JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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At the height of the drought in Victoria, we built a huge desalination plant close to the ocean and our major power plants in coal rich Yallourn. From what I have read, power generation uses 30% of Victoria’s fresh water. Is this right? Then it seems the desalination plant requires 50 full time staff to not be used and paying it off costs a mere $1Bn a year over 25 further years?
Does anyone know why it is not turned on? After all, our massive base load is dumped at night apart from aluminium smelting. Why not generate vast quantities of fresh water for farmers at no cost. Can it be pumped North in our new and unused $800Million pipeline built in a hurry and through private land by edict? Or better still, simply used symbiotically to feed Yallourn, freeing up fresh water for Victoria and Southern New South Wales, where it can be used to grow food for sale? Water is incredibly valuable. Water and CO2 and sunlight are the three ingredients in photosynthesis. Why not grow more?
The situation must be similar to NSW and South Australia, huge French desalination plants not being used. What is being done to prepare for the next drought? Or are we, thanks to the carbon dioxide story, ignoring the reality of a land of droughts and flooding rains? Not a new dam has been built in 50 years?
Why aren’t we growing trees in dry land, irrigating, storing and preparing? Why do Australians seem stunned like kangaroos in the headlights, waiting for the inevitable next drought? It is not just CO2, it is the total lack of concern for water management while our new unelected PM is waiting to bring in his carbon dioxide trading scheme where we pay bankers overseas to prevent another drought? How does that work again?
What really are we Australians doing practically to water proof our country? Is that what Paris COP 21 was about? Or was that just the IPCC looking for more cash? Perhaps we need more windmills? Is the Green vote really the Don Quixote vote?
343
I’m guessing, but I suspect that the desalination plant requires too much energy to operate when any other source of water is available. Seawater reverse osmosis plants require 600–1200 psi to force the fluids through the membranes, according to Wankerpedia’s rather slap-dash article.
132
This makes me think of this pressure-related video, and the wise advice about not teasing tigers, although I have had a lot to do with high and low pressure systems, I have not had to be concerned about tigers during an average day at work…
30
The answer to your questions is that it requires some lateral thought on the part of politicians, who follow, and officialdom which doesn’t appreciate people who rock the boat too much. Perhaps a scheme to catch the tidal flow going in and out of Port Phillip Bay, the rip, just leaving a channel for shipping, would be worthy of some thought too, nice regular green power 20 hours out of 24, better than sunlight or wind?
The father of Tasmania’s Hydro projects, Sir Alan Knight, actually built Hobart’s original curved floating bridge; many people said it wouldn’t work without stays, but it did.
100
Taking the Port Phillip concept a little further, put an arch bridge across the shipping channel, and a road and trainline joining Geelong with Eastern Vic. without the hassle of Melbourne traffic, so this would give 20/24 hr. green power, good recreational fishing off some of the embankment, and reduce some traffic from Melbourne; a stupid idea, perhaps, but with a lot of upside
40
I doubt the 30%. When the Liddell power station with four 500mw generators was being constructed in the 1960s we were told that the resulting additional evaporation from the lake would be 34 cusecs.
However I wouldn’t be surprised if the additional water loss resulting from the creation of the lake itself was more than 34 cusecs.
40
Incidentally, Liddell was designed to run on seawater cooling, because it was recognised at the time that at some future time drought might leave too little water in the river for the station’s requirements. In that event a pipeline would be constructed to bring sea water to Liddell for cooling.
However, when this drought eventuated in the early 21st century the Carr government instead took the water from the farmers.
00
If I may offer something here in respect of what TdeF mentions here: (my bolding here)
There are a lot of people who are, in general, mistaken about this. Electrical power is never ….. dumped. It is all consumed.
Take a look at the Load Curve shown at this link.
Australian Load Curve Master
Now, while this Curve is indicative for the whole of Australia (East of the WA border, that is) the curve is basically indicative for each of the States, for whole regions inside those States, for large cities, and small small cities. All that changes is the total MW values for the vertical scale. The actual curve is basically similar across the board for all areas.
Think of a region with a number of small towns. There may be a hospital servicing the region. The town is lit after dark, and there will be traffic control, perhaps a Coles or Woolies or two or more, each with huge banks of cool and cold storage, perhaps a tall building or more of them, each with a Unit on the roof supplying air into that building, constantly running. Power consumption follows that Load Curve.
Think of a small city now, with a number of tall buildings, supermarkets, a hospital, lighting for the streets and traffic control, etc. Power consumption follows that Load Curve.
Think of a large city now, and on up to the State Capitals, Huge amounts of high rise, Malls, supermarkets, hospitals, lighting for the shops, the streets traffic control, an electrified rail system, commerce which operates 24/7, Industry with a 24/7 working. Power consumption follows that Load Curve.
Add all those regions, small cities, large cities, State Capitals in one State and the Load Curve is again what you see here. Add all the States, and the Load Curve is what you see here.
The dip from Midnight to around 5 AM is when we all sleep. Consumption then rises as we get up, rises steadily throughout the day peaks around the middle of the day and then stays up as we get home and Residential consumption increases, and then begins to fall around 9PM and later.
I have added colour to this curve, and here, all that pink indicates coal fired power which is running 24/7, what is referred to as the ….. Base Load. The Blue area is Peaking Power, and that is a mix of coal fired power (rolling reserve) gas fired plants, and other plants which come on line, as required, perhaps for as little as three maybe four hours or so to cover the extra consumption. For this curve, I have added wind power and that is the yellow area you see at the bottom of this curve, and here I have just averaged it out across the year, and then extrapolated that back to a daily average. Solar Power is perhaps the thickness of the black line indicating the actual curve itself. It perhaps thickens a little around the middle of the day, but not by much, and keep in mind that thickening is in the main rooftop solar, and the thickening is not very much thicker than the line you see here, it is that small.
Every Watt of power that is being generated is actually being consumed.
Actual Generation is higher than consumption, but be aware that the extra is not being dumped. That is the Power Factor, and note I said Power Factor here, and that is different from Capacity Factor, (CF) which is the (loosely explained) efficiency of an individual plant, based on actual run time for power delivery as opposed to theoretical maximum operation.
POWER FACTOR, (mandated in Australia, and in fact most Developed Countries) is set at a minimum of 0.8, and it is the relationship between TRUE POWER and APPARENT POWER. True Power is the total resistive load of power being consumed, and Apparent Power takes in the Inductive and Capacitive Loads, and that is resolved with vector diagrams to give the total Apparent Power, and show its relationship to True Power, the horizontal axis. Involved I know, and mathematical, but that explains the extra generated power versus the actual consumed power. Each Power factor in regions, towns, cities States etc must be at least 0.8 or higher.
So, all the power that is being generated is being consumed, whether locally or somewhere else on the grids.
Note now the delicate balancing act of the grid controllers, and how power is effectively called upon when needed to cover any increases.
I understand it’s not an easy concept to understand, even for those who actually are electrically trained, let alone the average person.
That is why this often totally ignored Load Curve diagram is of such vital importance, and not something to be discarded because people cannot understand how something so seemingly simple can mean so much.
Tony.
251
Sure, Tony, the power is not dumped. This is too simplistic.
The base load is managed to the absolute minimum and you have to presume this is brown coal, the cheapest power. So the power is not dumped as it would be if you did not have the supplements of gas, hydro and some others. Gas reserves are dwindling from Bass straight. We have gone from self sufficiency in petrol in my lifetime to 50%. Hydro is very limited as the water is needed for farming, as the Tasmanians are finally realising. Far too much of the graph is blue, pushing up prices and chewing through limited resources. All this is to avoid dumping.
Plus the modern averaging over states has probably made the graph flatter than in the mid 20th century too, with even a submarine cable to Tasmania (currently broken) and another to South Australia (broke last month).
Even so there is still a substantial dip in the early hours. However if we could fill in the dip at the start, we could generate fresh water when we wanted. We could also lift the base load, using plentiful coal instead of limited hyrdo and the gas is not renewable. Sure, this would cost money, but you have to offset that against the value of the water. You also have the savings from gas and hydro.
I know people think of water as free, but everyone pays for it and in addition, there are limits for farmers, quotas strictly metered. Sunshine is free. CO2 is free. Water costs money and most of this country is desert. One farmer I know in the Riverina has travelling computer controlled irrigators 2km across. Water is valuable. You can make fortunes with water if land is cheap and sunny. Crops are made entirely from H2O and CO2.
So if we could increase the base load and fill in the early hours, we could potentially lower the cost of power to everyone, plus generate more income for the electricity company, the desalination company and the farmers and the country, to pay back some of that $1Bn a week we are borrowing to cover mad government spending.
