The Week That Was: 2024 06-01 (June 1, 2024)
Brought to You by SEPP (www.SEPP.org)
The Science and Environmental Policy Project
Quote of the Week: “Nobody understands quantum mechanics.”— Richard Feynman – Nobel laureate in Quantum Physics
Number of the Week: 55%
THIS WEEK:
By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)
Scope: A second part of John Clauser’s address to the ICSF and CLINTEL is discussed. Mark Mills discussed the need for reliable and affordable electricity for the growing high-tech industries. A possible new source for lithium, which is needed for electric vehicles batteries is presented. And how Washinton reacts to consumers complaining about high gasoline prices is revealed.
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John Clauser II: In his Zoom address to the Irish Climate Science Forum and CLINTEL, Nobel laureate in physics John Clauser delivered the most devastating critique of the science used by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its collaborators. Clauser’s Nobel is for Quantum Theory, a heavily mathematical field. He is neither intimidated nor impressed by the climate modeling community. TWTW tried to accurately reproduce the slides Clauser presented in the middle third of his presentation (from about 27 minutes to 36.5 minutes) with his emphasis. The following starts with the fudged basic power-imbalance calculations used by the IPCC in its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6, 2021). The power flow diagrams are not presented here.
“Albedo for cloudy skies is estimated to be 0.36, Wilde et al (2019), while direct measures indicate about 0.8.
The Wild et al. (2019)’s diagram is copied directly by AR6 (2021), except for added fudges. The power fluxes and error bounds presented here are copied from the top lines of their nearly identical power-flow diagrams. The fudged power imbalances are copied directly from the associated lower left-hand corners.”
[Please note: Clauser realizes that the changing orbit of Earth around the Sun causes a significant error range in any specific estimate of solar intensity hitting Earth, also the Top of Atmosphere calculations have significant variations and that measuring small quantities by subtracting large ones leads to large uncertainties, and that in mathematics, you square the errors, sum them, then take the square root of the sum. None of this is done in the science presented by the IPCC and its followers. Clauser takes their numbers and asserts they lead to results showing no warming. Yet, the IPCC shows significant warming. Below, TWTW notes are in brackets.]
“Power imbalance analysis by Wild et al. (2019 and AR6 (2021) – imbalance and error bars fudged – 2
Wild et al. (2019) AR6 (2021)
Incident ShortWave power (W/m2) see note** +340.1±0.5 +340.5±0.5.
Outgoing ShortWave power -98 ± 2 -98.5 ± 1.5
Outgoing LongWave power -239± 3 -239± 2.5
Power imbalance reported at bottom +0.6± 0.4 +0.7± 0.2.
(lower left-hand corner of Figures) (warming) (strong warming)
Net “calculated” power imbalance (jfc) 3.5± 3.6 2.5± 3.0.
(no warming) (no warming)
[Boldface added: note that in jfc’s (Clauser’s) calculations the error range of the warming is greater than the calculated warming.]
- The infamous Loeb et al. (2012) global warming BAD PENNY reappears once again in Wild et al. (2019) [Note: the bad penny is adding error linearly, not properly: you square the errors, sum them, then take the square root of the sum.]
Power imbalance analysis by Wild et al. (2019 and AR6 (2021) – imbalance and error bars fudged – 3
The arithmetically incorrect fudged numbers shown in red are the values reported at bottom of their power flow diagrams. My last line gives the correct summation. [Note: fudged meaning overstating the results to produce the desire results.]
Wild et al. (2019) introduce an innovative technique for data fudging: The Incident ShortWave power reported by previous power-flow maps (e.g., by Stephens and L’Ecuyer (2015), is typically 340 ± 0.1 W/m2. Wild et al. (2019) and AR6 (2021) assume 340 ± 0.5 W/m2, round upwardly the center of their asymmetric error-limit range by + 0.5 W/m2 and show both limits correspondingly rounded (upwardly) to the nearest whole number, as per 340 (340,341) W/m2. Note that their upward rounding amount, +0.5 W/m2, similarly shifts upwardly their calculated power imbalance by almost all their reported net power imbalances, +0.5 +/-0.4 and 0.7± 0.2.
[New slide]
NOAA’S Scientific disinformation hoax asserting that the frequency of extreme weather events is increasing.
- 2012, Physics Today article “Predicting and Managing Extreme Weather Events: — Earth’s climate is warming, and destructive weather is growing more prevalent. Coping with the changes will require collaborative science, forward-thinking policy, and an informed public.”
- Authors: Jane Lubchenco, undersecretary of oceans and atmosphere at the US Dept. of Commerce, and NOAA administrator, and Thomas Karl, Director of NOAA’s climate data center and chair of the US Global Change Program
- The article asserts that there is an increase in extreme weather event frequency that is associated with climate in the three decades ending in 2012.
- The article presents data in Their Fig 2a displaying NOAA’s Weather and Climate Extremes Index. That index is NOAA’s numerical composite measure of frequency of so-called extreme weather events, including hot-spells, cold-spells, droughts, floods, land-falling hurricanes, etc. (EF3+ tornado frequency is conspicuously absent from the list, presumably because it was actually decreasing. See Koonin, pp. 124-125)
- The authors assert that their climate extremes index has ‘obviously’ grown steadily over the last three decades. I assert here that their own data in their Fig. 2a disprove their own assertion.”
[Clauser takes their data and plots it twice, once forward in time and second backward in time. You cannot tell them apart. There is no trend. One of the authors of this report, Jane Lubchenco, was the administrator of NOAA. Today, she is the Deputy Director for Climate and Energy of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) which in May 2021 launched the Scientific Integrity Task Force. Her position clearly indicates what Washington thinks of scientific integrity. https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2021/05/10/the-white-house-announces-scientific-integrity-task-force-formal-launch-and-co-chairs/]
“Part I – Conclusions – Slide 1 & 2
- The IPCC and its contributors claim the Earth has a net-warming energy imbalance. I show here that those claims are false.
- The IPCC bases its claims on computer modeling of the Earth’s atmosphere, and on observational data from a variety of observational modalities. Both the computer models and the observational data are grossly flawed and fudged.
- The IPCC’s computer modeling and its predictions are totally unreliable. There is something clearly very wrong with the physics incorporated within these computer models. Since the computer models can’t even explain the past why should anyone trust their predictions for the future?
- Not one of the observational modalities for measuring the Earth’s power imbalance convincingly shows net global warming.
- I show where various observers and the IPCC have dishonestly fudged their reported data, and have dishonestly changed it from showing No Warming, to showing Warming. Crucially important data fudges are revealed here and highlighted in red. If you don’t believe me, check my arithmetic.
- The IPCC and NOAA further claim that the purported power imbalance has already caused an increase in dangerous extreme weather events. NOAA’s own data disprove their own claims.
- I thus offer Great News. Despite what you may have heard from the IPCC and others, there is no real climate crisis! The planet is NOT in peril!
- The IPCC’s (and NOAA’s) claims are a hoax. Trillions of dollars are being wasted.”
PART II – The cloud thermostat – Slides 1, 2, & 3
- “So, what is really happening? Why is the earth’s climate actually as stable as it really is?
- The cloud thermostat mechanism is clearly the overwhelmingly dominant climate controlling feedback mechanism that controls, stabilizes, the Earth’s climate and temperature. It thereby prevents global warming and climate change.
- The cloud-thermostat mechanism provides very powerful feedback that stabilizes the Earth’s climate and temperature. Its great strength obtained from [is demonstrated by] the observed large fluctuation of the Earth’s power imbalance.
- The mechanism gains its strength from the Earth’s observed very large cloud-cover variation. The power imbalance is actually observed to be continuously strongly fluctuating by anywhere between 18 to 55 W/m2.
