Christmas Weekend Open Thread

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strativarius
December 24, 2023 2:02 am

A very happy Christmas to all.

Ed Zuiderwijk
Reply to  strativarius
December 24, 2023 4:28 am

Seconded.

Scarecrow Repair
Reply to  strativarius
December 24, 2023 5:15 am

And a Merry Next Year!

Reply to  Scarecrow Repair
December 24, 2023 1:31 pm

Greetings to all and let’s hope it’s a warm one.

December 24, 2023 2:30 am

Merry Christmas to all my WUWT friends. Also, Happy New Year. 2024 is going to be a firestorm of dishonesty and vitriol. The Left is becoming more depesperate, and the vote in my home state to keep Trump off of the ballot is yet another example. This coming year is going to drive you to the brink of insanity. Stay strong.

-Johne

Reply to  johnesm
December 24, 2023 7:35 am

The US is going along with the climate madness, 61% agree that something needs to be done to stop warming.

The rich who own the media are constantly pushing the so-called “climate change” narrative.

MarkW
Reply to  scvblwxq
December 24, 2023 11:50 am

Agreeing with a feel good statement on an anonymous poll is a lot different from being willing to pay any price or put up with any inconvenience. That’s a fact that you seem incapable of understanding.

As to your belief that the only source of this nonsense is rich people who own the media, I can only attribute that to your desire to deflect attention from your fellow socialists.

roaddog
Reply to  johnesm
December 27, 2023 10:59 pm

It’s becoming common knowledge that democracy is a threat to democracy. LOL

strativarius
December 24, 2023 2:41 am

Ever heard of sustainable dressing?

“” The Princess of Wales displayed her penchant for sustainable dressing as she surprised…

… Kate, 41, wore a red £1,350 Miu Miu cardigan – and it isn’t the first time we’ve seen it – she first debuted the knitwear in the promo video for her 2021 carol concert.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12898061/kate-middleton-recycles-miu-miu-cardigan-christmas-carol-service.html

So, it’s wearing an [expensive] item more than once.

atticman
Reply to  strativarius
December 24, 2023 4:22 am

I think this is “re-cycling” for posh people…

Ed Zuiderwijk
Reply to  strativarius
December 24, 2023 4:31 am

The DM has a obsession with what Kate and other celebs wear. They haven’t gotten yet to discussing their subjects’ underwear, though.

Rich Davis
Reply to  strativarius
December 24, 2023 7:13 am

Silly me, I was thinking an organic vinaigrette.

Editor
Reply to  Rich Davis
December 24, 2023 9:36 am

You’re not alone, Rich. I was also thinking salad dressing.

Regards,
Bob

Reply to  Bob Tisdale
December 24, 2023 11:49 am

Now if you’d said vegetable dressing you might have been much closer with some of the Royals…

Trying to Play Nice
Reply to  Richard Page
December 26, 2023 7:36 am

Especially Charles.

December 24, 2023 2:45 am

Enjoy the cold winter

Due to climate change, some day winters will be warm and summers will be cold due to CO2 emissions. Scientists with Ph.D.’s and really big computers say so.

Reply to  Richard Greene
December 24, 2023 1:35 pm

Enjoy the cold winter
Let’s not forget the half the world (the most important half) is in summer.

December 24, 2023 3:28 am

Merry X-Mas to all readers and writers and their families !

Rich Davis
Reply to  Krishna Gans
December 24, 2023 7:38 am

Fröhliche Weihnachten und ein glückliches neues Jahr!

Gary Pearse
Reply to  Krishna Gans
December 24, 2023 10:14 am

Merry Christmas to all. Maybe lumps of coal sent to WEF address in Davos!

Reply to  Gary Pearse
December 24, 2023 11:51 am

Oh let’s send one to the Doom Pixie as well, it’ll give her nightmares!

December 24, 2023 3:32 am

Greta Thunberg’s climate crusade is heading for defeat | Michael Shellenberger interview

“Greta Thunberg is an end stage product of the climate religion. As renewables come into crisis everywhere in the world because of local community opposition to the land use impacts, as well as the high associated costs, the bloom is coming off the rose for climate activists.” Michael Shellenberger is an environmentalist, author, and advocate for pragmatic solutions to climate change. He joins Steven Edginton to talk about the ‘religion’ of climate change for this week’s Off Script podcast. Watch the full interview above, or listen on your podcast app by searching “Off Script”.

Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
December 24, 2023 5:44 am

I won’t hold back on criticizing a young person. I don’t care if you’re 7 or 70, if you spout this garbage out to us, and attack capitalism (which by the way is what gives you the ability to do this in the first place), then the gloves come off for me…

David Wojick
December 24, 2023 3:36 am

On the first anniversary of the PJM near-blackout Christmas 2022:

Gordon Tomb and David Wojick: How PA can prevent deadly blackouts (Delaware Valley Journal)

https://delawarevalleyjournal.com/opinion-how-pa-can-prevent-deadly-blackouts/

Ours is a different approach to reliability planning. Focus on the reasonably likely worst case — deadly cold windless nights.

nyeevknoit
Reply to  David Wojick
December 24, 2023 7:14 am

Excellent points in this article.

Our country’s grid and distribution systems should NEVER even be close to accepting blackouts. Blackouts should be extremely infrequent. People die, physical damage done, and jobs are lost when electric service insanely threatened. Literally, our national security is lost…or greatly abbreviated.

Electric service, a more comprehensive term, must always be available (24/7), adequate (instantly serving loads as they come on, off, change), stable (holding/providing for the necessary frequency, current, voltage, power factor, etc, at all times), reliable (on demand of customer equipment–lights, motors, cooling, heating, medical or home care oxygen,..) , and dispatchable (available to the grid or distribution modifications when needed before stability or blackouts are threatened.)
Lowest price for all of electric service should be mandated.

On-site fuel is a good point. Make all sources compatible for continued electric service described above.
Instead of “backup” provided by the grid (assumed in the promotion of “green” sources), all sources should bring to the grid all necessary equipment and on-site fuel to provide “make up” energy (MWh) and power ( MW, demand). The cost and operation of batteries, fuel oil, natural gas and all interconnection equipment should be borne by the energy/power source.

Examples of what happens abound.
The basics aren’t complex. Just need stated with examples, over and over!
This crisis must be fixed.

Thanks for your voices.
How can we help?

John Furst, BSEE, PE

Jim Masterson
Reply to  nyeevknoit
December 24, 2023 8:04 am

“This crisis must be fixed.”

It won’t be with the current crop of idiots in charge.

nyeevknoit
Reply to  Jim Masterson
December 24, 2023 8:34 am

Not sure R’s will fix this either. State reps and congress are just as mis/mal- informed.
Need broad, deep education on facts.
This crisis is MUCH MUCH bigger than any anthropogenic “warming”.

Reply to  nyeevknoit
December 24, 2023 9:14 am

This crisis is MUCH MUCH bigger than any anthropogenic “warming”.

Which is why those with disdain for the deplorables in ‘fly over country’ use the approach of, “Look! A squirrel.”

David Wojick
Reply to  nyeevknoit
December 24, 2023 11:57 am

What we need is for this to become a political issue which it finally will as things get worse.

Rich Davis
Reply to  nyeevknoit
December 24, 2023 9:07 am

Interesting screen name John. But I can’t figure out which language exactly.

Looks vaguely Scandinavian for “New EV? Never!”

MyUsername
December 24, 2023 4:26 am

Merry Christmas everyone!

Reply to  MyUsername
December 24, 2023 6:45 am

And a merry Christmas to you as well. And you have finally posted something I can agree with!

Ireneusz Palmowski
December 24, 2023 4:30 am

A large drop in the temperature of the Peruvian Current.
comment image

Reply to  Ireneusz Palmowski
December 24, 2023 5:13 am

Shirley this means El Nino is finished – did he ever really get started despite all the grand predictions of how super he was going to be this time round

Reply to  Peta of Newark
December 24, 2023 9:20 am

A look at the UAH temperature graph on the right-hand side of the page shows that El Ninos typically have 3 or 4 points that look like outliers. We already have reached that point. I will be surprised if after 1 or 2 more points (months) the temperatures don’t drop back the the general trend.

Coeur de Lion
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
December 24, 2023 11:31 am

Yeah, take a look at the NOAA website with its ENSO predictions. El Niño dead by autumn

Reply to  Coeur de Lion
December 24, 2023 8:44 pm

I will be surprised if it takes that long.

Reply to  Clyde Spencer
December 24, 2023 9:15 pm

Ok so the spread is, what, February through until, maybe, October/November?
I’m going to place my (wholly imaginary) bet on April. Care to pick a month?

Reply to  Richard Page
December 25, 2023 7:33 pm

I think that April will be a lot closer than October.

Jim Ross
Reply to  Clyde Spencer
December 26, 2023 3:02 am

Hi Clyde, I agree with you. We don’t need models for this prediction; it can be based solely on simple observations of historical temperature data variations.
 