Doing nothing is the Green response. Only a Green would think to spend $28,000,000,000 of people’s money on something which will be obsolete only when we finish paying for it, never having been used. That is just Victoria. Dams are a lot cheaper, but we are not allowed build them. Remember, the government does not have any money. It is our money. Utterly wasted every year. How useful were those windmills in South Australia? I read that the whole state blacked out for five hours a few weeks ago when power from Victoria was cut. The windmills were not being used.
It is criminal to be paying so much for nothing. Governments should be forced to find ways to make money from this. Water is valuable. No wonder every government is broke. The interest bills on our government borrowings at a Federal level are $1.5Bn a month. What is it at State level?
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TdeF, Tasmania’s problem is more related to far less than average rainfall: most of the catchments are in the centre or south west of the state where there is no farming to speak of. The farmers are in difficulty as well due to the lack of rain.
Looking at the Hydro dam levels the reserves have dropped from 22.4% to 20% (18 Jan), (2884 GWh left), over about a fortnight. There is no news about the repair of the cable, nor the re-starting of the Tamar Valley gas turbine which was scheduled for last Wednesday.
In early November the CEO of the Hydro was saying they were going to import 40% of their requirement from Yallorn until Winter; that is before the cable became U/S.
They are downplaying the seriousness of the problem, but with low dam levels there is also a loss of head to some of the turbines, the Gordon Dam is minus 40 m.
70
TVPS unit 201 went into production on Tuesday the 19th. Dispatch of course is through AEMO, but one would expect that HT would bid the generation in at a low enough level that it will be flat out. That is 208 MW at 15 degrees C. Its capacity nightinme will be close to that, with daytime operation at current temperatures around the 200 MW mark. Operation of the evaporative cooler might well be in use to augment this capacity on days over 30 degrees.
Units 101 and 102 have been on most of the time and are capable of 40 MW. Unit 104 is O/S and Unit 103 has some issues.
I find surprising that no one has pointed out that if unit 201 had been operational for the entire storage period output would have been in the order of 3,000 GWH. All else being as it was during that period would have made a significant difference to current lake levels. One has to grant that HT being a State Owned Enterprise has obligations to maximise revenue. Hence the sale of contract gas on the mainland produced more revenue than transformation of gas energy to electricity over that period. However, the objective of any hydro electric authority anywhere extends beyond this blinkered approach. One of the objectives put forward for hydro schemes is the recreational value of the reservoirs. Another of the objective of any hydro scheme is to manage the storage capacity of water in such a way that it does not become depleted.
One cannot be curious as to questions such as “What financial benefits did HT enjoy due to the sale of contract gas? What costs are being incurred now and into the future due to the lack of storage capacity? HT had another obligation to maximise the load on the Tasmanian pipeline. The pipeline project was put together so that the transportation costs for TVPS gas would keep the cost of gas to other customers on the island low. In fact, the operation of TVPS can be considered crucial to the operating and maintenance expense, not to mention the amortisation of the capital cost. Has HT fulfilled all of these obligations?
NB This information is all in the public domain if one knows where to look.
60
RO, Tasmanias problems as with every hydro producer are directly related to increased inviromental flows and higher demand on it’s storages.
As it is with every Dam storage over the last decade or more that stores water for power or food production.
Reduce the environmental flows and increase what’s in the storage.
Have a look at the producers along the Murray river and their angst at The Murray Darling controllers at running the Murray at flood levels through winter and then restricting their water allocations through summer because of lack of water.
Snowy hydro is fairing no better with increased inviromental flows from their storages all year round.
It was not how these storages were designed to operate.
They will crash as increased population increases that demand with no more dams being built.
Two half full dams have mor water than one half full dam, especially if they’re allowed to do what the were designed and constructed to do.
Store water for lean times!
50
Tassie has also been releasing hydro to earn income from transfers to Victoria.
I also heard that one of the dams they can use has been “quarantined” from hydro power use because of environmental issues, DESPITE the fact that the dam/lake was built for hydro in the first place. DOH !!!
51
I was interested to see some figures on Tasmania’s low rainfall and looked at the 2015 annual rainfall data. Apart from the normal dry areas of the east coast and Midlands, most of the state had received normal rainfall. I would hardly call areas of W and SW Tasmania with annual rainfall of between 2000 and 3000mm. in a drought. This includes the catchments of the Gordon, Pieman and King Rivers as well as the upper reaches of the Derwent, where most of the power stations are.
It is a little dry at the moment, which is normal for summertime, but I would tend to think it’s more a case of mismanagement and blaming it on the weather. The rainfall figures tell the real story.
40
RO, see if you can access flow levels that are coming out of these catchment dams through winter into summer over the last decade or so.
I live below the Hume dam and levels have been high and fast since the drought broke back in 2010.
Now that we are again moving back into the natural weather cycle of drought, you’d actually think they’d slow the flow, at least through winter.
But alas, the controlling authority seems happy to be considered inept when they trott out the excuse for farmers cut water allocations as”low rainfall”.
I might add the farmers have paid up front for those allocations.
00
I am not sure if I can get streamflows. Just looking at the rainfall maps there doesn’t seem to be a drought anywhere much. For the past 3 years the west coast catchments have received about 7500mm., for 2015 about 2500mm. and for the last 3 months 200-300mm, and yet the Hydro has dropped their reserves from 50% to now 20%.
The only catchment with much irrigation is the South Esk and this receives water from Poatina (ex. Great Lake) and there is a dam at Trevallyn before it joins the Tamar at Launceston. Other irrigation schemes don’t rely the hydro dams.
00
Tony, a good place to see load curves, even if they are from the UK, is gridwatch. It also shows just how ineffective wind and solar power in the real world.
10
Um that’s not “quite” true, the steam that drives the turbine is regulated to keep frequency and voltage stable. If the load falls steam may be “dumped” to keep the load matched.
10
Tdef
ABS Australia wide figures say 6% is used by gas and electricity sector.(excludes Hydro).
Using their published figures, I calculated that Wonthaggi desal plant would use 8kw to supply my garden tap(27l/min) directly. THAT is why they are not used.
Lockheed Martin recently patented a process they claim uses 90% less power.
Government future-proofing eh?
10
You mean by the time we have paid $100Bn in Australia for three unused desalination plants, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney, they will be unusable economically. Great.
10
Hell- freezing- over…
Michael Bloomberg may launch independent U.S. presidential bid: report
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-bloomberg-idUSKCN0V10MY?f…
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Who knows, he might turn out to be a better president than the The Donald, who looks headed for getting the Republican nomination. On the other hand, he would simply split the vote, assuring Hillary a win.
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Isn’t Bloomberg a democrat? – his TV channel certainly is a warmist hive mind
20
Not sure what he is. Some people assume a Republican as he owns a business/ capitalist TV station, and is involved in business. However he behaves like a Democrat. I think he considered himself to be an independent when he was mayor.
I think he would split the Democrat vote. Democrats who are disgusted with the Clinton behavior over the last 30 years would rather vote for Bloomberg than Clinton. At the same time he would draw some republicans as well, but not that many.
You cannot be sure that Hillary will wind the Democrat nomination. Bernie Sanders is looking pretty strong right now. Hillary’s campaign has not gone well.
20
With my apology to Catholics for the example — if Bloomberg is a Conservative (read proper Republican) them I’m the Pope. And I’m most definitely not the Pope.
He is of course, a mixed bag and we don’t know everything that’s in that bag. As mayor he did some good for New York City and some very bad stuff too. He went so far as to propose that the city should register and then regularly visit diabetics to make sure they were taking their insulin correctly. I don’t know if that was implemented or not. But it certainly stands out as an example of government overreach and an insult to millions of diabetics who’re quite capable of managing their medication without government
helpinterference.40
In the CO2 Global Warming argument, we now are hearing of a thing called Natural Variability, supposedly hiding the rise in temperature. A shame no one mentioned it before.
What puzzles me is that the CO2 increase of 50% in 100 years is not considered just natural variability. Even scientists seem to immediately accept the casual connection between industrialization, fossil fuel use and the CO2 increase, when anyone who has studied chemistry will tell you that such things are set by equilibrium, Henry’s Law, especially important when it is well known that 50x as much CO2, most of the free CO2 is simply dissolved in the world’s oceans. A 1C warming would be enough to increase CO2 by 50%. Atmospheric scientists need to consider there is much more gas in the water than in the atmosphere and that to discuss the atmosphere without discussing the dissolved gas is missing the point. Fish breathe.
So what is the recent news about ocean warming? It seems the top layers are warming by 1C per hundred years. What a conincidence! So while it is now very obvious from the last twenty years that extra CO2 does not produce warming, ocean warming does produce a CO2 increase. Natural variability. You will never hear that from the IPCC, because it destroys their reason to exist.