- Clouds modulate the outgoing Shortwave power and therefore control the Earth’s power imbalance, minimally with an 18 W/m2 available power range (ignoring the added 18 W/m2 solar-constant variation), which is minimally 26 times the IPCC’s 0.7 W/m2 claimed power imbalance, and 45 times the IPCC’s ± 0.2 W/m2 power imbalance error range.
- The above numbers use the IPCC’s assumed data parameters. With more realistic assumptions, the cloud-thermostat mechanism controls the Earth’s power imbalance with a 73 W/m W/m2 available power range, which is 100 times bigger than the IPCC’s 0.7 W/m2 claimed power imbalance, and 180 times bigger than the IPCC’s ± 0.2 W/m2 power imbalance error range.
- This seemingly random fluctuation of the power imbalance is not random at all but is actually a crucial part of a thermostat-like feedback mechanism that controls and stabilizes the Earth’s climate and temperature. It is observed by King et al. (2013) and by Stephens et al. (2015) to be quasi-periodic.
- Just like the thermostat in your home, the power-imbalance is never zero. The furnace or AC is always either ON or OFF. The thermostat simply modulates the heating/cooling duty cycle.
Features of the cloud thermostat mechanism.
- In preparation for the introduction of this model, I first describe the important, underappreciated, but conspicuous properties of clouds – their variability and their strong reflectivity of sunlight (SW radiation).
- I show that the cloud-thermostat mechanism involves the dominant (73%) use of sunlight energy by the planet.
- I show that when the -cloud-thermostat mechanism is viewed as a form of climate-stabilizing negative feedback, it is by far the most powerful of any such mechanism theretofore considered.
- The IPCC estimates that the net stabilizing feedback strength or the Earth’s climate, including the destabilizing feedback strength of greenhouses [greenhouse gases] is about -1 W/m2/°C.
- I show that the cloud thermostat feedback increases the net natural stabilizing feedback strength to anywhere between -7 W/m2/°C and -17 W/m2/°C, depending on the assumptions used.”
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Next week TWTW will present Clauser’s arguments why he is sure of his cloud-thermostat feedback. This will include some of the important properties of clouds, especially those obtained by observations from satellite photographs. He discusses the importance of oceans which cover over 70% of Earth’s surface including satellite observations of cloud-cover and the significant variation between cloud-cover over land and cloud-cover over oceans. Then he discusses what makes his cloud-thermostat model work. He includes an analysis of the atmospheric feedback system which shows the feedback strength of the cloud thermostat model. He points out that the IPCC misnames the Stefan-Boltzmann law and gets it wrong.
[The Stefan-Boltzmann law is emphasized by Howard Hayden in his essays on Basic Climate Physics. Hayden shows great gaps in the results from calculations using the Stefan-Boltzmann law and calculations using IPCC estimates.]
Clauser closes with his conclusions and his recommendations – DO NOTHING. [Nature rules the climate; the IPCC, and its collaborators do not understand it.] Clauser also presents appendices showing his calculations.
See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy and https://www.sepp.org/science_papers.cfm?whichyear=2022. If Google Chrome does not work, use another internet browser.
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Power Hungry: For several decades, the late Peter Huber and Mark Mills have been cautioning us that high-tech industries require abundant, reliable, and affordable electric power. Washington has ignored this need. Writing in the City Journal, in his essay. ‘The “Energy Transition’ Won’t Happen: Foundational innovation in cloud technology and artificial intelligence will require more energy than ever before — shattering any illusion that we will restrict supplies” Mills explains how naive Washington is in thinking wind and solar can provide the power for high-tech industries need. The essay begins:
“The laptop class has rediscovered a basic truth: foundational innovation, once adoption proceeds at scale, is followed by an epic increase in energy consumption. It’s an iron law of our universe.
To illustrate that law, consider three recent examples, all vectors leading to the ‘shocking’ discovery of radical increases in expected electricity demand, now occupying headlines today. First, there’s the electric car, which, if there were one in every garage, as enthusiasts hope, would roughly double residential neighborhood electricity demands. Next, there’s the idea of repatriating manufacturing, especially for semiconductors. This is arguably a ‘foundational innovation,’ since policymakers are suddenly showing concern over the decades-long exit of such industries from the U.S. Restoring American manufacturing to, say, the global market share of just two decades ago would see industrial electricity demand soar by 50 percent.
And now the scions of software are discovering that both virtual reality and artificial intelligence, which emerge from the ineluctable mathematics of machine-learning algorithms, are anchored in the hard reality that everything uses energy. This is especially true for the blazing-fast and power-hungry chips that make AI possible. Nvidia, the leader of the AI-chip revolution and a Wall Street darling, has over the past three years alone shipped some 5 million high-power AI chips. To put this in perspective, every such AI chip uses roughly as much electricity each year as do three electric vehicles. And while the market appetite for electric vehicles is sagging and ultimately limited, the appetite for AI chips is explosive and essentially unlimited.
Consider a recent headline in the Wall Street Journal: ‘Big Tech’s Latest Obsession Is Finding Enough Energy’—because the ‘AI boom is fueling an insatiable appetite for electricity.’ And, as Reuters reports, ‘U.S. electric utilities predict a tidal wave of new demand . . .. Nine of the top 10 U.S. electric utilities said data centers were a main source of customer growth.’ Today’s forecasts see near-term growth in demand for electric power three times as great as in recent years. Rediscovery of the iron law of growth inspired an urgent Senate hearing on May 21 entitled ‘Opportunities, Risks, and Challenges Associated with Growth in Demand for Electric Power in the United States.’ (Full disclosure; a hearing at which I [Mills] testified.)
Data centers, the information ‘powerplants’ at the center of the cloud revolution, are flagged as the primary culprit for this exploding power demand. These warehouse-scale buildings are chock-full of all manner of computer chips, including conventional processors, memory chips, and communications chips. And now datacenters are pouring AI chips into the mix as fast as manufacturing plants can build them. As one researcher notes, adding AI to Google ‘search’ boosts the energy use per search tenfold. And that’s only the first, perhaps the least, significant of the many possible applications for AI.
As one senior operative at Friends of the Earth recently put it: ‘We can see AI fracturing the information ecosystem just as we need it to pull it back together.’ The fracturing is not about AI and child safety, or deep fakes, or the looming threat of new regulations. It’s about aspirations for an ‘energy transition’ in how the world is fueled. It is inconvenient, to put it mildly, to see demand for electricity—especially reliable, 24–7 supply—take off at the same time as regulators are forcing utilities to shut down conventional power plants and spend money on costlier and less reliable power from wind and solar hardware. The epiphany that transition aspirations and the power realities of AI are in conflict was epitomized in a recent New Yorker essay titled, ‘The Obscene Energy Demands of A.I.’ The article’s subtitle asks: ‘How can the world reach net zero if it keeps inventing new ways to consume energy?’ The question answers itself.
The challenge is not only the need for far more electricity than forecast a mere year or so ago but also the need for it to be both inexpensive and available precisely when needed—and soon. New factories and new datacenters are coming online rapidly with many more coming in a few years, not decades. There aren’t many ways to meet the velocity and scale of electric demand coming without a boom in building more natural-gas-fired power plants.”
In a separate report, long-time Canadian commentator on energy Vaclav Smil also recognizes that the so-called energy transition (Net Zero) is inconsistent with the energy needs of modern civilization. See links under Challenging the Orthodoxy and Questioning Green Elsewhere.
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Irony: With an atomic mass of 6.9, Lithium is the lightest (Alkali) metal on the Periodic Table. A solid, only the gases Hydrogen and Helium are lighter. Due to its light weight, high electrochemical potential, reactivity, and rechargeability; lithium is ideal for batteries in electrical vehicles. But typical EV car batteries still weigh about 1,000 pounds (450 kg). Further, lithium is generally not found in concentrated deposits. The extraction of the medal comes from extensive processing of brine or considerable earth moving. Both methods require extensive energy and water. Last year, TWTW speculated that ExxonMobil was purchasing well rights in Arkansas for the production of lithium, which appears correct.
