Reposted from The No Tricks Zone
In an interview with publicist Roland Tichy, Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt – one of the founders of Germany’s modern environmental movement – said we have in fact three generations time to revamp the world’s energy supply system to one that is cleaner and sustainable.
He rejects the Fridays For Future claim that there are only 12 years left.
Climate catastrophe not taking place
In the interview, moderator Tichy reminded that civilization began 7000 years ago, a time when it was “3°C warmer than today”, and Vahrenholt responded saying he expects civilization to continue for another seven thousand years. There was no tipping point back then, why would there be one today? “Warmth and moisture have always been good for mankind,” said Vahrenholt. “Cold has been man’s worst enemy.”
Plenty of time to move rationally
The German professor also said that the claimed catastrophe “is not taking place” and that policymakers are trying to use “panic and fear to get the people to act.” Much of the warming measured since 1850 is the result of natural warming taking place due to the end of the Little Ice Age, he explained.
Germany’s green fantasy
Later the German professor of chemistry calls the belief that wind and sun are able replace fossil fuels “fantasizing” and that Germany, with its 2.3% share of global CO2 emissions, can rescue the global climate “a fairy tale”.
Meanwhile, the warming of the last 150 years is in large part caused by natural cycles. “In the 20th century the sun was more active than at any time over the past 2000 years.”
Economically, Vahrenholt believes that a frenzied rush to renewables will lead to “horrible” economic consequences from European industrialization.
On the topic of a scientific consensus, the German professor says this is a claim made by the IPCC, which run by the UN with an agenda behind it.
Electric cars a “crackpot idea”
Vahrenholt also believes electric cars powered by batteries is not a feasible technology, and that other experts quietly call it “a crackpot idea”, and don’t speak up for fear of losing research funding. The vast majority of funding comes from the German government.
“Paris Accord already dead”
The professor of chemistry, co-author of a recent bestseller, also describes Germany as a country in denial when it comes to the broader global debate taking place on climate science, and declared the Paris Accord as being “already dead”.
“The Accord is already dead. Putin says it’s nonsense. […] The Americans are out. The Chinese don’t have to do anything. It’s all concentrated on a handful of European countries. The European Commission in massively on it. And I predict that they will reach the targets only if they destroy the European industries,” said Vahrenholt.
He characterizes Europe’s recent push for even stricter emissions reduction targets to madness akin to Soviet central planning that is doomed to fail spectacularly.
I see more and more individuals pointing out the fallacies around so-called renewable energy. Perhaps someone in a position of authority will take notice and do something to halt this “renewable energy” damn foolishness.
Finally some rational thinking but will it get media attention?
Of course not! Disaster sells, whether it be real disaster or predicted disaster, and the media wants to sell news, that is how it makes money. Find more people to predict disaster, and then promote it.
The purpose of the media…the mainstream media…is not first of all to make money, but to be the Ministry of Propaganda for those that own and control it. It is simply the mouthpiece of its owners, and those owners are megalomaniacal, wealthy, powerful sociopaths. What they vomit out non-stop are the narratives that its owners want the sheople to hear over and over and over again until they believe the lies and become zombified supporters of their Ministry of Propaganda. Brainwashing is the name of the game. Climate change, panic-demics, water shortage, war, false flags…whatever it takes to keep the sheople fearful and willing to give up their liberties and independence for any promise of safety. “We’ll keep you safe,” say the wolves to the sheep.
I call it crisis porn. Everything is an “unprecedented” (the most over-used word of the 21st century) crisis.
It’s not that people are sheeple. It’s that many people actually desire to be told what to do and think. Taking orders relieves one of all the hard work of living.
Virtue-signalling is one’s public display of loyalty to the greater authority (GA), typically a moral authority, that removes all moral ambiguity and makes life a mindless breeze (except for the 5% who live by personal ethics). Display then becomes the passport to general acceptance.
Unless the GA needs a scapegoat for its inevitable and fatal programmatic failures. Then arrest, trial, and execution of the wreckers can hit anyone.
But as the probability that any specific person takes the hit is low, no one will see the danger to themselves when someone else is hoisted to the gibbet.
Collectivism is the enemy of individual freedom, and reflexive collectivism is the mortal enemy of a future for our species.
Pat I’ll frame that . . .
Generally, Pat, I agree with you. However, I would change a word.
“Taking orders relieves one of all the hard work of living.”
Taking orders relieves one of all the hard work of thinking.
Or, Taking orders relieves one of all the hard work of being responsible.
Good analysis, Pat.
This is the biggest obstacle that sceptics have to overcome, and it is a deep-rooted facet of human nature that you have well identified. It also underlies a lot of the ‘clout’ of religion. Not without reason do Christians speak of a god “whose service is perfect freedom”[although many will argue that the church itself has departed grossly from the original message].
Religions work in ordinary life because they are prescriptive. Although that is no longer true of Christianity – which may be why it is haemorrhaging church attendance – it is still true in spades of Islam, which tells you not only what to think, but also gives you a schedule of instructions and even a timetable by which to lead your daily life. Islam is adding many converts.
I agree Pat. With all this hoopla about a clean source of fuel for transportation they should be looking at hydrogen powered vehicles. Emissions are water.
… “unprecedented” (the most over-used word of the 21st century) crisis.
“Worse than previously thought” is right in there.
From my file of tag lines smart remarks etc:
If the Climate Change headline says,
“Worse than previously thought”
Historical data has been re-written.
Oh, good Lawdy!!!! Apostasy!!!! Was stimmt nicht mit ihm?? The world is going to simply fall apart because of what he said… or not. A lot of people are going to be really, really mad at him. He told Da Troot and — ooohh, Lawdy, Lawdy, Lawdy, whatever will the Greenbeaners do???? (My guess is the nonsense with the effigy in a public square…. but what do I know?)
I feel much better now. Some chocolate chip cookies, a nice hot cup of tea, and a good book solves everything.
Thank you for publishing that. All is not lost, no matter what…..
Sara, you might want to put some “mommies little helper” in that hot tea, like, before it’s too late?
OH, Ron, I do enjoy a good bout of sarcasm and snide remarks, when the occasion calls for it.
If I’m reading things with even a small degree of accuracy, the whole Greenbeaner/ecohippie/save the planet charade is showing cracks in its surface, which may be why these people are speaking out. Let the little nidgewits whine and cry and complain and throw tantrums. Sometimes, the truth they don’t want to hear is painful.
Also, to be clear, I forgot to add that civilization more than likely began somewhere in the Middle East between 12,000 and 15,000 years ago, at a place in Syria called Tel Qaramel. I say “more likely” than Professor Vahrenholt’s “7,000 years ago” because the physical evidence is there.
Four round stone towers about 17 feet in diameter, with stone walls as much as 3.5 feet thick were found about 11 years ago, and a fifth, possibly of earlier construction has recently been found. Stone and bone implements were also found.
I will NOT be surprised if even older construction is found, excavated and dated.
To find really old remains one should search the sea bottom. Ancient towns probably were situated close to the shore line. 15000 years ago that was 100-120 meters down.
Sara writes “civilization more than likely began somewhere in the Middle East between 12,000 and 15,000 years ago, at a place in Syria called Tel Qaramel.”
Since you enjoy reading a good book, try this one by Graham Hancock:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAXIWnzGLnw
GRAHAM HANCOCK – AMERICA BEFORE: THE KEY TO EARTH’S LOST CIVILIZATION
The video above is a good synopsis of the book.
He shows all branches of so called science have the same groupthink that we see in the climate cultism – archaeology being one. Both groupthink and cancel culture, and consensus bias have been in evidence with archaeology for some time, and Graham has been pilloried until some new evidence has been steadily coming to light in the last decade.
Numerous scientific papers and studies find evidence of civilization up to 130,000 years ago in North America!
The dating of approx 12,000 years ago, was a global cataclysm, which destroyed the rather advanced civilization at the time. But his research goes further and is most interesting.
It is a fascinating 3/4 of an hour, the above video, and I am sure the book is equally riveting.
That looks good! Thanks! I know Heidelberg man preceded Neandertals and Us (Cro Magnon), showing up about 800,000 years ago, and their remains and campsites, with things they made such as spearpoints and javelins and cutting tools, have been located repeatedly.
I will look at that. Thank you!
“Numerous scientific papers and studies find evidence of civilization up to 130,000 years ago in North America!”
Name a few.
MarkW writes:
““Numerous scientific papers and studies find evidence of civilization up to 130,000 years ago in North America!”
Name a few.”
Hancock’s book has the references to papers, however Amazon preview omits the reference pages.
https://www.amazon.com/America-Before-Earths-Lost-Civilization/dp/1250153735/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1602244196&sr=1-1
Check out the Amazon link, and click on the book to “look inside” and there are many references to these papers in Chapter 4. He lists the authors and the paper’s subjects in this chapter but you cannot access the footnotes unless you buy the book.
More germane to WUWT, Hancock documents how this groupthink and consensus science nonsense is not limited to Climate Catastrophists! It is ingrained in academia in all branches of so called science! (Hancock documents this problem with archaeology, and I can attest first hand it exists in physics too – if you find evidence that challenges the orthodox view)
Sara,
Vahrenholt did not say that human history began 7,000 years ago. The reference was to gold artifacts on display in the museum where the interview was recorded and it was the host who made the comment beginning at 0:33 in the video. He asks Vahrenholt if the world will still be around in 7,000 years or as Fridays for Future claims, it will end in 12 years. Vahrenholt then replies that the world will in now way end and mentions that 7,000 years ago the temperature was 3 degrees warmer than today. It will certainly still be here in 7,000 years. There’s no reference at any point that civilization began 7,000 years ago.
Hope the prof. Has tenure. That level of honesty would get him fired at most universities.
The majority of American professors are now adjuncts living hand to mouth. We won’t see any climate change skepticism from them.
Smart man that Professor Fritz. Could he kindly have a word with the new Boris Johnson? The old Boris got it about right when he once claimed that wind power couldn’t ‘blow the skin off a rice pudding’, never mind power a modern industrialised economy. We live in hope!
Varenholt is a good guy, and does carry some authority, but I understand that in Germany he has been successfully portrayed as a fringe scientist who has no support amongst his peers. Part of that may be his tendency to exaggerate – or at least to fail to qualify – his statements. It gets him noticed, yes, but gives plenty of hostages to fortune.
One example is to call electric-powered vehicles a ‘crackpot idea’. It isn’t, and it will come. It will come whether or not the alarmists hold sway, although it will come very much more quickly if they do. It will come first in the cities, where air pollution is a legiimate concern, and it will be a long, long while before it is practical on the open road, and even longer for trucks, but it will come. It will come in parallel with the rollout of autonomous vehicles. It will not, in the long term, be stymied by a lack of resources. The suggestion that we will run out of cobalt, or lithium, or some other key product, is as misguided as the idea that we will run out of oil.
But of course, it will give central authorities more power over the people, and individual freedoms will have to restricted in order to achieve it. And it will be expensive. Very, very, very expensive.
He should have qualified his remarks to this measure, which I expect he knows perfectly well (I may be unfair to him in this, of course, as I don’t read German)
You’re advocating communism to pay homage to the gaia religion. This will end well!
You misunderstand me. I’m not in favour of a single penny of subsidy for the EV program, nor of any tax breaks, obligations or mandates to assist them. I’m merely claiming that Electric vehicles are very likely, eventually, be a big part of our society, even if global warming had never been dreamt up, and that to call the idea ‘crackpot’ has little justification.
EV’s have been around in one form or another since 1838. The problem is the physics and chemistry of batteries. Just look at the performance of the latest cell phones which have the most advanced batteries. Woefull!
The idea that electrics will ever play more than a niche role, so long as we are limited to chemical batteries, is a crackpot idea.
And where will the electrons come from?
Gasoline cars haven’t been the a source of urban air pollution for about 40 years. There is a relatively minor problem with diesel engines, but nothing that can’t be controlled. Anyone who advocates electric vehicles in order to eliminate air pollution simply isn’t following the science.