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And there’s no valid physics which can in any way associate surface temperatures with carbon dioxide levels. The Earth is kept warm at night by the “blanket” of mostly nitrogen, oxygen and argon molecules that hold over 98% of all the thermal energy in the atmosphere. IR-active molecules acquire thermal energy in the same way as nitrogen, oxygen and argon and also by radiation, some from incident solar radiation and a little less from surface radiation. But these IR active “greenhouse” gases are the “holes in the blanket” radiating energy out of the atmosphere. A study of real-world temperature and precipitation data showed water vapour does indeed cool.
914
Can you show the calculation supporting that a 1 degree rise in ocean temperature would lead to a 50% rise in atmospheric CO2?
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I have not done this for a while, but you can use just CO2 solubility drop CO2 solubility around say 12C. When you heat lemonade, CO2 comes out because it is less soluble.
Around 10C, the solubility of CO2 is 2.5g/kg of water. At 16C, the solubility is lower at 2.0g/kg of water. So solubility drops .5/2.5 or 20% for a change of +6C. This is only around 3.3% increase in CO2 for a +1C. The warm top layer is therefore also depleted by 3.3% ideally.
However this is not a flask in a laboratory at standard pressure. What you have is a very high pressure connected system with up to 400 atmospheres at 4km deep and polar CO2 is easily compressed. I believe it is possible the CO2 at the surface is immediately replaced from the layer below and so on, multiplying the effect x 50 as the amount of CO2 in the air is only 1/50th of the amount in the water, not the same as you would expect for an equilibrium. So not until the entire reserve is depleted by 3.3% will the outgasing stop.
So multiply x 50 and you get 165%. We only need 50%. So here I have achieved our 50% with an increase of only 1/3 C.
I am sure it is more complex with CO2 going into the ocean at high latitudes where the surface is much colder and outgassing at low latitudes where the surface is much warmer. It also suggests that the CO2 is churning rapidly, which goes a long way to explain why there is very little fossil fuel in the atmosphere, as measured by C14 levels. However it demonstrates that even a slight warming of the oceans could release a lot of CO2. Why blame fossil fuel and ignore the reality of equilibrium?
CO2 levels should track temperature. I am suspicious of ice cores though, as the freezing point of CO2 is -78C and while it can be trapped at the surface, it could also diffiuse between layers, smoothing evidence of rapid CO2 changes, but that is another story.
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Thank you. Can you point me to any good reading re. the C14 levels?
00
Sorry, only my own posts. This is radio carbon dating as used by archeologists. You can read about the Suess effect from 1955. Most stories like Wikipedia are corrupted by later stuff about Carbon 13, but Dr Suess, one of the inventors of Radio Carbon dating using C14 concluded that even in 1955, only 2% of CO2 was from fossil fuel and this meant it was all in the oceans. This is well known science and I wrote a lot about it on a blog for myself. Very simple stuff really for anyone in the field. No ancient CO2 has any C14 left, so it is absolutely conclusive that the increase in CO2 is not man made. However people love to argue about whether it produces warming and computer models, but if we did not do it, if it is naturaly variation as I argue, we can do nothing anyway.
00
So! It’s supposed to be an el niño year? If so, where are the drenching rain and tons of snow it should be raining down on us? Where I live there hasn’t been anything out of the ordinary and even in the local southern California mountains nothing is outside the normal expected winter snowfall.
I feel cheated after so much hype about el niño.
And the drought continues into next summer with real trouble along with it. We are going to be up the proverbial creek. 🙁
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February will be our last good chance to start getting reservoirs back toward normal water level.
51
If el niño doesn’t come to pass, we might be up the creek but we won’t need a paddle because the creek will be dry.
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um……its actually happening right now? Starting to wind down. wonder if we get La nina or neutral end 2016?
50
Roy:
Here is what 2 foot of snow looks like, thanks to oldbrew.
https://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/two_feet_snow_seattle.jpg?w=400
00
Isn’t it wonderful. We are supposed to believe that ‘climate scientists’ like Tim Flannery, our former chief Climate Commissioner can predict the climates around the world with great accuracy with computer models but cannot begin to predict major world climate events like El Nino or La Nina or many well known major oscillations or why the Arctic should have record low ice while the Antarctic has record ice or the flow of the jet stream or much else?
After 30 years of international cooperation and the many reports of the IPCC, even when we observe and map and follow these giant events but we have no idea how long they will last or exactly how they will affect our weather, except for major generalizations. However we are supposed to believe they can predict climates with precision? How? Auspices? Goat entrails?
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The IPCC are like the talented illusionist, where they both can predict what message was going to be written except one uses an audience member the other employs a journalist.
Though like all such amazing talent they always fail in reality and never know the lotto numbers.
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I note the red hander is not out of bed yet. It must be hard dragging yourself to the mouse every morning to click on stuff. A thankless task. I can only conclude the red hander is in WA or possibly South Australia. Still it’s Sunday. Maybe it is a public service task, from the SA department which supervises windmills?
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That red hander is a chronic tosser……
72
Red hander alert. Looks like a 9am start here, so perhaps South Australia at 8:30, land of windmills on a Sunday morning at 8:30am or even WA and an early riser at 6am.
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I nearly commented earlier ‘Just give it time TdeF’! G’day Mr/Mrs(probably not a Mrs)/Ms(sounds more likely) Red Thumb. I wonder if I get one now?
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Have some pity, it’s the closest thing they’ll ever get to morning glory…unless those sock puppet marriage equality laws are passed.
153
Please back off Lurch or is that Lurchalotta of the alternative sex who are my favorite red thumbers who NEVER miss an opportunity whenever I post to drunkenly stagger and lurch out from deep within their cave’s dank Green steaming recesses to try to place their shaking shrivelled palsied red thumbs into the little red box so obligingly provided by Jo.
53
97% Settled Science Snowmaggeddon links:
IPCC 2001: “Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms”
May 23, 2014: Climate scientist proposes extremely cold 2014 winter link to global warming
June 15, 2014: Global warming won’t increase the number of extreme cold days according to new research from the University of Exeter.
The study disproves the hypothesis that climate change will lead to more days of extreme cold in parts of the Northern Hemisphere.
~ ~ ~
This habit of selective adaptation of the theory is why it is always important to remember what the theory actually called for prior to the modification.
In the case of recent colder temperatures earlier than normal we need only go back to the 2007 IPCC report which plainly defined what “global warming” was going to cause:
“Global climate change is likely to be accompanied by an increase in the frequency and intensity of heat waves, as well as warmer summers and milder winters
(see Table 3-10).”
~ ~ ~
The scientific philosopher Sir Karl Popper who literally wrote the book on empirical falsification of the scientific method observed:
“A theory that explains everything, explains nothing.”
In the above mentioned table 3-10 the IPCC explained how sure they were of their forecast for warmer winters.
Higher (increasing) minimum temperatures; fewer cold days, frost days, and cold waves (d) over nearly all land areas (Very Likely (a) )
That projection is not regional but global, “over nearly all land areas.
242
Global warming; your one stop crisis shop.
184
.
Yonniestone @ #6.1
“Global warming; your one stop crisis shop.”
I think you should copyright that one Yonniestone;
Many a true word is spoken in jest and this is one of those.
62
All this from +1C in a very slow moving average over 100 years? The weather seems inordinately sensitive to a tiny change. In the thirty years since the IPCC started, some summers were very hot and some winters very cold and others everything in between. As Einstein noted, generally most problems are relatives.
So where was this world ending rapid runaway turning point Global Warming we were promised? Where are those giant sea rises? Why is there so much ice in Antarctica and why does no one mention it? Where is the next climate scientist Professor Turney with his family and journalist friends stuck in Antarctic record ice in mid summer and causing havoc. That was nearly tragic but it was also very funny. At least there are some climate scientists who do not automatically believe what they are told, even when presented with the facts and photographs. To be fair, they even managed to argue that the ice was due to Global Warming. Climate comedy gold.
273
You got a red thumb for that, TdeF. I smell a hairy flyswatter.
113
‘… and milder winters …’
They didn’t give a thought to a wayward jet stream.
80
I read a supposedly accurate historical story on that from (I think) Tony Brown on Climate Etc
It seems that one such polar vortex saved George Washington and his army from being slaughtered by the British. Good ol’ George was on the ropes, with the British army pressing down on him – heavy rain and churnal mud had bogged his retreat. An overnight deep freeze from a meandering vortex allowed him to pull free to fight another day
One of those stories one hopes is true …
100
1776
Washington crosses the Delaware
“At about 11 p.m. on Christmas, Washington’s army commenced its crossing of the half-frozen river at three locations.
