Then they mysteriously leveled off for reasons I have never seen explained. Now it looks like that rising is resuming which I think is great news. Of course we once again need increasing reliable generating capacity. Fine by me.
The stall in US electricity consumption growth over the past decade is primarily due to significant improvements in energy efficiency, particularly from replacing older incandescent lightbulbs with LED and other higher efficiency bulbs, which effectively counterbalanced the rising power demand from population and economic growth, leading to less need for grid expansion and new power generation capacity
While I can’t speak for anything in general country-wide, I can say that as I have changed from incandescent to LED (mainly for lack of options), my electric bill has not seen any noticable change. The lights are not a major consumer of power.
One problem with that argument is that lighting has been a minor component in power consumption since WW2. I would think that higher rates for electric energy have discouraged growth in consumption.
FWIW, the change from carbon filament to tungsten resulted in an almost 4X increase in light output per watt.
LED bulbs and better insulation have certainly contributed, but so has a loss of manufacturing. For example, energy intensive aluminum production in the US has been in general decline since the 1980’s. Same for steel. Around the same time, electronics and other manufacturing sectors also began transferring to countries like China and Malaysia with only office jobs remaining stateside.
Our growth in trade deficits and reduction in US industrial output has kept US electricity level for some years.
.
However, it is rising again due to inefficiencies introduced by adding more and more dysfunctional, weather-dependent, inefficient wind, solar, and batteries.
The same happened in Germany and UK.
High Costs/kWh of Offshore Wind .
Forcing utilities to pay 15 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from fixed offshore wind systems, and
forcing utilities to pay 18 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from floating offshore wind systems
is suicidal economic insanity.
. Excluded costs, at a future 30% wind/solar penetration on the grid, the current UK level:
.
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement, about 2 c/kWh
– Traditional plants counteracting wind/solar variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, about 2 c/kWh
– Traditional plants providing electricity during 1) low-wind, and 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar conditions, about 2 c/kWh
– Wind and solar electricity that could have been produced, if not curtailed, about 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
I think mostly VFD’s and inverters for electric motors would be even more energy saving than LED’s. As a couple of small examples that turn out to be not so small…Nearly all large buildings now use VFD’s on their make-up air fans and save tens of horsepower worth of electric load compared to the old “size-em-for-max-flow-and-use-a-damper-to-throttle” philosophy.
Just the recommended change to VFD’s on swimming pool circ pumps saved megawatts of load for the summation of power users….changing street lights to LED’s saved some cities 20% of their municipal electric bill….and so on…
Unfortunately, these economies allowed “renewables” to rely on standby power as their “reserve” instead of builders being required to provide sufficient storage batteries for off hours.
I agree with your point about VFD’s in industry. I was directly involved for years as that trend emerged and matured in the ’80’s-90’s-2000’s. By 2010 it was pretty much the default practice for new 3-phase equipment in integer-horsepower and up applications.
Yes, I’ve designed industrial refrigeration systems with compressors of several thousand horsepower, for which, 40 years ago, we would have designed to be artificially loaded in wintertime to have “good control” but today use VFD’s to control the compressor speed instead, with minimum winter head pressure settings, with resultant large power savings, except of course when that worst design case is encountered in summertime.
Even home air conditioners now use inverters to save amp draw when it is 25 C outside compared to the warmer design condition of probably 35C outdoor temp.
For the most part, the development of insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) technology made these savings possible.
Have a look at China’s electricity demand: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-demand
Demand has doubled in the past decade. Demand in China was on par with USA just a decade ago. It is now more than double.
Like all western countries, USA has offshore energy intensive industry to China. China will burn close top 5bn tonnes off coal in 2024. This is more than half the global consumption of coal/
The only way the trend with electricity in the USA to reverse is to burn more coal or gas in the USA so the cost of electricity production in the USA is on par with ther cost in China. AI will expand where the electricity price is lowest.
I have been trying to understand how oceans regulate to a maximum sustainable temperature of 30C.
It seems that when the temperature overshoots 30C at the start of cyclic instability, the convective updraft overshoots the tropopause and cause very bright, persistent cloud. The SWR can read 85% of the incoming solar.
In looking for very bright locations I found there are regions over land that also experience very high SWR. Not quite as bright as over oceans but still very bright with SWR in excess of 350W/m^2.
IN THE TROPICS, WV rises, causes winds to rush in that cause ripples and waves on the surface, which cause more evaporation, until the two processes are in balance at about 30 C water temp.
This process is 24/7/365, in the tropics, which produces almost all WV
Here is the more complete statement from my article https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/hunga-tonga-volcanic-eruption
. Water Vapor: In the Tropics, insolation and water and air temperatures are high, while the water travels, causing much evaporation and huge cloud formation.
As the WV and warm air rises, other air flows in to fill the “vacuum”. .
This causes winds, which ripple the surface, which causes greater rates of evaporation, which causes increased winds and waves, which causes even greater rates of evaporation, etc., until the two processes, and the upwards rising of colder waters, are in balance at about 30 C water temperature.
.
This process is 24/7/365, in the tropics, which produces almost all WV
The tropopause offers a most unappreciated clue to the origins of tropospheric thermal gradients. Climate science insists it’s the adiabatic lapse rate, an equilibrium parameter (g/Cp). Maxwell and Boltzmann argued, to no avail, fluid equilibria in uniform gravitational fields remain isothermal – as is the lower stratosphere. Landau and Lif….z have shown the adiabatic lapse rate defines a necessary condition for the absence of convection. Perhaps a long sought tipping point has been discovered at which an equilibrium system transforms into a dissipative one with thermal gradients dependent on fluxes.
Maxwell and Boltzmann argued for an isothermal temp profile of gases in a gravitational field, while Loschmidt argued that the temperature had to decrease as the molecules fought their way upward in a gravitational field.
Textbook derivations of atmospheric lapse rate generally try to avoid declaring Maxwell and Boltzmann “wrong” by resorting to explanations of convectively rising air parcels doing work, thereby cooling, as they rise….which is still molecules losing energy while they fight their way upward in a gravitational field….but anyway….
Surely there will be news soon claiming 2024 as the “hottest year EVER” or possibly “second hottest” (after 2023) in support of the absurd notion of “climate action.”
One way to respond to such claims is to show the outputs of (arguably) the most advanced modeling of our modern times – the ERA5 reanalysis. It shows that 2024 started out warmer on average than 2023, but ended cooler. Obviously, this recent episode of rapid warming and cooling happened naturally and has nothing to do with CO2.
(And yes, I know that averaging temperatures does not convey anything particularly meaningful about the energy state of the atmosphere or the climate system as a whole.)
Dr Friederike Otto invented her own novel method of attribution and has parlayed it into a career, pretty much unexamined because to scrutinise it would be to doubt—even disparage (and in academia that is “literal” violence don’tcha know). Nice people don’t ask hard questions.