Electrics will never be practical for the open road or for trucks, not until anti-matter power is perfected.
I remember once being on a GSA fieldtrip in Baja. Our fuel tanks were getting low. We came to a small village that didn’t have any electricity. However, some enterprising person had built a platform, hauled in some 55-gallon drums of gasoline, and supplied gasoline fed by gravity. We gladly paid a high price for a scarce commodity. I can just see it now — Some progressive arriving in the village and saying “Where can I re-charge my Tesla pickup truck?”
Although, one advantage I can see is that if you have plenty of food and water, and carry some solar panels, you can wait a few days while your battery recharges in the wilderness (assuming the weather cooperates). But, portable, high energy-density fuel does have a lot of advantages.
Again, go to the video and check the context. Vahrenholt said that other scientists with whom he has spoken call battery-powered autos a Schnappsidee (something you think up after drinking schnapps). The reasons he gave prior to that comment were that the overall effect of EVs is to emit more CO2 than a diesel car for most of its useful lifetime. So it is not a question of whether electric vehicles are technically feasible but rather that they are not a solution to reducing CO2 emissions before the supposed end of the world in 12 years.
Every scientist in Germany who doesn’t support the climate change dogma gets his or her reputation in danger and if they’re too young to retire, even lose their jobs. MSM and Antifa ensure that open discussion doesn’t happen. Vahrenholt even headed a company that produced wind turbines, but states that a renewable energy fraction over 50% compromises the whole system (see Climate Warning (Calgary)). As far as E-Autos are concerned: new battery technologies have to be developed. Some promising research is ongoing in the field of fluoride based cells. The availability of elements needed (Fluoride, Boron) and the higher resulting energy density (7 X) speaks for them (although Cobalt is also mentioned): https://www.electrive.com/2020/08/14/toyota-developing-flouride-ion-battery-with-1000-km-range/ They need to discover a way to operate them at room temperature (without heating), which could mean a loss of energy density though …
Mack refers to the ‘new’ Boris Johnson. He came about because Carrie, his partner, is a known Climate Worrier. Little hope of sense from him any more, I’m afraid…
I’ve been hugely disappointed by Boris.
A few years ago, in a Telegraph article, he described climate change alarmists as “doomsters” – one of his favourite words.
But no longer. He spouts the usual climate change nonsense. And he seems to have been completely taken in by the Covid equivalent of climate change fantasy, including a junk computer model that predicted 500,000 deaths and junk senior government scientists who recently published an appalling and anti-scientific hockey stick graph that would have made Mann proud.
I would have been a lifelong conservative voter, but no longer. At minimum, to regain my vote they would have to promise to scrap the Climate Change Bill and take Britain out of the Paris suicide pact. But I’m not holding my breath.
Chris
I’ve been a little gentle on Boris because I thought he was focused on Brexit and couldn’t deal with any additional political footballs until that is sorted. It’s getting close and he’s only as good as the last thing her did for me, so it’s almost time to shift focus. Anyway, I’m Canadian and can’t vote in the UK unless I claim my citizenship via my father’s birth. Have to watch powerlessly. Same as the U.S. election and my own idiot Trudeau for now. Frustrating!
In just a few months you will get to watch King Biden and Princess Harris shower taxpayer money and huge tax credits to all the high cost players in the solar sector and other renewables. The highest cost ones are loudest and hungriest with the most lobbyists and most ridiculous claims of renewable energy jobs to be saved. Watch them get the most benefit from round 2 of “we don’t pick winners” and you get to bail out the donor, non-player, losers like Solyndra. You will also see them sling vast taxpayer funds at research on new technology that also ignores the current low cost leaders driving the industry. This will be more of a nod to universities and other labs while the private sector best-of-breed players move along separate and apart with better working tech in the field. The taxpayer money thrown at EV and battery companies will exceed their sales in the first few years and all in the name of saving the eUAW union jobs.
Biden won’t be around for this scenario, whoever wins the election. Google “Torricelli, Robert”.
Biden’s plan is mostly a retread of Obama’s economic stimulus plan from his 1st campaign. The money was all wasted then; it will be all wasted this time. Why we need another infrastructure building plan when Obama supposedly did it 12 years ago is a question the MSM doesn’t have the spine to ask.
Oh and to others above–EVs are a crack pot idea.
Biden’s economic plan boils down to increase taxes on the rich and use the money to buy votes.
The only difference is that in this case, they seem to be defining rich as anyone who makes more than the minimum wage.
Meanwhile, the warming of the last 150 years is in large part caused by natural cycles. “In the 20th century the sun was more active than at any time over the past 2000 years.”
The topic is riddled with misinformation, and the above is no exception.
It is simply not true that the sun has been more active than at any time over the past 2000, or 10000, or 12000, or whatever years. https://leif.org/research/Nine-Millennia-Solar-Activity.pdf
On the other hand it is not necessary to try to advance that wrong argument.
TSI is not the whole story.
Changes in the particle and wavelength emissions from the sun have an effect on atmospheric chemistry that changes global albedo and thus global temperature.
There is no absolute requirement that TSI alone determines planetary surface temperature.
Leif is wrong to suggest that there is such a requirement.
I would say that it is TSI plus atmospheric mass plus the strength of the gravitational field that determines the surface temperature and TSI is modulated by albedo variations that are in turn determined by internal system characteristics.
Albedo variations are then compensated for by internal convective adjustments which is why planets can retain atmospheres indefinitely despite a multitude of potentially disruptive internal system characteristics.
Such as changes in the proportion of radiative gases.
He did not say that, you are putting words in his mouth. He was clearly referring to solar activity , which is governed by the Sun’s magnetic dynamo, not solar irradiance which is governed by the Sun’s thermonuclear output.
https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/what-is-solar-activity
Changes in the particle and wavelength emissions from the sun
Is totally unspecified and vague. Thus carries no weight, just hand waving.
Presumably these ‘changes’ are related to solar activity which have not changed as claimed.
Unless, of course, someone has “fiddled” with the data since then .
Has someone “adjusted” the data to suit an agenda, I wonder.
Unless, of course, someone has “fiddled” with the data since then .
Data fiddling is not unheard of in so-called “climate science”
A reminder to you Leif that your belief is based on reconstructing data and we can’t validate those reconstructions. To make a claim that it is wrong as if it is some sort of fact places you at crackpot status.
Why don’t you try something more technically correct that “you believe it to be wrong” or “it is arguably wrong by reconstruction”.
And what is Vahrenholt’s claim based on? The data is the best we have.
“you believe it to be wrong” is not how V frames it.
I agree it should have been prefaced with “I think” or “it is arguable” but we are also dealing with a reporter doing an interview so we would need the exact words he used. You are posting direct no 3rd party in the chain so your words matter more.
That is a rhetoric question because you do know the data on which Vahrenholt is basing his claim, since you copied that data for your reconstruction.
This is the data as published:
According to one of the latest past solar activity reconstructions (Wu et al., 2018), solar activity has been very high in a multimillennial comparison during the 20th century:
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2018/07/aa31892-17/aa31892-17.html
You qualify as misinformation something based on a peer-reviewed and published paper because something you wrote and was never published? Tsk, tsk. People should not believe so much what you say.
You qualify as misinformation something based on a peer-reviewed and published paper because something you wrote and was never published?
Reconstruction of the sunspot group number: the backbone method
Leif Svalgaard, Kenneth H Schatten
Publication date 2016/11/1
Solar Physics Volume 291
Pages 2653-2684
“We have reconstructed the sunspot-group count, not by comparisons with other reconstructions and correcting those where they were deemed to be deficient, but by a re-assessment of original sources. The resulting series is a pure solar index and does not rely on input from other proxies, e.g. radionuclides, auroral sightings, or geomagnetic records. “Backboning” the data sets, our chosen method, provides substance and rigidity by using long-time observers as a stiffness character. Solar activity, as defined by the Group Number, appears to reach and sustain for extended intervals of time the same level in each of the last three centuries since 1700 and the past several decades do not seem to have been exceptionally active, contrary to what is often claimed.
Apparently you are unable to run a simple 70-year running average on SILSO monthly sunspots. That gives you the answer you so obstinately refuse to see:
1935-2005 was certainly the 70-year period with highest activity in at least 600 years.
Funny how the period with highest solar activity in 600 years coincides with the period of highest temperatures in 600 years and yet there is no relation.
1935-2005 was certainly the 70-year period with highest activity in at least 600 years.
Not so. e.g. https://presentations.copernicus.org/EGU2020/EGU2020-17086_presentation.pdf
It looks like you are lacking in knowledge of trends in solar activity. All you can do is “tsk, tsk”.
If you think that there was a 70-year period with more solar activity than 1935-2005, perhaps you can point it to me so we can discuss and present arguments. All the rest is just arm-waving and “I’m the authority” type of arguments.
Show me the data for a 70-year period with higher solar activity.
SILSO database at:
http://www.sidc.be/silso/DATA/SN_m_tot_V2.0.txt
Shows the 70 year period 1935-2005 at a monthly average of 107.6 sunspots.
Go ahead. Show me a 70-year period with higher activity.
SN normalized to GN [divide by 19.65] and then average SN and GN.
Use yearly values as there are no monthly values before 1749.
Note that there is no significant difference between 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.
GN = Group Number, SN = sunspot number
No tsk, tsk here, just plain old data.
You are welcome to use my plot in your further ‘studies’.
If you just want to loo at the raw official SILSO sunspot numbers, here is a plot for you
http://www.sidc.be/silso/yearlyssnplot
This removes all arguments about selection shenanigans
From https://leif.org/research/Three-Centuries-of-Solar-Activity-Update.pdf
As you can see [if you bother to look] there has been recent progress in resolving the issue of solar activity the last 300+ years [no long-term trend].
Progress has been slow because bad science lives forever, but we are getting there.
You now have that on good authority.
So you couldn’t find a 70-year period with higher solar activity than 1935-2005, obviously.
That’s not surprising because there is none.
We can go to yearly data and back to 1700. The data is here:
http://www.sidc.be/silso/DATA/SN_y_tot_V2.0.txt
As easy as running a 70-year average over the dataset.
The winner peak is 1935-2004 with a yearly sunspot average of 108.49
The second peak is 1725-1794 with a yearly sunspot average of 93.78
The third peak is 1827-1896 with a yearly sunspot average of 88.77
There is no dividing in centuries that mean nothing to the Sun. There is no averaging extended maxima with extended minima. There is no taking no authority’s word for it. Anybody can check and see that the highest activity 70-year period took place between 1935-2004. It is known as the Modern Solar Maximum and it had over a period of 70 years 16 % more sunspots on average than the next known previous peak in activity that took place in the 18th century.
The winner peak is 1935-2004 with a yearly sunspot average of 108.49
The second peak is 1725-1794 with a yearly sunspot average of 93.78
What you don’t realize is that the early data has a much larger error bar than the modern one. And that therefore the difference is not statistically relevant. What the ISSI team is now doing is to collect new data for the 18th century in order to bring down the error bar. Also, the SN still uses the old Wolf assessment of Staudach’s group count which was undercounted by some 25% (see https://leif.org/research/Recount-of-Staudach.pdf). It may well turn out that the 18th century was more active than the 20th. At this point all we can say is that they are of the same order of magnitude within their error bars, which, BTW, is very large before 1749.
It may help you to study a recent result from the team
(especially section (c) of the graph). (Muñoz-Jaramillo, A., Vaquero, J.M. Visualization of the challenges and limitations of the long-term sunspot number record. Nat Astron 3, 205–211 (2019)).
One of the problems with the SN is that it lacks error bars for the 18th century.