The 2,400 soldiers led by Washington successfully braved the icy and freezing river and reached the New Jersey side of the Delaware just before dawn.
The other two divisions, made up of some 3,000 men and crucial artillery, failed to reach the meeting point at the appointed time.
50
Thanks for that 🙂
20
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Washington_Crossing_the_Delaware_by_Emanuel_Leutze,_MMA-NYC,_1851.jpg
40
The records from wars are usually a good source of weather information.
40
Good satellite, Bad satellite:
NASA, space.com: Astronaut in Space Spots Rare Thundersnow in Blizzard Over Eastern US (Photo)
“Yesterday, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tracked the storm by satellite as it developed, and now NASA’s furthest human outpost — the International Space Station — has reported back, too, via Twitter. [See more photos of the winter storm]”
~ ~ ~
2015 Hottest Year Ever: NOAA/NASA use only land-based temps to claim 2015 hottest year ever.
~ ~ ~
Friday, 27 February 2015, ABC, UN IPCC confirms “pause”:
“In 2013, the U.N. panel of climate scientists said the pause in warming was due to factors including natural swings such as shifts in ocean heat, sun-dimming volcanic eruptions and a decline in solar output in an 11-year cycle.”
“The slowdown in warming is probably a combination of several different factors,” says Mann.
The slowdown in the rate of rising temperatures from the 1980s and 1990s has puzzled climate researchers because heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions from factories, power plants and cars have hit record highs.”
102
Queensland Health payroll debacle
http://www.couriermail.com.au/extras/qweekend/fff/features/pdfs/338.pdf
has some competition
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2016/01/targets-failure.html
And a mention of another health one in Ontario in comments there
40
Speaking of debacle, has anyone here heard what happened to Professor Jorg Imberger, former Water Resources Centre chief at UWA. Some Press articles earlier in the year mentioned financial problems, and any queries referred to lawyers? He quietly disappeared, and now surfaces, according to his website, in Miami. Warwick Hughes is asking.
30
I’ll put this up for the lurkers.
http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=4235
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TdeF –
don’t forget Qld’s Tugun desal plant:
Aug 2015: Gold Coast Bulletin: Paul Weston: Hinterland residents to get water from ‘white elephant’
THE Gold Coast’s $1.2 billion white elephant desalination plant is being brought out of standby to supply water to the city – for just six weeks.
And it will be the most expensive water ever used to wash cars. The plant costs $15 million a year in standby mode and firing it back up for that month and a half will add another $1.1 million to the annual bill.
While ratepayers may screw up their faces at the cost, the new water may also leave a sour taste in their mouths.
Over the next few days more than 170,000 Hinterland residents will receive letters from Seqwater telling them about the changes and warning the new water could have a different taste to the usual supply…
Budget papers last month showed the Tugun plant was costing $15 million a year to operate as it was required to produce a minimal amount of water to ensure the facility could be maintained…
The council in 2004 chose the southern end of the Coast for a desalination plant in a move to help droughtproof the tourist strip…
But the safety back-up system was never needed as the drought broke and upgraded dams filled up…
http://www.goldcoastbulletin.com.au/news/gold-coast/hinterland-residents-to-get-water-from-white-elephant/news-story/23cdffd07f4942a320effe19b50dbb0f
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the disruptive, distributed energy grid, so beloved by CAGW believers, will depend on smart meters/smart grid…except this might not be such a smart idea after all:
18 Jan: The Province Canada: B.C. Hydro must remove more than 88,000 smart meters
Crown corporation executive says most of the 1.9 million devices will last 20 years, as originally promised
B.C. Hydro needs to remove more than 88,000 smart meters that are either faulty or may not meet Measurement Canada standards, public records show…
Doubts have been raised elsewhere in North America about the lifespan of smart meters. The 2014 annual report by the Office of the Auditor General of Ontario said “distribution companies we consulted said the 15-year estimate is overly optimistic,” ***compared to 40 years for an analog meter.
The report said smart meters are like other types of information technology: subject to upgrades, short warranties and malfunctions. Moreover, they will likely be obsolete by the time they are re-verified every six-to-10 years by Measurement Canada.
Last October, the chief information officer for Ohio-based FirstEnergy told a U.S. Congress subcommittee on power system security that the lifespan is five to seven years.
“These devices are now computers, and so they have to be maintained,” Bennett Gaines testified…
http://www.theprovince.com/health/Hydro+must+remove+more+than+smart+meters/11660282/story.html
13 Jan: National Post: Kelly Egan: ‘Astonishing’: Hydro One pulling plug on 36,000 rural smart meters after years of complaints
Hydro One has taken a new approach to pesky smart meters that refuse to send a reliable signal about electricity consumption in rural Ontario.
Give up on them.
The utility, which was ordered by its provincial masters to install the devices, admits it has decided to manually read roughly 36,000 meters instead of counting on the wireless technology…
One of the main complaints, Hillier explained, is that the terrain in rural Ontario is such that the wireless meters — which send out a continuous signal to permit time-of-use billing — frequently fail. Turns out it’s absolutely true.
“The evidence has been in front of us for a long time. It doesn’t work, it hasn’t worked and now (there’s) an admission that it will never work.”…
The introduction of smart meters to Ontario, mandated by the Liberal government at a cost of about $2 billion, created peak and off-peak rates that were to spark a conservation drive across the province. The results have been disappointing.
“So much for trying to get people to use off-peak mostly!” wrote Barries Sideroad resident Gregory Jaques, who also received a Hydro letter about manually readings. “They basically admit that they cannot make the smart meters work outside of populated areas.”
To make things more curious, Jaques reports that Hydro only weeks ago installed a repeater on an area pole to boost the signal from the meters. It was working fine, he said, when Hydro announced it was abandoning the plan.
“It’s a waste of money, from someone’s point of view.”…
Some rural customers were baffled by the technological problems. It was especially laughable when Hydro responded that leafy trees could interrupt the signal, as though the presence of trees in the countryside came as a surprise. At the height of the crisis, Hydro said about six per cent of its one million customers were having “billing issues.”
Hillier only shakes his head at the countless hours customers have spent with Hydro’s call centre, the frustration of trying to be heard and the repeated errors that, in some cases, have threatened financial ruin on small businesses. And, now, to pull the plug on the meters altogether?
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/astonishing-hydro-one-pulling-plug-on-36000-rural-smart-meters-after-years-of-complaints
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TdeF
A few posts ago you asked “Where is the climate change? Show me an example of it”.
I was shy to respond because of course the luke warmers, even on this rather sacred ground, insist that “Climate change has always happened”.
I thought you might get a charge out of the “climate change” section of my response to the Province of Alberta “Climate Leadership Challenge”.
In the introduction I explained that I would confine comments to those based on widely accepted definitions of the terms.
Climate change:
I refer to the definitions used by the IPCC. There are two. Let us first consider the first.
“Climate change in IPCC usage refers to a change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g. using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. It refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity.”
This clearly refers to “the climate” which is nonsense in the same way that “the science” is nonsense. It suggests that “the climate” is in reference to the entire planet. Climate, by definition, is REGIONAL. The climate of a particular geographical location is described in systems including Koppen-Geiger, Holdridge, or Trewartha. In determination of the appropriate classification, many parameters are involved. It is impossible to determine some average of all of the regions of the planet in order to determine “the climate”. Only a classification system can attempt to measure a region’s climate. In order to determine whether or not there is a change, it is necessary to be able to measure it. Since there is no way to determine what “the climate” is, or in fact to measure it, the term “climate change” is meaningless nonsense.
Now let us look at the definition used by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), where “climate change refers to a change of climate that is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and that is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.”
While human activity may well alter a regional climate through land use, there is nothing to suggest that human activity has any impact on the climate of a region by altering the composition of the “global atmosphere”. Again, this is not measurable, since the “global atmosphere” is not homogeneous, and the term is nonsense for the same reason that the term “global average temperature” in nonsense. Both terms are mathematically and thermodynamically impossible.
Certainly, the climate of some regions changes classification completely (but that is pretty rare). The size and shape of a particular classification’s region may change over time. Certainly, the greening of the planet over recent decades creates changes when the discussion alludes to the Trewartha classification.
Conclusion: The term “climate change’, in the current common vernacular, is nothing but jibber jabber.
There is a third definition of “climate change”. It is a euphemistic identity for “global warming” obfuscating any provocative mention of “warming”. It’s ironic that the only manifestation of (definable) “climate change” to have emerged yet is “the greening”.
