Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org) The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week. “Nullius in verba” – “Nobody’s word is final.” Motto of the Royal Society, Freeman Dyson
Number of the Week: 54 Hoover Dams
THIS WEEK: By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Warming and Cooling? S. Fred Singer, our founder and newly elected Chairman Emeritus, is busily working on an interesting question: can carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, cause a cooling as well as a warming? The answer is YES, depending on subsidiary conditions.
The notion has been checked by several atmospheric physicists. One issue is putting the concept into a format that is easily understandable, without many highly technical equations.
The concept has the potential of partially explaining the hiatus in measured atmospheric warming despite increasing carbon dioxide (CO2). If correct, adding more CO2 will produce a cooling, not a warming of the atmosphere. Does it sound counter-intuitive? YES!
Hint for this week: Climate sensitivity, both amount and sign, warming or cooling, depends on atmospheric lapse rate. For example, in the troposphere the lapse rate is negative, temperature decreases with altitude increases. In the stratosphere the lapse rate is positive, temperature increases as altitude increases, and additional CO2 may cause cooling.
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Seeding Clouds from Space: Fred Singer has reminded us that we need to consider two different types of warming and cooling periods over the recent history of the earth, the past 2.5 million years or so. The longer periods of warming and cooling result in major Ice Ages of long duration, 100,000 years or so interrupted by brief warming periods of 10,000 years or so. These are explained as resulting from a changing of the orbit and tilt of the globe in relation to the sun, known as the Milankovitch cycles. The second type, such as the warming and cooling of the globe of the past 10,000 years may be explained by changing total solar energy, not just solar irradiance, sunlight hitting the upper atmosphere. The effect of changing total solar energy into the solar system may be many times more powerful in changing the earth’s climate than indicated by just changing solar irradiance.
Fred Singer was an early researcher into what now falls under space weather, variations within solar system from changing solar wind, solar magnetism, etc. Early on, Singer supported the Svensmark Hypothesis, formed by Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen. In summary, the intensity of the solar wind modifies the number of high energy cosmic rays from exploding supernova in deep space that hit the upper atmosphere. According to the hypothesis, the cosmic rays start a cascade of secondary particles that ionize molecules helping form cloud condensation nuclei (cloud seeds) that promote the growth of cloudiness, which cools the earth.
The concept has been tested by the SKY Experiment at the Danish National Space Science Center. Then it was comprehensively verified by the CLOUD Project at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva. Despite these laboratory results, critics have dismissed the efforts saying that the small aerosols formed by these ionized molecules are too small to a be means where water vapor can condense. There was no mechanism demonstrated whereby the small particles can accumulate the mass required. Others claimed there is little or no statistical correlations between cosmic rays and clouds or cosmic rays and changes in temperatures.
For four years researchers at The Technical University of Denmark have addressed what they consider to be the last link in the chain of reasoning and experimentation needed to establish a firm relationship between cosmic rays and clouds by using a cloud chamber – a particle detector for ionizing radiation using supersaturated water vapor.
Led by Henrik Svensmark, the researchers state that they may have the last piece of the link and have established that small nucleated aerosols can grow and become cloud condensation nuclei, the seeds for clouds, where water vapor can condense. Further, they state the evidence shows that changing cloud cover is associated with changing intensity of the sun. The classic example is the Little Ice Age, which was a period of low solar activity. According to Svensmark, the temperature effects of changes in total solar energy, varying cloudiness, may be 5 to 7 times the effects of solar irradiance alone.
For the climate establishment, the stakes are huge. For over 38 years, global climate modelers have insisted that a doubling of carbon dioxide (CO2) will result in a warming of 3 degrees C plus or minus 1.5 degrees C. If the Svensmark Hypothesis is correct, and if an increased intensity of the sun, unrelated to measured solar irradiation, has resulted in less cloud formation, then late 20th century and 21st century warming may be more due to solar activity than due to CO2, implying that a doubling of CO2 will lead to a warming of about 1-degree C, hardly cause for concern. The UN climate apparatus, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Paris Accord, has been built on the assumption the carbon dioxide is a major threat to humanity, and without that fear, it has no basis. The EPA finding that greenhouse gases endanger human health and welfare has little supporting physical evidence, and the Svensmark Hypothesis would remove most of that.