Now a rich new source of lithium has been found – in the brine produced by drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale Formation deposits of Pennsylvania. The formation extends to southern New York state, the politicians of which are highly opposed to fossil fuels as are the politicians of other states in the Northeast. See links under Problems in the Orthodoxy and
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Two Faced? Since 2021 Washington has actively sought to suppress the oil and gas industries in the US., falsely claiming a climate crisis. Among other measures, Washington stopped an oil pipeline intended to bring crude from Canada to refineries in the Midwest. Now, consumers are complaining about high gasoline prices. As the beginning of an editorial in the Wall Street Journal explains, some in Washington respond in a too typical fashion. It states:
“Donald Trump likes to say that Democrats aren’t only coming after him—they’re also coming after you. He has a point. Look at how Senate Democrats are demanding that the Biden Administration prosecute oil and gas executives for high gasoline prices caused in part by President Biden’s policies.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, joined by 22 fellow Democrats, sent a letter on Thursday to the Justice Department accusing U.S. oil producers of colluding to keep prices high and inflate their profits. ‘Only the DOJ can prosecute and fully redress the alleged anticompetitive behavior in the oil sector,’ the Senators write.
On what evidence? Their letter cites the Federal Trade Commission’s recent allegation that former Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield attempted to collude with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to restrain production. We explained recently how the FTC twisted Mr. Sheffield’s public statements that producers would show ‘capital discipline.’
His 23-page response this week makes the agency’s blackball look even slimier. The FTC claimed that Mr. Sheffield had regular contact with OPEC through which he learned the machinations of OPEC and gleaned insight to non-public information regarding the existence of internal OPEC deals. His putative OPEC contact? A U.S. analyst who studied the industry.”
After discussing the claim in some detail, the editorial concludes:
“U.S. producers have countered OPEC’s supply cuts. Gasoline prices now average $3.70 a gallon nationwide, up a buck or so since the Trump Presidency. The reason is that global demand still outpaces supply. OPEC forecasts that demand will keep rising over the next two decades as poorer countries develop.
Higher interest rates and inflation are increasing the cost of production and causing investors to demand a higher return on capital. Companies are thus pumping fewer profits back into new production than they did a decade ago. Still, American production could increase more if Mr. Biden halted his assault on the industry.
The Senators point to no evidence of wrongdoing, let alone criminal acts, other than the FTC’s dubious allegations. But Democrats need an inflation scapegoat heading into the November election. Today’s Democratic justice: Choose a political target, then look for a crime.” See Article # 1
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DDP 2024: The 42nd Annual Meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness is scheduled for July 5-7, 2024, in El Paso, Texas. The speakers include a number of outstanding scientists such as John Clauser, the 2022 Nobel Laureate in Physics for contribution to the foundations of quantum mechanics; Stephen McIntyre and Ross McKitrick, recipients of the 2023 Fredrick Seitz award by SEPP for upholding integrity in using the scientific method; Willie Soon, Michael Connolly, and Ronan Connolly of the Center for Environmental Research & Earth Science (CERES); and Patrick Moore, former Greenpeace co-founder. See link under Challenging the Orthodoxy.
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April Fools Award: TWTW intends to announce the winner of the 2024 April Fools award at the July 5 meeting of the DDP. Please submit your nominee by June 30.
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Number of the Week: 55% According to the study by Vaclav Smil, published by the Fraser Institute, 2023 was the midpoint of the date of the Kyoto Protocol calling for a reduction of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, and 2050 when “Net Zero” will magically appear. Since then, CO2 emissions have increased by 55%. See links under Questioning Green Elsewhere.
[Like many other UN actions, the Kyoto Protocol ignores the most important greenhouse gas, water vapor.]
NEWS YOU CAN USE:
Science: Is the Sun Rising?
The Solar Cycles: A New Physical Model
By Andy May, WUWT, May 27, 2024
Link to paper: Rieger, Schwabe, Suess-de Vries: The Sunny Beats of Resonance
By F. Stefani, et al., Solar Physics, Apr 19, 2024
Commentary: Is the Sun Rising?
Auroras anyone? The big sunspot cluster returns and it is grumpy
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, May 30, 2024
Censorship
Fact checking the fact checkers on my Prager U video
By Judith Curry, Climate Etc. May 26, 2024
“While humans do influence the climate, we can’t control the climate. To think we can is the height of hubris, the Greek word for overconfidence.”
“What we can do is adapt to whatever mother nature throws our way. Human beings have a long history of being very good at that. We can build sea walls, we can better manage our water resources, and implement better disaster warning and management protocols.”
Suppressing Scientific Inquiry
The Ideological Capture of Academia: Scientific Censorship Motivated by Prosocial Concerns
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, May 28, 2024
Challenging the Orthodoxy — NIPCC
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Physical Science
Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2013
Summary: https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/CCR/CCR-II/Summary-for-Policymakers.pdf
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts
Idso, Idso, Carter, and Singer, Lead Authors/Editors, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), 2014
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-biological-impacts/
Climate Change Reconsidered II: Fossil Fuels
By Multiple Authors, Bezdek, Idso, Legates, and Singer eds., Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, April 2019
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/climate-change-reconsidered-ii-fossil-fuels/
Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming
The NIPCC Report on the Scientific Consensus
By Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter, and S. Fred Singer, Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Nov 23, 2015
http://climatechangereconsidered.org/why-scientists-disagree-about-global-warming/
Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate
S. Fred Singer, Editor, NIPCC, 2008
http://www.sepp.org/publications/nipcc_final.pdf
Challenging the Orthodoxy – Radiation Transfer
The Role of Greenhouse Gases in Energy Transfer in the Earth’s Atmosphere
By W.A. van Wijngaarden and W. Happer, Preprint, Mar 3, 2023
Challenging the Orthodoxy
The cloud thermostat is the dominant climate controlling mechanism
Video by Nobel Laurate John F Clauser, Irish Climate Science Forum & Climate Intelligence, May 8, 2024
The “Energy Transition” Won’t Happen
Foundational innovation in cloud technology and artificial intelligence will require more energy than ever before — shattering any illusion that we will restrict supplies.
By Mark Mills, City Journal, May 23, 2024
The laptop class has rediscovered a basic truth: foundational innovation, once adoption proceeds at scale, is followed by an epic increase in energy consumption. It’s an iron law of our universe.
Good News About Our Climate
Video By Judith Curry, Transcript Via Ron Clutz, May 28, 2024
All things considered; planet Earth is doing fine. In fact, humans are doing better than at any other time in history. Over the last hundred years, when temperatures have warmed by about two degrees Fahrenheit:
Green activists don’t care how many people will die from zero fossil fuel use
By Bjorn Lomborg, New York Post, May 23, 2024 [H/t Paul Homewood]
Carbon Dioxide and a Warming Climate are not problem
By Andy May and Marcel Crok, WUWT, May 30, 2024
Climate Stupidity
By James T. Moodey, American Thinker, May 24, 2024 [H/t ICECAP]
Photosynthesis (CO2 + Sunlight + H2O) cannot exist without carbon dioxide. Photosynthesis uses sunlight to transform carbon dioxide into glucose and other organic compounds that make plants, and it transforms water into oxygen, which is exuded.
Jan and Ulf’s Nature Trick: The Hottest Summer in 2000 Years
By Stephen McIntyre, Climate Audit, May 24, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Another trivial graph claimed to be significant. Attaching two different sets of data together in one graph without a control period showing they measure the same thing the same way is deliberately misleading.]