The distribution of CO2 is discernible from NASA’s OCO2 satellite. It confirms that the distribution of CO2 in the atmosphere is far from homogeneous, making the measurement at one position in the central Pacific ludicrous. The satellite OCO2 clearly shows that CO2 is most abundant not in the industrial areas of the Northern Hemisphere, but in the rainforests and huge river systems of the Southern Hemisphere. That the greening of the planet that has occurred simultaneously with a 25% increase in CO2 is also obvious from satellites.
212
Notice that the invisible red hand seems centred on Yonniestone and TdeF. I fear someone out there doesn’t love you.
I bet the invisible thumb is part of a hairy hand.
82
‘I bet the invisible thumb is part of a hairy palmed hand.’ FIFY 🙂
71
Al Gore is accused of running a racket! Who knew…?
http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/al-gore-runs-global-warming-racket/
120
a MUST-READ by Bjorn Lomborg.
TonyfromOz might appreciate the figures:
22 Jan: Project-Syndicate: Bjorn Lomborg: Why Africa Needs Fossil Fuels
SANTIAGO – Africa is the world’s most “renewable” continent when it comes to energy. In the rich world, renewables account for less than a tenth of total energy supplies. The 900 million people of Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa) get 80% of their energy from renewables.
While a person in Europe or North America uses 11,000 kWh per year on average (much of it through industrial processes), a person in Sub-Sahara Africa uses only 137kWh – less than a typical American refrigerator uses in four months. More than 600 million people in Africa have no access to electricity at all.
All this is not because Africa is green, but because it is poor. Some 2% of the continent’s energy needs are met by hydro-electricity, and 78% by humanity’s oldest “renewable” fuel: wood. This leads to heavy deforestation and lethal indoor air pollution, which kills 1.3 million people each year…
What Africa needs, according to many activists, is to be dotted with solar panels and wind turbines. But when US President Barack Obama hosted a summit of African leaders in 2014, most said they wanted more fossil fuels. In the words of Tanzanian Minerals and Energy Minister Sospeter Muhongo: “We will start intensifying the utilization of coal….Why shouldn’t we use coal when there are other countries where their CO2 per capita is so high?….We will just go ahead.”…READ ALL
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/africa-needs-fossil-fuels-by-bj-rn-lomborg-2016-01
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23 Jan: NorthSomersetTimes: Tom Wright: Police’s 145ft wind turbine scheme rejected
Police and Crime Commissioner Sue Mountstevens said the turbine would save the force money in the long-term, however the scheme attracted almost 100 objections.
North Somerset MP Dr Liam Fox said it would ‘blight’ the Gordano Valley if given the go-ahead.
North Somerset councillor David Jolley said: “I know this will come as a great relief to the majority of residents I consulted and others who treasure the landscape and greenbelt status that Portishead Ridge enjoys.”…
The authority’s planning officials said the turbine would have had an ‘unacceptable impact’ on those living nearby due to its height and the movement of the blades.
They also felt it would harm species of birds, bats and newt which live near the police’s headquarters…
http://www.northsomersettimes.co.uk/news/police_s_145ft_wind_turbine_scheme_rejected_1_4387885
50
“There’s always the weather, of course … when it’s in season.”
. . .
Some folks might be familiar with that line from “The Music Man”, that introduces the song “Trouble”.
There is a very clever parody of this song in “Portal 2: The (Unauthorized) Musical Cast Album by Geekenders: Trouble
30
23 Jan: TorquayHeraldExpress: Daniel Clark: Huge South Devon solar farm plans withdrawn
PLANS for a huge solar farm in a picturesque South Devon valley have been withdrawn.
Lark Energy had submitted plans for hundreds of solar panels that would have covered 28,000 square metres of land at Waye Barton, Ipplepen…
“This decision is down to the recent Government changes to the funding of solar projects, which would require the project to be constructed before the end of March. Due to certain costs, the project is not considered to be viable within this funding.”
When the plans were initially submitted in October, nearby residents called the plans ‘disastrous’…
http://www.torquayheraldexpress.co.uk/Huge-South-Devon-solar-farm-plans-withdrawn/story-28585729-detail/story.html
Philippines tree-felling for solar:
24 Jan: CebuDailyNews:Michelle Joy L. Padayhag: More than 100 trees cut despite stop order
Despite a cease-and-desist order, more than 300 trees were cut in barangay Talavera, Toledo City where a solar power plant is being built.
“There are around 725 trees in the area and it was confirmed that more than 300 trees were already cut,” said Raul Pasoc of the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO).
Most of the downed trees are in the same area where 982 trees were also cut last year
Species like Tipolo, Pangantoon, Bangkal, Bagalunga, Lanutan, Acasia, Narra, Mahogany and Gmelina were chopped down, Pasoc said.
“There were no permits issued that they are allowed to cut another set of trees again,” he said.
Pasoc signed a cease-and-desist order in October 28 last year against the cutting of the trees…
CENRO also filed criminal charges last November against 21 board of directors (BODs) and key officers of three corporations at the Toledo City Prosecutor’s Office.
But the complaint was dismissed last week for insufficient evidence against the respondents…
“We are also considering if we could file the same case after another set of trees was cut. We are pursuing this legal battle even if it reaches the Supreme Court,” Pasoc told Cebu Daily News.
http://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/83139/more-than-100-trees-cut-despite-stop-order
60
No subsidy..no renewables.
Strange, it is supposed to be so cheap. sarc off/
20
business as usual:
23 Jan: TimesofIndia: Reuters: India eyes Africa’s vast resources to meet rising energy demand
India has asked its oil firms to boost ties with resource-rich Africa as the south Asian nation wants to take advantage of tumbling crude prices to lock in supplies to meet future demand.
India is seen as the most important driver of energy demand growth in the world in the years to come with its oil consumption seen rising by 6 million barrels per day (bpd) to about 10 million bpd by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA)…
“We want Indian oil companies to take advantage of the credit line extended for five years and strike deals…we should take advantage of sliding oil prices and take active role in the development of African nations,” oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan told the India Africa Hydrocarbons Conference, attended by ministers and officials of 22 African nations…
African nations want Indian investment to boost their oil output and develop infrastructure.
“African nations asked us to invest in developing their infrastructure, upgrading their refineries and be a partner in development of their market, mainly refined products,” Pradhan said…etc
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/India-eyes-Africas-vast-resources-to-meet-rising-energy-demand/articleshow/50695814.cms
40
22 Jan: LA Times Editorial: Last-minute maneuvering by utilities could throw a shadow over California’s solar revolution
Here’s a simple guideline for the California Public Utilities Commission when it votes next week on a new rate scheme for rooftop solar users who also connect to the electric grid: Don’t be like Nevada…
…Nevada made it virtually unaffordable for the typical homeowner to install solar panels. Good going, guys…
Commissioners in California, by comparison, have crafted a reasonable proposal that makes solar users pay to draw power from the grid when the sun doesn’t shine, while maintaining a healthy credit for the power they contribute during the day. The PUC is set to take a final vote on this proposal next week, but the state’s three big electric utilities — Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and Pacific Gas & Electric — are agitating for last-minute changes to squeeze more money out of solar users.
These customers can afford it, the utilities argue, now that a key federal tax credit for solar power has been renewed…
Besides, the utilities claim, the current proposal is not fair because it would make all ratepayers subsidize the rich people who can afford to go solar…
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ol-0122-solar-rooftop-20160121-story.html
40
This photo shows the stupidity of the entire CAGW racket. Using fossil fuels so that frozen wind turbines can continue to run. Incredible.
And Einstein’s quote is a beauty.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/23/saturday-silliness-wind-turbine-photo-of-the-year/
112
Thanks Neville. Definitely a “must see”.
Cheers,
Dave B
20
David Evans wrote a series of articles in which he clearly indicated his belief that increasing carbon dioxide would raise the surface temperature.
But radiation from colder carbon dioxide cannot transfer thermal energy into the surface.
I explained to David that we need to know how the surface actually gets warmed each morning to whatever temperature it reaches at some location. We note that the morning warming can even take place under widespread thick cloud cover.
David could not explain the mean surface temperature based on radiation computations, and nobody can because it’s not a black or grey body being heated only by radiation.
Unfortunately David could not understand the need to explain the mean surface temperature. It is necessary to do so in order to confirm that the process we think may warm it more is in fact the same process that got it to that temperature in the first place. In fact it’s not. So David’s posts are irrelevant and misleading.
320
Doug, I am no expert, so excuse me if I am in error. My understanding is that David, for the purpose of this exercise, has accepted the physics of CO2 absorption of radiation from a warmed earth, however he has hypothesised that the basic models are in error in the way that they calculate feedback of such trapped heat to earth.