As you will be aware, the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) is the rolling three-month average of the sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly in the Niño-3.4 region in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. It is quite instructive, in my opinion, to look at the measured SST values instead of simply focussing on the ONI (anomaly) values derived from them. In the plot below, the monthly SST values are shown by the red line and the climatology (average SST over a 30-year base period) is shown in blue. The difference between the two curves reflects the monthly anomaly values, which are then averaged over three months to obtain the ONI value. I have updated the reported SST value for November.
 
comment image
 
A number of interesting observations can be made on the basis of this plot (which can be shown back to 1950, but loses clarity with too much compressed data). A key (and clearly observable) characteristic of the two very strong El Niño events shown here (1997-1998 and 2015-2016) is that the end of the El Niño coincides within a month or so of the peak SST of the 30-year average, which is in May. This characteristic is seen in every strong or very strong El Niño event since 1950 (8 in total) with only one exception, the 1987-1988 event, which ‘merged’ with the prior year moderate El Niño and seems to have been affected by it.
 
While the focus is mainly on the warmer SSTs and subsequent atmospheric warming of stronger El Niño events, the other primary characteristic that is clearly shown in the SST data is the lack of any significant seasonal cooling event during an El Niño year, which reflects the observation that upwelling, nutrient-rich, cold waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean are significantly reduced (effectively ‘shut-off’) during major El Niño events (as the Peruvian fishermen well know).
 
Happy Christmas to all.

Tom in Florida
December 24, 2023 5:13 am

Merry Christmas to all, and by the way it will be sunny and in the upper 70’s today here in Venice, FL. 🙂

Scissor
Reply to  Tom in Florida
December 24, 2023 6:33 am

Snow on the ground here in Colorado. I had my doubts as the high yesterday was in the mid 50’s but today there is snow on our lawns and for those houses facing south, the sidewalks and driveways are clear. Thank you Santa.

December 24, 2023 5:19 am

I found this interesting, maybe you will, too.

From Astronomy magazine, January 2024, page 23:

“Dark nubulae actually consist of a combination of dust and really cold gas–material that can one day form stars.

To do so, the temperature of the hydrogen in dark nebulae must be just 18 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celcius) above absolute zero or less. If its warmer, the atoms in the cloud will be moving too fast to merge when they collide, and stars won’t form.”

end excerpt

December 24, 2023 5:23 am

There’s less knowledge of the sea bottom than there is of outer space but some details are emerging in determining the siting of of offshore turbines. Of the hundreds of wind turbines planned for the offshore east coast, what is the cost for their erection? What are the financials of their present use in Europe?

Reply to  general custer
December 24, 2023 7:43 am

Bloomberg’s green energy research team estimates $200 trillion to stop warming by 2050. There are about 2 billion households. The developing world can’t afford anything extra so that is about $1 million per household in the developed countries over 27 years.

nyeevknoit
Reply to  scvblwxq
December 24, 2023 8:38 am

“Good intentions” destroying Western economies and preventing poor nations reliable energy sources….looks a lot like evil.

A set-up by enemies near and far.

Rich Davis
Reply to  scvblwxq
December 24, 2023 9:21 am

Of course it’s probably not even technically possible to affect the climate substantially. Hell, it’s certainly not possible since the tiny bit the alarmists claim we’ve changed it is not substantial. And then there’s natural variability.

robertgirouard48
December 24, 2023 6:16 am

Wish you a Merry green Xmas and a warm 2024 !

December 24, 2023 7:37 am

Merry Christmas to you and your kin. Interesting story about this Christmas Day possibly being the warmest in the U.K. since 1920, so 103 years ago.
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/local-news/christmas-day-could-hottest-1920-8996913. To be perfectly honest, most Christmas Days that I remember were mild, white Christmases were few and far between, even in 1962 the snow didn’t start until the 26th December.

J Boles
December 24, 2023 7:46 am

FUNNY! The way companies make sustainability statements on their web sites, so optimistic and flowery and glowing and downright silly! Boom – Sustainability (boomsupersonic.com)

Fran
December 24, 2023 8:35 am

For an excellent rundown on all the issues surrounding red meat, Peter Ballerstedt is a must watch.

Editor
December 24, 2023 8:45 am

Merry Christmas to all the denizens of, and the contributors to, WUWT.

Yippeee!! It’s a slow day for moderating comments…only had to retrieve one from the pending-approval file today, so far.

Regards,
Bob

John Oliver
Reply to  Bob Tisdale
December 24, 2023 10:31 am

Yea sorry I submitted one with a un attributed picture of working girls in a 1890s logging town- hoping to banish/send John Kerry and friends to such a place some day for COP 20xx, Merry Christmas to all.

John Oliver
Reply to  John Oliver
December 24, 2023 10:32 am

Was from some old time life or American Heritage series archives photo.

December 24, 2023 9:19 am

A story tip: Subsurface conditions have created problems for some of the Northeast US offshore wind turbines.

December 24, 2023 9:22 am

Here’s the link to Mark Hertsgaard’s Covering Climate Now list of subscribers.