[…], the global sea temperature over a large area of the world’s oceans has shown a dramatic reduction of 0.5°C. It is now back to the level seen in 2015.
“2024 started out warmer on average than 2023, but ended cooler.” DD
The last half of 2023 included six El Nino months while the last six months of 2024 included zero El Nino months. You have stated silly science.
2024 is expected to be the warmest year on record. Here’s why It’s looking like 2024 will be the hottest year since record-keeping began, unseating 2023 for the top spot. This tells us the post-1975 global warming trend is still in progress and should be celebrated. Global cooling is bad news.
“You have stated silly science.” No. I have just reported what is freely available for all to see for themselves. “Global cooling is bad news.”
I agree it would be bad, if persistent. The global cooling every year from July to January is not bad, though. 🙂
Richard, If my predictions are correct, 2024 will likely remain the hottest year on record (since the LIA) for at least a decade, possibly until 2050. The warming trend ended in 2016 and we can expect modest cooling. Solar activity actually started falling some time ago, but the heat capacity of the earth’s oceans are so great that there’s a significant delay between solar forcing and global temperature.
My susnpot-based model appears to predict most major El Niño events, though I’ll admit I haven’t tried to figure out why. However, it didn’t predict the current temperature spike which is one of the reasons I’m open to the HT explanation, and why I expected the spike to be just that, a spike, and not another step increase in temperature.
Yes, Richard, we all believe that you’re a skeptic who celebrates continued warming.
Hottest year since record-keeping began
Exactly how I would put it. Not “warmest” but “hottest”. Not “since 1979” but “since record-keeping began”. Wait, shouldn’t it be “EVAH!!” or am missing something?
Except for the change of baseline the pair 1987/1988 looks very similar to 2023/2024. Oh, was 1988 a hot year over plains and Rocky Mountains!
One thing I noticed when I put together the addendum to the heat engines essay last summer, and have not gotten around to revisit, is that even dry convection on land appears to have a great deal of unused capacity to lift heat from the surface. It’s unused at present because radiation, its competitor at this task, readily grabs half the task. However, it seems to be capacity that could be called upon if CO2 were to frustrate the work of radiation.
I wonder if Rickwill is seeing this same sort of situation over the oceans.
CO2, as well any other well mixed radiative gas, moves energy out of the atmosphere at a constant rate independent of its concentration.
I’m unsure the basis for your statement, but what I was referring to is this: doubling the concentration of CO2, ceteris paribus, reduces net radiation transport surface to troposphere by about 1% and to maintain energy balance, the surface temperature has to rise about 1/4 of 1% to compensate (Stefan-Boltzmann law). The issue is ceteris paribus. Does all else actually remain the same? Convection and radiation both carry heat from the Earth’s surface, so there is no reason to demand that radiation carry all the disturbance of doubled CO2 by itself. I see, in the few instances I have looked closely, that there is a very large capacity for heat transfer through convection that is untapped.
“The issue is ceteris paribus. Does all else actually remain the same?”
Answer – obviously not, as you know. This is important. Incremental CO2 slightly improves the IR absorbing power of the atmosphere, making it slightly more responsive to daytime solar heating of the surface. This promotes the general circulation. Consider page 1 of this 2010 course guide from the University of Washington. It’s not only about “convection” in the sense of thermals, cumulus convection, dust devils, thunderstorms etc. although I would say that incremental CO2 should also slightly advance the timing of the emergence of those phenomena during the day. https://a.atmos.uw.edu/academics/classes/2010Q2/545/545_Ch_1.pdf
CO2 Has a Very Minor Role in the Atmosphere https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/co2-has-a-very-minor-role-in-the-atmosphere
By Willem Post
. In the tropics and subtropics, CO2 a weak photon absorber, plays no measurable role, because, near the surface, it is outnumbered by about 27400/420 = 65 to 1 by water vapor, WV, a strong photon absorber. Plus, WV, 18, is lighter than CO2, 44, and air, 29, so it rises and condenses into clouds at about 2000 meter elevation. The clouds, with prevailing winds, are transported to northern latitudes, to areas underserved by the sun, especially during winter. That means the WV and clouds we see up north, from the 37th parallel upwards, come from faraway places, because up north there is not enough energy to evaporate much water, where flora sheds its leaves and hibernates from September to April, and where much fauna migrates to southern latitudes. Any evaporation is from near or on the ground, such as from as dew, ground fog, snow and ice. But, even up north, near the surface, CO2 plays no measurable role, because WV outnumbers CO2 by about 17700/420 = 42 to 1. . Above the Clouds CO2 begins to play a measurable role when the presence of WV is lower, say 3 to 1, at about 3000 m elevation, which is above the clouds. WV freezes on all dry air molecules and on CO2, pollen, aerosols, etc. Any sunlight photons are reflected, refracted. Some of the photons will be absorbed by the frozen WV molecules. Photons will not be absorbed by the CO2 molecules, because they are covered with ice. The thermal effect of that absorption is miniscule, compared to the absorption near the earth surface. The atmosphere heat content, aka Enthalpy, is 358 kJ / m^3 near the surface, decreases to 19.5 KJ / m^3 at 20 km. https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/natural-forces-cause-periodic-global-warming . At colder temperatures above the clouds, any emitted photons would have longer wavelengths beyond the CO2 15 micrometer absorption window. However, WV would absorb these photons, because it has a much wider window starting at about 15 micrometer. . NOTE: A photon, a vibrating package of energy with a wavelength, has no mass, moves at the speed of light in a vacuum, which is many orders of magnitude greater than the speed of molecules . At higher elevation, temperature is less, density is less, there are fewer molecules/m^3 or moles/m^3, there are fewer collisions, because molecules are further apart. The average kinetic energy of molecules decreases with temperature. See URL KE = 3/2 RT = 3/2 x 8.314 J / (mol K) https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-albany-chemistry/chapter/the-kinetic-molecular-theory/#:~:text=Key%20Concepts%20and%20Summary,the%20mass%20of%20its%20molecules
There is a slight broadening of the 15 µm spectral window. That is what reduces the energy transport. However, that is where the enhanced evaporation/convection comes into play. This leads to a reduction in high altitude water vapor which then allows more energy transport.
Six Cabinet ministers would lose their seats to Reform UK in a general election, a new survey has revealed.
Prominent Labour figures including Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, would lose to Reform if an election were held today.
The More in Common think tank for the Sunday Times has found that Labour would lose nearly 200 of the seats it won in July, after months of negative polls for Sir Keir Starmer.
Seven Cabinet ministers would lose their seats, six going to Nigel Farage’s party and one to an independent candidate, according to a survey based on data of more than 11,000 people.