ClimateMovie fact check: Different warming rates
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, May 29, 2024
DDP 2024 Annual Meeting
42nd Annual Meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, July 5-7, 2024
Defending the Orthodoxy – Bandwagon Science
Child mortality and ‘realignment of societal values’
By John Constable, Net Zero Watch, May 29, 2024
“’We must realign our political will, economic priorities and societal values to recognize that ecological wellbeing is matched to human wellbeing.’”
Climate change is already impacting transportation: Buttigieg
By Lauren Sforza, The Hill, May 26, 2024
Link to report: Evidence for Large Increases in Clear-Air Turbulence Over the Past Four Decades
By Mark C. Prosse, et al, Geophysical Research Letter, June 8, 2023
From abstract: Here we analyze CAT trends globally during 1979–2020 in a modern reanalysis data set using 21 diagnostics. We find clear evidence of large increases around the midlatitudes at aircraft cruising altitudes.
Key point: The increases are largest over the USA and North Atlantic, which are both busy flight regions.
[SEPP Comment: How much turbulence was there above the troposphere (9 km, 30,000 feet) in the 1930s when unpressurized planes were limited to about 10,000 feet? Does the Transportation Secretary understand the report US National Transportation Safety Board (immediately below)?]
Real World Data Proves That Air Turbulence Is Not Getting Worse
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 23, 2024
Link to: Safety Research Report, Preventing Turbulence-Related Injuries in Air Carrier Operations Conducted Under Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 121
By Staff, National Transportation Safety Board, Aug. 10, 2021
[SEPP Comment: See links immediately above.]
Please stay in your seat
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, May 29, 2024
True, the United States has good records of stuff that actually blasts its way ashore, and their records going back over 100 years show… no change in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes making landfall. Which doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a big increase in the frequency or intensity of storms way high up in the sky (the Singapore Airlines turbulence hit around 37,000 feet), where nobody has any records worth the wind they blew in on. But it certainly doesn’t mean there has been. Only the computer models think so, and they were told to.
Steady threefold Arctic amplification of externally forced warming masked by natural variability
By Wenyu Zhou, L. Ruby Leung & Jian Lu, Nature Geoscience, May 22, 2024
Questioning the Orthodoxy
Met Office Should Put 2.5°C ‘Uncertainties’ Warning on All Future Temperature Claims
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, May 30, 2024
His [Paul Homewood’s] comments follow recent disclosures in the Daily Sceptic that nearly eight out of ten of the Met’s 380 measuring stations come with official ‘uncertainties’ of between 2-5°C. In addition, given the poor siting of the stations now and possibly in the past, the Met Office has no means of knowing whether it is comparing like with like when it publishes temperature trends going back to 1884.
[SEPP Comment: Blows a hole in the IPCC’s claimed goal of preventing a 1.5°C rise since 1880.]
The Fossil-fuel Era: Still Young
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, May 29, 2024
¿Dónde están los glaciares de antaño?
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, May 29, 2024
We are in a long-term warming trend that is overwhelmingly natural, unless you believe that human CO2 not only causes artificial heating but shuts off the natural kind through some hitherto unknown process incompatible with the laws of physics and chemistry as we know them.
Climate Hysterics Keep Saying The Quiet Part Out Loud
I & I Editorial Board, May 30, 2024
It Gets Rainier
By Willis Eschenbach, WUWT, May 27, 2024
Energy & Environmental Review: May 28, 2024
By John Droz, Jr., Master Resource, May 28, 2024
Social Benefits of Carbon Dioxide
Earlier Springs? Don’t Panic!
By Kip Hansen, WUWT, May 25, 2024
Problems in the Orthodoxy
Researchers make massive lithium discovery in Pennsylvania
By Lauren Sforza, The Hill, May 29, 2024
Link to paper: Estimates of lithium mass yields from produced water sourced from the Devonian-aged Marcellus Shale
By Justin Mackey, et al., Nature, Scientific Reports, Apr 16, 2024
Brazil’s Economic Future Hinges On Fossil Fuels
By Vijay Jayaraj, Real Clear Markets, May 27, 2024
Seeking a Common Ground
Who Gets To Say What the Rules Are?
By Dan Greenberg, WUWT, May 29, 2024
[SEPP Comment: The legal ruling called the Chevron deference has created disastrous power-mad bureaucracies such as the EPA.]
So much for “peer review” — Wiley shuts down 19 science journals and retracts 11,000 gobbledygook papers
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, May 25, 2024
Link to: “Bosom peril” is not “breast cancer”: How weird computer-generated phrases help researchers find scientific publishing fraud
By Guillaume Cabanac, et al., Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Jan 13, 2024
What are tortured phrases? A tortured phrase is an established scientific concept paraphrased into a nonsensical sequence of words. “Artificial intelligence” becomes “counterfeit consciousness.” “Mean square error” becomes “mean square blunder.” “Signal to noise” becomes “flag to clamor.” “Breast cancer” becomes “Bosom peril.” Teachers may have noticed some of these phrases in students’ attempts to get good grades by using paraphrasing tools to evade plagiarism.
“The 19 journals were all previously owned by Hindawi, an Egyptian publishing company with a portfolio of about 250 journals that Wiley purchased in 2021.”
“Why Scientific Fraud Is Suddenly Everywhere”
By Tony Heller, His Blog, May 25, 2024
Link to: Why Scientific Fraud Is Suddenly Everywhere
By Kevin T. Dugan, Intelligencer, May 21, 2024
Science, Policy, and Evidence
Shanghaied
A new IEA report spotlights China’s stranglehold on supply chains for EVs, wind turbines, and solar panels.
By Robert Bryce, His Blog, May 29, 2024
In other words, by trying to force automakers to produce EVs, Buttigieg and the EPA want to trade reliance on domestically produced gasoline and diesel fuel for near-total reliance on Chinese metals, minerals, and magnets.
It’s difficult to imagine a more foolish trade.
Model Issues
Good and Bad Climate Models Simply Put
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, May 28, 2024
[SEPP Comment: Uses an analysis by the late Patrick Michaels, a member of the SEPP Board. Rather than good and bad, better adjectives are poor and worse.]
Nonstop Rain In 2034, Say Weather Attribution Models
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 27, 2024
Homewood: These weather attribution scamsters are now just making it up as they go along:
Sadly, we live in a world where computer models seem to carry more weight than actual data.
Measurement Issues — Surface
Poorly Sited Stations Undermine Met Office’s UK Temperature Claims
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 27, 2024
And they therefore cannot say with any degree of scientific certainty that the last two years were the warmest on record, nor quantify how much, if any, the climate has warmed since 1884.
Changing Weather
EF5 Tornadoes: History And Impacts Of The Nation’s Most Violent Storms
By Jonathan Erdman, The Weather Channel, May 22, 2024
As we covered in a previous article, tornadoes rated EF3 or lower accounted for just over half of all tornado deaths in the U.S. from 2000 through 2023.
It’s been a long time since the last one: The nation’s last EF5 tornado was on May 20, 2013.
If climate change is making turbulence worse, pilots and planes haven’t noticed…
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, May 31, 2024
The monster called “climate change turbulence” is an imaginary phantom
Is Global Warming Causing Aircraft Turbulence to Increase?
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, May 27, 2024
Of Heat Engines and Refrigerators
By Kevin Kilty, WUWT, May 26, 2024
Flooding of the Snoqualmie River and Record Rainfall
By Cliff Mass, Weather Blog, May 31, 2024
An extraordinarily intense atmospheric river, one quite rare for early June, will slam into the region. The water vapor transport map for Sunday afternoon illustrates this. This would be impressive in November. In June, startling.
Shockingly, this plume of moisture can be traced all the way back to southeast Asia!!
