Now this is climate change. If you can believe this study, wow:
“In the tropics, annual mean temperature fell from 27 to 5 degrees Celsius”
And we worry about a warming of one degree in a century.
“It became cold, I mean, really cold,” says Brugger. Global annual mean surface air temperature dropped by at least 26 degrees Celsius. The dinosaurs were used to living in a lush climate. After the asteroid’s impact, the annual average temperature was below freezing point for about 3 years. Evidently, the ice caps expanded. Even in the tropics, annual mean temperatures went from 27 degrees to mere 5 degrees. “The long-term cooling caused by the sulfate aerosols was much more important for the mass extinction than the dust that stays in the atmosphere for only a relatively short time. It was also more important than local events like the extreme heat close to the impact, wildfires or tsunamis,” says co-author Georg Feulner who leads the research team at PIK. It took the climate about 30 years to recover, the scientists found.
The real threats are not fertilizer and balmy weather, but rocks from space, and cold, cold, cold…
How the darkness and the cold killed the dinosaurs
Sixty six million years ago, the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs started the ascent of the mammals, ultimately resulting in humankind’s reign on Earth. Climate scientists now reconstructed how tiny droplets of sulfuric acid formed high up in the air after the well-known impact of a large asteroid and blocking the sunlight for several years, had a profound influence on life on Earth. Plants died, and death spread through the food web. Previous theories focused on the shorter-lived dust ejected by the impact. The new computer simulations show that the droplets resulted in long-lasting cooling, a likely contributor to the death of land-living dinosaurs. An additional kill mechanism might have been a vigorous mixing of the oceans, caused by the surface cooling, severely disturbing marine ecosystems.
“The big chill following the impact of the asteroid that formed the Chicxulub crater in Mexico is a turning point in Earth history,” says Julia Brugger from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), lead author of the study to be published in the Geophysical Research Letters. “We can now contribute new insights for understanding the much debated ultimate cause for the demise of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous era.” To investigate the phenomenon, the scientists for the first time used a specific kind of computer simulation normally applied in different contexts, a climate model coupling atmosphere, ocean and sea ice. They build on research showing that sulfur- bearing gases that evaporated from the violent asteroid impact on our planet’s surface were the main factor for blocking the sunlight and cooling down Earth.
In addition to [30 years of cooling], ocean circulation became disturbed. Surface waters cooled down, thereby becoming denser and hence heavier. While these cooler water masses sank into the depths, warmer water from deeper ocean layers rose to the surface, carrying nutrients that likely led to massive blooms of algae, the scientists argue. It is conceivable that these algal blooms produced toxic substances, further affecting life at the coasts. Yet in any case, marine ecosystems were severely shaken up, and this likely contributed to the extinction of species in the oceans, like the ammonites.
“It illustrates how important the climate is for all lifeforms on our planet”
The dinosaurs, until then the masters of Earth, made space for the rise of the mammals, and eventually humankind. The study of Earth’s past also shows that efforts to study future threats by asteroids have more than just academic interest. “It is fascinating to see how evolution is partly driven by an accident like an asteroid’s impact — mass extinctions show that life on Earth is vulnerable,” says Feulner. “It also illustrates how important the climate is for all lifeforms on our planet. Ironically today, the most immediate threat is not from natural cooling but from human-made global warming.”
Press Release from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).
From ScienceDaily
Reference:
Julia Brugger, Georg Feulner, Stefan Petri. (2017) Baby, it’s cold outside: Climate model simulations of the effects of the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous. Geophysical Research Letters, 2016; DOI: 10.1002/2016GL072241
“It also illustrates how important the climate is for all lifeforms on our planet. Ironically today, the most immediate threat is not from natural cooling but from human-made global warming.”
No!!!!!!…….wrong, wrong, wrong again…..… the latest intelligence in science have determined asteroids are the biggest threat yet again. Nothing anthropogenic about it…Why are people not better informed??
From: ZeroHedge
“Why Has The White House Suddenly Released A Strategy For Dealing With A Catastrophic Meteor Impact?”