Labour would still win the most seats, but would only have a lead of six over the Tories, who would seize 87 seats from Sir Keir, with Reform taking 67. The Government would win barely a third of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, of which a party needs to win more than half to be able to form a government alone.
Miliband would lose seatJohn Healey, the Defence Secretary, Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary and Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, would all be defeated by Reform.
Hung Parliament, probably leading to a rerun of the election, after which all bets are off!
Forgive an ignorant Yank question, but why would it ever be any sooner than 15 August 2029?
Even if Sir Stalin becomes miraculously popular at some point in the next four years, isn’t it supremely unlikely that Labour would ever get a better position than they currently enjoy?
Do you understand my question? Is there any possible reason why Labour is forced to call for an early election or would rationally wish to do so?
As I poorly understand it, a no-confidence vote is one way, but given the massive majority, that could never happen, short of some massive policy crack-up within Labour’s ranks.
Another way is to call an early election if they think that they would profit from it, but again, given their massive majority and their heightened unpopularity, that would be electoral insanity, certain to reduce their majority or throw them out of government.
Isn’t it the case that the UK faces four and a half long years in the wilderness?
Yes. probably. The key issue is a majority in the Commons. At the moment Labour has a total working majority over all the other parties combined of 163 seats. There are a total of 650 seats.
UK elections are not held on a fixed schedule. The rule is that an election is held on whichever of the following happens first:
Loss of Commons vote on a confidence issue. This need not be a formal vote of no confidence, but can also be on a confidence issue such as budget.
Decision by the Commons to hold an election (this means in effect that its in the power of the Prime Minister of the day to call one whenever he or she wants)
The government term expires. It is currently 5 years, which it has been since 1911.
So you are right, there is nothing formal in the way of the current government continuing without another election for another 4+ years.
There is a ‘but’ however. The UK does not have a written constitution, and as you can tell from the above the duration of a government is not constitutionally set. Unlike the US, where Presidential elections occur on a fixed constitutionally mandated schedule. The current government under Keir Starmer is most unlikely to call an election much before the prescribed end of their term.
So from that point of view the poll cited just shows an increasing divergence between the state of feeling in the country and the scale of the majority in Parliament.
But, there are local elections quite frequently. The next set are in May. There are also by-elections caused by a Parliamentary seat becoming vacant.
You have to imagine a situation a couple of years from now, whether likely or not I leave to you to guess.
Local elections have been uniformly wipeouts for Labour. All by-elections have been lost. There are blackouts from the Miliband energy policies. There is a strong recession with high and rising unemployment, collapsing companies.. Taxes have been put up repeatedly. Ministers are greeted with demonstrations and abuse whenever they show their faces in public. Editorials in all press uniformly are demanding an early election.
This is a different situation from the US, because an early election is perfectly possible. Its just a question of whether public opinion can generate enough pressure on Starmer or his successor that he feels unable to resist it.
Can it happen? Yes, certainly, it is possible constitutionally, Is it likely? That’s up to others to guess at. A lot will hang on Miliband’s policies, Reeves’ next budget statement, and whether there are cold winters.
You can also imagine a scenario in which Starmer calls an early election. PMs often make a mistake on this. Imagine, its two years from now, the polls have been dire, and the country is in a bad shape economically. But, there is a sudden summer pickup, something dramatic happens, like the UK wins the World Cup (I know, very unlikely), and the polls pick up.
From his point of view, he is going to have to call an election in 18 months, things can only get worse, it looks, so he goes for it. A bit like the situation Sunak found himself in. He does not have to, but it seems like the least bad alternative.
Alas, the polls are wrong, yet again, and its a wipeout in favor of Reform. Or something happens with Reform, and its in favor of a reformed Conservative Party. Pretty unlikely as well, they don’t show much signs of radical rethinking. But you can see how this might work out to a shorter government than we expect at the moment.
This map is predicting cold air in Saskatchewan and North Dakota for next weekend.
However, neither territory is part of the “mountains in the west.” Last year (Dec 2023) there was extreme cold in western Montana, Idaho, and Washington. This year (2024) is slightly above normal for the region. I’ll be happy if that cold air mass continues to roll south into Iowa. I can do without the minus double digits that I had last year in central Washington State.
That pattern is keeping the cold air east of the Continental Divide. Note the part coming off the Pacific Ocean. On the 6th of January central WA State will be about 35 F degrees warmer than central North Dakota.
I have yet to see any believable images showing “minibus sized drones” flying around.
The pics I have seen show brightly lit objects which could be drones, but there is no scale reference at all. If they were nefarious, intelligence-gathering devices, why are they brightly lit? Drones don’t need light. One would think, if they were meant to be used only at night (presumably to avoid detection), they would have IR cameras and lights, which wouldn’t be visible to the naked eye.
I think the vast majority are mistaken identity, as with most UFOs. Is there something going on other than mass hysteria? Don’t know.
If anyone has any convincing video, please post a link.
As an example, highlighted by CBS news, this X post by former Maryland governor Larry Hogan clearly shows that he is recording stars, that aren’t moving.
I remember when I was in Basic Training and in attendance of a lecture on night fighting, which was given in an auditorium. There appeared to be a small light on the stage being waved around. When that part of the lecture was over, the auditorium lights were turned back on. It then became obvious that the light we were observing was fixed to the lectern, intended to allow the speaker to read notes. Our eyes were moving randomly, attempting to interpret the context of the single light. As soon as there was more light, our eyes fixed on the background and made it clear that the light was not actually moving. I suspect that what is being reported on the East Coast is similar.
Yes. I trained in Armored Recon, so we did a lot of night map courses, and similar things. We were taught to not look directly at something necessarily, but at a fixed point off to the side of the object we were trying to see. Often times it became more obvious what it was we were looking at when doing so. Similar to when you’re trying to detect movement over a large area, don’t keep looking all over the place, but just at a single point and don’t focus on it. You’ll see peripheral movement more easily when your eyes aren’t moving all around.
I watched one video which involved 3 minutes of camera recording on an unstable small boat and some of the “drones” looked like interior lights reflected in the windshield. Totally unimpressive. Another video showed an approaching drone with a red running light to the right — I.e. red right returning. It had a white strobe on the tail, and as it passed overhead I thought I could see some of a fuselage and overhead wing illuminated.
Yes, just like the occasional outbreak of UFO madness.
Newer cell phones collect more “light” than human eyes. Friends take video and show me the Norther Lights that are almost invisible to me. And because I have seen spectacular displays twice in my life – I am not impressed with their captures.
Where did the New Jersey mystery drones go? I presume they went on holiday.