Changing Climate
New Study: China’s Loess Plateau 7-8°C Warmer Than Today For Much Of The Last 4000 Years
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, May 27, 2024
Link to paper: The Quantitative Reconstruction of Paleoclimate in the Huangling Region of the Chinese Loess Plateau during the Middle and Late Holocene
By Jiao Guo, et al., Atmosphere, Apr 11, 2024
Megafossil Carbon Dating Indicates Sweden Was 2-3°C Warmer Than Today During The Last Glacial
By Kenneth Richard, No Tricks Zone, May 30, 2024
Link to paper: Mt. Åreskutan Nunatak: An Arboreal “Roadmap” to the Paleobiogeograpy of the Swedish Scandes and a Possible Pointer Towards a Future Revival of a Richer and More Biodiverse Mountainscape
By Leif Kullman and Lisa Oberg, European Journal of Applied Sciences, Feb 25, 2024
From the abstract: “It is increasingly evident that common boreal tree species grew close to this summit in a climate, 2-3 °C warmer than at present, during the Late glacial and early Holocene periods 16 800-6000 years ago. Based on minimal temperature requirements for tree growth, future warming of the same magnitude would be sufficient for trees to reclaim their lost ground close to this peak.”
Link to second paper: Uncovering Holocene climate fluctuations and ancient conifer populations: Insights from a high-resolution multi-proxy record from Northern Finland
By J. Sakari Salonen, et al., Global and Planetary Change, June 2024
Changing Climate – Cultures & Civilizations
Historically warmer climates supported more settlements in northeast China
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, May 29, 2024
From the CO2Science archive:
Robson: Their analysis covered the period AD 961 to 1911, which included two dynasties during the warm climate of the Medieval Warm Period (Liao and Jin) and three dynasties during the cold period of the Little Ice Age (Yuan, Ming and Qing).
Changing Seas
Reduced Sulphur Content In Shipping Fuel Has Caused Most Of Recent Ocean Warming
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 30, 2024
Link to paper: Abrupt reduction in shipping emission as an inadvertent geoengineering termination shock produces substantial radiative warming
By Tianle Yuan, et al., Nature, Communications Earth & Environment, May 30, 2024
From the abstract: In 2020, fuel regulations abruptly reduced the emission of sulfur dioxide from international shipping by about 80% and created an inadvertent geoengineering termination shock with global impact…. The amount of radiative forcing could lead to a doubling (or more) of the warming rate in the 2020 is compared with the rate since 1980 with strong spatiotemporal heterogeneity. [Boldface added]
[SEPP Comment: Does not explain the changing regional trends in Top of Atmosphere radiation and sea Surface from 2000 to 2023 as measured by the CERES team (Loeb, et al.) discussed in last week’s TWTW.]
Downplaying Light Stress To Hype Global Warming Misinforms The Public About Coral Bleaching
By Jim Steele, WUWT, May 28, 2024
#GettingWorse: Sea level rise edition
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, May 29, 2024
“Projections of 21st century sea level rise are not getting worse. The bureaucratic abuse of science, on the other hand, is.”
Heavy water: How melting ice sheets and pumped groundwater can lower local sea levels—and boost them elsewhere
By Rebecca McGirr, Anthony Purcell, Herbert McQueen and Paul Tregoning, The Conversation, May 24, 2024
Link t paper: Significant Local Sea Level Variations Caused by Continental Hydrology Signals
By Rebecca McGirr, Paul Tregoning, Anthony Purcell, Herb McQueen, Geophysical Research Letters, May 23, 2024
Changing Cryosphere – Land / Sea Ice
Doomsday Glacier 2024 Hot News (again)
By Ron Clutz, Science Matters, May 25, 2024
The colossal West Antarctic ice sheet hides what appears to be the largest volcanic region on the planet, according to the results of a study carried out by researchers at the University of Edinburgh (UK) and reported in the journal Geological Society.
Experts have discovered as many as 91 volcanoes under Antarctic ice, the largest of which is as high as Switzerland’s Eiger volcano, rising 3,970 meters above sea level.
Agriculture Issues & Fear of Famine
Farmers are being booted off their land in a drive for more solar power, former union chief warns
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 30, 2024
Lowering Standards
Concerns Mount as Met Office Fiddles With Historic Temperature Record in Exact Way Planned in Leaked ‘Climategate’ Emails
By Chris Morrison, The Daily Sceptic, May 24, 2024
The Milankovitch mystery, or, wobbly science
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, May 29, 2024
Link to: Milankovitch (Orbital) Cycles and Their Role in Earth’s Climate
Editorial, NASA, Feb 27, 2020 [Accessed May 29, 2024]
Robson on a quote from NASA: QED. They also say the cycles operate over the long term and this warming happened fast. But who knows what tipping points a long-term cycle might trigger? After all, when the glaciers retreat, they do it fast as part of a long-term cycle. So, for our part we’re more open-minded.
Noah’s Ark Weather, Or A Normal British Summer? Will The Met Office Make Its Mind Up Please?
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 30, 2024
Communicating Better to the Public – Use Yellow (Green) Journalism?
Bad prediction rising
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, May 29, 2024
Comment from Thomas M Farley: Ever since The Weather Channel started putting their reporters on the beach during the landfall of a tropical storm this hurricane thing has been a ratings bonanza! Sadly, the tropical storms are not cooperating, even the ones that do form often stay out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean…very saaad.
Communicating Better to the Public – Make things up.
Met Office Creates Warming Out Of Thin Air
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 26, 2024
Communicating Better to the Public – Do a Poll?
Claim: “Most people fear climate change will end the world during their lifetime”
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, May 25, 2024
Expanding the Orthodoxy
The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea rules carbon dioxide is an ocean pollutant
By Staff, AFP/Reuters/ABC, May 21, 2024
[SEPP Comment: The US is not a member, and this is more reason for the US to avoid any international organization associated with the UN.]
Business Roundtable Does a 180 on Stakeholder Capitalism in ExxonMobil Lawsuit
By Brent Bennett, Real Clear Energy, May 28, 2024
Exxon argues that its lawsuit is necessary because the Securities and Exchange Commission, which by law is supposed to act as a neutral arbiter in determining whether shareholder resolutions can be dismissed or must be put to a vote, changed its policy to allow resolutions unrelated to the company’s ordinary business purposes but that had “broad societal impact.” Without the SEC as a gatekeeper, Exxon will have to spend millions every year to defeat activist proposals that would destroy billions of dollars of shareholder value if implemented.
Climate Friendly War
By Tony Heller, His Blog, May 23, 2024
How is he planning on transporting electricity to the front lines?
[SEPP Comment: Can’t wait to see solar and wind powered main battle tanks.]
Questioning European Green
“We’re Going To Push Up Energy Bills To Stratospheric Levels”: Climate Change Author SLAMS Net Zero
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 31, 2024
Excellent interview with Rupert Darwall: Video
Expense Of People And Nature
German Green Movement “A Run Amok At The Expense Of People And Nature”
By Georg Etscheit Via P Gosselin, No Tricks Zone, May 26, 2024
Heat pumps ‘too expensive for ordinary families’
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 27, 2024
Heat pumps are too expensive for ordinary families to install and run, the Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho has been warned by MPs.
Home insulation is the latest net zero farce
By Ross Clark, The Spectator, UK, May 30, 2024
Within weeks of having it fitted [with government recommended insulation] Godrich says her walls started to run with water, and black mold started to form on her walls. She can no longer use two of her bedrooms, and she and her children now have to slum it on mattresses in the one remaining habitable room.
Questioning Green Elsewhere
G7’s Awkward Climate Finance Secret
By Alex Kimani, Oil Price.com, May 26, 2024,
Reuters: Germany, Japan, France, and the United States are among the wealthy countries that offered developing nations loans and transition deals that ultimately benefited companies and organizations in those same wealthy countries.