“Does the White House know something that the rest of us do not? As the Obama administration draws to a close, the White House has suddenly released a major document that details a multi-pronged strategy for dealing with the threat of a catastrophic meteor impact. Most of us remember movies such as “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon” that attempted to depict what such a crisis would look like, but up until fairly recently the U.S. government has never seemed to take this kind of threat very seriously.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-12/why-has-white-house-suddenly-released-strategy-dealing-catastrophic-meteor-impact
I continue to remain skeptical about the interstellar deep space environment the earth and other planets similar to our own find themselves in.
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Environment Skeptic:
Like you, I’m a just a little amazed at the blithe disregard for orders of magnitude. Anyone comparing a temperature change of 25 degrees C with 0.7 degrees C should be required to return their Ph.D.
A lot of people including many scientists, don’t seem to consider the fact the Solar System actually orbits the centre of the Milky Way galaxy. One orbit is about 250MY. Each passage through a spiral arm triggers a real ice age (where an ice-age is the sum of all its glaciations and a glaciation is NOT an ice age). (See Nir Shaviv’s paper on this phenomenom.)
The Dino Killer (DK) hit when the Solar System was between spiral arms. It had passed through the Norma Arm and was heading for the Sagittarius-Carina arm.
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I suspect Donald Trump’s election has, at least partially, restored a sense of reality to the American Geophysical Union and the publishers of Geophysical Research Letters.
Now, if only nuclear physicists could be restored to sanity: https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/01/14/analyzing-information-in-the-age-of-disinformation-2/
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The nuclear physicists, and you, need to get their act together and learn how to explain all of this to common earthling idiots, they have not even learned to explain this to each other!
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Will, the discussion began in space physics as evidence for local element synthesis was reported in mainstream journals in 1960-1980:
1. Isotopically “strange xenon” from element synthesis was found and reported
_ a.) In the Murray carbonaceous meteorite by J.H.Reynolds in 1960
_ b.) Enriched in gas released from other meteorites at ~1,000 C in 1972
_ c.) As the by-product of super-heavy element fission in Allende in 1975
_ d.) Accompanying all primordial He & Ne in the Allende meteorite in 1975
_ e.) First debated at a tumultuous 1976 AGU National meeting in April 1976
_ f.) As the source of about 7% of the Sun’s total abundance of Xe-136 in 1976: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v262/n5563/abs/262028a0.html
_ g.) Fairly debated in another exchange published openly in Science in 1977: http://www.omatumr.com/archive/StrangeXenon.pdf
_ h.) Accompanying “strange” krypton and tellurium in Allende meteorite in 1979: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v277/n5698/abs/277615a0.html
2. Peter Toth detected and reported the Sun’s fundamental 160 min pulse in 1977: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v270/n5633/abs/270159a0.html
Mainstream journals closed down the discussion in space physics before nuclear physicists and politicians were confronted with evidence of neutron repulsion and the error in Weizsacker’s definition of “nuclear binding energy.” https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Creator_Destroyer_Sustainer_of_Life.pdf
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Is that supposed to pass for science?
Passing through the spiral arms somehow shields us from the heat being radiated from the centre of the galaxy or something does it? Like the solar system only with other members?
Perhaps you could tell us how it is supposed to work, with minor references to radiation inputs and outputs. (If they were of measurable magnitude, which do you think might be increased when surrounded by the stationary stars of those stationary “spiral arms” we are supposedly “passing through”, input or output?)
Don’t be put off by my sceptical stance – I am willing to be convinced if you have any sort of basic science to support you.
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What a silly and stupid idea.
I’m not put off. I’m trying desperately hard to not laugh at you. I’m just gob-smacked. Did you not even think of reading the science I linked to?
If you actually read Dr. Shaviv’s paper, you just might learn something. But be careful that you have a good English dictionary handy: Shaviv is an astrophysicist and he uses a few big words in his writings.
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Gnome obviously didn’t follow the link that you provided to Nir Shaviv’s paper.
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Oh dear- I’ve been savaged by a rabid sheep.
Sorry Soph’ but after your reply I did look at that link and though I can see what he’s getting at I still have too many questions.
I’m big on detection and measurement. Just because someone supports my main contention on global warming doesn’t mean I will accept any nonsense he comes up with.
And you have to admit, he still reckons our brave little solar system is wandering around a (relatively) fixed galaxy absorbing radiation from the centre. Just like a solar system only with bigger members.