The peer-reviewed published GN does not have that problem, so we can compare the 70-year averages directly:
1725-1794: 5.59+-0.58 i.e. somewhere in 4.61-6.56
1935-2005: 5.54+-0.21 i.e somewhere in 5.24-5.65
That is all we can say, i.e. statistically identical
I was one year off [sorry – but it also shows the sensitivity to choice of end-points. And one shouldn’t really ‘hunt around’ for what one likes best. The proper way is to choose end-points at the same phase of the sunspot cycle, e.g. at minimum; even if that makes the two time intervals slightly different in length].
This is what it should be [using your biased end-points]:
1725-1794: 5.59+-0.58 i.e. somewhere in 4.61-6.56
1935-2004: 5.48+-0.21 i.e. somewhere in 5.28-5.69
That is all we can say, i.e. statistically identical
This too is somewhat poorly translated. The comments immediately preceding the solar effect comment have been omitted. Vahrenholt stated that it was ocean oscillations which drive sea ice changes. Then he made the statement at 9:18 which you contest that “we have in the last 50 years the strongest solar effect in the past 2000 years”, but this was not a claim that it was the sun that drove the changes in sea ice.
It would be wise to comment on what was actually said than to rely on the translation.
Professor Vahrenholt sounds like a very reasonable person.
The Professor will probably be attacked by the alarmists for being so reasonable.
He is attacked since years as he and Sebastian Lüning published their book “The Neglected Sun”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/14/highly-controversial-german-climate-book-to-appear-worldwide-in-english-september-1st/
From the above article: “Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt . . . said we have in fact three generations time to revamp the world’s energy supply system to one that is cleaner and sustainable.”
Wow, that’s 60 years (per modern math). Whew! I was getting so concerned about pronouncements from James Hansen, Michael Mann, Al Gore, Greta Thunberg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Prince Charles, Prince Harry, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and the IPCC (to mention just a few) that we had only 2-15 years left before the CAGW catastrophe becomes irreversible and mankind is doomed to a CO2/runaway heat death.
I can sleep much easier now. Thanks.
People are having babies at an older age now, so maybe 3 generations is 90 years! Adulthood comes at about 50 for most of them so maybe 3 generations is 150 years! Must be a bright side to all the immaturity I see in the world.
Excellent point!
““The Accord is already dead. Putin says it’s nonsense. […] The Americans are out. The Chinese don’t have to do anything….”
And there you have it folks. Simple and to the point.
Yeah, the Chinese are building coal fired power plants like hot cakes ( numerically and quality-wise) and they have over 300 million people living on their coasts. Are they crazy or do their scientists not agree that everything will be underwater in a few years?
Or Mao’s communists planting 18m rice seeds per acre because they accepted Lyshenko’s communist biology that seeds were good communists and would grow better close together.
Like our own idiotic government here in Ireland. They took a break from shuting businesses and restricting movement to fight a coronavirus respiratory infectious causing to the death of 0-1 people >80s each day to announce that we will be carboln neutral by 2050.
How many bird killing windmills will that require?
Why do we allow idiots to rule?
Bit if Biden gets in, America will be right back into the Paris accord …
And the US will be screwed up and down by Brussels/Europe, to ensure the US will pay the lion share of the multi trillion dollar bill.
China and India, etc., will largely remain of the hook.
I wonder how many people realise that the continued prosperity of the WHOLE WORLD relies on the demented Biden sock-puppet NOT getting elected. !
It has been very sad to see Boris Johnson and senior members of his party having been deceived by the climate Armageddon nonsense. The UK is now on the wrong path and likely to suffer debilitating consequences in due course.
Also, Prince William, David Attenborough and many others.
I have, at best, 20 or so more years to live, probably less, and I am going to have to watch this depressing farrago play out.
Back in the 1950’s and 60’s the news was all about positive prospects for the future using technology to move forward.
Now every news report is negative. All positive progress is being ignored.
I have seen the world go from a hope for unity and progress to disunity and fears of disaster and it has coincided with the loss of confidence of western civilisation under pressure from socialism and the increasingly debilitating influence of ethnic minorities within their host communities.
It could have been so much better if the safe production of nuclear energy had been a priority and if ethnic minorities in western nations had been willing to learn from and engage in their welcoming (relative to past standards) host societies instead of harbouring hostility and resentment.
The world now has more people on average living longer than ever before with supplies of food and energy more than keeping pace and the ability to preserve the environment also running in parallel (but lagging in poorer nations) yet all we hear is gloom and pessimism.
That success is entirely attributable to White civilisation yet all we hear about is of past grievances from those who would never have been able to match such achievements whilst their own history is no better in their dealings with each other. Our Black community is thoroughly complicit in the slave trade which was an African institution that would have continued to this day if it were not for the sensitivities of the British.
There needs to be a fight back from rational optimists with the irrational pessimists being thoroughly discredited as soon as possible.
The evidence is all around us but those in power in the West lack all confidence and inspiration.
Stephen, I am about the same age and of the same feeling. What’s happening is bizarre.
I post comments in The Times, Financial Times and Telegraph but there are more people shouting me down than agreeing. So few want to look beyond scary headlines and see if there is truth and reason.
Indeed, Stephen.
It’s probably why we Generation Jonsers are jonesing for the better ‘future’ we were promised way back then.
The truth is out there, it merely gets shouted down by the aptly heretofore-defined ‘crisis pornographers’.
It seems insane.
UK Q1 2020 – 47% electricity from renewables. No grid outages.
Where is the problem?
Be very glad there is still so much GAS to stabilise the grid.
Windy WEATHER in February.
A lot less produced in Q2, thank goodness for the huge drop in demand, hey griffool
SO MUCH GAS needed for RELIABILITY. !
Hope its a mild winter, griffool.!
fred250, griff is one of those people who take techonology for granted, and doesn’st realize how easily it can break.
And how much GAS was used for domestic non-electricity purposes, Griffool
And how much will be needed in winter, especially if everyone is still locked indoors. .
Be very THANKFUL of that GAS supply, griffool.
Even with Covid, global COAL production will likely grow AGAIN in 2020.
https://www.mining.com/global-coal-production-to-grow-by-0-5-in-2020/
Just thermal coal is expected to climb to 7.6 billion tonnes by 2023
Great news for plant life, for sure. 🙂
Griff – UK renewables are still backed up by gas. Baseload is still carried by nuclear.
Duplicating power generation is a huge waste of resources and capital. It also negates the supposed CO2 benefits of operating renewables. The future of a national grid powered by intermittent renewables is pure fantasy. You can have 47% on occasion but you can’t power the UK reliably with renewables.
And the fundamental problem going forward is cost – renewables continue to hugely increase electricity costs. By power value, electricity is around 5 times more expensive than gas. Just check your utility bills.
Because you have to keep the fossil fuel plants at hot idle all of the time, it is debatable as to whether wind and solar actually reduce CO2 emissions at all.
Nice of the old people to turn off the heat they can no longer afford. That and then fact that 50,000 of them are dead kinda helps out. Unfortunately, everything the Greens do is based on lies. The real cost of this power is buried under layers of subsidies and twisted and contorted billing structures. Anything to keep the public from finding out the truth.
Solar power- in Britain! HAHAHAHA!
47% for a few minutes, once.
They did not get 47% for the whole quarter.
I have something like the same future life expectancy, and agree on most points. Physics will win, but we seem to be taking a very expensive and stupid route to the inevitable realisation. I am not sure why you need to mention ‘white civilisation’, although I can understand the temptation to provoke in the current climate. What colour was the skin of Socrates? Discuss, without getting in a bad temper, or offending anybody.
Stephen Wilde – I am in the same position. Its like watching the world go mad. To me there are so many elephants in the room, but to the general public and the politicians they are invisible.
TS
The Paris Accord is and always was a great cocktail party circuit.
All this green energy will do is move more manufacturing and wealth to China and India, where they will pump out more c02. Green energy creates more co2 instead of less. The co2 just moves to China and India.
TSI is not the whole story.
Changes in the particle and wavelength emissions from the sun have an effect on atmospheric chemistry that changes global albedo and thus global temperature.
There is no absolute requirement that TSI alone determines planetary surface temperature.
Leif is wrong to suggest that there is such a requirement.
I would say that it is TSI plus atmospheric mass plus the strength of the gravitational field that determines the surface temperature and TSI is modulated by albedo variations that are in turn determined by internal system characteristics.
Albedo variations are then compensated for by internal convective adjustments which is why planets can retain atmospheres indefinitely despite a multitude of potentially disruptive internal system characteristics.
Such as changes in the proportion of radiative gases.
Leif is wrong to suggest that there is such a requirement.
You are wrong to suggest that I suggest such a requirement.
Vahrenholt is wrong to suggest that solar activity recently has been the highest in 2000 years.
I would say that it is TSI plus atmospheric mass plus the strength of the gravitational field that determines the surface temperature and TSI is modulated by albedo variations that are in turn determined by internal system characteristics.
So, you are saying that since the mass of the atmosphere and the gravitational field do not vary, the only thing that determine the surface temperature is internal system variations. I.e. not the sun as TSI from the sun only varies by one in a thousand.
That’s your opinion. You could be the wrong one for saying it is not.
Berggren, A.-M.et al., Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L11801,
doi:10.1029/2009GL038004:
“We observe that although recent 10Be flux in NGRIP is low, there is no indication of unusually high recent solar activity in relation to other parts of the investigated period.”
As you have said many times, 10Be cannot be trusted much because it is subject to climate contamination. If 10Be is contaminated by climate then it cannot be used as an argument against the 20th century being a period of unusually high solar activity. It is then simply not reliable enough.
Pedro, Joel, et al. “Evidence for climate modulation of the 10Be solar activity proxy.” Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 111.D21 (2006).
“We have demonstrated a significant anti-correlation between changes in 10Be and oxygen isotope ratio (which we interpret as a climate variable) at Law Dome. The anti- correlation occurs over a period of time short enough to exclude variation in 10Be production. Climate modulation of 10Be transport and deposition must therefore be implicated. … Until the extent of climatic modulation of the 10Be proxy can be more adequately quantified the technique of reconstructing cosmogenic isotope production rates directly from 10Be concentrations in ice should be exercised with caution.”
Your 10Be card is not valid.
“should be exercised with caution.”
Your 10Be card is not valid.
There is a big difference between ‘caution’ and ‘not valid’.
In the case of solar activity there is additional evidence from the observations of sunspots and aurorae and geomagnetism. So due caution is indeed exercised.
Due caution is exercised by Wu et al., 2018 also, and they see increasing levels of solar activity for the past 600 years.
it does nothing to prove that something they utter has to be true. Their claims have to be supported by logic and facts.
In my case the prediction [and the estimate of error] is based on observations and the assumption that the polar fields is a proxy for the next cycle [as much theory and physics suggest]. So, as I said: my prediction is just a “further test of the polar field precursor method”. Nobody is talking about ‘proofs’. With each passing correct prediction the support for the assumption grows stronger, to the point [perhaps in a hundred years] where we can accept it as an observational ‘fact’.
Now, in evaluating the likelihood of success, I will maintain that half a century’s study of the issue lends more credence to the prediction than the opinion of arm-chair laymen’s [possible] bias claims. That is why the CV carries weight.
being one of the foremost researchers on this, my opinion counts.
Yours? not so much…
Fallacies of Relevance: Appeal to Authority
https://www.thoughtco.com/logical-fallacies-appeal-to-authority-250336
Fallacious appeals to authority take the general form of:
1. Person (or people) P makes claim X. Therefore, X is true.
A fundamental reason why the Appeal to Authority can be a fallacy is that a proposition can be well supported only by facts and logically valid inferences. But by using an authority, the argument is relying upon testimony, not facts. A testimony is not an argument and it is not a fact.
I’m sure that Lord Kelvin felt similarly when he estimated the age of the Earth.
If you are to have open heart surgery it pays to defer to authority.
The situation here is no different, especially [as you cite] when the argument is well supported by facts and logically valid inferences.
Attempted academic bullying, should be below you, Leif..
But its obviously your MO.