Opinion: Achieving net zero targets neither feasible nor realistic
Earlier energy transitions, though smaller and less demanding and costly than the net-zero transition, took place much more gradually
By Vaclav Smil and Elmira Aliakbari. Financial Post (Canada), May 29, 2024
Link to Video: Halfway Between Kyoto and 2050: Zero Carbon Is a Highly Unlikely Outcome
By Vaclav Smil, Fraser Institute, 2024
Full report: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/halfway-between-kyoto-and-2050.pdf\
Funding Issues
Green Outrage: Aussie Retirement Savings Funds Pumping Big Money into Fossil Fuel
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, May 29, 2024
Give Us Your Money, Says Maldives President
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 25, 2024
And no doubt they will be issuing the same warnings/demands for money in another thirty years’ time!
[SEPP Comment: They need to build more airports and luxury resorts on the beach.]
The Political Games Continue
Labour’s energy claims are ‘divorced from reality’
Press release, Net Zero Watch, May 31, 2024
Net Zero Watch says SNP [Scottish National Party] U-turn would leave Labour looking like ‘eco-extremists’
Press release, Net Zero Watch, May 28, 2024
Litigation Issues
Vermont becomes first state to require oil companies to pay for climate change damage
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, May 31, 2024
[SEPP Comment: What about the government entities and people who use fossil fuels?]
L A Times Editorial Hypes Massive “Climate Recovery Act” Penalties on Fossil Fuel Energy Suppliers that Account for 70% of California’s Annual GDP
By Larry Hamlin, WUWT, May 29, 2024
Subsidies and Mandates Forever
Offshore wind needs bigger subsidies, warns government adviser
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 28, 2024
EPA and other Regulators on the March
Supreme Court to consider challenge to Clean Water Act’s San Francisco rules
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, May 28, 2024
[SEPP Comment: EPA rules too vague?]
Republican Exposes EPA Grant to Radical Climate Group
By Charles Rotter, WUWT, May 30, 2024
Video, $50 million to Climate Justice Alliance
Water systems warn Americans could soon see major rate hikes to filter out toxic ‘forever chemicals’
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, May 26, 2024
[SEPP Comment: No evidence of harm done but EPA does not care.]
Energy Issues – Non-US
Bill payers to fund £60bn Net Zero overhaul of National Grid
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 23, 2024
Gas bills could rise by £1,000 to pay for wind power
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 26, 2024
Labour’s Great British Energy Sham
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 31, 2024
It sounds like it is the SNP [Scottish National Party] who have really rumbled Starmer’s Great British Energy sham:
Energy Issues – Australia
We have World Class windless weather: Today 95% of wind turbines on the continent of Australia are failing
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, May 27, 2024
There is no saving the Australian wind industry from a high-pressure cell.
Energy Issues — US
GAO Information on Peaking Power Plants Report
By Roger Caiazza, WUWT, May 29, 2024
Link to report: Electricity: Information on Peak Demand Power Plants
By Staff, US Government Accountability Office (GAO), May 21, 2024
I conclude that this analysis and the report were intended to confirm the biases of the congressional representatives that requested the report and the EJ activists who promote it. It is only possible through a complete reading of the entire report to discover contrary evidence eviscerating this as an issue. The bigger picture problem is the potential threat that political and activist pressure will force premature retirement of peaking power plants with a marked increase in potential reliability risks. A blackout will have real ramifications as opposed to the over-hyped risks claimed. [Boldface added]
A bright future for U.S. blackouts
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, May 29, 2024
The New York Times blares that “New Rules to Overhaul Electric Grids Could Boost Wind and Solar Power; Federal regulators on Monday approved sweeping changes to how America’s electric grids are planned and funded, in a move that supporters hope could spur thousands of miles of new high-voltage power lines and make it easier to add more wind and solar energy.” And get rid of the types of generators that actually work.
Washington’s Control of Energy
Claim: Biden’s Clean Energy Policies are Failing Because Everyone Elses Fault
By Eric Worrall, WUWT, May 28, 2024
Biden administration issues guidelines on carbon credit integrity
By Rachel Frazin, The Hill, May 28, 2024
[SEPP Comment: From an administration with zero scientific integrity.]
Joe Biden’s Dangerous Natural Gas Game
By Tristan Abbey, Real Clear Energy, May 30, 2024
Previous administrations have already published macroeconomic impact studies on the question of LNG exports from the U.S. The Obama administration paused its authorizations until its first study was released in December 2012, for example—curious timing, considering the election the previous month and the study’s actual completion in July of that year. Virtually every scenario in every study, including additional analysis in 2015 and 2018, has found net benefits to accrue.
It’s possible reopening the Obama playbook was the Biden team’s plan all along. After all, Secretary Granholm didn’t commission a new study in 2021, or in 2022, or in 2023. By waiting so long, the DOE can now claim that the cumulative volume of its authorizations is approaching the upper limit of the range that the 2018 study examined. Under the duplicity theory, approvals resume under a second Biden term as soon as the study is released and the election fades away.
White House and 21 states to announce grid modernization program
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, May 28, 2024
Link to report: Grid connection backlog grows by 30% in 2023, dominated by requests for solar, wind, and energy storage
By Staff, Berkeley Lab, Energy Markets & Policy, Apr 10, 2024
[SEPP Comment: The hidden costs of unreliable “renewables” and the deceitfully named Inflation Reduction Act.’
Senate Democrats call for DOJ to probe Big Oil over price-fixing allegations
By Zack Budryk, The Hill, May 30, 2024
Oil and Natural Gas – the Future or the Past?
You Don’t Know Me – There’s A Lot More Happening In The Bakken Than You Might Think
By Housley Carr, RBN Energy, May 24, 2024
Nuclear Energy and Fears
Building the Global Nuclear Energy Order Book
By Niko McMurray and David Gattie, WUWT, May 28, 2024
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Solar and Wind
“How Many Birds Do Wind Farms Kill?” (pro-wind concern)
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, May 31, 2024
[SEPP Comment: The real issue is the threat to bats and soaring birds such as eagles.]
Offshore Wind “Wake Effect”
By Robert Bradley Jr., Master Resource, May 30, 2024
Offshore Wind Turbines Could Mess With Ships’ Radar Signals
By Jo Nova, Her Blog, May 29, 2024
Link to: Offshore Wind Energy: A Rising Challenge to Coast Guard Operations
By Lieutenant (junior grade) Lowen M. Hobbs, U.S. Coast Guard, US Naval Institute, July 2023
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Energy — Storage
The Many Problems With Batteries
By Iddo Wernick, Real Clear Energy, May 30, 2024
Link to report: Batteries and Secure Energy Transitions
By Staff, International Energy Agency (IEA), April 2024
The energy density of a storage technology is defined by its ability to store energy in a given volume or with a given mass. It is relevant and more than ironic that the energy density of biomass fuels like straw and animal dung is twenty times greater than the today‘s best lithium-ion batteries, and gasoline has an energy density over 50 times greater.
Alternative, Green (“Clean”) Vehicles
The amount of copper needed to build EVs is ‘impossible for mining companies to produce’
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 28, 2024
Link to article: The amount of copper needed to build EVs is ‘impossible for mining companies to produce’
By Tanya Weaver, E plus T Engineering and Technology, May 16, 2024
The Real Environmental Cost of EVs!
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 25, 2024
Video giving 6 reasons why EV’s are not a green as claimed, ICE cars are a small part on CO2 emissions.
London To Buy 100 Electric Buses From China
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 26, 2024
“’Each of the buses will apparently cost around £400,000, which is supposedly around £100,000 cheaper than what can be offered by UK suppliers.’”
Electric car drivers face astronomical costs to replace tyres
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 26, 2024
Carbon Schemes
Far From Cutting Power Plant Emissions, New EPA Rule May Make Things Worse
The rule relies on “carbon capture” technology that hasn’t been proven to work — and may introduce other dangers.