The reduced influence of CO2 on temperatures, would largely remove two other great fears of the future: sudden sea level rise and famine, resulting in an embarrassment to the 13 US government entities that make up the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), the elimination of which would be a savings of about $2.5 Billion a year to the US government. This is nothing compared with the tens of billions expended on subsidies to unreliable solar and wind, which would have little justification now that hydraulic fracturing is well established, and coal reserves in the US are extensive.
No doubt the new work will be intensely reviewed, some of the reviews will be fair, others highly biased. Svensmark and co-author Nir Shaviv have posted a summary of the work on Shaviv’s web site, Science Bits. The five boxes give additional details that are helpful. See links under Science: Is the Sun Rising? and Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
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Life in Ice? Using techniques and instruments that enable researchers “to detect the presence of gases even at part-per-trillion levels, one million times less concentrated than atmospheric CO2 concentrations”, researchers found evidence of marine bacteria living in snow while it is being compressed into ice, which may take decades. These bacteria may produce carbon dioxide in air pockets as the snow as being compressed. This uncertainty creates an issue regarding inflection points. For example, when did CO2 concentrations begin to fall during cooling periods?
False precision is a problem when attempting to describe a change in trends, a warming trend to a cooling trend, particularly when straight lines are used. But for cooling trends in the CO2 record from Antarctica, the periods for which CO2 lagged falling temperatures are in centuries, not decades. Further, the lag after the Eemian, the last warm period about 115,000 to 130,000 years ago, was about 14,000 years between when temperatures began to fall, and CO2 began to fall. This research should not affect such estimates significantly. See link under Other Scientific News
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Letter to Dr. Singer: Fred Singer received a letter from three students in Denmark asking questions regarding climate change. It reads:
We are starting a project next week and the topic is “change”. We have chosen the subtopic “global warming”
Do you have the time to answer a few questions in writing?
1. What is behind global warming?
2. What can we do to prevent global warming?
3. If we don’t do anything about it, how does it affect us and our descendants?
4. What will happen in the future, and what are the alternatives for us, if the Earth becomes unlivable?
5. How can we save Earth if it isn’t too late?
Those who are skeptical of claims that human emissions of CO2 are causing dangerous global warming can expect questions like these. SEPP’s response is posted on its web site. See http://www.sepp.org/key_issues/DearStudents.docx
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Number of the Week: 54 Hoover Dams. According to Solar Daily, total global photovoltaic (PV) installation is forecast to reach 108 gigawatts (GW) in 2018, largely in China. This is the equivalent of 54 Hoover Dams (726 feet (221 meters) high, with a 112 (180 km) mile reservoir). One wonders what is the actual expected capacity, and where will the back-up be located?
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NO TWTW NEXT WEEK, RESUME ON JANUARY 6, 2018
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Science: Is the Sun Rising?
David Whitehouse: Cosmic Rays-Climate Link Found
By David Whitehouse, GWLPF, Dec 19, 2017
http://www.thegwpf.com/cosmic-ray-cloud-climate-link-found/
Link to paper: Increased ionization supports growth of aerosols into cloud condensation nuclei
By H. Svensmark, M. B. Enghoff, N. J. Shaviv & J. Svensmark, Nature Communications, Dec 19, 2017
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02082-2
Finally! The missing link between exploding stars, clouds and climate on Earth
By Henrik Svensmark and Nir Shaviv, Science Bits, Dec 19, 2017
http://www.sciencebits.com/CosmicRays_Climate_TheMissingLink
NASA: Radiation from Space is Increasing – weak sun to blame
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Dec 6, 2017
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/12/06/nasa-radiation-from-space-is-increasing-weak-sun-to-blame/
The sun is blank, NASA data shows it to be dimming
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Dec 15, 2017
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/12/15/the-sun-is-blank-nasa-data-shows-it-to-be-dimming/
Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
New Study: Cosmic Rays, Solar Activity Have Much Greater impact on Earth’s Climate than Models Suggest
By Graham Lloyd, The Australian, Via GWPF, Dec 19, 2017
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, 2013
https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-II/CCR-II-Full.pdf
Summary: http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/ccr2a/pdf/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, 2014
http://www.nipccreport.org/reports/ccr2b/pdf/Full-Report.pdf
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/media-library/pdfs/CCR-IIb/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, NIPCC, Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/
Download with no charge
https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
A Climate Cure Worse than the Disease
By Bjørn Lomborg, Project Syndicate, Dec 20, 2017
Freeman Dyson, 94 today, on skepticism
By Paul Matthews, Climate Scepticism, Dec 15, 2017 [H/t Climate Depot]
https://cliscep.com/2017/12/15/freeman-dyson-94-today-on-scepticism/
Polar Bears, Inadequate data and Statistical Lipstick
By Roman M. Climate Audit, Dec 18, 2017
https://climateaudit.org/2017/12/18/polar-bears-inadequate-data-and-statistical-lipstick/#more-23602
“In line with the high standards of climate science “communication”, there are over 50 occurences [sic] of various forms of the derogatory labels “denier” or “deny” in a mere five pages of text and two pages of references. Such derogatory language has become commonplace in the climate change academic world and reflects badly on the authors who use it.”