He has shown in his remodelling, as I understand it, that a doubling of CO2 would lead to a temperature increase of between 0degC and 0.5degC, at a maximum. The other issues that you mention may also have a bearing, but David has made it abundantly clear on this site that he does not want to complicate matters with extraneous issues, at this stage, but wishes to get a very clear message out there – the current models are wrong.
171
Peter. The Earth’s surface is not, on average, warmed by radiation reaching it. The solar radiation is like that from an iceberg at about -40°C and the radiation from the atmosphere also like that from an iceberg nearly as cold. Two colds don’t make a hot.
016
How can you say this? Have you never stood out in the sun?
160
Based on correct physics. Have you ever studied such? Mean solar radiation reaching the surface is about 168W/m^2. On Venus it is about a tenth of that. There’s more detail in comments starting here.
111
I might just mention to any others like The Backslider that, if you haven’t done at least two years of tertiary physics and studied developments in the understanding of entropy and the Second Law since the late 1980’s you will be out of your depth entering into discussion of this physics. I suggest you read the previous comments starting here and just watch on silently.
112
Do you BS (appropriate initials) believe the NASA figure of about 168W/m^2 as being the mean solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface?
Do you BS know how to look up something on Google? Try “Stefan Boltzmann calculator” and select the one at tutorvista.com.
Complete the boxes as follows …
Emissivity(ε): 1
Surface Area(A): 1 m2
Temperature(T): x K
Radiation Energy(P): 168 W(J/s, N.m/s)
Then click the “Calculate ‘x'” button
and bingo – you get -40°C expressed as
233.3090341053722K
09
Solar constant: 1362W/m^2
Lightning Ridge albedo on clear day, say, 0.1 because no clouds
Absorption by atmosphere: 20%
Use 70% of 1362 = 953W/m^2 for flux when Sun passes directly overhead at noon (as on two days per year in the tropics)
Deduct 102W/m^2 for non-radiative heat loss (actually more)
BlackBody temperature for remaining 851W/m^2 = 350K. Hot enough for your eggs?
Happy cherry-picking BackSlider.
09
And the sunburn when the air temp is -20c …maybe just uv getting through aye?
10
Right, so all you have is ad hom since you don’t have an intelligent reply. That you can ignore something so obvious as the sun beating down on the back of you neck, which completely falsifies anything you have to say, is telling.
Why on earth do you waste your time here? Please find a therapist post haste…..
30
TBS,
he gave you the answer. When you have a physics degree you no longer feel the sun.
Maybe he has a hat and wears a long sleeve shirt?
20
The mean solar radiation reaching Earth’s surface is 168W/m^2 for which standard Stefan-Boltzmann calculations yield a blackbody temperature of 233K which is about -40°C. The mean solar radiation reaching the surface of Venus is about 10% of that.
My “intelligent reply” was published as a paper in 2013 and a book the next year, based on thousands of hours of post-graduate research in atmospheric physics. My climate websites have been visited by over 110,000.
You (anonymous Backslider) are not qualified in any branch of physics are you?
Now it’s time for the tennis.
010
iF after the tennis someone with a better qualification in physics contradicts you, will you stop?
70
Do this little experiment Doug, nothing like some real science….
1. Go out and buy yourself a good cast iron fry pan.
2. Jump in your car and drive up to Lightning Ridge in the middle of summer. There at tomes it gets over 50C ( I know, I lived there for 13 years).
3. On a good hot day, place your fry pan on a mullock heap out in the sun. Leave it there for say half an hour.
4. Crack a raw egg into the fry pan.
5. Watch in wonder as the egg cooks.
6. Come back and tell us if you stiLl believe what you do at present.
Enjoy the egg, crack open a cold beer while you are at it as it’s damn bloody hot!
00
I’m not really interested in your hand-waving, BackSlider (BS) though it does display your lack of education and/or understanding of physics. Respond to this comment.
Who’s next to take me on?
09
Lightning Ridge calculations yielding 77°C (350K) are in this comment.
09
You would do well not to assume I’m wrong in matters pertaining to radiative heat transfer and thermodynamics, Jo, fields in which I have done far more extensive study than David. Radiation reaching a planet’s surface is not the primary determinant of the surface temperature. Hence variations in such radiation do not determine variations in temperature.
112
Peter, now please read about why carbon dioxide does not trap heat in this comment. May I remind you that DE does not have more than one year of tertiary physics to his name, and this is all in the realm of physics of course.
114
Peter, see also this comment.
111
The maximum entropy production associated with the Second Law is absolutely critical to understanding the temperature gradient. You would do well to read my paper or website* before making irrelevant comments about the Second Law which you don’t understand because you don’t understand what entropy is.
09
“based on the topic of discussion” writes AZ. Mmmmm – thought this was unthreaded. I’m just replying to others.
09
I’ve read #10 and #11. One only needs to find one error in physics in order to dismiss an hypothesis. I did that.
08
That is a bastardisation of science. Name any major development in science and the initial hypothesis will have been modified to accommodate some aspect that in the original is later shown to be “wrong”. Thank goodness we’ve chosen to be scientists who don’t throw babies out with the bathwater.
00
And thank goodness there are sceptics who question new claims as a high percentage are found to be flawed. Like yours.
50
Yes, well GA the only way to “accommodate” in this instance would be to select the opposite hypothesis, based on the Loschmidt gravito-thermal effect being a reality, rather than a fiction as David Evans implicitly assumes by following the James Hansen false physics pertaining to radiative forcing instead of the “heat creep” process.
09
You are right. I’ve suddenly and rationally decided to dedicate myself to you Dee cotton
00
Doug,
Possibly not. However this is a misrepresentation of the Greenhoise Gas Effect Theory. According to the GHGE Theory increased levels of CO2 introduce a barrier to radiant heat loss. The Sun’s rays heat the Earth. The CO2 barrier ( blanket) reduces radiant heat loss.
Trenberth’s diagram also gives the impression that CO2 transfers energy to the surface, which I think is a misrepresentation.
Taken to an extreme a reflector reduces radiant heat loss almost to zero. Alan Siddons argued by a thought experiment that a reflector cannot “trap heat” in that way because a light bulb does not glow brighter when placed in front of a mirror, which seems on the face of it to be true.
Anthony Watts did an experiment showed that the frosted glass surface of a flood lamp does get hotter when a mirror is placed in front of it but his experiment had problems confusing the source of heat (the filament) and the heated surface (the frosted glass envelope),
Having thought about this for a few years I have performed a reproducible experiment which shows that a reflector does indeed reduce radiant heat loss. Consequently I have had to refine my views.
My explanation for that is that a reflector is essentially at the same temperature as the heat source as far as radiation is concerned. Since heat transfer is proportional to the difference in temperature between two bodies ( source and reflector) radiant heat does not pass between them.
There may be better arguments for rejecting the GHGE Theory.
20
No it’s not a misrepresentation. How do you suppose they explain the mean surface temperature of about 288K in the first place? The solar radiation reaching the surface is shown as 168W/m^2 in energy diagrams and the blackbody temperature for that is about 233K. Show me your calculations to get 288K.
212
Agree Doug @ 20.2.1.
The Heat transfer diagrams of Tremberth and others do not represent reality.
The GHGE Thoery calculations neglect the heat capacity of the land, seas and atmosphere and treats the Earth as a black body.
Black body theory requires that the intense solar radiation absorbed from the mid day sun in the tropics is immediately re radiated. That does not happen. Heat is stored and then spread around, both temporally and spatially.
Modeling that situation is much more difficult than the simplistic averaging implicit in the Green House theory. Joseph Postma had a go and came up with a calculation which reduced the so called greenhouse effect from 33C down to 11C. His paper however did not consider spatial heat transfer.
My response was to advise about my experimental result which I think requires slight revision of the argument.
08
You’re getting close Peter C. Just remember that, with Venus receiving at its surface only about 10% of the direct solar radiation that Earth does, it’s blatantly obvious that surface temperatures of planets with significant atmospheres can never be calculated from radiation figures.
09
Footnote to Peter and others:
It is well known in physics and engineering that the one-way heat transfer between two close parallel plates (supposedly blackbodies) is related to the area between the Planck functions. It is not proportional to the temperature difference, because flux is proportional to the fourth power of temperature.
Radiation from the cooler atmosphere slows that portion of the cooling of a warmer surface which is itself by radiation. It does not slow evaporative cooling, conduction or convective heat transfers, and these processes tend to accelerate and thus compensate for slower radiative cooling.
None of this is relevant to surface temperatures, because we have to ask, “slowing from what temperature?” In that the Sun’s radiation cannot explain the observed mean surface temperatures in the first place, we know that radiation to the surface (solar and atmospheric) is not the primary determinant of the surface temperature. See my comments starting here.