By Basav Sen , TRUTHOUT, May 27, 2024
Health, Energy, and Climate
How weather extremes worsened by climate change are now a major national public health threat–New stud
By Paul Homewood, Not a Lot of People Know That, May 29, 2024
Link to press release: Research reveals more people died from hot or cold weather conditions than COVID-19 in parts of UK
By Staff, University of Bristol, May 23, 2024
“The researchers sprang into action after Sir Patrick Vallance, the UK Government’s former Chief Scientific Adviser, highlighted at COP26 that the climate crisis was a far bigger problem than COVID-19, which would prove more fatal without immediate changes.”
Link to paper: Compound mortality impacts from extreme temperatures and the COVID-19 pandemic
By Y. T. Eunice Lo, et al., Nature, Communications, May 23, 2024
Homewood: I’ve come across plenty of junk climate studies, but this has to be one of the most amateurish:
BELOW THE BOTTOM LINE
Looking For Their Lost Keys
By Tony Heller, His Blog, May 28, 2024
Nothing which governments are doing under the name of climate makes any sense. It is all a smokescreen to hide other agendas.
Video Virtue signaling more important than evidence.
Rapid Climate Change
Video by Tony Heller, His Blog, May 26, 2024
The seamless transition from global cooling to global warming fearmongering was rather impressive.
The climate crisis is coming for ‘the CEO of the family’s health’
By Sharon Udasin, The Hill, May 30, 2024
The increasing incidence of climate change-induced heat spikes, wildfires and life-threatening flash floods is engulfing pregnant and postpartum individuals in a wave of eco-anxiety and depression.
Tidbits
By John Robson, Climate Discussion Nexus, May 29, 2024
And then he [a bureaucrat] added that with climate breakdown urgent they’re sauntering ahead: “The major emissions reductions will be sort of toward 2050 as opposed to in the next few years.” Sort of. Because they finally figured out that trees start small and grow over a while. Sort of. (They now claim they’ve planted 553 million, including ones they haven’t planted yet, which even the Environment Commissioner doubts, and Canada has 318 billion sort of so who cares anyway?
ARTICLES
1. Hang the Oil and Gas CEOs
Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats call for prosecuting fossil-fuel executives.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ, May 31, 2024
TWTW Summary: Discussed in the This Week section above.
*************
2. Anatomy of an EV Policy Error
The U.S. carefully researched a ‘poor’ strategy and then followed it.
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., WSJ, May 28, 2024
TWTW Summary: The journalist begins with:
“In an observation attributed to many, a recurrent human failing is to forget what we’re trying to accomplish. Less than two years have elapsed since the Inflation Reduction Act was passed, as Joe Biden put it, to ward off the ‘existential risk of climate change.’
The policy has already morphed into one of protecting American industry from cheaper green-energy technology available abroad.
You won’t find it mentioned in your newspaper or cable news (we’ll get to why) [omitted here], but it was never seriously thought that subsidizing green-energy consumption was a way to reduce emissions. Subsidizing green-energy consumption simply subsidizes more energy consumption—including fossil energy to churn out electric-vehicle batteries, wind turbines, solar panels, etc.
It adds to the unlimited amount of energy humans will consume if the price is right.
Tellingly, Mr. Biden’s own White House budget office, in an unsigned, undated ‘analysis,’ begs off defending Biden policy by declining to make any emissions-reduction forecast. Instead, it cites ‘complicated economic interactions’ while regurgitating what it knows are the flawed estimates of outside groups.
Long-time NASA climate scientist James Hansen, in a recent paper, dismissively points out that ‘thousands of pages of giveaways to special interests lard . . . the climate bill titled ‘Inflation Reduction Act’—Orwellian double-speak.’
From this, you might think no serious policy analysis preceded the Biden program. In fact, a 2013 congressionally sponsored National Research Council study, led by the father of climate economics and future Nobel laureate, Yale’s William Nordhaus, concluded that green handouts and tax breaks are ‘a poor tool for reducing greenhouse gases and achieving climate change objectives.’
This became the essence of Biden policy.”
The journalist then goes into details not needed here except to say that the policy will be ineffective.
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It’s a non stop assault on the senses with idiot politicians tripping themselves up on a wide range of issues. The tactic is basically one of: I’m not Rishi Sunak, vote for me. Cue the activists…
“UK election debates must make climate crisis a key issue, say green groups
Campaigners have written to broadcasters expressing concern that climate is not a more prominent discussion topic
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/03/uk-election-debates-must-make-climate-crisis-a-key-issue-say-green-groups
Nobody, but nobody, is worried about the usual rubbish summer weather, although it has had an effect on the schizophrenic Met Office – It could be hot, or it could rain (as it has done most of the year thus far). Energy, immigration, schools, jobs, health, defence etc etc etc are what concern people in the real world. But then, what does the great unwashed know?
“A number of NGOs have written to the TV networks expected to host the live debates, the first of which is on Tuesday at 9pm on ITV. “Support for climate action remains overwhelmingly high among all demographics of the UK public,” says the letter. “As broadcasters you have a duty to ensure that general election coverage reflects the public’s desire to see strong and serious leadership on climate and nature recovery – and a genuine debate about the solutions.”
This was organised by climate charity outfit called ‘Possible’. Ever heard of it? Me neither. At first glance it reminded me of ItsUsername, proclaiming…. Going Car Free in 2024
our vision is a zero carbon country created by, and for, everyone in the UK.
https://www.wearepossible.org/
Even if the people in the UK don’t want it, these enlightened (ie deranged) people know what’s best. But there could be a problem….
“A BBC spokesperson said: “More than ever before, the BBC is putting audiences at the centre of our election coverage. We will ask the questions they want us to ask, and report on the issues that matter most to them.”
If that is true, which I doubt, then nobody is going to be talking about the climate. Ouch.
“Support for climate action remains overwhelmingly high among all demographics of the UK public,”
I doubt it. I bet if you stop 100 people at random on the street and asked their top 10 worries- few people would mention the climate all, other than how they dislike the way the weather always is in the UK. Even here in wacky Wokeachusetts, I don’t know anyone who worries about at all- mostly because the weather is now a bit warmer and wetter- long growing seasons- less snow to plow, etc.
For only the second time since 2016 (last week was the first time), I have rejected this column for my climate and energy blog’s recommended reading list
The reason is Clauser
He is a climate science fool for the following false comment:
“The IPCC and its contributors claim the Earth has a net-warming energy imbalance. I show here that those claims are false.”
Only a fool would make that false claim — the dumbest claim I have ever read in 26.5 years of climate science reading
Earth has been warming for 48 years — so there must be an energy imbalance. Earth is always warming or cooling, so there is always an energy imbalance.
Clauser’s theory as a Cloud Nutter lacks sufficient data for any conclusion. Clouds are known to be a weak link in climate science but somehow Clauser must have invente cloud data on his own for his conclusion.
He also ignores all evidence of AGW, which many Nutter do,
Inconvenient data?
Seems to me that you deserve a Noble Prize for brilliant climate thinking. And a 2nd one for your excellent diplomatic skills.
Poor jealous RG.
Clauser has several magnitudes more scientific competence than you will ever be capable of.
What evidence of AGW ???
Plenty for AUW (Anthropogenic Urban Warming), but anthropogenic “global” warming… ???
You have never posted any, despite being asked many times.
Meanwhile absorbed solar energy related to a drop in cloud cover accounts for recent warming, which shows itself in El Nino events.
Clauser denying global warming is even worse than you denying AGW, while claiming AGW from UHI increases is happening.
You contradict yourself on AGW, which is funny.
And you prove that you don’t even know what AGW consists of, El Nino Nutter.