Leif
The trick is not to be the very first patient the heart surgeon works on. Because after the first one, they have experience and a track record that can be checked. Doing the identical procedure many times hones their mechanical skill. That is in contrast to a theorist, who is in new territory every time they present a new theory. Granted, that a theorist has high probability of being right if they have a track record of good forecasts. However, it is no guarantee that the next novel idea will be correct. That is why post-publication peer review is still an essential part of science, instead of just saying, “Well, they have always been right in the past; therefore, we can uncritically accept everything they write or say henceforth.” I’m just saying that being an expert gives one bragging rights, and allows one to slap something up on the office wall, but it does nothing to prove that something they utter has to be true. Their claims have to be supported by logic and facts. Citing the subjective opinion of being “one of the foremost researchers” gives some credibility, but it is not proof. I can say that having lived nearly four score years, I have a good track record on many things. However, I’m not infallible, nor would I ever try to convince someone I am. When challenged, the last thing I would consider is pulling out my C.V. and waving it around.
That is in contrast to a theorist, who is in new territory every time they present a new theory. Granted, that a theorist has high probability of being right if they have a track record of good forecasts.
BTW, I’m not a ‘theorist’ with a new theory. I am an observer, see e.g.
https://leif.org/research/Stanford-Solar-Obs.pdf
which, BTW, is interesting reading.
Our observational track record now covers successes for four cycles SC21-SC24 and we shall see about SC25 in due course [perhaps 4 years or so].
For Clyde:
it does nothing to prove that something they utter has to be true. Their claims have to be supported by logic and facts.
In my case the prediction [and the estimate of error] is based on observations and the assumption that the polar fields is a proxy for the next cycle [as much theory and physics suggest]. So, as I said: my prediction is just a “further test of the polar field precursor method”. Nobody is talking about ‘proofs’. With each passing correct prediction the support for the assumption grows stronger, to the point [perhaps in a hundred years] where we can accept it as an observational ‘fact’.
Now, in evaluating the likelihood of success, I will maintain that half a century’s study of the issue lends more credence to the prediction than the opinion of arm-chair laymen’s [possible] bias claims. That is why the CV carries weight.
Leif
While you disavow being a theorist, and claim only to be an “observer,” I don’t think that you have thought things through. A bird-watcher who participates in the annual national bird inventory, and submits the counts to the organizing group, is an observer. Anyone who takes observations (whether self-collected or published by others) and tries to make sense of them, through something as simple as a mental model, or tries to predict what future observations will be, requiring at least a supposition or tentative hypothesis, has transitioned from the realm of observation to theory! That is, if there is a purpose to making observations beyond something meaningless like counting grains of sand on a shifting beach, then you are a theorist — whether you realize it or not. However, I think that someone who knows they are acting as a theorist will do a better job because they will have more insight on the appropriate kinds of observations to make. It is likely that someone who is a pure “observer” is in the employ of someone who actually has some curiosity and vision. It is unfortunate that you only consider yourself an observer. You probably have more potential than that.
It is unfortunate that you only consider yourself an observer. You probably have more potential than that.
In my field a ‘theorist’ is one who does not [ever] make observations. One cannot be in this field for more than half a century without “thinking things through”.
If that’s the case Leif, I wish you had been involved in researching ‘renewables’, before they started rolling it out.
Certainly highest period of TSI since the LIA.
Unless you some data showing the RWP had even higher TSI, then you are just dealing nonsense.
Don’t show outdated data and hunt around for links that seem to agree with your bias.
This is what the TSI experts now think TSI was doing:
“This historical TSI reconstruction is my own “unofficial” series using corrections that I think reflect the most realistic and up-to-date estimates of the solar variability over the last 400 years, such as the recent revisions to sunspot-number records”
From Greg’s website: https://spot.colorado.edu/~koppg/TSI/
The internal system characteristics I have in mind are the system responses to solar wavelength and particle changes which do appear to affect albedo via cloudiness variations.
So it is the sun.
Svensmark thinks it is all about cloud seeding from more cosmic rays whereas I am of the view that changes in the degree of jet stream meridionality/zonality lead to cloudiness changes.
system responses to solar wavelength and particle changes
What changes, specifically?
Glad you asked:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/is-the-sun-driving-ozone-and-changing-the-climate/
What has been happening to ozone above 45km over the poles since 2004 ?
I ask because I haven’t come across anything relating to the issue in recent years.
Light AKA thermal emissions don’t see gravity and thus gravity can only play thru other mechanisms (such as greenhouse gases, clouds etc). I find your whole statement weird. Perhaps you may want to explain what you think happens if Earth was denser and had twice the gravity it currently has and what you think substantively changes. There are problems with the solar system orbitals if that was true but lets assume we balance it up some abstract way so Earth remains where it is.
LdBc,
If Earth had twice the gravity but the same atmospheric mass then the surface temperature would be the same as it is now.
The mass of the atmosphere would be denser at the surface but the atmosphere would be less high so the lapse rate slope would be steeper to compensate and thereby keep the system in hydrostatic equilibrium.
The lapse rate slope marks the point of balance at any given height between radiative and non radiative energy transfers.
Thus conduction would remain highest at the surface but would decline more rapidly with height.
The global warming movement has done huge damage to the environmental movement. People who actually care about the environment should rightly be irked by those pushing ‘global warming’/’climate change’. Michael Shellenberger comes to mind.
I used to tell people I was a Conservationist and that I was strongly involved with the environmental movement. Then Climate Change hijacked all the terms so I run from those labels now.
I helped purchase land for conservation – so that migrating birds would have a place to feed and breed, and duck hunters a place to go to plug some ducks. I helped to purchase land where caves are located to protect bats – before mankind starting building the giant bat-swatters they call wind turbines. This was environmental conservation when it actually meant something.
All the environmental groups I used to support are now more worried about climate change then actually doing anything useful. All my funding (which was never a lot but what I could afford) has been cut off. I no longer donate my time to them. I know a lot of people that feel the same.
We seem to have lost the idea that nature should be part of people’s lives. Aldo Leopold said people would cease to be free when they could no longer wander in the wild places. link That’s in stark contrast with the ‘conservationists’ who think humans should be excluded from the wilderness.
You are so right Bob. They want to lock the gates on National Parks, and bulldoze our rural areas to build wind turbines and industrial solar works.
Holidays for us meant visits to National Parks and country drives, camping with our children and being around nature.
I guess the plan is to keep us locked up indefinitely.
How can they call themselves conservationists while they rape the planet of it’s resources causing immense environmental damage? It is certainly in no way sustainable and it’s all for naught!
If we fail to address environmental issues in a rational and holistic way, the damage we do to the economy will rebound as much, much greater environmental damage in the long run. Economic progress is key to environmental progress. Unfortunately, the Greens are all Lefties who have zero understanding of economics and fail to see that the expansion of the economy is what will save the environment.
He is pretty much spot-on on all accounts IMO. The only point I would have corrected him on is, it is not that we have 3-generations to decarbonize for climate reasons, but we likely have 3 generations to find and build acceptable alternatives to fossil fuels simply because of increasing scarcity by then. The CO2 emissions are a non-issue. The long-term lack of sustainability of recovery at reasonable efforts of extraction are the real issue with fossil fuels.
Agreed.
Nuclear fission is the only existing technology capable of replacing fossil fuels on a large scale. For now, anyhow.
With improvements in battery technology (esp. the “million-mile battery”), electricity from nuclear power could even replace a big part of the fossil fuels used in the transportation sector.
The problem is that if CO2 emissions decline greatly, then CO2 levels will soon do likewise, which will harm agriculture. If CO2 emissions fall to 1/3 the current rate (of about +5 ppmv/year), then atmospheric CO2 concentration will decline to under 370 ppmv. That would be bad.
The cooling effect of such a decline will be slight — perhaps a couple tenths of a degree Celsius. But an 11% decline in atmospheric CO2 level will have a substantial adverse effect on crop yields and drought resistance.
Dave,
We just have to start building a lot of public works projects like hydroelectric dams that require a lot of cement! A properly designed water projects program could move water from the Pacific Northwest across the Coast Range to arid land in Montana, Idaho and Nevada and expand farm land while producing massive amounts of CO2 for all to enjoy!
Yes, cement is the ticket
Here in Canada there is not a squeak made by the government regarding cement based CO2 emissions.
Oh, as long as it’s located in Quebec, then it’s ok.
Important point to mention
Creating cement releases lots of CO2, but the cement reabsorbs that CO2 as it ages.
MarkW
Cement extracts CO2 at the surface contact with the air. That starts immediately. However, the lower the ratio of surface to volume, the longer it will take to reabsorb. Thin-walled buildings will likely equilibrate within their design lifetimes. Massive projects, like dams, are much less likely because the rate will decrease with time.
True. Here’s an article:
https://www.cement.org/for-concrete-books-learning/concrete-technology/concrete-design-production/concrete-as-a-carbon-sink
The so called million mile battery, still only delivers a couple hundred miles per charge.
It also only lasts a million miles when pampered with perfect lab conditions. Never too hot or too cold. All charges and discharges follow the perfect laboratory curves. It is never left fully charged for long periods of time. Etc.
David Streeter, someone in authority did put a halt to this nonsense, Donald Trump took the USA out of this insane shambles, sadly that is part of the reason the insane-o leftist trash hate him with such violence.
If you want to see a damned fool Gov. perusing this crap completely against his constituents whishes…look to Morrison from Australia and the NSW State Gov. and vote accordingly. I was a Liberal voter in Aus. until they got rid of Tony Abbott, just as Lord Moncton predicted, but will never vote for this “unrepresentative swill” ever again. State or Fed.
Yesterday I heard briefly that the NSW Gov. are about to ban Gel ball blasters, a toy gun similar to, although much less potent than a paint ball gun. They have tiny little 6 ml water based gel balls which can fire about 20 meters max. and barely make a mark on you when hit on bare skin at point blank range. A child pointed one at a car…and that’s it. The child did not fire it, and even if he did? So bloody what? The disgusting idiot in the car went to the police and our vile nanny state carbuncle in chief is going to destroy an entire industry based on this shocking crime….meanwhile they still bring in Muslims known for terrorist activity and ISIS membership because they are Australian Citizens and also just in the usual immigrant quota, completely against the will of the people…my Dad had a word for these people, it started with an F. He wasn’t wrong.
Yesterday was the day my love for Australia finally failed. I now cannot stand this idiot country and would leave to live in Russia or other countries that value a bit of personal freedom without nanny looking over my shoulder making sure I have all the right documentation when I need to go to the toilet etc. How did this happen? We used to be a nation of real men, now a nation of committee members, soy boys, Karens, little Princesses and robots.
This last week the PM has been speaking about his brilliant plans for Australia’s future and coal did not rate a mention. No Bradfield water scheme, nothing in there to keep our steel or aluminum production who must by now be planning to move to the US if Trump wins, China etc. otherwise. We are finished, these people are idiots. A journo by the name of Andrew Bolt asked the loony left in general to tell him how much difference Australia’s economic suicide by CO2 deprivation will change the planet’s temps? It’s known as the “Bolt Question” and no-one will answer it…and cannot, as you all know the answer is none at all, because even if you take everything they say for granted, the difference is smaller than the margin for error and so therefore immeasurable. Meanwhile we will have the worlds highest power prices going forward, Jesus wept! China adds more capacity to their power grid than Australia’s entire capacity….every two weeks and uses Australian coal to do it.
Australia is in decline and will continue to decline obviously when you look at Morrison’s “vision” for the future…well it is not my vision and I would prefer to live amongst like-minded individuals, Do you know anywhere like that? The old Soviet Bloc countries seem to value freedom and individuality, they are not allowing their countries to be bullied into an immigration disaster, they have beautiful women and real men still….any ideas for a stranger in a strange land?
