use (an admittedly crude version of) the laws of physics to CALCULATE the effect of CO_2. Over the years the methods have been refined and the results appear to converge – thus giving a level of confidence in the result.
I do not believe that is in a whole lot of dispute. It is the positive feedback equations that multiply these effects many times over that are in (great) dispute.
If the 4-part positive feedback equation is in error, the entire tipping point premise is invalid.
Back in January a blockbuster paper was published:
SURFACE TEMPERATURE RECORDS: POLICY DRIVEN DECEPTION? by Joseph D’Aleo and Anthony Watts, Science and Public Policy Institute Original Paper, January 26, 2010.
What the paper said, in part, was that the NASA temperature record was as messed up as CRU and NOAA records. Now, two months later, Fox News has finally picked up on that. Better late than never, I guess.
I also guessed at the time that the D’Aleo-Watts paper was the turning point, or tipping point if you will. That was the moment CAGW was officially doomed to the dustbin of history. Nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye.
So far, it looks like I was right. Congratulations Anthony, and thank you.
Evan,
Less than 2% of the US is paved, to try and extrapolate that globally it would be much less. The odd part to the equation is that the IPCC only seems to be looking at radiative behavior, which is why they show a net negative (cooling) forcing due to deforestation – the farmlands that replace the forests have a higher albedo.
I did some back of the envelope calculations, comparing the albedo equivalent behavior for a green roof vs. an asphalt roof (sourced from Scientific American) and came up with a very rough estimate of .21 W/m2 for paving and structures. It doesn’t disprove anything, just seems to indicate that potentially this is significant. Hell, UHI thermals over cities affect bird migration patterns – it’s not insane to think that this might show up in the sat records too.
“I do not believe that is in a whole lot of dispute. It is the positive feedback equations that multiply these effects many times over that are in (great) dispute.
If the 4-part positive feedback equation is in error, the entire tipping point premise is invalid.”
I have some experience with Atmospheric Modelling but have no idea what you are on about.
“(I assume on the other side from you on the argument) to say that 1.6 ppm of CO2 is negligble too.”
Then you would be wrong because the ratio of CO_2 to other gases is irrelevant as they are (aside from water vapour and methane) invisible to radiation in the infrared range – the range emitted by the Earth.
A theory, if you were going to claim a year on year global temp rise when there wasn’t one and wanted to cover up your incorrect data for as long as possible then you would want to show cooling in the areas of english speaking, internet connected high population regions and show warming in the rest. Just look at the map.
Fly in ointment is Australia.
Tom,
All I’m saying is that it should be measured, studied and accounted for. Check out LEED building standards, everyone other than the climate science community seems to understand how potent this issue is from a m2 perspective – it’s ridiculous with the Billions of dollars dumped into AGW research that nobody has bothered to look seriously at this issue – or the deforestation cooling for that matter.
If there is, as is all but certain, real heating of the atmosphere going on from paving and building of structures – the impact from this activity is most likely being attributed incorrectly to CO2. Much of our paving and rapid expansion of urban centers correlates with that same rise in CO2, so if you’re in it for the science vs. cheering for a side I would think you would want unpack one vs. the other.
Of course, you also implied I’m a denier for considering that UHI-based AGW might be occuring in addition to CO2 based AGW… so maybe you’ve already tipped your hat on that one.
Regarding the %’s, I’m pulling these numbers from memory but they should be in the ballpark. to illustrate rough oder of magnitudes The earth’s surface is around 285 K, of which maybe 30 K is due to greenhouse effect? So roughly speaking 10% of the earth’s equilibrium temperature is due to the atmosphere while the rest is due to the interaction between the sun and the surface. Why would we not be just as concerned, or maybe more concerned, about human activity monkeying with the 90% part of that equation vs. the 10%?
Notice I have never said CO2 is not part of the equation or implied that UHI effect is greater than GHG effect. All I am saying is that UHI effects are measurable, real, and should be accounted for. If you disagree with that so be it, but if you do please consider the term denial and to whom it should apply to in this situation. As pointed out to me by Science of Doom recently, the IPCC has massive error bars around land use because they apparently know their understanding and modeling around these areas is (I might describe it as poor) incomplete and error prone.