UHI is not CO2
Nor is UHI anywhere near being “global”…
It just happens to be where mot surface temperatures are measured.
Put your money where your mouth is. Where is Clauser’s calculation and criticism of Loeb and Wild wrong? Words are cheap.
LOL.. still NO EVIDENCE of Anthropogenic “GLOBAL” warming.. so sad. !
Your ignorance is palpable.
If there is more energy coming in, the atmosphere has to warm up to radiate that extra energy away.
And poor RG , still in total DENIAL of the El Nino warming that is absolutely visual in the atmospheric temperature data.
Thank You
I will add your complement to my resume.
compliment.
“to my resume.”
Are you still after that janitor’s job ??
The continual rejection must be hard for you.
You arn’t a narcissist, aren’t you ? 😀 😀
Why are you not chief of IPCC ? 😀 😀
And are you of the opinion Clauser won the Nobel price in lottery ? 😀 😀
If I was the head of the IPCC, I would shut down the organization.
Clauser did not win a Nobel Prize for climate science, nor has he published his first peer reviewed climate science paper. However, I gave him a Climate Booby Prize for denying global warming.
RG will never win prizes for anything except being a complete idiot and an arrogant prat. !
Clauser has several magnitudes more understanding of climate than RG will ever have.
The “Booby Prize” is a reflexion of RG’s low-level intelligence, not Clauser’s.
I really don’t think anyone with any common sense remotely cares if you reject scientific papers for your AGW-zealot blog. !
You have no common sense, and that’s why I reject your comment “there is no AGW” claptrap, El Nino Nutter.
You have AGW derangement syndrome Stage IV
Poor RG,, can we have another tantrum from you.. They are so funny to watch. !
You know, “mores facit homo”
They’re cheaper than renewables; a lot cheaper
Do you speak English?
Once upon a time, Latin was the language of science.
Of course you aren’t aware of science and it’s background as you prove with all your comments far of scientific credibility.
😀
Funnily enough, I do. And then some
He omitted a comma after “facit” is all.
“He also ignores all evidence of AGW, which many Nutter do, Inconvenient data?”
Specifically what is the evidence for AGW? You have never shown what that is although asked by several for the data which leads to the conclusion that you have none and your assertion is a lie.
Let’s see how many care about your rejection.
About as many as the amount of evidence he has produced.
ABSOLUTELY ZERO !!
Story Tip
Good Climate News: Greenland’s Ice Loss Likely Won’t Disrupt Atlantic Current, Say Researchers
A great armada entered the North Atlantic, launched from the cold shores of North America. But rather than ships off to war, this force was a fleet of icebergs. And the havoc it wrought was to the ocean current itself.
This scene describes a Heinrich Event, or a period of rapid iceberg discharge from the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the last glacial maximum. These episodes greatly weakened the system of ocean currents that circulates water within the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC for short, brings warm surface water north and cold deep water south. This oceanic conveyor belt is a major component of the global climate system, influencing marine ecosystems, weather patterns and temperatures.
Best part:
“We have a lot of anxiety about how fast climate change is happening and how dramatic the changes could be,” Zhou said. “But this is a piece of good climate news that hopefully will dissuade people from climate doomism, and give people hope, because we do need hope to fight the climate crisis.”
I do hope that Willis will weight in on Clauser’s arithmetic as he suggests someone do. Willis?
Thank you. I’ve been waiting for the SEPP folks to complete their transcript(s) of Clauser’s presentation. I think he’s trying to make some very crucial points, but will wait until these are more clearly presented before weighing in.
I am not Willis, but I will weigh in anyway.
Clauser’s ‘Cloud Thermostat’ mechanism is actually a water-evaporation phenomenon. After all, one must have water vapor to produce clouds.
The way it works is that for tropical sea-surface temperatures below about 25C there is not enough evaporative cooling to maintain the energy balance. With less water evaporation there will also be fewer clouds and the combination of less evaporative cooling and fewer clouds means that the tropical oceans will warm.
At sea-surface termperatures above about 27-28 C, there is excess evaporative cooling in the tropical oceans. The combination of excess cooling and increased cloudiness, from the extra water vapor causes the tropical oceans to cool.
Willis Eschenbach in his paper ‘Rainergy’ (WUWT – May 22, 2024) shows this very well. If you look at Figure 5 from this paper, you will see that total cloud cooling varies from < 100 W/m^2 at sea surface temperatures of 25 C to > 400 W/m^2 at 30 C.
The mechanism at play is that when the water vapor pressure is sufficiently high, at water temperatures above 25 C, the amount of water vapor in the air can start to drive the wind, which causes even more evaporation, and more wind, in a self re-enforcing manner. When the winds are sufficiently high to cause waves, with broken surface, the surface area available for evaporation then increases dramatically. The combination of high water vapor pressure, wind and waves is what causes the dramatic increase in evaporative cooling that is seen in Willis’s Figure 5.
This is exactly the phenomenon that results in tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic. Although in this case, there is usually a weather disturbance, coming off of the coast of Africa, that is a catalyst to start the winds. In the tropical Pacific we see this phenomenon in the form of the ENSO oscillation. However in this case the area is so large that the winds can be generated without the need for a catalyst.
As Clauser states ‘Just like the thermostat in your home, the power-imbalance is never zero’. This is because this is an oscillation between two unstable states, insufficient evaporative cooling and excessive evaporative cooling. Because the mechanism for excessive cooing is mechanical in nature, wind and waves, it can take a long time to wind up the system, and once it is wound up to slow it down. It is the hysteresis, the time lags, caused by the mechanical nature of the process that means that the system always overshoots in both directions. ENSO is in effect a natural oscillation between these two unstable states. The typical peiodicity of an ENSO cycle reflects the time required to ramp up and to slow down the winds as the waters heat and cool over the cycle.
That tropical sea surface temperatures, in particular ENSO control the overall earth’s temperatures is well known. Every meteorologist tells us how El Nino or La Nina are going to affect our temperature in the next months. While many authors including Willis Eschenbach and Bob Tisdale have shown how the warm waters of El Nino are correlated with sea-surface temperatures around the world.
I agree with Clauser, the sheer magnitude of the variation in evaporative cooling, between the high and low states, renders meaningless the small variations in the energy balance caused by CO2.
‘This is because this is an oscillation between two unstable states, insufficient evaporative cooling and excessive evaporative cooling.’
Sounds reasonable.
Thanks for weighing in. This is a nice explanation of the basic idea. And Clauser’s point about the large swings overwhelming the small imbalance is a good point also.
On-Off regulation with excessive lag presents challenges to its control. As you say, the oscillations overshoot. There are other complications too. For example, a disturbance to the mean state in the tropics will propagate as an atmospheric wave, actually several waves with different phase speeds. So, a regional disturbance to the sea surface, like diabatic heating, in one area propagates through the atmosphere. If you look at this in the Lagrangian sense where you follow a particular phase, the sea surface beneath the disturbance keeps changing because it is a different sea surface — this is a challenge to a feedback explanation. Then there are extra tropical disturbances that impact the surface air flowing into the tropics. One that I might think of is that of air dried by tropical convection taking a season or so to reach the subtropics and its subsidence changes regional radiation and evaporation. This now flows back to the tropics near the surface representing a disturbed input to the tropical system.
Finally, tropical convection seems more complex than one might imagine. Just as one example, hot towers with undiluted updraft don’t appear to represent most of the heat transport. A more complex source from stratiform clouds seems to augment it. It is so complex that people run back to the computer simulation to try to encapsulate it, but as Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling, the Energy Bad Boys, say
Convection is probably a bad input to computer models.
As is noted under the above webpage’s headline:
Quote of the Week: “Nobody understands quantum mechanics.”— Richard Feynman – Nobel laureate in Quantum Physics
That is, of course, in no small part due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle 🤔