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The galaxy rotates at a rotational speed/velocity of about 210-220km/s—that’s per second. It is NOT stationary nor is it or its stars fixed. You can read about it here and more about spiral galaxies here.
Most stars have their own trajectories and speeds. For example, Betelgeuse or Alpha Orionis, is moving away from the stars in Orion’s Belt with a relative velocity in that direction of 30km/s while they all still orbit the galactic centre at about 220 km/s. All star movement is relative as are their velocities. It’s because space is so large that they seem to remain still over several hundred human lifetimes … The Neolithic builders of Stonehenge learnt this lesson over the eight or nine centuries after Stonehenge was built. They had to realign a few stones. Oops.
There is no climate warming from heat radiation from the galactic centre, it’s too far away at 26,000 – 28,000 light years. (Do the arithmetic! Electromagnetic radiation follows the inverse square law.) At those sort of distances, it’s insignificant. However the nuclear radiation—really hard stuff—from the black hole at the centre could sterilise Earth of all life from that range if it wasn’t for the dense dust clouds between it and us. You can see these dust clouds with the naked eye at night near the zenith (up and to the right of the tail of Scorpio) in the middle of winter if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere and you know where Sagittarius is. (They’re most visible outside a city and it depends on the cloud cover wherever you are.)
Space is COLD, at about 3 degrees kelvin +/- a bit depending on where you are. That’s 3 degrees above absolute zero, and an order of magnitude colder than the temperatures of liquefaction of most gases, or -252 degrees Celcius or thereabouts. Nor is there any significant IR from the stars in the spiral arms. It’s Cosmic Radiation Shaviv is talking about: streams of high energy protons, electrons, helium nuclei and the occasional heavier nucleus. They move at very high velocities, nearly at the speed of light along the galaxy’s magnetic field. Low Cosmic Ray counts => fewer Terrestrial clouds => warmer Terrestrial temperatures (from more sunshine), whereas higher counts -> more clouds => lower temperatures (Svensmark’s hypothesis).
The leading edge of spiral arms are zones of high rates of star birth and star death and have relatively very high levels of Cosmic Rays, which is why we have an ice age as the Solar Syatem passes through that zone.
The Solar System is moving at about 225-250 km/sec and the galactic disk is rotating with an average angular velocity of about 210-220 km/s. The Sun catches up to and passes through the spiral arms on its way. That’s when the ice ages occur.
There isn’t a high concentration of Cosmic Rays in the space between the major arms. Thats’ when this planet is warm, very warm, as it was at the end of the Cretaceous, and again after the Dinosaur Killer’s effects dwindled away through the Paleocene and the Eocene as the Solar System left the Norma arm behind and headed for the Sagittarius/Carina arm.
There’s a good graphic on both the pages I’ve referenced showing the spiral arm structure of the Milky Way and the Solar System’s current position. Click on it to enlarge.
Don’t have rabies.
So: Gummed, gnome, gummed. The teeth remained holstered. 🙂
===========
O/T a bit:
Klimate scientists can’t explain the PETM. I’ve put enough information into this post which would enable a thoughtful individual to do so. The klimate scientists tie their shoelaces together by looking for CO2 pulses …
Poor things. 🙂
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The general idea is cosmic dust causes less energy to reach the Earth.
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Well no G3. That was my somewhat jovial suggestion a first. It’s the reverse, the extra radiation causes clouds and so it makes it cooler.
Fairly speculative and more than a bit SF.
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Hmm as far as I understand or solar system remain relative to other solar systems in our spiral galaxy. That is outer solar systems in our galaxy transverse space faster than the inner ones, so if a solar system is blocking the direct line to the gakaxys central black hole it will continue doing so, just the position of stars would have rotated over time.
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Hmm as far as I understand or solar system remain relative to other solar systems in our spiral galaxy. That is outer solar systems in our galaxy transverse space faster than the inner ones, so if a solar system is blocking the direct line to the gakaxys central black hole it will continue doing so, just the position of stars would have rotated over time.
me think, thee lifecycle of our sun and nearby stars might have more effect on temperatures at the 10 million year time scale
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Gnome, please read “The Chilling Stars”, as a primer in astrophysics.