Ref – Anu (17:40:04) :
Richard (15:30:14) :
“NASA doesnt have a clue on the climate data. They are even worse than GISS, who are pretty appalling.”
You might be interested to learn that GISS is a NASA organization:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/
____________________________
Somehow I had the idea that GISS was “part of” but “totally seperate and independent from” NASA. If GISS “is” NASA, is NASA able to “control” GISS? If NASA “can’t” control GISS then GISS “must be” something different from NASA. Does GISS do what “Mission Control” says? If not, GISS must not “be” part of NASA’s mission, right?
This is giving me a headache, adios!
“If there is, as is all but certain, real heating of the atmosphere going on from paving and building of structures – the impact from this activity is most likely being attributed incorrectly to CO2.”
This is nonsense. On average pavement absorbs energy during the day and re-radiates it at night. The ground below does the same. It is hardly ‘all but certain’ that there is a net heating. In fact the zeroth order effect is hotter temperatures over the pavement during the day and cooler temperatures at night and NO net warming.
The above is called the diurnal cycle. I find it interesting that that you focus on the heating part of the cycle while ignoring the cooling. Is that because the latter doesn’t help your argument?
Tom W (12:18:20) :
“I think you are making too much of the fact that they used a climate model since it was only used to construct a model of the diurnal temperature variations to be used eliminate aliasing”
I assume you meant “biasing”, not “aliasing”. Now, first of all, this need for a “diurnal adjustment” supposedly comes about because the time at which a satellite passes over a given point on the surface varies minutely (orbital drift) from day to day, but over time, it can get off by hours; so years ago, it was passing over, say, Atlanta, GA at, say, 12:40 pm, but now it’s passing over Atlanta at 4:30 pm. But this doesn’t make sense. All of the NOAA satellites have nominal orbital times of either 101 or 102 minutes. These lengths of time do not divide evenly into a day, nor does any length of time between 101 and 102 minutes, nor any length of time that would round to 101 or 102 minutes. It is, therefore, impossible that these satellites would fly over a given spot at the same time anyway, even without orbital drift. So they MUST have some system already in place to adjust for the varying times (non-drift-related) at which the satellite passes over a given point (which changes by over 6 hours each day for a 101-minute orbit, and nearly 3 hours for a 102-minute orbit). This system, whatever it is, could easily be modified to adjust for the additional 35-40 seconds per day caused by orbital drift.
That said, there are surely other means of adjusting for the diurnal cycle, rather than using a controversial (yes, I’ll call it that, because it is so) climate model. Why would Mears use this method and open himself up to this type of criticism, unless it was the only adjustment that resulted in what he wanted to see?
“In fact the models use (an admittedly crude version of) the laws of physics to CALCULATE the effect of CO_2. Over the years the methods have been refined and the results appear to converge – thus giving a level of confidence in the result.”
The models IGNORE several natural forcings, because their authors don’t UNDERSTAND them. And as a result, the models are WRONG. They might “converge” on each other, but they most certainly do NOT converge on reality. All of those models predicted WARMING over the last 12 years, and we know that did not happen. When confronted with this failure, the models’ proponents say that they’re not designed to predict “short-term” climate. But if they’re no good for such “short-tterm” time periods as 12 years, then why, for Pete’s sake, would anyone use them to predict HOURLY temperature variations?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to just use ground-based measurements of the diurnal cycle to adjust the satellite records of tropospheric temps? I know the variation isn’t quite as much in the troposphere as at the surface, but Mears admits that by his understanding, “[f]or MSU2 [LT temp], the globally averaged diurnal cycle is dominated by the surface and near-surface diurnal cycle over land regions”. So, instead of using easily-measured surface temps that he thinks are well correlated with LT temps, he uses a model that he has no clue whether it replicates reality.
(Oh, by the way, I was able to find a reference in Mears’s paper to the specific model he used. It was the Community Climate Model 3.)