Bill,
We have the same sort of madness in Canada. The people with their infinite wisdom, voted for a drama teacher with a handsome face, nice hair and a famous (infamous to some) name. Dear leader, elected to a minority government, thinks he has a mandate to remake Canada into a green socialist paradise. He believes the government coffers are bottomless and that green-think will lead us to the promised land. God help us and god help Australia.
You neglected the punchline
Yes, we are all doomed, and yes it will be caused by humans
Too stupid to live, Trudeau’s operating principle
I’m with you on this, Bill. No ideas on a better home, though. This country is getting worse. They are now telling us that we won’t be allowed out of the country until late 2021!
As soon as I get access to my super (government rules preventing me getting hold of my own money), I’m off. I’m fortunate enough to have enough to ensure a reasonable standard of living plus travel, so I’ll just keep on drifting about until I find a sensible place to live. They are fewer and farther between every year.
Did you guys see Mad Max: Road Warrior? It was filmed in 1981, but set in an elusive time (… a few years from now).
It’s like anything is possible now, including civilization slogging its way to entropy.
Did I tell any of you that I also cook?
Great film!
Bollox it was a crap film!
What kept it going was Tina Turner and the music!
It’s great because that’s the world that griff is hoping for. Without the high powered cars of course.
I so feel your pain Bill. I’ve had a few rants on this site myself about the state of government here in Australia.
I think the rot was setting in politically, globally, decades ago. The past decade particularly, in Australia has become progressively worse. We saw a chance of a reprieve when Tony Abbott was elected. He wasn’t given a real chance to sort out the mess that the left had made of the positive financial legacy of the Howard government before them.
We voted for Tony Abbott, he is a good man, he would have done a good job if he wasn’t robbed of his post by Malcolm Turnbull. Abbott’s ousting was orchestrated by the left of this current sitting government and was led by Turnbull. That came back to bite him in the bum, he didn’t want the top job to lead the people. He was arrogant, he enjoyed the power that came with the job and he was full of self importance. He himself was ousted and left kicking and screaming, as opposed to Abbott bowing out gracefully.
We were somewhat relieved to see Scott Morrison take the top job even though he was somewhat of an unknown, he at least seemed to have an interest in ‘the people’. Come election time last year the polls said that the leftist opposition Labor Party, was a shoe-in to win. They started celebrating the day before voting commenced. The major part of their platform was, wait for it, renewable energy. Well, they lost, and Morrison had a convincing win! The leftist MSM, which is almost all of them, went into mourning. Morrison himself seemed surprised.
Morrison himself expressed gratitude to his ‘quiet Australians’. Now, we all assumed that he knew that the overwhelming reason we voted him in was that we wanted absolutely nothing to do with renewables of any kind. We knew that if the entire 25 million population of Australia ceased to exist tomorrow, and even if CO2 really was a problem, our removal from the equation would have no impact on weather or climate anywhere on the globe!
It turns out that it hasn’t clicked with him that the majority of Australians are wise to the fraud of AGW or whatever it’s called these days. Given that this is one of the most important issues of our time, given the immense damage being done economically and environmentally, decision makers at every level of government should be educating themselves thoughouly about the ramifications of their decisions. None of this has been thought through, not here, not anywhere.
The leftist MSM, which as we have established is almost totally leftist has alot to answer for. They are a major marketing machine. They have powerful marketing tools such as Antifa, Extinction Rebellion, Getup, Greta, BLM, Various members of the Royal Family, David Attenborough, and a large number of actors who think that what have to say is important, just because they are famous. We just know it as propaganda. The MSM will not allow the general population to be even given the chance of making a balanced choice.
The climategate emails have outed the fraud, long ago. The MSM should be shouting to the world, that at this point in time they cannot trust current ‘climate science’, it’s little more than buddy science. That we have been lied to, that facts and figures have been altered. That the modeling is only as good as the imput of information and the way it’s applied.
How do you get politicians to even bother to read some of the thousands of articles available that would make it clear that, no you cannot trust ‘consensus ‘science’. They are only giving you what you pay them for, the point of view you’ve been convinced to push.
The renewables plus EV’s route will never save the planet. The planet does not need saving. Even attempting to go down this route 100% will seriously ruin the planet. Waste of resources, waste of human life, destruction of the environment, destroyed economies.
Wake up MSM!!! You more than anyone are responsible for the track you have set the world apon. You are the ‘deniers’ by way of denying the truth. The destruction that will be caused by going down the renewables/EV path will not be pretty. For the sake of your own future generations, as much as ours, bring some balance back to journalism, before it’s too late.
So this means their are still rationale people in Germany? Huh. I thought the rationale ones had all emigrated.
Kind of like the occasional rational person who speaks up in California. You just forget they are there.
A few months ago, Saudi Arabia announced that they had found another large oil field. More recently, a huge oil field off the cost of Africa was revealed….Exxon is on on this one. There are still unexplored sites for oil and gas. Venezuela is currently mostly off line at this time. Nuclear power is not standing still…the future looks bright with many different types of reactors being worked on.
“we have in fact three generations time” So, he does not reject socialism, he just wants to change the time scale for implementing it. Got it.
Vielleicht Herr Professor Vahrenholt ist, oops! Perhaps Professor Vahrenholt is thinking that we have three generations, or sixty years, before the globe drops into an extended cooling cycle and we will need all the traditional energy sources to be maximized to prevent massive hunger and starvation!
Regardless, the best policy is to develop our US nuclear industry and help poor and moderate income nations build low cost, clean coal and natural gas power plants as they create infrastructure and transition up the ladder of prosperity! The racist and colonialist thinking of GangGreen needs to be roundly criticized and rejected for the preservation of human rights and liberty!
Sadly, none of this will be possible without the re-election of President Trump! If the DemoKKKrats are given another chance to “fundamentally change” America, the world may not recover for millennia! Their plan to turn the US into a one party, socialist state would allow the global elites free rein to impose a new feudalism on the Western world, with China allowed to rule over Australia, New Zealand and the rest of Eastern Asia!
Typically, authoritarian regimes bring about their own demise; like the Russians lasting almost four generations from Revolution to the Wall falling! But if the big tech tyrants are able win the US vote by suppressing the populist movement that swept Trump into the White House, they will then be able to finish building the Matrix they are constructing with social media, fake news and the state run indoctrination system that is our “modern” school system!
Big tech has already shown they are more willing to work with the ChiComs than the US military; I just wonder how they will feel when, sometime during the Kamala Harris presidency, North Korea starts lobbing missiles into Commifornia!
Very proud to have Dr. Vahrenholt in our film “GLOBAL WARNING” http://www.globalwarningfilm.com
Here’s a short clip from the film with Dr. Vahrenholt to complement the article for those interested
https://youtu.be/bmlPhL7qukA
All the points Vahrenholt makes are irrefutable facts that will eventually disconfirm the CAGW hypothesis.
Unfortunately, “Truth is the daughter of time”, so during this age of Leftists’ insane anti-science and CAGW propaganda hype, billions of people will have to greatly suffer the economic and social devastation from their’ failed and irrational policies to address a mythical crisis.
My hope is that once the imminent global cooling occurs when the PDO and AMO ocean cycles enter their respective 30-year cool cycles, the CAGW hoax will eventually be tossed in the trash heap of failed ideas.
Another scenario is that Western nations will be forced to switch to cheap and safe LFTR power when China adopts this technology in about 10 years and starts producing grid-level power at $0.03/kWh as opposed to the West’s wind/solar grid @ $0.30/kWh…
Either scenario is fine with me.
At least the good Professor has got one thing right namely “the claimed catastrophe is not taking place”, that is, unless it is a political catastrophe.
Th UN IPCC climate propaganda has always been riddled with fatal errors yet these have gone undeclared for the past 40 years. Firstly their energy exchange diagrams are based on the completely inappropriate Stefan Boltzmann equation. At the Equatorial Earth circumference, the spot receiving the maximum sunshine is moving along the circumference at 1674 km/hr so the temperature will never reach anywhere near the equilibrium temperature predicted by the S-B equation making all of the energy values in their diagrams WRONG.
Secondly, the diagrams add Watts per sq. metre together from all sources regardless of the source temperature. While 10 W/sq.m. from a source at 350 deg.K will increase the temperature of a sink at 300 deg.K, if the 10 W/sq.m. are from a source at 250 deg.K it will definitely not cause an increase in temperature. Yet the UN IPCC have assumed that multiple source energy outputs can be added and subtract without regard for the source temperatures. WRONG again.
Thirdly, a basic study of the CO2 absorption spectrum shows that for an average Earth temperature of 288 deg.K, the 15 micron absorption band would contain 99.8% of the emitted photons. As 15 microns is the peak wavelength for a source at -80 deg.C (193 deg.K) that means that the Greenhouse Effect would cause freezing not heating. The atmosphere would be continually precipitating snow or the humidity would be zero and there would be no rain.
Furthermore, the spectrum has bands at 4.23 microns (equivalent temperature 685 deg.K), at 2.7 microns (1080 deg.K) and at 2 microns (1446 deg.K). These are not significant for radiation emitter from the average Earth temperature at 288 deg.K but are highly significant for radiation from the Sun at 5772 deg.K even after least squares distance reduction by a factor of 46240. According to the Greenhouse theory, these bands would absorb and re-radiate energy before it even gets to the Earth’s surface causing cooling of the Earth. This has not happened thereby invalidating the Greenhouse theory.
Science has failed us miserably.
Yeah. Heard it, pal. In fact, said it, pal. You can’t win this argument with facts and reason. The other side’s salient debating point is that all calls for debate are attempts to manufacture doubt, and doubt itself is original sin.
A common mistake honest people make is that they think that other people are honest too. Another common mistake smart people make is that they fail to understand how easy it is for crooks to manipulate the many, many people who aren’t smart. I always enjoy reading the articles on WUWT, but then I read the analyses of the “climate crisis” in the papers, and I know we’re losing the battle.
I have tried posting part of this article in The Times as a comment on a story today (8th October 2020) that September was the World’s hottest month on record.
The comment has been removed. Censored.
I urge you to try and correct the scare stories in the press. Exhausting though it may be.
But it was the hottest month on record, wasn’t it?
and there have been some extraordinary temp records – right across Siberia, for months, for example.
griff,
the UAH satellite data shows that September 2019 was warmer at 0.61 compared to 0.57 for September 2020.
‘Extraordinary’ is all in the eyes of the beholder. Long term data analysis is necessary to determine the factors involved and we certainly do not have the extent of data necessary to understand the workings of the climate.
A piddling small number of years out of the coldest period in 10,000 years
Be very glad of that NATURAL warming, griffool..
Still cooler than most of the last 10,000 years.
But you know that, don’t you.
Do you have any empirical scientific evidence that the highly beneficial warming was caused by human replenished atmospheric CO2?
Why is your evidence of human caused global warming still sitting on absolute ZERO, griffool ?
Siberia was no warmer than Fort Yukon in 1915.
Many parts of the globe have been COOLING.
eg Canada..
Again, you are SO DUMB that you can’t tell the difference between a WEATHER event and climate
Do you even have the capability to learn ?
Just a few weeks ago griff was whining because somebody brought up some record cold temperatures.
Like the rest of the alarmist crowd, griff is a hypocrite through and through.
“He characterizes Europe’s recent push for even stricter emissions reduction targets to madness akin to Soviet central planning that is doomed to fail spectacularly.”
That is exactly what it feels like.
It is wonderful to hear scientists like him speak out. Unfortunately too many are scared to do so. But the root of the problem goes even deeper – it is the inertia of bureaucracy. Once the policies have been anchored onto the bedrock of newly created bureaucracies they take on a life of their own. Climate change policy in Europe and the UK have simply become unstoppable. I suspect that even if the next IPCC report concluded with “sorry we were wrong”, they would simply change the excuse from “preventing climate change” to “we need clean, sustainable, anyway.”
The model is simple. A mass of (hard) working fools and a set of clever management crooks.
The operational strategy becomes how to convince the fools to bring their own money on a silver tray, all with a smile.
All that because fools are fools, crooks are crooks and money is money.