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Really, you need to read that paper and look at the graphs. The cycle that Shaviv addresses is not “ice ages,” but the “Ice House” vs “Hot House” pattern. Ice House periods span tens of millions of years. Geologically they are noted for the evidence of continental glaciation and polar ice fields. One sub-par period shows more limited evidence of glacial activity – typical evidence on land includes glacial erratics, scour, moraines and other glacial features such as evidence of rocks rafted out to sea on ice bergs.
The Ice House pattern may include ice ages along with interglacials as excursions within the “Ice House” phases. But the Ice House periods are difficult to characterize in detail. And, it also has nothing to do with cosmic dust. Cosmic ray flux increases as the solar system traverses the spiral arms, then decreases as it exits an arm. The traversal appears to correlate with the Ice House/Hot House major climate oscillations and there have only been FOUR Ice House phases in the last 500 MY. Shaviv is quite clear that he is not attributing the pattern to dust. He also suggests that taking into account this pattern with the maturation of the sun as a G-type star may account for the so-called “faint sun” paradox.
It is worth noting that the solar system is currently moving out of an arm and that the planet may be looking at several tens of millions of years of Hot House not too far in the geological future.
30
I’ve heard a few times about the solar system wandering from one arm to another and this probably isn’t the place to ask but it seems to me the spiral arms are made of areas of higher star density and the gaps are areas of lower star density, all stars rotating around the galactic centre. Now if Sol is moving faster or slower than the other stars in the galaxy then it will either fly out of the galaxy or spiral into the centre. It can’t be orbiting the centre at a greatly different speed to the other stars which it would have to to pass through all the spiral arms every 250 million years. That idea would mean that all the other stars are fixed and it is only Sol that is moving.
I can imagine if Sol had slightly tilted orbit it could pass through a single spiral arm as it passes from above to below the galactic plane and back again but not from one to the other.
Maybe I have the wrong end of the stick and someone could explain it to me?
20
EricHa:
Spiral Arms are not structures so much as density waves in the galactic medium. The galaxy contains a lot of hydrogen gas. Some of it is spread out thinly throughout the galaxy and most of it has bunched up into clouds. Most stars in the galaxy cross these density waves, and they bunch up. Everything bunches up at the leading edge including gas clouds and the gas of the galactic medium. Get enough gas together and gravity and pressure from the cosmic rays pushes it all together, and it collapses and lights up as a new star.
So the leading edges of spiral arms are places of star birth. These are often big type O or blue giants which are short lived. The forces of their ignition push them ahead of the spiral arm. After 10-30 MY they go BANG as a supernova and make heaps of heavy elements as dust in the medium. A bit of shoveling at the front of the spiral arm and there’s a nice witches brew for another star and a bunch of planets.
Spiral arm leading edges are very productive places. So at any given time, most stars are in one of the spiral arms. But they don’t necessarily stay there. It depends on the star’s relative motion and the rate of that motion, it’s velocity.
Some stars do leave the galaxy but its gravity eventually reels such wanderers back in. The galaxy’s gravity and esp, that of the central black hole, holds everything in thrall. Gravity pulls and the Galaxy sucks. For all that, Galaxies run into each other and eat each other. I guess they also run down and die when they run out of free hydrogen.
Our Solar System is about 20 Galactic Years old.
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I just looked it up on Wikipedia: it’s called the Galactic year and is 225 million years.
The simulation shows how star density changes during the orbit:
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1 galactic year ago
Permian–Triassic extinction event
0.26 galactic years ago
Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event
10
1 Galactic year from now – extinction of Man?
10
My Physics lecturer of fifty years ago had a neat demonstration of precession for his physics class. He used:
– a library stool which could rotate while bearing his weight
– a metre-long length of 75×50 mm wood (in those days it was a piece of three by two 🙂 )
– a bicycle wheel with a nice heavy tire fixed to the centre of one end of the piece of three by two,
so the axis of the wheel’s rotation was down the length of the 3×2.
He would stand on the stool, take up the wheel on it’s axle and hold it as rigidly as he could. He would then carefully spin the wheel up to a decent rate of rpm. As soon as he judged it sufficient, he would let the rapidly spinning wheel drop a little vertically. The whole assembly, lecturer and wheel, would immediately precess. That is, the stool would slowly rotate. At the same time, the wheel would slowly rise and fall, or nutate, as everything went round.