For that matter, I don’t understand what was wrong with Christy et al’s diurnal adjustment, which Mears criticizes just before revealing his own method. Christy looked at temperature measurements on both sides of the satellite’s path, with the east side being slightly further along in its diurnal cycle than the west side, and the differences in temp provided the basis for this diurnal adjustment. Mears says this method is “extremely sensitive to small changes in the satellite attitude, particularly the satellite roll angle, calling its accuracy into question”. But this isn’t an issue unless the satellite attitude actually CHANGES, and Mears presents no proof thereof. I mean, it’s not like there’s anything going on up there, 500 miles above the Earth’s surface, that would cause satellites to change their attitudes. And even if the attitudes did change, as long as the attitude at the time of measurement was KNOWN (and surely this is included in satellite telemetry), adjustments could be easily made. After all, if attitude has this big an effect on temperature DIFFERENCES between the east and west sides of the satellite’s path, then the effect on ACTUAL temperatures would be at least an order of magnitude greater. So there MUST be some mechanism for adjusting readings for satellite attitude – if there isn’t, then the satellite record is useless.
Regards,
Trevor
evanmjones (21:41:49) :
“In other words the effect of pavement is negligible.”
Yes, quite. The effect of pavement on climate would appear to be negligible. The effect of pavement on climate stations, however, is profound.
Thanks for sparing me how to respond Evan. Am I really perceiving an inability to differentiate the effect of UHI on climate vs. UHI impact on temperature measurement? Since the measure of the former is contingent on the latter, it cannot be neglected.
Tom W (06:22:42) : On average pavement absorbs energy during the day and re-radiates it at night. The ground below does the same. It is hardly ‘all but certain’ that there is a net heating. In fact the zeroth order effect is hotter temperatures over the pavement during the day and cooler temperatures at night and NO net warming.
By what mechanism of physics are cooler than ambient temperatures attained during the diurnal cycle? Grass would certainly be cooler than ambient, that is why dew occurs on it (transpiration). Never got any dew on my boots on pavement, so far.
By what mechanism of physics are cooler than ambient temperatures attained during the diurnal cycle?
Given that the term ‘ambient temperature’ merely refers to the temperature of the surroundings, this question is so vague it is meaningless.
“I assume you meant “biasing”, not “aliasing”.
Wrong. I meant aliasing. I suggest you try to learn the basics of signal processing before advising others how to do it…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliasing
Tom W (06:22:42):
“If there is, as is all but certain, real heating of the atmosphere going on from paving and building of structures – the impact from this activity is most likely being attributed incorrectly to CO2.”
This is nonsense. On average pavement absorbs energy during the day and re-radiates it at night. The ground below does the same. It is hardly ‘all but certain’ that there is a net heating. In fact the zeroth order effect is hotter temperatures over the pavement during the day and cooler temperatures at night and NO net warming.
No it’s not – take a FLIR image of a road running through a field at 6:00 AM (i.e. right before sunrise) and that road will still be warmer than the surrounding natural surfaces – I would put money on it. You assume this all cycles through during the night but it is not a stretch at all to think that average temperatures for road will be higher than a natural surface over any reasonable stretch of time.
The above is called the diurnal cycle. I find it interesting that that you focus on the heating part of the cycle while ignoring the cooling. Is that because the latter doesn’t help your argument?
Under what circumstances would you expect to see consistently lower temperatures for a road than for the field of grass sitting next to it? I think it’s possible, that if ambient temperatures are very low and conditions are severely overcast for extended periods that you could see this for a short time when things warm up and the sun comes out… but that would be a (small?) exception, not the rule. In general, roads seem to warm up quite quickly during melt times in the winter.
Yes, quite. The effect of pavement on climate would appear to be negligible. The effect of pavement on climate stations, however, is profound.
Not really. Since most of the Earth’s surface is water….a relatively small fraction of the data is so ‘contaminated’, The effect of this ‘contamination’ which can be examined directly by comparing analyses with and without such stations, is found to be small. One can also use the statistical correlations between contaminated and non-contaminated stations to remove any bias.
Further while the urban heat island does increase the local temperature of urban areas it does not necessarily produce warming. An urban area will experience warming as a result of the heat island effect only if the heat island itself is increasing with time. This is not the case for many cities.
See
“Urbanization effects in large-scale temperature records, with an emphasis on China”
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008JD009916.shtml
“You assume this all cycles through during the night but it is not a stretch at all to think that average temperatures for road will be higher than a natural surface over any reasonable stretch of time.”
It is a stretch as it would imply that heat is transferred from the road surface to the atmosphere throughout the day. Where does the energy come from?