What is the hard to understand part in here ?
Germany – 52% of electricity from renewables Q1 2020 – no grid outages.
No kidding ?
Usual total rubbish from griff .
Trying to claim the German grid is reliable .
https://larouchepub.com/pr/2019/190703_german_power_grid.html
This years figures are not out yet , & they do try to hide the real figures .
But their grid was partially going down just about every week last year , which is why it is described as a disaster by anybody who tells the truth .
From your link:
“There were some 100 power outages in 2018, not as serious as in June 2019, but still forcing numerous large industrial facilities, such as aluminum and steel plants, to go off the grid for a certain time. Should what happened in June, take place again, it will be much worse—and it will happen again, unless Germany decides to return to nuclear and scrap the coal exit decrees. Hopefully, these recent incidents are a wake-up call to stop the march backward into the dark, cold era of “renewables.”
Griff is a bare-faced liar.
I thought the phrase was “a bald-faced liar”?
Looks like we’re both right, it just depends on when you grew up.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/is-that-lie-bald-faced-or-bold-faced-or-barefaced
52% for a few minutes, once.
Once again griff lies by trying to claim that the 52% was the average for the entire quarter.
Once again griff ignores the fact that Germany is tied into the entire European grid and that’s why it is stable, for now.
Some to send the memo to Greta.
She didn’t go to school so she doesn’t understand it.
Yes, as Professor Varenholt points out, as do others in their comments, that the old USSR with its many five year plans that failed, so too will the world’s industries also fail if we continue down the sun and solar path for our energy
Who needs a climate crisis that is not gaining any mass support, when you can deploy a virus scare that has instant impact? Plus, you get visual evidence of how many gullible people are out there, by seeing the adoption of pointless face masks.
Dr Fauci told the world back in April masks were useless against an airborne virus, nothing has changed the reasoning behind his accurate observation.
The climate alarmists aka Marxists, will now abandon the climate as their favourite scare, needed to destroy capitalism. They have found injecting fear into everyone about Imaginary health risks, is so much more effective.
They have achieved in six months what they failed to do in the past thirty years.
Air travel is dead, auto manufacturing is on its knees, energy use is stagnant and falling, reduction of social gathering unless blessed by the Marxists is banned.
We have arrived at a crucial point in history, we must be aware of how destructive totalitarianism is. Socialism is the “polite” description they use for removal of personal freedom.
Vote wisely eople of the USA.
People of the USA, sorry about my typo.
“Meanwhile, the warming of the last 150 years is in large part caused by natural cycles. “In the 20th century the sun was more active than at any time over the past 2000 years.””
In 2013, I did a 2000 year hindcast of the frequency of the drivers of major heat events like 1934, 1936, 1948-49, 1975-1976, and the only century with as many as the 20th century was the 8th century. This was corroborated by Esper 2014, which shows Northern European summer temperatures particularly high in the 8th century. The 20th century is also unusual in that it sits in a rare 12 solar cycle interval between centennial solar minima and escapes the effects of the weaker solar cycles entirely, while the 19th century was impacted by both the Dalton and Gleissberg centennial solar minima, and with an interval of only 7 solar cycles.
Good for the professor, refreshing presentation of the truth. He is a brave man and people are probably yelling at him.
Who and what are they saving! Not resources, lives, prosperity. When the green deal fails an entire civilization what will they blame, perhaps the sun. Maybe they can blame the ocean, grass and cows for failure.
It is up us, ye and me, to scream from the rooftops that this is a false crisis. Neither politicians nor media will pay any attention until they see that the public has caught on to the fraud and that the prophets of doom are the same fringe lunatics they have always been.
The people on the gravy train to climate riches won’t willingly jump off…
I’m afraid climate people are missing the 800 pound gorilla under the carpet, yet again.
Just listen to what Mark Carney and the EU Commission fully intend to do. Do not be blindsided by Greta, or Mann et. al.
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/personnel-appointments/2019-12-01/secretary-general-appoints-mark-joseph-carney-of-canada-special-envoy-climate-action-and-finance
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/speech/2019/the-growing-challenges-for-monetary-policy-speech-by-mark-carney.pdf
https://www.euronews.com/2020/10/02/a-digital-euro-european-central-bank-assessing-safe-alternative-to-cryptocurrencies
Carney, backed by BlackRock, that everyone knows is the largest global hedge fund, reported at Jackson Hole that there is a clear plan for a green DIGITAL currency, which would replace the Dollar. And just this month the EU Commission reported on a DIGITAL Euro. A Synthetic Hegemonic Currency, SHC.
BlackRock just maybe got cold feet and is attacked lately for being not green enough.
All sounds high tech, but read the small print :
All digital credit will be vetted for GREEN projects, strictly, and not only that, the intent is to inflate after years of liquidity pumping.
This means a central banker clique will determine all industrial credit, not any elected government, and green only. This is coming from top down, while people squabble about the Sun.
So the central bankers see a way to solve their massive crisis of their own making, over decades, with $15 Quadrillion nominal debt – go digital green and inflate.
Does anyone realize what such a combination will do? It is as if Germany is to be hit again with 1923 hyperinflation PLUS the Morgenthau Plan, in other words finished off, left agrarian.
The Authors above got only half the story right.
Take a look at this for more information:
https://winteroak.org.uk/2020/10/05/klaus-schwab-and-his-great-fascist-reset/
Sky News features a Klaus Schwab and the ‘great reset’ :
Plotting the 11-year averages for each year in each century:
The error bar is 0.8 in the 20th, 1.0 in the 19th, and unknown but much larger in the 18th.
Again: there is no significant difference between the centuries. The log-term trend over the last 300+ years has been flat.
If you want the Big Picture here it is
This is being written up for publication. And for presentation at the upcoming AGU meeting
Plain-Language Summary:
A new reconstruction of the long-term variation of the number of sunspot groups on the solar disk with monthly time resolution is based on comparisons of observations by all available observers over the last three centuries with those of a selection of five primary observers having long and well-documented series of observations. The sunspot groups are centers of strong magnetic fields responsible for solar eruptions of particles and radiation [“solar activity”] with significant effects on the Earth’s environment, including disruptions of communications, satellite-based capabilities, power outages, and perhaps potentially climate change. The research shows that although solar activity varies in a well-known 11-year ‘sunspot cycle’ [which in turn varies cyclically in size over time] there has been no significant long-term trend over the last three hundred years contradicting claims that recent activity has been the strongest in several thousand years (a so-called grand maximum). The apparent (and artificial) increase over time probably just reflects better observing technology (e.g. improved optics) and increased understanding of what constitutes a sunspot group (often called an ‘active region’). The new reconstruction corrects for this and is validated by comparison with the daily variation of the Earth’s magnetic field (discovered in 1722).
Abstract ID: 667537
Abstract Title: Three Centuries of Sunspot Group Numbers with Monthly Resolution
Final Paper Number: SH002-0026
The more technical abstract reads:
I construct four overlapping, intercalibrated ‘backbone’ composite series [based on primary observers Staudach, Schwabe, Spōrer, Wolfer, and Greenwich (RGO)] covering the three-century interval 1720-2020 of the Sunspot Group Number with monthly resolution. Of note are the following properties:
1. There is no significant long-term trend (linear R2 = 0.0045), thus no Modern Grand Maximum
In particular, Cycle 11 (max. in 1870) is on par with the high cycles in the 20th century
2. The regressions between backbones are linear and and even proportional (offsets not statistically different from zero)
3. The regressions between individual observers within each backbone are linear with offsets not statistically different from zero
4. Because each observer within a backbone is compared directly with the primary observer without any intermediate observers there is no ‘daisy-chaining’ and thus no propagation of errors
5. Because the backbones overlap, they can be compared directly with the previous and following backbones, thus minimizing inter-backbone daisy-chaining (at most two links)
6. The new composite is statistically indistinguishable from the published Svalgaard & Schatten [2016] composite (yearly) series
7. The new composite is compatible with all known well-constrained proxies and solar activity indices (in particular, the revised Version 2 sunspot number)
8. The new composite supersedes those reconstructions of Group Numbers that show significantly lower activity in the 19th century (especially during Cycle 11)
9. Within each backbone, the carefully normalized series is no better than the simple average [with no normalization at all] of all observers at the time.
10. The secular increase (from one backbone to the next) in archived Group Numbers [“the data”] is probably due to evolving technology and understanding of what makes a group, rather than to errors and mistakes committed by researchers attempting to reconstruct the long-term series of the Group Number
11. And that we, therefore, have several ‘populations’ of group numbers [roughly corresponding to the backbones] with different statistical properties evolving with time
12. So that the true evolution of solar activity can only be validated by agreement with other manifestations of said activity (often derisively called ‘proxies’) of which there are many (“everything must agree”)
Then you have a big problem, because the Modern Grand Maximum is very easily seen in the sunspot data by just running a 70-year moving average.
Denying that obvious period of high solar activity that is in the data by just averaging it with the Gleissberg minimum will just make your paper wrong and irrelevant. For sure it will be popular with the warmists that hate the Modern Maximum and like to deny it too.
An even better method is the 11-year running mean:
no need to throw away time resolution.
Within the error bars there is no significant difference between the three centuries:
Here they are overplotted for each century:
Study these and learn.
Denying that obvious period of high solar activity that is in the data by just averaging it with the Gleissberg minimum /i>
That statement makes no sense. Try again.
The proper way of having a discussion about this is for you to go through the paper
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1704/1704.07061.pdf
and refute or accept each section.
You might even learn something trying.
No, it is not. A Grand Maximum or a Grand Minimum is a period of 50-100 years with a significant deviation in solar activity from the average. Therefore a Grand Minimum or a Grand Maximum search is best done with a 50-100-year average (70-year works very well). This shows that there hasn’t been any Grand Minima since 1730 and the period of highest activity has been the Modern Maximum (1935-2004).
Another way of looking at it is doing a gaussian smoothing of solar activity and marking in red the areas above the average. Then the modern maximum is very easily seen:
Who cares about centuries? The Sun doesn’t.
And your GN number cannot be trusted, because it has significant differences with the SN number at certain times:
The result is that one shows a trend and the other doesn’t. Since one is your child and you have a huge bias in this question, it is not to be trusted. And to show it, in those two crucial differences the 14C record is closer to the SN than to the GN supporting that your view is the wrong one.
I guess that is what Usoskin and Lockwood have been pointing when they say that “it (your GN) fails to match other terrestrial indicators of solar activity.” I think they are right.
I guess that is what Usoskin and Lockwood have been pointing when they say that “it (your GN) fails to match other terrestrial indicators of solar activity.” I think they are right.
This shows that both they and you have no idea what you are talking about. There are three terrestrial indicators that can be used: the daily variation of the magnetic field and the intensity of the ring current and the auroral zone disturbances. We have shown that all of these faithfully match our GN.
And your GN number cannot be trusted, because it has significant differences with the SN number at certain times
Well, SILSO disagrees.
Clette and Lefevre in
Clette, F., Lefèvre, L. The New Sunspot Number: Assembling All Corrections. Sol Phys 291, 2629–2651 (2016). https://doi-org.stanford.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s11207-016-1014-y
conclude that:
“Considering the new “backbone” group number [GN], we observe that this new series very closely matches the vanishing trend of the new [SN] series, in contrast to the disagreeing original series. We note that this strikingly good agreement results from completely different and independent corrections included in these two recalibrated series.”
So, there you have it from the SILSO experts.
Plotting the sunspot summation for every solar cycle gives a completely different picture and a very clear trend for the past 300 years:
And we know that is correct because it gives the same information and is the same plot reversed as the number of spotless days per minimum:
http://www.sidc.be/silso/IMAGES/GRAPHICS/spotlessJJ/SC25_SCvsNumber.png
Sorry Leif, as Richard Feynman said “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” You have been trying to push your views about modern solar activity to the point of creating a chaos in the solar activity community. It will be sorted out once you are out.