114
Doug, I don’t think you read my comment properly. As I said, I am no expert in this area, but I just indicated that I believe that David’s main objective is to show that the widely accepted climate models are wrong and CO2, man made or not, is not the major driver of global temperature. You seem to agree with that. However, after having read all your comments and checked all your links I know realise that the next time I feel the sun heating my skin I will know that it is an iceberg, or have I misinterpreted what you said? I am now totally confused.
10
CO2 cools but by a minuscule amount, less than 0.1 degree for all the current concentration. There is no valid physics which can be used to prove any warming effect what-so-ever. Same goes for water vapour. Time for the tennis now.
09
Yes you’ve misrepresented me. Your cheek on a clear sunny summer day, is oriented towards the solar radiation perhaps late one afternoon, unlike the surface below which is struck at an acute angle, and not struck at all that night. Said surface receives even less again when cloudy, or in winter.
Do you or do you not understand how they derive the global mean (24/7) solar radiation as being 168W/m^2 reaching the surface?
Do you or do you not understand Stefan Boltzmann calculations that yield 233K (which is -40°C) for such mean radiation? You’re making me miss the tennis.
09
Go back to the two comments starting here.
08
ADF personnel plotting to overthrow the government:
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2016/01/adf-website-for-muslim-members-calls-for-overthrow-of-our-government-says-we-are-at-war-with-islam-a.html
We can’t moderate this discussion. Take it to Michael Smiths site if he can. – – Jo
10
Jo, the latest at Michael Smith News is that the ADF have shut the offending websites down following his representations to ADF HQ.
00
Greg Hunt opens the largest solar farm in the Southern Hemisphere.
http://www.narrominenewsonline.com.au/story/3681059/nyngan-solar-farm-milestone-for-renewable-energy-in-australia/
40
I wonder which cost more.. the solar panels or the security fence 😉
50
I wonder if the solar farm would have been constructed if it had to compete with coal fired power stations on a level playing field, that is no taxpayer subsidies, stand alone on a purely commercial basis?
80
I see a future business prospect in solar panels…..
…. manufactured in Narromine. ! 🙂
Possible incomes from copper wire as well.
60
As has been mentioned somewhere quite a long time ago.
Solar farms, a big one a long way from civilisation where the sun never sets [ sarc ] and the locals don’t like the city slickers scammers just moving in and trying to tell the locals what they should do, what they are allowed to do but what they will have to put up with when the city slicker scammers have done their damndest to the local’s treasured surrounds
A 22 or something with a bit more grunt and with a silencer, Yeh ! I know they are illegal but they are around and bloody easy to make up a quite effective one from out of a few odd bits and pieces if you know how.
And a few boxes of heavy rifle bullets, a night scope, a ute and bang, literally, goes a few million bucks worth of solar panels in an hour or two.
And the local’s.
Nah , not us. we get these city hoons out here far to bloody often [ True! Very true!. 300 kms from Melbourne but I have had a gun pointed at myself a few years ago by some foreign and unknown, uninvited, shot gun toting openly trespassing city types. For a while it didn’t look good for my longetivity from my angle. ] and they shoot up everything in sight so it must have been them.
62
Plus they will need an army of low paid “green” jobs to keep the dust off them. 🙂
20
They claim that solar will take over from decommissioned coal fired plants.
How?
50
The solar farm at the Ballarat Airport is now growing weeds just 10 years after it was constructed, at tax payers expense, as part of the Australian Solar Cities project. It was only ever used for solar promotion. As far as I know an economic study of its performance was never produced.
Will AGL asses this project (Nyngan) over time, including all the arguments published here on this blog about disruption of grid power. Probably not, mores the pity.
20
There’s a poll down at the bottom of the article asking:
“Do you think solar power is the way of the future?
Currently:
YES – 69 votes
NO – 20 votes
C’morn . . .it’s always helpful to counter the propaganda. 😉
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Both the Arctic Oscillation (AO) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) are about to enter positive territory.
This means a mild winter in Europe with strong southerly winds, this situation could change dramatically.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-8.93,51.14,1024/loc=-7.610,50.573
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And the basic structure of the wind is the same all the way up from sea level to 250hPa (about 34000ft or 10.4km).
Strange, or not?
-Click on the word ‘EARTH’ for the menu on your ‘earth.nullschool.net‘ link.
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I posted the following at the WUWT “Saturday silliness” thread because it seemed very strange that UCS should put out a press release on the blizzard in which they spruik wind and solar. apparently, solar panels are being covered in snow and I would imagine some wind turbines are being affected too.
***it is this sound advice?
22 Jan: Union of Concerned Scientists: Mid-Atlantic Blizzard to Cause Coastal Flooding
Flooding May Cause Property Damage and Power Outages, Likely to Occur More Often in Future
Meanwhile, UCS released an analysis in October that showed coastal power plants and substations—including in the Delaware Valley and Hampton Roads, Va., in the path of the blizzard—could be exposed to storm surge. If flooded, thousands of customers could lose power…
***The report also called on utilities to invest in wind and solar power coupled with energy storage that can provide power even when the electric grid goes down…
The report found that several of the utilities that may be affected by the blizzard have been dedicating insufficient attention to the present-day threat, let alone the significantly escalated future risks driven by rising seas
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/mid-atlantic-blizzard-to-cause-coastal-flooding-0661
would solar panels be providing households with much energy during the current blizzard when many of them are covered in snow?
how much energy is wind & solar sending to the grid during the blizzard?
fortunate that the blizzard has hit over the weekend when electricity demand is low, I guess.
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pat:
I am sure you know the answers.
Wind turbines are generating less than s.f.a. because
a) the winds are too STRONG so the turbines shut down.
b) the blades ice up so they cannot run in a blizzard anyway. See No.19 Neville
Solar doesn’t work because of snow on the panels (during the day).
“several of the utilities … have been dedicating insufficient attention to the present-day threat, let alone the significantly escalated future risks driven by rising seas” Since it requires that they will be around in the future which with subsidised “renewables” getting priority and cutting into their revenue raising, any provision for future threats would be based on
a) the chance they will survive until then
b) they can find the money to deal with the problems and
c). the believability of these threats in light of previous predictions by these people (in other words back someone who got it right).
d) the chance that the political class will realise they were taken in by a scam and delete “green subsidies”.
61
More news of the gutter-left from Delingpole.
Sickening.
It’s good to have the warmies’ foulness in print, though, so we can torture them in their old age with memories of their idiotic abandonment of reason to a fascist ideology based on false prophesies.
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23 Jan: Xinhua: China Focus: China copes with worst cold in decades
The national observatory raised the weather warning level from yellow to orange on Saturday morning.
According to the National Meteorological Center (NMC), temperatures dropped 6 to 10 degrees Celsius on Saturday morning in parts of northwest China, north China and the Huanghuai area…
The maximum load of Beijing’s power grid system reached about 16.96 million kilowatts at 5:54 p.m. on Friday, setting a record for the capital’s winter power supply in recent years…
At 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, all regions north of the Yangtze River, except eastern Sichuan Province and Chongqing, saw temperatures drop to below zero degrees Celsius, according to the NMC.
The downtown of southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality braced for its first snow since 1996 from Friday night to Saturday morning.
The “super cold wave” brought sleet and heavy snow to southwest China’s Sichuan Province from Friday night to Saturday morning, disrupting parts of the province’s power supply system…
The NMC also expects temperatures in South and Southeast China to drop by 6 to 10 degrees Celsius from Saturday to Monday. Temperatures in central and eastern regions of China were 6 to 8 degrees Celsius lower than the average historical level.
Temperatures in parts of Anhui, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong are forecast to approach or even drop below the lowest levels on record, it said…
In neighboring Jiangxi Province, the provincial fishery department ordered local authorities to help the endangered finless porpoise survive the harsh weather…
The cold air has also brought trouble to China’s coastal areas.
Due to freezing weather, sea ice coverage in the north of Liaodong Gulf almost doubled within 10 days to 12,415 square kilometers. The size is 7,650 square kilometers larger than last year…
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-01/23/c_135038901.htm
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The last time such conditions appeared in China was 2009. I was working on a project with Chinese colleagues for supply of raw coal fuel with defined quality characteristics to Beijing’s power stations, but fortunately wasn’t in China at that time
With the closure of rail and road and sea-freezing of ports, Beijing was down to 2 days supply – then, no power
And the homes of about 20 million people were showing internal temperatures of -10C/-15C
The potential scale of that near-calamity is overwhelming
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24 Jan: BusinessStandardHongKong: AFP: Hong Kong hit by coldest temperatures in nearly 60 years
A cold snap gripped Hong Kong today, with residents shivering as temperatures plunged to the lowest point in nearly 60 years and frost dusted the mountaintops of a city accustomed to a subtropical climate…
Morning temperatures dropped to 3.3 Celsius in urban areas of the southern Chinese city, where most buildings lack central heating, and below freezing on the hills.