[SEPP Comment: More on the barely credible paper in BioScience on polar bears.]
Defending the Orthodoxy
Greater future global warming (still) predicted from Earth’s recent energy budget
By Patrick Brown, Climate Etc. Dec 21, 2017
A future with fewer forests
NSF-funded researchers say forest resilience declines in face of wildfires, climate change
By Dena Headlee, NSF Press Release, Dec 14, 2017
https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=243992&WT.mc_id=USNSF_1
[SEPP Comments: As the Eastern forests are expanding greatly
Questioning the Orthodoxy
25 Papers: Natural Forcing Explains Why The Globe’s Oceans Have Been Recently Warming AND Cooling
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Dec 18, 2017
People, planet and climate working together
By Anthony Sadar, Washington Times, Dec 14, 2017
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/dec/14/despite-what-climate-hysterics-say-weather-not-tha/
After Paris!
France to ban oil and gas production by 2040
By Avery Anapol, The Hill, Dec 20, 2017
[SEPP Comment: According to other reports: France extracts the equivalent of about 815,000 tonnes of oil per year – an amount produced in a few hours by Saudi Arabia.]
Change in US Administrations
Trump Cuts Climate Change, Sets National Health Priorities
By Jane Orient, Newsmax, Dec 19, 2017 [H/t ICECAP]
U.S. Regains The Ability To Identify Real National Security Threats
By Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian, Dec 19, 2017
Trump Admin To Remove Climate Change From List Of National Security Threats
By Mollie Hemingway, The Federalist, Dec 15, 2017
Trump’s National Security Plan: ‘Energy Dominance,’ Not ‘Anti-Growth’ Climate Policies
By Michael Bastasch, Daily Caller, Dec 18, 2017
Social Benefits of Carbon
Blessing or Curse? The Curious Case of Carbon Dioxide
By Vijay Jayaraj, American Thinker, Dec 22, 2017
Link to papers: Greening of the Earth and its drivers
By Shu, Piao and Zeng, Nature Climate Change, April 25, 2016
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3004
Quantification of the response of global terrestrial net primary production to multifactor global change
By Li et al. Ecological Indicators, May 2017
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X17300274
Review of Recent Scientific Articles by CO2 Science
CO2 Fertilization Negates the Negative Impacts of Climate Change on Brazilian Coffee Yield
Verhage, F.Y.F., Anten, N.P.R. and Sentelhas, P.C. 2017. Carbon dioxide fertilization offsets negative impacts of climate change on Arabica coffee yield in Brazil. Climatic Change 144: 671-685. Dec 21, 2017
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V20/dec/a12.php
“A major failure of nearly all climate change impact studies of future crop yields rests in their poor construct and design, where they near-unanimously fail to incorporate the beneficial effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment on plant growth. As a result, yield projections in such studies are almost always shown to decline as a result of anticipated future temperature- and moisture-related stresses. But how might those projections change if the beneficial impacts of CO2 fertilization were incorporated into those studies?”
A Five-century Streamflow Reconstruction from China
Yang, Y., Chen, Y., Wang, M. and Sun, H. 2017. Reconstruction and analysis of the past five centuries of streamflow on northern slopes on Tianshan Mountains in Northern Xinjiang, China. Theoretical and Applied Climatology 129: 177-184. Dec 20, 2017
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V20/dec/a11.php
A Two-Century Reconstruction of Vapor Pressure Deficit and its Impact on a Boreal Forest
Liu, X., Zhang, X., Zhao, L., Xu, G., Wang, L., Sun, W., Zhang, Q., Wang, W., Zeng, X. and Wu, G. 2017. Tree ring δ18O reveals no long-term change of atmospheric water demand since 1800 in the northern Great Hinggan Mountains, China. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 122: 6697-6712. Dec 18, 2017
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V20/dec/a10.php
Model Issues
Review Of Climate Models Show They Are Unreliable For Forecasting…”So Much Disappointment”
Climate models totally fail in practice: Can atmospheric circulation be simulated at all?
By Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt (German text translated / edited by P Gosselin), No Tricks Zone, Dec 17, 2017
Changing Weather
Long-range predictability of seasonal Atlantic hurricane activity
By Jim Johnstone and Judith Curry, Climate Etc. Dec 20, 2017
Explaining their independent position: “Basically, we are liberated from the ‘gamesmanship’ of high impact academic research associated with journal publications, endless writing of grant proposals, and attending endless conferences, workshops and committee meetings that are needed so that you get sufficient recognition and your research interests are on the funding agenda.”
New Paper: Humans Caused Central U.S. To Cool By -0.35°C Since The 1940s As Crop Yields Soared
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, Dec 21, 2017
Link to paper: 20th-century regional climate change in the central United States attributed to agricultural intensification
By Alter, Douglas, Winter, and Eltahir, Geophysical Research Letters, Dec 19, 2017
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL075604/abstract
Global temperatures could drop next year as ash clouds from volcanic eruptions help cool the atmosphere, claims the Met Office
Volcanic eruptions could bring down global temperatures, the Met Office says
Forecasters have said that 2018 will be cooler than 2017 due to the La Nina event
La Nina means cooler than average sea temperatures present in the south Pacific
Volcanoes could bring this temperature down further due to the ash they emit
By Colin Fernandez, Daily Mail, UK, Dec 21, 2017
Global warming? Record snow on Alaska mountain peak linked to climate change
By Valerie Richardson, Washington Times, December 19, 2017 [H/t ICECAP]
Robusting the chances of a megadrought in the U.S.
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Dec 14, 2017
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/12/14/robusting-the-chances-of-a-megadrought-in-the-u-s/
Changing Seas
Dueling science: One study says melting Antarctic ice sheet will flood US east coast, others say ‘uncertain
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Dec 13, 2017
Inland flood threat increasing in South Florida
Water management strategies likely exacerbating the problem
By Staff Writers, NSF, Dec 13, 2017
https://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=243914&WT.mc_id=USNSF_1
“Now, hydrologist Michael Sukop of Florida International University and colleagues have released a model that points to South Florida’s groundwater policies as a cause of the region’s flooding.”
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet has history of instability
NSF-funded researchers find that ice sheet is dynamic and has repeatedly grown and shrunk
By Staff Writers, NSF, Dec 13, 2017
https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=243902&WT.mc_id=USNSF_51&WT.mc_ev=click
“Using marine seismic technology deployed from an ice breaker, researchers were able to reconstruct how glaciers on the Sabrina Coast have advanced and retreated over the past 50 million years.” [Boldface added]
[SEPP Comment: Given the advances and retreats of ice in the Northern Hemisphere over the last million years, the Arctic Ice Sheet is Highly Unstable.]
Un-Science or Non-Science?
Claim: Climate change made Harvey rainfall 15 percent more intense
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Dec 14, 2017
Link to paper: Attribution of extreme rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, August 2017
By Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, Environmental Research Letters, Dec 13, 2017
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa9ef2/meta
“…human-caused climate change made the record rainfall that fell over Houston during Hurricane Harvey roughly three times more likely and 15 percent more intense.”
[SEPP Comment: How did they test their model, with other untested models?]
Lowering Standards
The Polar-Bear-Gate Saga: How a picture is worth a thousand lies – Paul Nicklen and Michael Mann vs Susan Crockford
Guest essay by Jim Steele, WUWT, Dec 15, 2017
“Due to an editorial error, the original image associated with this Letter was not a photograph, but a collage. The image was selected by the editors [of Science, the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science], and it was a mistake to have used it. The original image has been replaced in the online HTML and PDF versions of the article with an unaltered photograph from National Geographic.” [dated 2010]
Communicating Better to the Public – Exaggerate, or be Vague?
Calif. city with water on 3 sides faces grim future
By Anne C. Mulkern, E & E, Dec 14, 2017
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/12/14/stories/1060069003
“But with about 3.3 feet of sea-level rise at midcentury, the city cannot protect properties in several parts of town, he said.”
[SEPP Comment: Whose sea level calculation?]
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Weubbles Gone Wild: presenting alarming new projections for US temperature
By Anthony Watts, WUWT, Dec 13, 2017
Communicating Better to the Public – Go Personal.