“2.5 Unintended Consequences and the Path Forward
The new SN series was published on the website of the World Data Center for the Solar Index and Long-term Solar Observations (WDC-SILSO; http://sidc.oma.be/silso/) at ROB (Clette et al. 2015) and a Topical Issue in Solar Physics (Clette et al. 2016b) called for papers to both document and comment on the new time series. In a classic case of unintended consequences, the results exceeded expectations of the sunspot number workshop organizers. Criticism of the new GSN of Svalgaard and Schatten (e.g., Lockwood et al. 2016a, 2016b, 2016c, 2016d) was accompanied by the introduction of alternative GSN (Usoskin et al. 2016) and Wolf-type (i.e., based on the formula in Eq. (1)) time series (Friedli 2016) which more closely resembled the Hoyt and Schatten GSN than the original WSN. Earlier, Lockwood et al. (2014c, 2014d; revised in Lockwood et al. 2016d, 2016e) had introduced a new Wolf-type series that was somewhat intermediate between the two new time series that resulted from the sunspot number workshops (Clette and Lefevre 2016; Svalgaard and Schatten 2016) and those of Usoskin et al. (2016) and Friedli (2016). Detailed comparisons/critiques of these various new sunspot number series are given in Lockwood et al. (2016e) and Cliver (2016). Recently, Chatzistergos et al. (2017) introduced another GSN time series that is similar to that of Usoskin et al. (2016) which itself has been updated by Willamo et al. (2017). Figure 3(b) shows the time series of Usoskin et al. (2016; light blue trace), Chatzistergos et al. (2017; green), Willamo et al. (2017; light purple), Lockwood et al. (2016d, 2016e; light orange), and Friedli (2016; red), along with that of the original Hoyt and Schatten (1998a, 1998b; black) GSN.
Comparison of Fig. 3(a) and Fig. 3(b) indicate that the circumstance of the existence of two discordant time series (WSN and GSN) for long-term solar activity that motivated the sunspot number workshops has been exacerbated. Now, instead of two disparate series, the solar community has, to first order, two classes of series, with both WSN- and GSN-type series in each class. Moreover, the various new time series differ widely in their choices of standard or reference observers (e.g., RGO vs. Wolfer) and the techniques used to scale secondary observers to the standard observer (e.g., linear regression vs. a non-linear non- parametric probability distribution function). A key schism among the new proposed series involved the central problem of comparing of secondary observers with non-overlapping primary or reference observers. In the traditional daisy-chaining approach of Hoyt and Schatten (1998a, 1998b), secondary observer C who does not overlap with primary observer A is scaled to A through observer B who does; then D is linked to C, and so forth. In the backbone method (Svalgaard 2013; Clette et al. 2014; Svalgaard and Schatten 2016; Chatzistergos et al. 2017), the error propagation/accumulation inherent in daisy-chaining is reduced by designating several primary or backbone observers, scaling all overlapping secondary observers to them, and then linking the backbones together. In effect, the number of links between non-overlapping observers is reduced in such a scheme, providing fewer op- portunities for error to creep in. Alternatively, the innovative active day fraction method proposed by Usoskin et al. (2016; and refined by Willamo et al. 2017) eliminates daisy-chaining altogether by scaling all secondary observers (regardless of overlap or non-overlap) directly to RGO by a comparison of the fraction of days per month the secondary observer reported (non-zero) spot groups (a measure of observer quality) with the corresponding fraction for RGO. The Usoskin et al. (2016), Willamo et al. (2017), and Chatzistergos et al. (2017) time series employ advanced non-linear techniques to scale secondary observers to primary observers vs. the combination of linear and non-linear regression used by Svalgaard and Schatten (2016) and criticized in, e.g., Lockwood et al. (2016c; cf., Svalgaard and Schatten 2017).
The situation facing the solar community in 2016 was thus scientifically complicated and, on a human level, becoming increasingly contentious. The danger was that the proliferation of new disparate series, if left unaddressed in a systematic fashion, would render the sunspot number meaningless as a measure of solar activity. How to proceed?
Matters came to a head at the Space Climate 6 Symposium in Levi, Finland in April 2016. Following a lively scientific session devoted to the sunspot number, developers of the new sunspot series held an informal meeting and agreed to work together to examine the causes of their differences and to reconcile them, in so far as possible—in other words, to continue, on a broader scale, the effort that was begun under the sunspot number workshops. The end goal is the creation of community vetted and accepted versions of both the GSN and WSN time series (with stated uncertainties, e.g., Dudok de Wit et al. 2016) and the establishment of a procedure for publication of further revisions as warranted. This work is underway, first involving small teams that are examining each series separately, to be followed by larger group meetings that will identify/implement best practices for series construction, with a targeted release date of 2019 for the new versions of the two series.”
Cliver, E. W., & Herbst, K. (2018). Evolution of the Sunspot Number and Solar Wind B Time Series. Space Science Reviews, 214(2), 56.
You come here and you pretend to be the authority. The reality is that after creating a problem in the field for being too pushy you come here to give us your biased version as the gospel. Some will buy it, not doubt. Others are more skeptic.
As I have shown, the situation has changed the last couple of years and there is now a growing consensus converging on the Svalgaard & Schatten (2016) series for the group number and the SILSO SN v2 for the sunspot number series [which BTW agree very nicely]. The final release date is now set for 2022, as both series are being fine-combed and the latest new data are being added in.
The problem was created by Hoyt & Schatten back in 1998. My contribution was to point out that there was a problem and that it needed addressing. hence the SSN workshops [https://ssnworkshop.fandom.com/wiki/Home] that I [co-]organized. As Jan Stenflo [the last director of the Zurich Observatory] said at the last workshop in Locarno in 2014:”We are grateful to Leif Svalgaard for his magnificent and thorough exploration of previous counting methods and putting his finger on the problem areas, identifying what will be needed to eliminate these problems and letting us see the way to move forward”. This process is now coming to an end and [hopefully] in 2022 we’ll have the agreed upon series with full support of the community.
Actually, there were only two [major] problems: (1) the weighting of sunspots in the Sunspot Number that Waldmeier introduced in 1947, and (2) the abrupt and large discontinuity in 1882 that Hoyt & Schatten introduced in the Group Number. A number of smaller issues were also resolved and significant new data was added, and the sunspot number series is now a ‘living’ dataset, subject to running [and transparent] quality control.
We discussed some of the misinformation floating around in
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1704/1704.07061.pdf
and concluded:
We have shown that the criticism by Lockwood et al. [2016b] and by Usoskin et al. [2016] expressed by the statement that “our concerns about the backbone reconstruction are because it uses unsound procedures and assumptions in its construction, that it fails to match other solar data series or terrestrial indicators of solar activity, that it requires unlikely drifts in the average of the calibration k-factors for historic observers, and that it does not agree with the statistics of observers’ active-day fractions” is unfounded, baseless, and without merit. Let us recapitulate our responses to each of those concerns in sequence:
1) “it uses unsound procedures and assumptions in its construction”. This is primarily about whether it is correct to use a constant proportionality factor when calibrating observers to the primary observer. We showed in Section 2 that proportionality is an observational fact within the error of the regression. In addition, we clarify in Section 11 some confusion about daisy-chaining
and show that no daisy-chaining was used for the period 1794-1996 in the construction of the backbones.
2) “it fails to match other solar data series or terrestrial indicators of solar activity”. We showed in Section 8 that our group numbers match the variation of the diurnal amplitude of the geomagnetic field and the HMF derived from the geomagnetic IDV index and in Sections 14 and 16 that they
match the (modeled) cosmogenic radionuclide record.
3) “it requires unlikely drifts in the average of the calibration k-factors for historic observers “ We showed in Section 6 that the RGO group counts were drifting during the first twenty years of observation and that other observers agree during that period that the RGO group count drift is real.
4) “it does not agree with the statistics of observers’ active-day fractions”. We show that the ADF-method fails for observers that the method itself classifies as equivalent observers and that the method thus is not generally applicable and that it therefore is not surprising that it fails to agree with the backbone group number series.
5) We identified several misrepresentations and (perhaps) misunderstandings.
These concerns are now being resolved and the ISSI working group is nearing consensus.
Now, bad science lives forever and one may foresee that it will take perhaps a decade for the last pockets of disagreements to die down. You can be at the forefront of the acceptance of the work by the ISSI team.
The problem is that all these past years you have been telling us only your side of the story and you have hidden from us that other authorities on past solar activity profoundly disagree with you.
What you have demonstrated is that you are not a reliable source of information since you present your biased account as the accepted truth. I am not about to start believing what you say now.
authorities on past solar activity profoundly disagree with you
Some did, but that has changed. They are coming around. The main problem they had was that my Group Number series has always agreed with sunspot number series. In fact there is a simple relationship between the two series: SN = 20 GN. As I mentioned, the problem with the SN [version v1] was that values after 1947 were too high by up to about 20%. This has been agreed and v2 now incorporates that correction. Thus, one of the two corrections I advocated has been done. The remaining problem [that Hoyt & Schatten’s GSN has a discontinuity of about 40% in 1882] has slowly been resolved over the decade of work since I started the workshops. In the simplest terms, the problem was this: after 1882 SN = 20 GSN, before 1882 SN = 13 GSN. Everybody agrees that SN v2 is good and that GSN after 1882 is also good (and GSN = GN). This means that the various [dissenting] methods are also reasonably good and that it is not productive to argue which is ‘better’.
So, how to explain the sudden change in 1882? One possibility is that the sun underwent a dramatic change at that time. That GSN and SN are inherently different and measure different physics. The problem here is that is seems implausible that the sun changed just when Hoyt & Schatten introduced the discontinuity [and their counting method]. Note that the Schatten in Hoyt & Schatten is the same Schatten in Svalgaard & Schatten, who realized that the H&S GSN was wrong.
The solution to the dilemma turns out to be simple: the observers around 1880 generally changed the criteria for what constitutes a Group, so there are [at least] two different populations of group counts, generally before and after Wolfer. The modern population counts 40% more groups, mainly because at high activity several groups are often adjacent. In the old population those adjacent groups were counted as one group only, while in the new population each individual group is correctly counted.
Now, why has it taken 10 years to realize that? Because people like their previous work and resist abandoning it. ‘Bad science lives forever’. One of the most important clues to which series is correct comes from geomagnetism. Solar UV creates a layer of ionized air in the upper atmosphere. Movement [winds] of that air across the Earth’s magnetic field creates an electric current which has a magnetic effect [discovered in 1722] at ground level that we can easily measure, and thus enabling us to estimate solar UV which varies with solar activity. That estimate agrees with the SN v2 and with our GN thus showing that, indeed, the old GSN discontinuity is purely an artifact, thus resolving the dilemma.
There is really no way around this.
That you disagree or don’t believe the science has no consequence. It just puts a black mark on you, that you could easily remove by accepting the new status of the SN/GN series. God loves repenting sinners, so be one.
That is not true. As I have shown between 1700-1825 GN is too high compared to SN:
The result is that GN has no trend and SN has an increasing trend. That’s why you always resort to your GN when you want to try to demonstrate that there is no increasing trend in solar activity for the past 300 years, when 14C and SN do show an increasing trend.
The simplest Occam-razor explanation to the disparity between GN and SN and 14C is that you over-corrected GN and it is too high.
Given the disparity between GN and SN for the 18th and part of the 19th centuries I never use GN and use instead SN.
That is not true. As I have shown between 1700-1825 GN is too high compared to SN:
The main reason for that early disagreement [that is now being corrected] is that Wolf had undercounted the groups for Staudach by 25%. So the early SSN are not so accurate.
But this is not so relevant because the main discrepancy occurs in the 1880s.