Russell Cook
December 29, 2024 8:09 am
For over 33 years, the public has been told the CAGW science is settled and nobody should listen to skeptic climate scientists because they participated in an ‘industry disinformation campaign’ targeting a narrow, gullible slice of the public which operated under a memo directive to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact” The late Washington Examiner contributor Ron Arnold wiped out the idea that the “reposition” directive was ever implemented; now, regarding the report that is the basis of the Dec 4 2024 Carrboro v Duke Energy lawsuit, that report inadvertently contained two documents which shoot down the notion that the alleged ‘disinformation campaign’ (it contained no actual disinformation) narrowly targeted two audience types.
He has not. I have, at my GelbspanFiles blog. WUWT sometimes reproduces my blog posts here as guest posts on how the various angles surrounding ye olde “reposition global warming” accusation implodes, including in the now-35 current “ExxonKnew” lawsuits. You might be thinking of my April 25. 2024 guest post.
Richard M
December 29, 2024 8:40 am
The effects of carbon dioxide concentration on atmospheric temperature near the ground surface are small. The temperature at 5 m above the ground increases by approximately 0.3 K and then maintains constant as carbon dioxide concentrations rise from 100 to 350 ppm and from 350 to 400 ppm
This recent paper highlights what I believe are the true effects of CO2 on a dry climate. They attempted to model the physics of the atmosphere to a higher level.
There is no warming at the surface where conduction eliminates any warming from CO2 downwelling IR. A little higher we see a small warming, due to the broadening of the 15µm CO2 spectral absorption window, as CO2 increases.
What is not modeled here is the increased evaporation over tropical waters. This added water vapor enhances convection which reduces the residual high altitude water vapor. The residual water vapor is carried to high latitudes by the Hadley circulation.
The small warming effect of 0.3 K is then offset by the small cooling effect from the reduced water vapor greenhouse effect.
Thanks for this link. I haven’t read it carefully yet, but they make a very good point that transport processes need far more careful study. Indeed. If I were to go looking for the negative feedback that appears to be missing from the minds of the warmist crowd, that place would be over-all heat transport. That means solving the full heat transport equation for latent heat, convection, and radiation simultaneously. This is accomplished at such small scales that modeling codes don’t handle the process well, I’m sure. As a result too much emphasis is on radiation near surface to counter all of the effects of CO2 warming, small as it is.
Scientists warn of impending ‘Ultra-Intense Category 6’ stormPublished: 29 December 2024
Scientists have made a stark warning of an impending ‘Ultra-Intense Category 6’ storm hitting the US. The prediction comes from an international team of over 60 experts who found the burning of fossil fuels has poured the equivalent energy into the Earth’s systems, heralding a dark new era of ‘mega-hurricanes.’
An ‘Ultra-Intense Category 6’ storm would unleash winds of 192 miles per hour or higher and a rise in seawater exceeding 25 feet.
OH BUT Wait…..
While this is a theoretical weather event, experts called it ‘the most powerful storm ever seen on Earth,’ predicting it will form sometime around 2100′ and be named Hurricane Danielle.
“The highest wind speed ever recorded was 253 mph (113.3 m/s) on Barrow Island, Australia, during Tropical Cyclone Olivia on April 10, 1996. Prior to that, the record was 231 mph (103.3 m/s) measured at Mount Washington, New Hampshire, on April 12, 1934.”
2-Tier Keir: “Does anyone have any ideas on how to boost the economy?”
Public: “Lower our taxes!”
2-Tier Keir: “Anyone at all?”
Public: “Quit with this Net Zero bollocks!”
2-Tier Keir: “No? Nothing?”
Public: “That’s it! We’re ALL voting Reform next time!”
2-Tier Keir: “Cheer up chumps! By the time I leave office, there’ll be nothing left for Reform to… reform!”
Ireneusz
December 30, 2024 2:36 am
Snowstorm over the Great Lakes. This is just the beginning of snowfall in the area.
People seem surprised that US electric power needs are projected to rise. They rose steadily for the 50 years 1950-2000 and likely before that:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/188521/total-us-electricity-net-generation/
Then they mysteriously leveled off for reasons I have never seen explained. Now it looks like that rising is resuming which I think is great news. Of course we once again need increasing reliable generating capacity. Fine by me.
The stall in US electricity consumption growth over the past decade is primarily due to significant improvements in energy efficiency, particularly from replacing older incandescent lightbulbs with LED and other higher efficiency bulbs, which effectively counterbalanced the rising power demand from population and economic growth, leading to less need for grid expansion and new power generation capacity
Light bulbs?
Light bulbs?
While I can’t speak for anything in general country-wide, I can say that as I have changed from incandescent to LED (mainly for lack of options), my electric bill has not seen any noticable change. The lights are not a major consumer of power.
Light bulbs are decades back and absolutely far away from actual devlopements.
After many years, penetration of LEDs, the most efficient, longest-lasting light source, is a very low percentage of all existing light sources
One problem with that argument is that lighting has been a minor component in power consumption since WW2. I would think that higher rates for electric energy have discouraged growth in consumption.
FWIW, the change from carbon filament to tungsten resulted in an almost 4X increase in light output per watt.
LED bulbs and better insulation have certainly contributed, but so has a loss of manufacturing. For example, energy intensive aluminum production in the US has been in general decline since the 1980’s. Same for steel. Around the same time, electronics and other manufacturing sectors also began transferring to countries like China and Malaysia with only office jobs remaining stateside.
Our growth in trade deficits and reduction in US industrial output has kept US electricity level for some years.
.
However, it is rising again due to inefficiencies introduced by adding more and more dysfunctional, weather-dependent, inefficient wind, solar, and batteries.
The same happened in Germany and UK.
High Costs/kWh of Offshore Wind
.
Forcing utilities to pay 15 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from fixed offshore wind systems, and
forcing utilities to pay 18 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from floating offshore wind systems
is suicidal economic insanity.
.
Excluded costs, at a future 30% wind/solar penetration on the grid, the current UK level:
.
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement, about 2 c/kWh
– Traditional plants counteracting wind/solar variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, about 2 c/kWh
– Traditional plants providing electricity during 1) low-wind, and 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar conditions, about 2 c/kWh
– Wind and solar electricity that could have been produced, if not curtailed, about 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
Where is the source to support your opinion?
I think mostly VFD’s and inverters for electric motors would be even more energy saving than LED’s. As a couple of small examples that turn out to be not so small…Nearly all large buildings now use VFD’s on their make-up air fans and save tens of horsepower worth of electric load compared to the old “size-em-for-max-flow-and-use-a-damper-to-throttle” philosophy.
Just the recommended change to VFD’s on swimming pool circ pumps saved megawatts of load for the summation of power users….changing street lights to LED’s saved some cities 20% of their municipal electric bill….and so on…
Unfortunately, these economies allowed “renewables” to rely on standby power as their “reserve” instead of builders being required to provide sufficient storage batteries for off hours.
I agree with your point about VFD’s in industry. I was directly involved for years as that trend emerged and matured in the ’80’s-90’s-2000’s. By 2010 it was pretty much the default practice for new 3-phase equipment in integer-horsepower and up applications.