The Big Erik Conway Problem, Pt 2
By Russell Cook, Gelbspan Files.com, Dec 13, 2017
http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=6007
Questioning European Green
German Energy Policy Gone Lost: “Energiewende Has Failed,” Writes Leading Environmentalist
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Dec 19, 2017
“The wind power industry and nature protection cannot be reconciled.”
Major Blow To ‘Energiewende’ As Top German Economist Shows Plan Can Never Work!
By P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, Dec 22, 2017
Funding Issues
Trump officials limit government scientists allowed to attend conference: report
By Max Greenwood, The Hill, Dec 22, 2017
[SEPP Comment: The limit of government financing does not prevent the government scientists from attending and presenting papers at their own expense.]
Litigation Issues
D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Regulations
By Staff Writers, RMM, June 29, 2012
Cap-and-Trade and Carbon Taxes
Republicans Blow Their Chance to Pass a Carbon Tax
Despite much cajoling and prodding from fellow conservatives, the party didn’t adopt a climate policy in the new tax bill.
By Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic, Dec 20, 2017 {H/t GWPF]
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Clean energy: Experts outline how governments can successfully invest before it’s too late
By Staff Writers, Science Daily, Dec 6, 2017 [H/t WUWT]
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171206132223.htm
Link to paper: Six principles for energy innovation
Decades of experience must inform future initiatives, urge Gabriel Chan and colleagues.
By Gabriel Chan, et al. Nature, Dec 6, 2017
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-017-07761-0
Link to statistics: Energy technology RD&D budgets, Overview
By Staff Writers, IEA, 2017
https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/EnergyTechnologyRDD2017Overview.pdf
“Researchers distill twenty years of lessons from clean energy funding into six ‘guiding principles’. They argue that governments must eschew constant reinventions and grant scientists greater influence before our ‘window of opportunity’ to avert climate change closes.”
[SEPP Comment: Just send money, don’t evaluate our performance.]
EPA and other Regulators on the March
EPA moves toward updating lead water pipe standards
By Timothy Cama, The Hill, Dec 14, 2017
Wave of officials leaving EPA under Trump: report [from the New York Times and ProPublica]
By Julia Manchester, The Hill, Dec 22, 2017
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/366150-wave-of-officials-leaving-epa-under-trump-report
Link to article: E.P.A. Officials, Disheartened by Agency’s Direction, Are Living in Droves
By Friedman, Affo, and Kravitz, NYT, Dec 22, 2017
Energy Issues – Non-US
ECIU [Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit] Resort To Outright Lies About Power Bills
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 22, 2017
“’Record low prices for new renewables will bring bills down for British homes and businesses.’”
“New renewable projects due to come on stream in the next five years will be eye wateringly expensive and heavily subsidised, all of course to be added to power bills.”
Global solar photovoltaic installations to exceed 100 Gigawatts in 2018
By Staff Writers, London, UK (SPX), Dec 19, 2017 [H/t Toshio Fujita]
The war on coal is a war on the environment and the poor.
By Bryan Leyland and Tom Harris, Australian Climate Sceptics, Dec 21, 2017
http://theclimatescepticsparty.blogspot.com.au/2017/12/the-war-on-coal-is-war-on-environment.html
Energy Issues – Australia
Welcome to renewables world: Australia plans for blackouts, throws billions of dollars, but ABC says it will get “cheaper”
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Dec 21, 2017
Australia’s Electricity Markets On A Rollercoaster
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, Dec 18, 2017
Forget Megawatts, ABC invents new unit of power — “size of Tasmania”
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Dec 17, 2017
Everyone cutting coal use except for most of the world and most of the banks
The situation with our most hated energy asset
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Dec 18, 2017
“And in the last three years, Chinese banks have casually smashed $630 billion dollars into coal. (Notably, even the Chinese don’t want to put money into Adani coal in Australia, the political environment here is that bad.)”
Seven reasons why BHP — a giant coal miner — wants to stop lobbying FOR coal
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, Dec 19, 2017
Washington’s Control of Energy
Congress votes to open Alaska refuge to oil drilling
By Timothy Cama, The Hill, Dec 20, 2017
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
Wall Street Returns To U.S. Shale With A Bang
By Nick Cunningham, Oil Price.com, Dec 19, 2017
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Wall-Street-Returns-To-US-Shale-With-A-Bang.html
First LNG cargo ready to leave the Russian Arctic
by Daniel J. Graeber, Washington (UPI) Dec 8, 2017 [H/t Toshio Fujita]
https://www.upi.com/First-LNG-cargo-ready-to-leave-the-Russian-Arctic/3891512730742/
Tables Turned: Saudi Arabia Hunts for Oil Assets in the U.S.