Merry Christmas

Mr.
December 24, 2023 12:25 pm

Just visiting Vancouver, strolling around the streets and parks, and having trouble reconciling how so-called “progressive” jurisdictions can enable the public pollution of marijuana smoking.

I mean, this stuff smoked qualifies as “pollution” in so many more ways than the dreaded CO2 ever did –
carcinogenic
particulates emissions
visual
malodorous
lingering air residency

But as with all “progressive” tolerance decisions, it provides some level of “feel-good” for those who make their lifestyle choices based predominantly upon these criteria.

Reply to  Mr.
December 24, 2023 12:51 pm

I agree. The stench can become nauseating.

December 24, 2023 12:44 pm

Merry Christmas, everyone! 😀

Reply to  Paul Hurley
December 24, 2023 2:12 pm

Time to pull out the DVDs of Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol and A Charlie Brown Christmas!
(Plus a few other favorites.)

Rich Davis
December 24, 2023 12:52 pm

New topic. Hope I’m not too late.

Is Tucker Carlson off his rocker?

I like a LOT of what he says, but he keeps returning to UFOs and not just UFOs being “real”, but his latest thing is that governments are secretly working with aliens on nefarious dark secrets.

It really disappoints me. I was going to subscribe to his new TCN at $9/mo because he usually introduces topics that are off-narrative, often giving a heads up on stories that later become important such as his interview of Javier Milei.

I may still subscribe, but this alien stuff is a conspiracy too far for me. I can believe it’s at least plausible that the CIA assassinated JFK and that Lyndon Johnson was complicit. That aliens have been working secretly with our government since the 1940s and it has to be kept secret because they’re conspiring on something bad for the average citizen is just nuts, right?

Reply to  Rich Davis
December 24, 2023 1:17 pm

Usta be that having a camera at the ready to catch a UFO was pretty iffy. Today there’s one heck of a lot of real estate under 24 7 365 surveillance. Just think about how many cameras caught the Chelyabinsk meteor in 2013.

Reply to  Steve Case
December 24, 2023 2:16 pm

I’m sure the aliens don’t any fuzzy satellite videos of Big Foot going public!

Reply to  Gunga Din
December 24, 2023 9:18 pm

No but they might’ve got some video (or whatever they use) footage of who really shot JFK!

Reply to  Rich Davis
December 25, 2023 6:55 am

I don’t know. Men in Black was pretty convincing. Maybe Tucker is from some distant planet so he has inside knowledge.

Writing Observer
December 24, 2023 1:14 pm

A very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Prosperous New Year, etc., etc. to all here at WUWT. Even the Marxist Scrooges.

AbleWindsor
December 24, 2023 4:13 pm

And a Merry Christmas 🌲 to ALL. . .

Gilbert K. Arnold
December 24, 2023 4:50 pm

A very Merry Christmas to Anthony and all the people who make this all possible… May the following year bring us more victories against the climate change fear mongers

December 24, 2023 10:57 pm

Merry Christmas to all!

Wishing everybody continued appreciation of the best weather/climate, CO2 and growing season conditions on this greening planet for most life in the last 1,000 years in 2024!

“Potential” major Sudden Stratospheric Warming event in early January:

https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/101402/#101469

Screenshot 2023-12-25 at 00-55-15 Major Sudden Strat. Warming chance increasing in early Jan - MarketForum.png
Ireneusz Palmowski
December 26, 2023 1:08 am

Thunderstorms in Australia.
comment image

Ireneusz Palmowski
December 26, 2023 2:39 am

Cold Humboldt Current.
comment image

rhs
December 26, 2023 11:52 am

Evidently we must hunt a lot of owls to save a very few:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna129926

roaddog
December 27, 2023 10:55 pm

Admittedly late with my best wishes to everyone for a joyous and uplifting Christmas Holiday; and a little gift/suggestion for the New Year.

Avoid burning lithium batteries whenever possible.

https://rdcu.be/duDnm

December 29, 2023 12:34 pm

I recently came across (in “Vitality Quebec” Nov/Dec 2023 #268) an outline for averting global ecological disaster which doesn’t contain the words “climate change” nor “global warming”. Furthermore, it dismisses EVs as a solution to resource-squandering transportation.

OTOH, it is dated (2014), and unrealistically optimistic about wind and solar. I’m not well-equipped to assess its other technical demerits/merits, and so would like to submit it to the better trained skeptics at WUWT for review, hoping also that someone may have news of a more up to date and/or technically persuasive report on the same subject. But I would be happy just to have some serious., and prefereably knowledgeable, critiques of the data, methodology and reasoning presented by this report.

The report is called:

“Eight Tons of Material Footprint—Suggestion for a Resource Cap for Household Consumption in Finland”

and it can be downloaded freely at:

https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9276/3/3/488

NB: it is tagged as being “founded” [sic] by The Government of Russia.