Yes, I’ve designed industrial refrigeration systems with compressors of several thousand horsepower, for which, 40 years ago, we would have designed to be artificially loaded in wintertime to have “good control” but today use VFD’s to control the compressor speed instead, with minimum winter head pressure settings, with resultant large power savings, except of course when that worst design case is encountered in summertime.
Even home air conditioners now use inverters to save amp draw when it is 25 C outside compared to the warmer design condition of probably 35C outdoor temp.
For the most part, the development of insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) technology made these savings possible.
Have a look at China’s electricity demand:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-demand
Demand has doubled in the past decade. Demand in China was on par with USA just a decade ago. It is now more than double.
Like all western countries, USA has offshore energy intensive industry to China. China will burn close top 5bn tonnes off coal in 2024. This is more than half the global consumption of coal/
The only way the trend with electricity in the USA to reverse is to burn more coal or gas in the USA so the cost of electricity production in the USA is on par with ther cost in China. AI will expand where the electricity price is lowest.
I have been trying to understand how oceans regulate to a maximum sustainable temperature of 30C.
It seems that when the temperature overshoots 30C at the start of cyclic instability, the convective updraft overshoots the tropopause and cause very bright, persistent cloud. The SWR can read 85% of the incoming solar.
In looking for very bright locations I found there are regions over land that also experience very high SWR. Not quite as bright as over oceans but still very bright with SWR in excess of 350W/m^2.
I found an interesting paper on predominantly geographically driven overshooting convection pin the USA:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20230011171/downloads/paper1.pdf
Overshooting convection often leads to the development of cycle;ones that become self-sustaining temperature reducing systems.
Yes, interesting.
La Niña
https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/soi/
IN THE TROPICS, WV rises, causes winds to rush in that cause ripples and waves on the surface, which cause more evaporation, until the two processes are in balance at about 30 C water temp.
This process is 24/7/365, in the tropics, which produces almost all WV
Here is the more complete statement from my article
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/hunga-tonga-volcanic-eruption
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Water Vapor: In the Tropics, insolation and water and air temperatures are high, while the water travels, causing much evaporation and huge cloud formation.
As the WV and warm air rises, other air flows in to fill the “vacuum”. .
This causes winds, which ripple the surface, which causes greater rates of evaporation, which causes increased winds and waves, which causes even greater rates of evaporation, etc., until the two processes, and the upwards rising of colder waters, are in balance at about 30 C water temperature.
.
This process is 24/7/365, in the tropics, which produces almost all WV
The tropopause offers a most unappreciated clue to the origins of tropospheric thermal gradients. Climate science insists it’s the adiabatic lapse rate, an equilibrium parameter (g/Cp). Maxwell and Boltzmann argued, to no avail, fluid equilibria in uniform gravitational fields remain isothermal – as is the lower stratosphere. Landau and Lif….z have shown the adiabatic lapse rate defines a necessary condition for the absence of convection. Perhaps a long sought tipping point has been discovered at which an equilibrium system transforms into a dissipative one with thermal gradients dependent on fluxes.
Maxwell and Boltzmann argued for an isothermal temp profile of gases in a gravitational field, while Loschmidt argued that the temperature had to decrease as the molecules fought their way upward in a gravitational field.
Textbook derivations of atmospheric lapse rate generally try to avoid declaring Maxwell and Boltzmann “wrong” by resorting to explanations of convectively rising air parcels doing work, thereby cooling, as they rise….which is still molecules losing energy while they fight their way upward in a gravitational field….but anyway….
Surely there will be news soon claiming 2024 as the “hottest year EVER” or possibly “second hottest” (after 2023) in support of the absurd notion of “climate action.”
One way to respond to such claims is to show the outputs of (arguably) the most advanced modeling of our modern times – the ERA5 reanalysis. It shows that 2024 started out warmer on average than 2023, but ended cooler. Obviously, this recent episode of rapid warming and cooling happened naturally and has nothing to do with CO2.
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=world
(And yes, I know that averaging temperatures does not convey anything particularly meaningful about the energy state of the atmosphere or the climate system as a whole.)
Well…
Climate crisis exposed people to extra six weeks of dangerous heat in 2024
”The impacts of fossil fuel warming have never been clearer or more devastating than in 2024 and caused unrelenting suffering,” said Dr Friederike Otto, of Imperial College London “
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/dec/27/climate-crisis-dangerous-heat-2024
But not in the UK
If you search on “self flagellation”, you get a link to The Guardian.
I had it under the heading of absurd komedy
Perhaps it’s a form of schadenfreude on my part…
https://youtu.be/e4q6eaLn2mY
A procession of medieval self-flagellators.
Could be a line-up at the newsagent to buy a daily edition of The Grauniad 🙂
And if you search for “confirmation bias on steroids” you get Dr. Otto
Dr Friederike Otto invented her own novel method of attribution and has parlayed it into a career, pretty much unexamined because to scrutinise it would be to doubt—even disparage (and in academia that is “literal” violence don’tcha know). Nice people don’t ask hard questions.
She’s a spin PhD
Is that anything like a spinhead?
Oh yes, I remember. I was there in August and it was over 20° part of the time!
Certainly not in the UK but don’t worry the Grauniad is a master of hyperbole –
“It is possible that uncounted millions of people have died as a result of human-caused global heating in recent decades”
They also add as a kind of aside “Wild fires can ravage bee colonies with huge environmental effects” – Save the Bees!
Absolutely correct — “uncounted”
There is/was no evidence of fossil fuel warming in 2024.
Poor mutt is an El Nino denier.
Would the red thumb like to provide evidence of fossil fuel warming in 2024.
Remember, Nick has shown that SST anomalies have been dropping since January 😉
The good folks at The Daily Sceptic have a relevant article:
Recent Temperature Falls Likely to Put a Dampener on ‘Hottest Year Evah’ Stories
No doubt this goes along with the dramatic shift in the tropics as shown here during 2024.
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/?dm_id=tropics
Yes, this is what happens when we transition from El Nino to La Nina. What will be more interesting is where we are when the La Nina ends.
Holy Smoke! Already half way back to normal !!
“2024 started out warmer on average than 2023, but ended cooler.” DD
The last half of 2023 included six El Nino months while the last six months of 2024 included zero El Nino months. You have stated silly science.
2024 is expected to be the warmest year on record. Here’s why It’s looking like 2024 will be the hottest year since record-keeping began, unseating 2023 for the top spot. This tells us the post-1975 global warming trend is still in progress and should be celebrated. Global cooling is bad news.
“You have stated silly science.”
No. I have just reported what is freely available for all to see for themselves.
“Global cooling is bad news.”