Aramco has held initial talks with Tellurian, other U.S. producers about energy assets
By Sarah McFarlane and Summer Said, WSJ, Via GWPF, Dec 21, 2017
https://www.thegwpf.com/tables-turned-saudi-arabia-hunts-for-oil-assets-in-the-u-s/
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Forgone benefits of disruption to nuclear power since late-1960’s
By Peter Lang, Climate Etc. Dec 21, 2017
Link to paper: Nuclear Power Learning and Deployment Rates; Disruption and Global Benefits Forgone
By Peter Lang, Energies, Dec 18, 2017
http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/12/2169#stats_id
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
BP’s New Solar Venture
By John Constable, GWPF, Dec 18, 2017
https://www.thegwpf.com/bps-new-solar-venture/
“BP’s return to the solar sector, as a developer of solar power stations, rather than a manufacturer of panels, is further evidence that the renewable sector, even at its most potentially interesting, is less a technology business and more the securing of entitlements to land development rights, grid connection, market infeed and supported or guaranteed income. Bluntly, it is rent-seeking.”
[SEPP Comment: Mercantilism renewed: Seek protection of government power from competition.]
Energy & Environmental Newsletter: December 18, 2017
By John Droz, Master Resource, Dec 18, 2017
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Other
Carbon Loophole: Why Is Wood Burning Counted as Green Energy?
By Fred Pearce, Yale Environment 360, Dec 19, 2017
http://e360.yale.edu/features/carbon-loophole-why-is-wood-burning-counted-as-green-energy
[SEPP Comment: Does burning dung also qualify?]
Environmental Industry
The Radical “Environmentalists” Are Too Often the Problem, Not the Answer
By Alan Carlin, Carlin Economics and Science, Dec 21, 2017
http://www.carlineconomics.com/archives/4096
Greens launch ads against Trump environmental pick
By Timothy Cama, The Hill, Dec 21, 2017
SeaLegacy’s remarks about polar bear hunt ‘racist and factually untrue,’ says Iqaluit mayor
By Carol Off and Jeff Douglas, CBC Canada, Dec 14, 2017
Other Scientific News
For the first time scientists have directly observed living bacteria in polar ice and snow
From Press Release, University of York, Dec 20, 2017 [H/t GWPF]
https://phys.org/news/2017-12-scientists-bacteria-polar-ice.html
No link to paper to be published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
NASA’s CATS concludes successful mission on Space Station
Press Release, NASA, Dec 6, 2017
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-s-cats-concludes-successful-mission-on-space-station
“The CATS measurements enabled more accurate aerosol modeling and forecasting and improved tracking and forecasting of volcanic plumes and associated costly aviation hazards. It also advanced our understanding of aerosol proximity to clouds, which is critically important to predicting the effects of cloud-aerosol interaction on the Earth’s climate system.”
[SEPP Comment: Hopefully, this will begin the compiling of good historical data on the global distribution of clouds at all levels, which is needed.]
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE:
They’re onto us!
By Staff Writers, Climate Change Predictions, Dec 21, 2017
http://climatechangepredictions.org/uncategorized/2993
“Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth’s atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain.
“Shawn Domagal-Goldman of Nasa’s Planetary Science Division and his colleagues compiled a list of plausible outcomes that could unfold in the aftermath of a close encounter, to help humanity ‘prepare for actual contact’.”
The Guardian, 19 Aug 2011
*** MERRY CHRISTMAS! ***
Bless Us All
(youtube — “Muppets Christmas Carol”)
Love,
Janice
#(:))
Amen
God Kissed the World on Christmas Day…
Happy Christmas 🎄 Janice!
O yes – and everyone else!
🙂
As regards the question from Fred Singer, I suspect that when the cycle turns and the planet heads back into the cooling phase there will be many who suddenly buy into the notion that it is still caused by CO2.
Cooling is much more destructive than warming. Great civilizations have been brought down by the famines and plagues associated with cooling.
So the purveyors of man-caused disaster will simply switch propaganda memes and go on stroking the anti-capitalist anti-human agenda. The kind of nebulous future apocalypse doesn’t matter so much as long as there is a scary disaster to blame on the “enemy”.