It is the coldest weather in 59 years, senior scientific officer Wong Wai-kin told AFP…
As the mercury dropped, curious residents flocked to higher ground in search of frost, according to local broadcaster Cable TV…
According to the Hong Kong Observatory, the coldest weather occurred in January 1893, when temperatures plunged to 0 C.
http://wap.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/hong-kong-hit-by-coldest-temperatures-in-nearly-60-years-116012400136_1.html
30
Strange.
When I was in Hong Kong in 1977 there were several deaths one night in Kowloon were blamed on a freezing temperature overnight.
I guess they’ve been homogenised.
30
Massive snow storm in the Washington-New York area. Undoubtedly caused by Globull Warming.
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Or Gorebull Worming.
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It’s not really snowing* because as predicted ‘milder winters in the Northern Hemisphere will bring less snow’ as shown so often here.
*This event is unverified by ‘climate science™’, and will be subject to future adjustments.
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Globull Warming at work and play!
The Ice Age Now blog has the list and its a very big list indeed and getting longer by the hour and day.
American East coast headlines first up; [ latest at top;]
——————-
Heavy, heavy snow – Travel will continue to be dangerous [ 23 Jan ]
Eleven states declare states of emergency
Killer blizzard could be one of five worst in New York City history
Snowfall total upped to 24 to 30 inches
Blizzard now hitting New York City
All-out blizzard all the way from Virginia to Connecticut
DC braces for 1-3 feet of snow as blizzard rages
Paralyzing blizzard could rank near top 10 to hit Eastern US [ Jan 22 ]
Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina declare states of emergency
Potentially historic snowstorm, says Washington Post
Severe cold on Korean Peninsula [ Jan 21 ]
China – 90 percent of country gripped by extreme cold [ Temperatures drop to the lowest they’ve been in 30 years. ]
India – Twang valley covered with a thick blanket of snow
Ukraine – 78 settlements without power
Heavy snowfall in Ankara, Turkey – VIDEO
Blizzards in Moldavia – Entire villages snowbound [ Jan 21 ]
South Korea – Record power demand brought on by severe cold
Mongolia experiencing dzud (mass death of livestock)
Japan – Heavy snowfall cuts power to more than 50,000 [ Some 232 cm (7½ ft) of snowfall in the Sukayu hot spring resort in Aomori. ]
Heavy snowfall in northern Japan – Residents evacuate
Heavy snowfall across Greece
Moscow has already DOUBLED normal January snowfall [ And it’s only the 19th! ]
Snowfall Wreaks Havoc in Ukraine – Video
Ice freezes windmills in Sweden
Continuous heavy snowfall in Kosovo and Albania
Luxembourg roads closed after trees collapse under snow
France – Snow and ice alert for 11 departments [ Jan 18 ]
Heavy snowfall closes roads in four Ukraine regions
Electricity cut to hundreds of towns in Bulgaria
Blizzard wreaks havoc in Romania
Snow and cold in Denmark [ Jan 16 ]
Snow on the road to Mecca – Video
It was so cold in Minnesota that camera batteries froze [ Jan 12 ]
Record cold in Finland
Heavy snowfall in Central Russia
Heavy snow paralyzes St. Petersburg
Heavy snowfall in South-West Iceland
Major snowstorm hits southern, central Finland [ Jan 12 ]
And Etc and etc;
All of it spread right across the entire land masses of the northern hemisphere.
——————
This folks is Karl’s, Mann’s, Schmidts, Trenberths and etc’s record high global temperatures all apparently as a direct result of man made global warming where the Earth is going to hell in a red hot basket and “we must do something” like reducing the planet’s temperature by a couple of degrees to save us from an AGW catastrophe.
To quote an old saying;
We have lost!
The lunatics have taken over the asylum!
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But, but … the planet is still too warm! Just ask the UK Met Office Hadley Centre and the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, there’s no snow or frost there so it must be true… 👿
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Jo,
Your response, to the release of the temperature records for 2015 comes across as desperate. In my view you would be better served if you developed one idea and presented it in some depth rather than the scattered approach you adopt.
[Why would Jo want to focus on a singular idea, in discussing a complex multifaceted phenomenon? The alarmist spin-machine has already tried that, and it hasn’t worked out so well for them, has it?] Fly
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This is interesting reading. Some research in a comment at RealScience.
I knew that the thermometers were reliable even in the old horse and cart days but I was surprised at how seriously they took their work.
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+10!
Gail Combs always comes up with good information.
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1934 is still the hottest year in the temperature record for the continental USA. It is just too much fun ribbing USA warmists and asking “So, you must then agree that there has been zero global warming in the USA since 1934?”……
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Is 1934 still the hottest year according to homigenised data?
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Yes, apparently NOAA made corrections.
10
New wave power station in WA. Sigh…
http://www.sciencenewspost.com/worlds-first-grid-connected-wave-power-station-switched-on-in-australia/
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Wow, that is impressive.
They say the new units will bring the total Nameplate up to, umm, ONE MegaWatt.
Currently, it has a peak of 240KW, and while the Company mentions a hoped for Capacity Factor of 90%, the average for Wave generation is closer to 10%, averaged across a whole year.
Still, it is supplying power to the grid in WA.
So, that’s around 2.1GWH over a whole YEAR, you know, the same power supplied by Bayswater in, umm, just under 48 MINUTES.
Man, that’s just so damned impressive.
Tony.
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A very good article by The Atlantic.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/how-trump-is-exposing-medias-diversity-problem/426633/
Quote one paragraph:
“Williams believes that most members of the public aren’t aware of these demographic disparities when they’re critical of the media. Instead, according to Williams, they view the media as having an “elitism problem in that journalists nearly always rely on the official stances of politicians and experts—which amplify the voices of the powerful.””
10
FYI – TonyfromOz particularly
Dragsters
“Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1.5 gallons of nitro
methane per second. Which is the same rate of consumption as a fully
loaded 747, but with 4 times the energy density.
The supercharger takes more power to drive than a stock HEMI makes.
With nearly 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on
overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a nearly solid form
before ignition.
Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock.
Dual magnetos apply 44 amps to each spark plug. This is the output of an
arc welder in each cylinder.
At stoichiometric (exact) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture (for nitro methane),
the flame front measures 7050 deg F.
Nitro methane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the
exhaust stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from the
atmospheric water vapor by the searing exhaust gasses.
Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass. After 1/2
track the engine is dieseling from the compression plus the glow of the
exhause valves at 1400 deg F. The engine can only be shut down by
cutting off it’s fuel supply.
If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in
those cylinders and then explodes with a force that can blow the
cylinder heads off the block in pieces or blow the block in half.
Dragsters twist the crank (torsionally) so far (20 degrees in the big
end of the crank) that sometimes cam lobes are ground offset from front
to rear to re-phase the valve timing somewhere closer to
syn-chronization with the pistions.
To exceed 300mph in 4.5 seconds, dragsters must accelerate at an average
of over 4G’s. But in reaching 200mph well before 1/2 track, the launch
acceleration is closer to 8G’s.
If all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once
NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs $1000 per second.
Dragsters reach over 300mph before you have read this sentence.
Top fuel/Funny Car engines ONLY turn 540 revolutions from light to light.
The redline is actually quite high at 9500rpm.
To give you an idea of the acceleration, the current Top Fuel dragster
ET record is 4.477 seconds for the 1/4 mile. This means that you could
be comming across the starting line in your average Lingenfelter powered
twin turbo Vette at 200mph (on a FLYING START) and the dragster would
beat you to the finish line from a dead stop in the 1/4 mile distance”
From a comment at
http://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/99122-funny-and-top-fuel-car/
Given that we aren’t likely to be really heading for a carbon free world and higher combustion temperatures seem to improve carbon sourced power I’d reckon that there will be spin-offs from this area?
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Edit to above
“technological spin-offs”
There are plenty of real life ones in that game.
00
Very impressive, I have seen these stats before but thanks for posting. It is not usually possible to actually measure the horsepower of these engines because apparently there are no suitable dynos and also maximum power can only be sustained for less than 10 sec before engines self destruct, so the horsepower has to be calculated. Usual figure is up to about 10,000 horsepower. The competition rules require a kevlar blanket over the engine in case of an explosive event. Also see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Fuel
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I wrote a piece of satire/black humour to highlight what sort of speculation can arise when media and communications are censored. It’s vaguely relevant to “climate change”, making reference to Germany’s Energiewende – a transition to carbon neutral fuels.
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I see Melbourne has just experienced its longest run of cold days in January on record.
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