Tom W (11:11:50) :
“You assume this all cycles through during the night but it is not a stretch at all to think that average temperatures for road will be higher than a natural surface over any reasonable stretch of time.”
It is a stretch as it would imply that heat is transferred from the road surface to the atmosphere throughout the day. Where does the energy come from?
Heat is transferred from a road to the atmosphere during the day and night – did I imply otherwise?
…and the energy comes in from the sun. I don’t understand what your point here is. I never implied that energy magically appears or disappears in violation of basic physics.
The point I was making is that the equilibrium temperature of a road, on average, over any reasonable period of time will be higher than a natural surface. That implies net energy gain and stored.
Even at the same albedo (grass @ur momisugly 15% and pavement @ur momisugly 15%) the natural surface will release the energy gained back into the atmosphere much more quickly, and maintain a surface equilibrium temperature much closer to that of the ambient atmosphere temperature than the pavement will.
Because of that, at night the natural surface temperature will tend to equalize with ambient atmospheric temperature very quickly, while pavement will release the heat much more slowly and likely not get down to ambient atmospheric temperature before the sun comes back out.
All of this is easily and readily observed. Explaining this from a physics standpoint is much more difficult, I do not disagree, and if I have misstepped anywhere I would appreciate a correction… but the physical explanations have to jive with observable behavior, and pavement exhibiting higher average temperatures than natural surfaces IS a readily observable, and commonly accepted observation.
Tom W:
“I suggest you try to learn the basics of signal processing before advising others how to do it…”
And I suggest that YOU read the article you referenced. You got it all wrong, bud. Your hero Mears didn’t use that term. Perhaps that’s because the term “aliasing” doesn’t really apply to the situation with satellite drift. Aliasing is a false signal that is the result of inadequate sampling of the original signal (in this case, it could be viewed as a problem of “low resolution”). The problem that Mears was trying to overcome was one of INCONSTISTENT sampling (different times from day to day), not inadequate sampling.
Arguably, you could have been referring to the bigger “problem”* of separating the tropospheric signal from the stratospheric signal. But if you read Mears’s paper, I think you’ll agree that he got around this problem “by using the MSU nadir-limb contrast to extrapolate the channel 2 brightness temperatures downward and remove nearly all of the stratospheric influence”. In any event, the error in signal processing due to stratospheric cooling would STILL not be called one of “aliasing”, but one of “contamination” (of the tropospheric signal by stratospheric cooling).
*Furthermore, I’m not so sure that it is appropriate to separate the stratospheric cooling effect from tropospheric temperatures. It boils down to the question: When the models predicted that tropospheric temperatures should increase 1.2 times as much as surface temperatures, did they or did they not include stratospheric cooling in those calculations? If the models DID include the effect of stratospheric cooling on tropospheric temperatures, then we should leave the effect of stratospheric cooling IN the tropospheric temperatures when comparing them to the model predictions. It is entirely inappropriate to attempt to separate the two in the real-world data because they are not separated in the model.
If, on the other hand, the models did NOT include the effect of stratospheric cooling on tropospheric temperatures, then the models are worthless anyway. If they missed this effect, then they also missed the cooling effect that this in turn would have on the surface. And therefore, the models are drastically over-predicting surface warming. This would explain a lot, including the complete failure of the models to predict the lack of warming since 1998; and it also fits well with my estimation of the competence of the climate modelers. But somehow, I don’t think this is what happened, because the models clearly predict a higher ratio (1.54) of tropospheric warming to surface warming in the Tropics, where the tropopause is higher (troposphere is thicker) and stratospheric cooling will not effect the troposphere as much.
So which is it, Tom? Do the models include stratospheric cooling or not?
Regards,
Trevor
Scratch that last post. I thought you were claiming the road surface was warmer than the air during the entire day. You obviously were not.
I agree that the road will be warmer than the surrounding natural surface. But warmER does not imply warmING. Warming involves a temperature trend in TIME whereas you seem to be talking about temperature variations in SPACE. Not the same thing.
According to the link I posted above
“Global surface temperature trends, based on land and marine data, show warming of about 0.8°C over the last 100 years. This rate of warming is sometimes questioned because of the existence of well-known Urban Heat Islands (UHIs). We show examples of the UHIs at London and Vienna, where city center sites are warmer than surrounding rural locations. Both of these UHIs however DO NOT CONTRIBUTE TO WARMING TRENDS over the 20th century because the influences of the cities on surface temperatures have not changed over this time.”