The joke will be on them, though, nobody will be paying attention to ideological demagogues in the struggle to survive, using every tool available. Including fossil fuels until something better comes along.
And they can use the exact same models. Just reverse the sign in their algorithm and they’ll perform beautifully. Mirthless laugh.
The cycle may have turned already.
rh – what is this post and what is its source?
Very good comments Bruce – thank you.
I reject the notion that increasing atmospheric CO2 can cause major warming AND cooling. Whatever the impact of increasing atmospheric CO2, the sensitivity of climate to varying atmospheric CO2 is small, within +/-1C/(2xCO2)* and probably within +/-0.5C/(2xCO2) or even less.
For details on the quantification of climate sensitivity to increasing atm. CO2, see Christy and McNider 1994 and 2017*.
It is increasingly evident that global warming alarmism is a false crisis, promoted for political and financial gain. It is the greatest fraud, in dollar terms, in history.
The “Great Conundrum” for climate science that most scientists are still afraid to discuss, is that I proved in 2008** that CO2 LAGS TEMPERATURE BY ~9 MONTHS in the modern data record. Humlum et al re-affirmed and expanded this hypo in 2013**. Ocean temperatures (e.g. Nino34 area) lead atmospheric temperatures, which lead atmospheric CO2 trends – that is the mechanism, so the claim that ”CO2 is the primary driver of global temperature” essentially claims that “the future is causing the past” – an untenable hypothesis (within this space-time continuum).
For the past 30+ years, the popular notion that “increasing atm. CO2 is causing dangerous global warming” has clearly been proven false, based on the evidence. Tens of trillions of dollars have been misappropriated due to this scam, and energy systems have been greatly compromised.
My only remaining prediction from 2002, for moderate global cooling to re-commence by ~2020 to 2030, is looking increasingly probable, since solar activity has crashed in SC 24 (and probably also in SC25). I hope to be wrong about this last prediction – both humanity and the environment suffer in a cooling world.
Happy Holidays to all!
Allan in Calgary
**References:
1. MacRae, 2008
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
2. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/from:1979/mean:12/derivative/plot/uah5/from:1979/scale:0.22/offset:0.14
3. Humlum et al, January 2013
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818112001658
Highlights of Humlum:
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 11–12 months behind changes in global sea surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging 9.5–10 months behind changes in global air surface temperature.
– Changes in global atmospheric CO2 are lagging about 9 months behind changes in global lower troposphere temperature.
– Changes in ocean temperatures explain a substantial part of the observed changes in atmospheric CO2 since January 1980.
– Changes in atmospheric CO2 are not tracking changes in human emissions.
Post Script:
The atmospheric cooling I predicted (4 months in advance) using the Nino34 anomaly has started to materialize in November 2017 – more to follow. This is weather, not climate (I hope).
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1527601687317388&set=a.1012901982120697.1073741826.100002027142240&type=3&theater
Data:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/sstoi.indices
Year Month Nino34 Anom dC
2017 6 0.55
2017 7 0.39
2017 8 -0.15
2017 9 -0.43
2017 10 -0.46
2017 11 -0.86
These kids won’t buy it. They’ll show their warmy believer teachers who scream at them,’heretics!! Deniers!!’ and make their lives miserable every school day after.
Perhaps their teachers already make their lives miserable. It may just maintain status quo.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5AUPwybxsFE/TvWQoijVv9I/AAAAAAAACx8/oNjksd4L8Ws/s1600/melty%2Bchristmas.jpg
Merry Christmas to you all from Wales, Nadolig Llawen i pawb gan Cymru !
Remember, bad children get coal in their stockings, good children get solar panels and so can be smug all year 🙂
In Vijay Jayaraj’s American Thinker Article (link found above) does a very good gob, but in my opinion, incorrectly summarizes the scientific misbehavior revealed by the Climategate e-mails. He states the e-mails revealed corruption that sought to modify climate datasets. As I recall them, Climategate e-mails certainly did reveal corruption and a wide conspiracy, but it was a far broader type of corruption that is revealed. They show a group of people behaving not as honest, objective scientists, dispassionately questioning evidence revealed by nature, but rather as petty, back-stabbing, jealous political activists, on a mission to support the objectives of the most radical environmentalists and NGOs, to gatekeep and propagandize the public under the IPCC process, to misuse and redefine the process of peer-review and scientific publishing. In short, they reveal tendentious questioning and corrupt science processes as legitimate under a new banner called post-normal science. They show a group of beneficiaries of public funding behaving as a corrupt class of bureaucrats protecting their rice bowl. Steve Schneider revealed the true, corrupt hearts of the hockey team, and to his death, did not understand how his own words and attitude revealed the corruption like a Freudian slip. If you recall he was the man who wrote that scientists must decide whether or not to be strictly honest or to lie (exaggerate, color their results) to more effectively propagandize the message of CAGW alarm. No real scientist should ever entertain the latter possibility. But that is precisely what defines so-called “post-normal” science.