I agree it would be bad, if persistent. The global cooling every year from July to January is not bad, though. 🙂
Richard, If my predictions are correct, 2024 will likely remain the hottest year on record (since the LIA) for at least a decade, possibly until 2050. The warming trend ended in 2016 and we can expect modest cooling. Solar activity actually started falling some time ago, but the heat capacity of the earth’s oceans are so great that there’s a significant delay between solar forcing and global temperature.
My susnpot-based model appears to predict most major El Niño events, though I’ll admit I haven’t tried to figure out why. However, it didn’t predict the current temperature spike which is one of the reasons I’m open to the HT explanation, and why I expected the spike to be just that, a spike, and not another step increase in temperature.
Yes, Richard, we all believe that you’re a skeptic who celebrates continued warming.
Exactly how I would put it. Not “warmest” but “hottest”. Not “since 1979” but “since record-keeping began”. Wait, shouldn’t it be “EVAH!!” or am missing something?
Mr. Greene Jeans hath declared it.
Typical denier of the Hunga-Tonga warming effect.
You are talking from absolute ignorance, as usual, dickie.
2024 was nearly ALL under the effect of the 2023 El Nino + HT event
2023, the temp above the start of the El Nino was only more than 0.7C from September onwards.
Every month so far in 2024 has been more than 0.7C above the start at the beginning of the El Nino in 2023.
Of course the average of 2024 is going to be above that of 2023
Except for the change of baseline the pair 1987/1988 looks very similar to 2023/2024. Oh, was 1988 a hot year over plains and Rocky Mountains!
One thing I noticed when I put together the addendum to the heat engines essay last summer, and have not gotten around to revisit, is that even dry convection on land appears to have a great deal of unused capacity to lift heat from the surface. It’s unused at present because radiation, its competitor at this task, readily grabs half the task. However, it seems to be capacity that could be called upon if CO2 were to frustrate the work of radiation.
I wonder if Rickwill is seeing this same sort of situation over the oceans.
CO2, as well any other well mixed radiative gas, moves energy out of the atmosphere at a constant rate independent of its concentration.
CO2 also enhances evaporation which then enhances convection. This occurs most effectively over Tropical oceans.
I’m unsure the basis for your statement, but what I was referring to is this: doubling the concentration of CO2, ceteris paribus, reduces net radiation transport surface to troposphere by about 1% and to maintain energy balance, the surface temperature has to rise about 1/4 of 1% to compensate (Stefan-Boltzmann law). The issue is ceteris paribus. Does all else actually remain the same? Convection and radiation both carry heat from the Earth’s surface, so there is no reason to demand that radiation carry all the disturbance of doubled CO2 by itself. I see, in the few instances I have looked closely, that there is a very large capacity for heat transfer through convection that is untapped.
“The issue is ceteris paribus. Does all else actually remain the same?”
Answer – obviously not, as you know. This is important. Incremental CO2 slightly improves the IR absorbing power of the atmosphere, making it slightly more responsive to daytime solar heating of the surface. This promotes the general circulation. Consider page 1 of this 2010 course guide from the University of Washington. It’s not only about “convection” in the sense of thermals, cumulus convection, dust devils, thunderstorms etc. although I would say that incremental CO2 should also slightly advance the timing of the emergence of those phenomena during the day. https://a.atmos.uw.edu/academics/classes/2010Q2/545/545_Ch_1.pdf
CO2 induces increased evaporation directly. This eliminates any warming directly and therefore no feedback occurs.
CO2 Has a Very Minor Role in the Atmosphere
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/co2-has-a-very-minor-role-in-the-atmosphere
By Willem Post
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In the tropics and subtropics, CO2 a weak photon absorber, plays no measurable role, because, near the surface, it is outnumbered by about 27400/420 = 65 to 1 by water vapor, WV, a strong photon absorber.
Plus, WV, 18, is lighter than CO2, 44, and air, 29, so it rises and condenses into clouds at about 2000 meter elevation.
The clouds, with prevailing winds, are transported to northern latitudes, to areas underserved by the sun, especially during winter.
That means the WV and clouds we see up north, from the 37th parallel upwards, come from faraway places, because up north there is not enough energy to evaporate much water, where flora sheds its leaves and hibernates from September to April, and where much fauna migrates to southern latitudes.
Any evaporation is from near or on the ground, such as from as dew, ground fog, snow and ice.
But, even up north, near the surface, CO2 plays no measurable role, because WV outnumbers CO2 by about 17700/420 = 42 to 1.
.
Above the Clouds
CO2 begins to play a measurable role when the presence of WV is lower, say 3 to 1, at about 3000 m elevation, which is above the clouds. WV freezes on all dry air molecules and on CO2, pollen, aerosols, etc.
Any sunlight photons are reflected, refracted. Some of the photons will be absorbed by the frozen WV molecules. Photons will not be absorbed by the CO2 molecules, because they are covered with ice.
The thermal effect of that absorption is miniscule, compared to the absorption near the earth surface.
The atmosphere heat content, aka Enthalpy, is 358 kJ / m^3 near the surface, decreases to 19.5 KJ / m^3 at 20 km.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/natural-forces-cause-periodic-global-warming
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At colder temperatures above the clouds, any emitted photons would have longer wavelengths beyond the CO2 15 micrometer absorption window. However, WV would absorb these photons, because it has a much wider window starting at about 15 micrometer.
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NOTE: A photon, a vibrating package of energy with a wavelength, has no mass, moves at the speed of light in a vacuum, which is many orders of magnitude greater than the speed of molecules
.
At higher elevation, temperature is less, density is less, there are fewer molecules/m^3 or moles/m^3, there are fewer collisions, because molecules are further apart.
The average kinetic energy of molecules decreases with temperature. See URL
KE = 3/2 RT = 3/2 x 8.314 J / (mol K)
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-albany-chemistry/chapter/the-kinetic-molecular-theory/#:~:text=Key%20Concepts%20and%20Summary,the%20mass%20of%20its%20molecules
Here are four articles attesting to the small global warming role of CO2 in the atmosphere
Eight Taiwanese Engineers Determine Climate Sensitivity to a 300 ppm CO2 Increase Is ‘Negligibly Small’
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/eight-taiwanese-engineers-determine-climate-sensitivity-to-a-300
By Kenneth Richard
The Fairy Tale of The CO2 Paradise Before 1850…A Look at The Real Science
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/the-fairy-tale-of-the-co2-paradise-before-1850-a-look-at-the-real
By Fred F. Mueller
Achieving ‘Net Zero by 2050’ Reduces Temps by 0.28 C Costing Tens of $TRILLIONS
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/achieving-net-zero-by-2050-reduces-temps-by-0-28-c-costing-tens
By Kenneth Richard
German Researcher: Doubling Of Atmospheric CO2 Causes Only 0.24°C Of Warming …Practically Insignificant
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/german-researcher-doubling-of-atmospheric-co2-causes-only-0-24-c
By P Gosselin on 19. November 2024
There is a slight broadening of the 15 µm spectral window. That is what reduces the energy transport. However, that is where the enhanced evaporation/convection comes into play. This leads to a reduction in high altitude water vapor which then allows more energy transport.