Cliver and Ling show the reason for this
https://leif.org/research/Cliver-Ling2016_Article_TheDiscontinuityCirca1885.pdf
“On average, the international sunspot number (RI) is 44 % higher than the group sunspot number (RG) from 1885 to the beginning of the RI series in 1700. This is the principal difference between RI and RG. Here we show that this difference is primarily due to an inhomogeneity in the Royal Greenwich Observatory (RGO) record of sunspot groups (1874 – 1976) used to derive observer normalization factors (called k-factors) for RG”.
The early series [both GN and especially SN] are being re-analyzed based on much new data that has been recovered, and they are converging.
But it is encouraging that you are no longer in doubt about the series after 1820 [where the data are better]. So progress on your road to Damascus.
It may instructive to study what Clette said about the new SN at a recent Sun-Climate symposium in 2017:
https://leif.org/research/Frederic_Clette_SC6.pdf
“Uniform peak cycle amplitudes over last 3 centuries • Original series: strong upward secular trend from the end of the Maunder Minimum to the mid 20th century (“Modern maximum”, Solanki et al. 2004, Usoskin 2013): – GN: + 40% / century (red) SN : + 15% / century (green) •New SN and GN= similar very weak upward trend < 5 %/century"
Or in his overview article https://leif.org/research/08_clette.pdf in 2019:
“Figure 36: Comparison of the original sunspot and group numbers (top panel) and the new corrected sunspot number and “backbone” group number (lower panel). In both cases, the group number has been scaled to the sunspot number over the 20th century. The original series show a rising trend in cycle amplitudes over the last three centuries, different for the group and sunspot number, while both new series indicate similar amplitudes over the entire period.“
Given the disparity between GN and SN for the 18th and part of the 19th centuries I never use GN and use instead SN.
You sortta have this backwards. Why is the GN the better choice?
Before 1981 the SN was based on only ONE observer at a time [SILSO has seen the light and now ~50 observers each day are used]. By contrast, the GN [even the old GSN] is based on ALL observers [except decidedly bad ones] each day, so is much better than the older sunspot number. This is especially true for the very early data before the mid-1850s.
That was precisely the reason Hoyt & Schatten invented the Group Sunspot Number. And the reason that most people switched to the GSN instead of the less reliable SSN.
So, you are deliberately using the most unreliable series. Not good.
Clette and Lefevre in
Clette, F., Lefèvre, L. The New Sunspot Number: Assembling All Corrections. Sol Phys 291, 2629–2651 (2016). https://doi-org.stanford.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s11207-016-1014-y
conclude that:
“Considering the new “backbone” group number [GN], we observe that this new series very closely matches the vanishing trend of the new [SN] series, in contrast to the disagreeing original series. We note that this strikingly good agreement results from completely different and independent corrections included in these two recalibrated series.”
So, there you have it from the SILSO experts.
Not really. Cosmogenic isotopes very clearly show that solar activity was significantly lower during the Dalton Minimum than during the Gleissberg Minimum, and that is what the SN series shows, but not your GN series.
So I am deliberately using the series that agrees more closely with cosmogenic records, because people counting sunspots make mistakes, but trees incorporating 14C do not make mistakes.
14C shows a very clear increase in solar activity during the past 300 years (as Wu et al., 2018 recognize), so your reconstruction must be wrong. That’s final for me and your words are only words.
Sorry but I don’t take the word from any expert. “Nullius in verba”
Too many expert have demonstrated to be unreliable.
If sunspot reconstructions agree with cosmogenic records they might be correct. If they disagree they are incorrect. And cosmogenic records show increasing levels of solar activity for the past 300 years. If you say solar activity hasn’t increased then you are the wrong one. As simple as that.
If sunspot reconstructions agree with cosmogenic records they might be correct. If they disagree they are incorrect.
The cosmogenic record is also constructed by experts. So you will take their word for it.
But the record is the least well-constrained. The 10Be record has climate contamination [e.g. https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1003/1003.4989.pdf%5D and the 14C record is derived from a computer model of the residence reservoir in the atmosphere [as the residence time is ~50 years], so to calibrate the cosmogenic record the sunspot number [or derived from that, the open magnetic flux via yet another model].
“There is no consensus in the literature about radiocarbon production rates in ice and published values differ in two times.” from https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2012/EGU2012-117.pdf
No, the real criteria you use is whether the record conforms to your bias.
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1003/1003.4989.pdf
And cosmogenic records show increasing levels of solar activity for the past 300 years
No, they don’t. E.g. the Wu et al. 2018 record stops in 1885. They plastered the obsolete open flux model derived from SSN v1 on the end. Here is what the record shows:
https://leif.org/research/SC7-Nine-Mill-2019.pdf
Your faulty claims show why one should not take your mutterings seriously.
You may also recall
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/10/27/svalgaard-paper-reconstruction-of-9000-years-of-solar-activity/
The Paris Accord failed because Trump was elected and refused to take part. The reason for the Paris Accord was nothing to do with climate change that was just a useful vehicle.
Do a search on Figueres Capitalism. You will see that the purpose of the Paris Accord was to allow the UN and globalists to change capitalism to more of a globalist Maoist system and escape the Bretton Woods approach that had been valid since the 2nd World War. The push for this was no doubt China who want to replace the petrodollar with the petroyuan
So as the Paris Accord was now defunct they had to do something else and fortuitously (?) along came ‘COVID-19. Not only that but unlike all the pandemics in the past a small cabal of modelers (who would not manage in Climate ‘Science’) managed to persuade countries to follow China’s lead (?) and lock down their entire countries. Now the World Economic Forum is planning a ‘Great Reset’ and are supported by globalist billionaires such as Gates, Bloomberg, politicians such as Boris Johnson and Bernie sanders and of course Prince Charles.
The only problem that the Great Reset has is that President Trump might be re-elected. so all hands are on deck to ensure that does not happen. The proponents of the great reset to remove capitalism have a slogan they use:
‘Build Back Better’
you may recognize it – it is emblazoned on the Democrat lecterns as the Democrat ‘slogan’ so we know that the plan for the Democrats is to have the USA part of the destruction of capitalism. There is more to read on this with references. Search for: “As Boris Johnson announces Britain’s ‘great reset’, were the Covid ‘conspiracy theorists’ right all along? ” by Nick Clark.
The Fabians used a poem from Omar Khayyám as their intent:
They are following the script except their desire is entirely contrary to The Constitution of the USA guaranteeing “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’.
There is a market for climate communication consultants after all.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/canada-nickel-miners-burnish-green-192750916.html
No doubt that last 70 years has a higher average TSI than any previous 70 year period in 2000 years
Just like the GISS temperature series, TSI seems to be iteratively being “adjusted” to suit the anti-CO2 agenda.
Get rid of the 1940s peak in raw temperature data…..
….. smooth out the TSI.. to discount the solar warming.
No doubt that last 70 years has a higher average TSI than any previous 70 year period in 2000 years
As your figures show, within the error bars there is no significant difference between the three centuries.
TSI seems to be iteratively being “adjusted”
There is no evidence for that and in fact it didn’t happen.
Denial of adjustments is funny……. when you did them yourself. 🙂
Any one can look at the data above and see the increase in the second half of last century.
Only someone willfully blind would not see it.
DEFINITE higher levels during the latter half of the 1900s
Grand Solar Maximum
https://www2.mps.mpg.de/dokumente/publikationen/solanki/c240.pdf ……. Figure 1
The leading expert on TSI is Greg Kopp. Here is his website:
This is his plot of the historical TSI:
Greg says this about the plot:
“This historical TSI reconstruction is my own “unofficial” series using corrections that I think reflect the most realistic and up-to-date estimates of the solar variability over the last 400 years, such as the recent revisions to sunspot-number records.”
And this is the ‘official’ TSI historical record:
https://lasp.colorado.edu/lisird/data/historical_tsi/
Your Solanki link is WAY out of date.
Here is an updated one:
So, after all that bluster and carrying on..
… you now ADMIT that you DID have a hand in the adjustments
So funny !! 🙂
This one is more likely to be correct, because there isn’t an agenda behind it.
https://www2.mps.mpg.de/dokumente/publikationen/solanki/c240.pdf ……. Figure 1
Even now, after all your adjustments, the first two STILL show a longer period of raised solar energy from.
Let’s take the 30 year running average of the LISIRD data shall we. (30 year is “climate” isn’t it ! 😉 )
Oh dear, look at that, still the longest period of high TSI, other two were just peaks.
Back to the drawing board if you want to get rid of that long period of high solar energy in the latter half of last century.. !
And this is the ‘official’ TSI historical record:
https://lasp.colorado.edu/lisird/data/historical_tsi/
No need to play with different averaging windows.
Or to reach back to obsolete data.
Leif,
That shows a rise in solar activity during the 20th century similar to that during the 1700s. Both were periods of increasing warmth.
The 1700s were a recovery from the LIA, then a dip during the 1800s until around 1900 then more warming from the LIA during the 1900s followed by a cessation of warming as the sun became less active in the early 2000s
I have previously pointed out to you that all your work minimising variations in TSI still leaves a pattern correlating to variations in global temperature.
The reason being that TSI is not the issue.
The issue is that solar variations alter atmospheric circulation so as to cause cloudiness and albedo changes that then alter the amount of solar energy getting into the oceans.
The convective overturning circulation then adjusts itself to maintain hydrostatic equilibrium.
The reason being that TSI is not the issue.
The issue is that solar variations alter atmospheric circulation so as to cause cloudiness and albedo changes that then alter the amount of solar energy getting into the oceans.
All that is just hand waving with no substance.
This quote which appeared in Electrical Units of Measurement, Vol 1, 1883-05-03.
“When you can measure what you are speaking about,
and express it in numbers, you know something about it”
– Lord Kelvin
If you can’t, you don’t know anything about it.
Newton didn’t need measurements to arrive at his theory of gravity.
Measurements came later.
The same for most other scientific revelations.
Newton didn’t need measurements to arrive at his theory of gravity
Yes he did. He used Kepler’s laws that were based on Tycho Brahe’s measurements of Mars’ positions.
Comparing yourself to Newton is perhaps a stretch.
The same for most other scientific revelations.
Wrong. Almost all scientific progress is the result of measurements and data.
Only religion is ‘revealed’.
Or simply taken on “faith”.
Feynman said that discoveries in science start with a guess which is then tested.
Newton may have had data from Kepler and Brahe but that data on its own was not enough. It required a leap of intuition which was then tested numerically.
Newton may have had data from Kepler and Brahe but that data on its own was not enough. It required a leap of intuition which was then tested numerically.
No ‘intuition’. Newton was not that kind of wishy-washy guy. From the observed data of the moon, the sun, and terrestrial falling bodies he noted that they could be explained by his famous three laws. Numerical data came first. And in fact, at first, the numbers didn’t match because he had some of then wrong [and hence he didn’t publish]. Later with better data, the situation cleared up and the theory followed in due cause.
Feynman said that discoveries in science start with a guess which is then tested.
And where did that guess come from? From new data that didn’t agree with old theories.
Almost all progress in science comes from new data. The chain is: data => guess => test => new theory.
You may be educated by this account of how Newton worked:
http://nautil.us/issue/19/illusions/the-loneliest-genius
“The theory of universal gravitation wasn’t as simple as a single bright idea that could be had through an epiphany, it was an entire body of work that formed the basis of a whole new scientific tradition. What’s more, that storybook image of Newton and the apple is destructive because it makes it seem as if physicists make progress through huge and sudden insights, like someone who’s been hit on the head and can now predict the weather. In reality even for Newton progress required many hits on the head, and many years in which to process his ideas and come to a true understanding of their potential.”
No leap of intuition here.
It is still a leap of intuition, when all the data he is aware of comes together in an idea that fits.
Then it has to be tested.
It is still a leap of intuition
You still don’t get it. Now, having been a scientist for more than half a century I can tell you that leaps of intuition rarely, if ever, plays any role in progress. It is rather the other way around: the data slowly force one to give up old ideas and grudgingly accept a new view.
New data mean new numbers. No numbers, no progress. And to believe that you are on Newton’s level is beyond the pale.