Thank you for working this weekend, Mr. Watts.
According to Fred Singer:
That seems to be accepted science.
On the other hand, some folks insist that stratospheric cooling is due to less heat escaping from the troposphere because of increased CO2. Santer
Thermodynamics is a female dog and far from being intuitive. Almost every WUWT comments section has one or more folks getting things badly wrong. Misunderstanding of thermodynamics also extends to folks who call themselves climate scientists.
The science is not settled. For example, we have this news that Navier-Stokes fails under certain conditions. All of our scientific laws break down under certain conditions.
Given the above, I would give no confidence to Ben Santer’s hypothesis that stratospheric cooling is due to AGW. It’s good that Fred Singer points out the correct science.
Just one quibble – should be “female canine”. “Dog” is the term for a male canine. “Female male” though, is probably accepted for some politically correct thing or the other.
“Quibbling” has been called “Bitching”.
A nice Christmas present from President Trump to the American taxpayers was just made public on Sunday night by our U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, when she announced a historic reduction of $285 million in the U.N. biennial operating budget for the 2018-19 fiscal year.
That is a good “start” for President Trump even though it is only a “drop-in-the-bucket” of wasteful spending that could be eliminated because the U.S. pays about 22 percent of the U.N.’s budget, or roughly $3.3 billion, and fully 28 percent of its peacekeeping effort.
Now, if only President Trump would present a New Year’s present to the American taxpayers by announcing MAJOR reductions in the following wasteful “down-a-rathole-into-the-pockets-of-troughfeeders” spending, to wit:
Excerpted from above published article:
La Nina is conducive to abundant rains in the Amazon.
http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mtpw2/product.php?color_type=tpw_nrl_colors&prod=samer1×pan=24hrs&anim=html5
Is the temperature in Minneapolis tomorrow will decline?
It is worth to note.
http://pics.tinypic.pl/i/00953/f9t9t3hpcswg.png
The forecast of ozone circulation shows that the polar vortex is cut off to the north of Alaska.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_o3mr_30_nh_f120.png
http://files.tinypic.pl/i/00953/6ud91iuug1vj.png
The polar vortex in the lower stratosphere guarantees that the Arctic air will remain for a longer time in the US.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/70hPa/orthographic=-93.88,78.47,342
https://earth.nullschool.net/#2017/12/30/0000Z/wind/isobaric/850hPa/overlay=mean_sea_level_pressure/orthographic=-92.47,37.37,1191
Yep, ren, winter has come early to South Carolina. 2-3 weeks early. I’m afraid it foreshadows a really bad winter for us. This happened about ten years ago and it was cold til the end of February.
Shown here is an example 50-km Sea Surface Temperature (SST) Anomaly product map. Click the image for more information and a larger view of the latest near-real-time 50-km SST Anomaly data.
To calculate a sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly, we first needed to know the long-term mean SSTs globally. We took almost 10 years of NOAA polar-orbiting satellite SST measurements and calculated the mean SSTs in each month for every ocean pixel around the world. These monthly means are called the SST “climatology” and are available on our website. We use the SST climatology to calculate the twice-weekly 50-km SST Anomaly product, which identifies where the SST is different from the normal conditions for that day of the year.
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anomnight.12.25.2017.gif
http://pics.tinypic.pl/i/00953/o2e43xtqqqu6.png
To calculate a sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly, we first needed to know the long-term mean SSTs globally. We took almost 10 years of NOAA polar-orbiting satellite SST measurements and calculated the mean SSTs in each month for every ocean pixel around the world. These monthly means are called the SST “climatology” and are available on our website. We use the SST climatology to calculate the twice-weekly 50-km SST Anomaly product, which identifies where the SST is different from the normal conditions for that day of the year.
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anomnight.12.25.2017.gif
Look at the pressure.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/500hPa/overlay=mean_sea_level_pressure/orthographic=-104.44,81.17,298