The two processes cancel out.
“Obviously, this recent episode of rapid warming and cooling happened naturally and has nothing to do with CO2.”
Haven’t you heard about the unobtainium-powered power plants being installed in Lower Slobovia? They produce negative CO2.
[I know it isn’t April yet, but I couldn’t resist.]
I like that substance “unobtainium” too. It explains so much of what cannot be so. 🙂
like perpetual motion, or the earth is flat, like 2-D woke folks.
.
East Monvania.
POLL OF THE DAY: Do you agree with half of Britons who think 2025 will be worse than 2024? – GB News
Yes
Meanwhile from today’s Telegraph:
Six Cabinet ministers would lose their seats to Reform UK in a general election, a new survey has revealed.
Prominent Labour figures including Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, would lose to Reform if an election were held today.
The More in Common think tank for the Sunday Times has found that Labour would lose nearly 200 of the seats it won in July, after months of negative polls for Sir Keir Starmer.
Seven Cabinet ministers would lose their seats, six going to Nigel Farage’s party and one to an independent candidate, according to a survey based on data of more than 11,000 people.
Labour would still win the most seats, but would only have a lead of six over the Tories, who would seize 87 seats from Sir Keir, with Reform taking 67.
The Government would win barely a third of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, of which a party needs to win more than half to be able to form a government alone.
Miliband would lose seatJohn Healey, the Defence Secretary, Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary and Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, would all be defeated by Reform.
Hung Parliament, probably leading to a rerun of the election, after which all bets are off!
Forgive an ignorant Yank question, but why would it ever be any sooner than 15 August 2029?
Even if Sir Stalin becomes miraculously popular at some point in the next four years, isn’t it supremely unlikely that Labour would ever get a better position than they currently enjoy?
When one is finished they choose another. No election required
Do you understand my question? Is there any possible reason why Labour is forced to call for an early election or would rationally wish to do so?
As I poorly understand it, a no-confidence vote is one way, but given the massive majority, that could never happen, short of some massive policy crack-up within Labour’s ranks.
Another way is to call an early election if they think that they would profit from it, but again, given their massive majority and their heightened unpopularity, that would be electoral insanity, certain to reduce their majority or throw them out of government.
Isn’t it the case that the UK faces four and a half long years in the wilderness?
Yes. probably. The key issue is a majority in the Commons. At the moment Labour has a total working majority over all the other parties combined of 163 seats. There are a total of 650 seats.
UK elections are not held on a fixed schedule. The rule is that an election is held on whichever of the following happens first:
So you are right, there is nothing formal in the way of the current government continuing without another election for another 4+ years.
There is a ‘but’ however. The UK does not have a written constitution, and as you can tell from the above the duration of a government is not constitutionally set. Unlike the US, where Presidential elections occur on a fixed constitutionally mandated schedule. The current government under Keir Starmer is most unlikely to call an election much before the prescribed end of their term.
So from that point of view the poll cited just shows an increasing divergence between the state of feeling in the country and the scale of the majority in Parliament.
But, there are local elections quite frequently. The next set are in May. There are also by-elections caused by a Parliamentary seat becoming vacant.
You have to imagine a situation a couple of years from now, whether likely or not I leave to you to guess.
Local elections have been uniformly wipeouts for Labour. All by-elections have been lost. There are blackouts from the Miliband energy policies. There is a strong recession with high and rising unemployment, collapsing companies.. Taxes have been put up repeatedly. Ministers are greeted with demonstrations and abuse whenever they show their faces in public. Editorials in all press uniformly are demanding an early election.
This is a different situation from the US, because an early election is perfectly possible. Its just a question of whether public opinion can generate enough pressure on Starmer or his successor that he feels unable to resist it.
Can it happen? Yes, certainly, it is possible constitutionally, Is it likely? That’s up to others to guess at. A lot will hang on Miliband’s policies, Reeves’ next budget statement, and whether there are cold winters.
You can also imagine a scenario in which Starmer calls an early election. PMs often make a mistake on this. Imagine, its two years from now, the polls have been dire, and the country is in a bad shape economically. But, there is a sudden summer pickup, something dramatic happens, like the UK wins the World Cup (I know, very unlikely), and the polls pick up.
From his point of view, he is going to have to call an election in 18 months, things can only get worse, it looks, so he goes for it. A bit like the situation Sunak found himself in. He does not have to, but it seems like the least bad alternative.
Alas, the polls are wrong, yet again, and its a wipeout in favor of Reform. Or something happens with Reform, and its in favor of a reformed Conservative Party. Pretty unlikely as well, they don’t show much signs of radical rethinking. But you can see how this might work out to a shorter government than we expect at the moment.
These cabinet ministers should lose their heads
Probably appropriate that the ‘Telegraph’ has a name that is an anachronism.
They are just reporting a poll done, I think, for the Times.
January 2 – Lake effect.
January 6 snowstorm.
Very cold weather coming to the eastern half of the US starting after New Years Eve. Looks like 2025 will get off to a cold start.
Not just the eastern US, think of the mountains in the west.
This map is predicting cold air in Saskatchewan and North Dakota for next weekend.
However, neither territory is part of the “mountains in the west.” Last year (Dec 2023) there was extreme cold in western Montana, Idaho, and Washington. This year (2024) is slightly above normal for the region. I’ll be happy if that cold air mass continues to roll south into Iowa. I can do without the minus double digits that I had last year in central Washington State.
Well…
January 6.
https://www.netweather.tv/charts-and-data/global-jetstream#2025/01/06/1500Z/jetstream/surface/level/overlay=jetstream/orthographic=-104.31,36.30,823
That pattern is keeping the cold air east of the Continental Divide. Note the part coming off the Pacific Ocean. On the 6th of January central WA State will be about 35 F degrees warmer than central North Dakota.
ECMWF 00z.
https://postimg.cc/T5JgF3x2
Guess I need to fill the gas can for the snow blower. We are over 100% of normal snow now no need for more lakeffect.
It seems that Greenland could use some warmth and electricity.
https://centralnews.co.za/major-blackout-leaves-most-of-greenland-without-electricity/#google_vignette
Power is coming back. The problem had something to do with a wind turbine.
https://swedenherald.com/article/major-power-outage-on-greenland
So, the drones on the East Coast.
I have yet to see any believable images showing “minibus sized drones” flying around.
The pics I have seen show brightly lit objects which could be drones, but there is no scale reference at all. If they were nefarious, intelligence-gathering devices, why are they brightly lit? Drones don’t need light. One would think, if they were meant to be used only at night (presumably to avoid detection), they would have IR cameras and lights, which wouldn’t be visible to the naked eye.