In other words it is only the SUBSET of urban heat islands that are GROWING that would contribute to warming. The same is true of the urban heat island effect on the measurements.
Tom,
Maybe where we’re getting wrapped around the axle here tracks back to this (emphasis added):
Further while the urban heat island does increase the local temperature of urban areas it does not necessarily produce warming. An urban area will experience warming as a result of the heat island effect only if the heat island itself is increasing with time. This is not the case for many cities.
I agree with you. If you throw down a square of pavement in a field, both from a surface temperature and a surface station temperature measurement (although the spatial effects of this are not well measured or understood) this would manifest over some period of time (maybe only a few days) as step change of some magnitude. Eventually the effect would reach equilibrium – a set amount of surface change will produce a finite amount of increase in equilibrium temperature. By itself that one square of pavement will not generate an endless warming trend – absolutely, 100% agreed.
That said, and again, the spatial effects of this are not well understood or measured beyond the usual 1-2 C average UHI for “a city” (almost always of undetermined size) that is typically cited… and what happens when a city starts having suburbs pop up around it (will the center of the city become incrementally hotter?) is, AFAIK, unknown.
We need to be careful as well, to distinguish between what I think is the implication of M&M 2007 – that grid cells are “contaminated” by UHI – which implies an error in the surface station temp records due to improper extrapolation of UHI effect, and what is a real and measurable change in temperature in UHI areas. They are two different issues, and I have only been talking about the latter.
“Anu (20:30:54) :
[…]
Perhaps a country at the same latitude as Labrador, Canada shouldn’t be subsidizing PV power. But I bet you take advantage of windpower at least as well as the Danish. ”
What advantage? On average, they deliver 20% of their nominal peak performance. The grid has to be able to absorb 100% though, so on average the wind power output has to be supplemented by 80% gas power – the spinning reserve. So all that this buys us is that the gas plants run on 80% instead of 100% and have to ramp up and down all the time, shortening their lifetime and running in a suboptimal way.
“Also, the idea is that as wind turbines get bigger, better engineered, and economies of scale manufacturing tens of thousands of them kick in, subsidies should come down.”
I think the grid won’t take many more. We would have to increase the spinning reserve as well and end up with way more electricity than we need at a price that makes it unattractive to use, so a totally distorted market.
“Aren’t the Germans still good engineers and manufacturers? Or did that die out last century…”
The engineers do what they can. The politicians though seem to be just as stupid as 70 years ago, at least concerning the price-fixing.
When there is a lot of wind, the electricity exchange marketplace in Germany offers negative prices for electricity. We pay people for taking the surplus to prevent a grid meltdown. The damage caused by this alone is in the billions of euros.
This will get worse as more renewable capacity gets installed. The problem is that no large scale storage exists or can be easily created in Germany.
“Der SPIEGEL 10/2010 berichtete, zwischen Anfang September 2009 und Anfang März 2010 hätten die Strompreise nicht weniger als an 29 Tagen wegen des Windstromüberschusses ins Negative gedreht. Profitieren können davon zum Beispiel die Betreiber österreichischer Pumpspeicher-Kraftwerke, die diesen Strom zu negativen Preisen einkaufen, um mit seiner Hilfe Wasser in Hochspeicher zu pumpen. Bei Spitzenbedarf können sie dann das gespeicherte Wasser über Fallrohre auf Turbinen leiten und den damit erzeugten Strom an der Börse zu Höchstpreisen absetzen.
”
from
http://ef-magazin.de/2010/03/26/1957-deutsche-energiepolitik-franzoesischer-atomstrom-oder-haeufige-blackouts
translation:
“The SPIEGEL 10/2010 reported that between early September 2009 and early March 2010, electricity prices turned negative on 29 days because of the surplus wind power. Take advantage of it can, for example, the Austrian operator pumped-storage power plants that buy this electricity at negative prices to pump water into high line with his help. At peak demand, they can then the stored water through lead pipes to turbines and sell the generated electricity to the market at high prices.”
All very nice for the Austrians, but an expensive piece of junk for Germany.