I think the vast majority are mistaken identity, as with most UFOs. Is there something going on other than mass hysteria? Don’t know.
If anyone has any convincing video, please post a link.
As an example, highlighted by CBS news, this X post by former Maryland governor Larry Hogan clearly shows that he is recording stars, that aren’t moving.
I remember when I was in Basic Training and in attendance of a lecture on night fighting, which was given in an auditorium. There appeared to be a small light on the stage being waved around. When that part of the lecture was over, the auditorium lights were turned back on. It then became obvious that the light we were observing was fixed to the lectern, intended to allow the speaker to read notes. Our eyes were moving randomly, attempting to interpret the context of the single light. As soon as there was more light, our eyes fixed on the background and made it clear that the light was not actually moving. I suspect that what is being reported on the East Coast is similar.
Yes. I trained in Armored Recon, so we did a lot of night map courses, and similar things. We were taught to not look directly at something necessarily, but at a fixed point off to the side of the object we were trying to see. Often times it became more obvious what it was we were looking at when doing so. Similar to when you’re trying to detect movement over a large area, don’t keep looking all over the place, but just at a single point and don’t focus on it. You’ll see peripheral movement more easily when your eyes aren’t moving all around.
And kudos for using “lectern” and not “Podium”.
My drone makes a nice buzz. On a quiet night, you can hear it from 200 – 300 feet away. I can’t imagine how loud a minibus-size drone would be.
Exactly.
It is a ‘stealth’ minibus. 🙂
I watched one video which involved 3 minutes of camera recording on an unstable small boat and some of the “drones” looked like interior lights reflected in the windshield. Totally unimpressive. Another video showed an approaching drone with a red running light to the right — I.e. red right returning. It had a white strobe on the tail, and as it passed overhead I thought I could see some of a fuselage and overhead wing illuminated.
Yes, just like the occasional outbreak of UFO madness.
Thanks Kevin.
Now I get that cellphones don’t take good video at night. But absolutely nothing I’ve seen shows anything out of the ordinary.
Newer cell phones collect more “light” than human eyes. Friends take video and show me the Norther Lights that are almost invisible to me. And because I have seen spectacular displays twice in my life – I am not impressed with their captures.
Where did the New Jersey mystery drones go? I presume they went on holiday.
For over 33 years, the public has been told the CAGW science is settled and nobody should listen to skeptic climate scientists because they participated in an ‘industry disinformation campaign’ targeting a narrow, gullible slice of the public which operated under a memo directive to “reposition global warming as theory rather than fact” The late Washington Examiner contributor Ron Arnold wiped out the idea that the “reposition” directive was ever implemented; now, regarding the report that is the basis of the Dec 4 2024 Carrboro v Duke Energy lawsuit, that report inadvertently contained two documents which shoot down the notion that the alleged ‘disinformation campaign’ (it contained no actual disinformation) narrowly targeted two audience types.
The “older, less-educated men” / “younger, low-income women” Accusation Bites the Dust. Big Time.
I believe Kip Hansen has written about this.
He has not. I have, at my GelbspanFiles blog. WUWT sometimes reproduces my blog posts here as guest posts on how the various angles surrounding ye olde “reposition global warming” accusation implodes, including in the now-35 current “ExxonKnew” lawsuits. You might be thinking of my April 25. 2024 guest post.
This recent paper highlights what I believe are the true effects of CO2 on a dry climate. They attempted to model the physics of the atmosphere to a higher level.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590123024015548?via%3Dihub
There is no warming at the surface where conduction eliminates any warming from CO2 downwelling IR. A little higher we see a small warming, due to the broadening of the 15µm CO2 spectral absorption window, as CO2 increases.
What is not modeled here is the increased evaporation over tropical waters. This added water vapor enhances convection which reduces the residual high altitude water vapor. The residual water vapor is carried to high latitudes by the Hadley circulation.
The small warming effect of 0.3 K is then offset by the small cooling effect from the reduced water vapor greenhouse effect.
Thanks for this link. I haven’t read it carefully yet, but they make a very good point that transport processes need far more careful study. Indeed. If I were to go looking for the negative feedback that appears to be missing from the minds of the warmist crowd, that place would be over-all heat transport. That means solving the full heat transport equation for latent heat, convection, and radiation simultaneously. This is accomplished at such small scales that modeling codes don’t handle the process well, I’m sure. As a result too much emphasis is on radiation near surface to counter all of the effects of CO2 warming, small as it is.
Story tip, as it doesn’t appear to have been widely reported – I heard of it here via the Craig Houston youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BMSM1LvA2o
Where has all the climate money gone?
https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/41-billion-world-bank-climate-finance-unaccounted-oxfam-finds
I’m very afraid.
Scientists warn of impending ‘Ultra-Intense Category 6’ stormPublished: 29 December 2024
Scientists have made a stark warning of an impending ‘Ultra-Intense Category 6’ storm hitting the US. The prediction comes from an international team of over 60 experts who found the burning of fossil fuels has poured the equivalent energy into the Earth’s systems, heralding a dark new era of ‘mega-hurricanes.’
An ‘Ultra-Intense Category 6’ storm would unleash winds of 192 miles per hour or higher and a rise in seawater exceeding 25 feet.
OH BUT Wait…..
While this is a theoretical weather event, experts called it ‘the most powerful storm ever seen on Earth,’ predicting it will form sometime around 2100′ and be named Hurricane Danielle.
“The highest wind speed ever recorded was 253 mph (113.3 m/s) on Barrow Island, Australia, during Tropical Cyclone Olivia on April 10, 1996. Prior to that, the record was 231 mph (103.3 m/s) measured at Mount Washington, New Hampshire, on April 12, 1934.”
Hundreds of new species found.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2460697-vampire-hedgehog-among-234-new-species-identified-in-asia/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=echobox&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1735487625
So much for the great die off due to climate change.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/12/29/no-idea-keir-pleads-for-ideas-to-boost-stalling-uk-economy/
2-Tier Keir: “Does anyone have any ideas on how to boost the economy?”
Public: “Lower our taxes!”
2-Tier Keir: “Anyone at all?”
Public: “Quit with this Net Zero bollocks!”
2-Tier Keir: “No? Nothing?”
Public: “That’s it! We’re ALL voting Reform next time!”
2-Tier Keir: “Cheer up chumps! By the time I leave office, there’ll be nothing left for Reform to… reform!”
Snowstorm over the Great Lakes. This is just the beginning of snowfall in the area.
Former President Jimmy Carter died yesterday at the age of 100.
Rest in Peace, Jimmy.
I didn’t agree with a lot of Jimmy’s policies, but at least he wasn’t corrupt like the Democrat presidents who followed him.