The earth orbits the sun. It precesses, which means it nutates as well. The sun orbits the galaxy taking the whole Solar System along for the ride. The solar system precesses and nutates too (lots of things going round and round in the Solar System). Shaviv shows this in an article on his blog wherein he looks at our solar system’s interactions with spiral arms, cosmic rays, and its nutation on its galactic orbit.
Enjoy.
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Duster:
I use the term “Ice Age” for the full span of an Ice-house, which has a start, an end and is the sum of the stadials and interstadials of its lifetime. That is far more accurate than calling a mere glaciation, or any glaciation, an “ice-age.”
That’s far too loose.
I am hopeful more people will move away from the sloppy and loose definition of just a glaciation.
01
Duster said:
No, we’re currently moving into an arm: the Orion spur. The Solar System entered the Saggitarius/Carina spiral arm about 50MYA and came out of it about 30MYA. It took another 10 or so MY to cross the spiral arm’s leading edge big star birth/death zone which has a high CRF (Cosmic Ray Flux). It then crossed “free” space and things began to warm up. About 10MYA, it bumped the CR streams of the Orion Spur and cooling began again. Sometime around then, it entered the Orion Spur. Agout 2.74 MYA the Solar Syatem entered Gould’s Belt which is an interesting anomaly. It formed about 30MYA and is effectively a ring of big bright short lived stars around the Solar System. It will take maybe another 20-30MY to cross it. It’s an area of elevated CRF.
The current Ice-Age (the Quaternary Ice Age) started about then and there has been maybe thirty-something stadials and interstadials over the time since entering Gould’s Belt. We’re very much in the Freezer. Other things to look up are “The Local Fluff” and the “Local Bubble.”
MY = Mega Years
MYA = Mega Years Ago
10
Cut them a little slack, if you want funding for any research these days you have to genuflect to the climate church.
Not doing so risks having your career burn at the stake.
170
Environmental Skeptic, I too am skeptical of this publication/report.
Here is what caught me first:
“Previous theories focused on the shorter-lived dust ejected by the impact. The new computer simulations show that the droplets resulted in long-lasting cooling, a likely contributor to the death of land-living dinosaurs.”
Looks like a lot of assumptions and conclusions based on modelling, and nothing was said about validations, uncertainty, and so on. A lot of conclusions after this first “likely”.
90
Maybe the EPA has finally heard about 1989FC?????
00
I wouldn’t put too much stock in this study since they fed the data into – wait for it – a climate model. Then again models are biased to the high side so maybe it was colder than 5 deg.
Tell me then – How does humanity survive on solar power where solar input is reduced 75% and the whole earth including every windmill is encased in an ice ball. It strikes me that fossil fuels might provide a way to survive for 30 years using (real) greenhouses, artificial heating, and snow mobiles.
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bobl:
The climate models are junk and junk science to boot. A real scientist made a forecast circa 1970 about the climate up to 2015. It was far more accurate than all of the models and everything from the IPCC.
I came across the forecast in a book by the late Nigel Calder. He discussed the Camp Century Ice Core taken from the Greenland ice sheet by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The core was sent to Copenhagen where it was analysed by Willi Dansgaard.
from:
CALDER, Nigel, 1972: “The Restless Earth. A report on the new geology.” p 127.
The British Broadcasting Corporation. ISBN 0 563 121238.
(hardback)
Compare that forecast with the notorious Computer Models’ (all of them) projections. Dansgaard has been far more accurate, IMHO.
It doesn’t even mention CO2 because it doesn’t need to. `It’s the Sun Stupid.’
It blows the IPCC and all it’s assumptions and it’s “settled science” completely out of the water. To think it was published by the Beeb. First. Oh the irony. 🙂
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Nice post Sophocles. Got my tick.
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Thanks Sophocles. I love it when contributors look things up. Some who comment in Lame Stream Media just make it up. Dansgaard used logic and history and was/is pretty darned close.
Perhaps if IPCC models were based on logic and history (observed data) they, too, would be close.
Maybe, in fact I believe, if the theology part of alarmists’ beliefs were set aside CO2 would be blamed only for fertilizing plants.
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Thank-you sophocles,
A big thank-you! I knew I had read that before decades ago but I could not remember where I read it. It’s been worrying me for a long time. Thanks 🙂 (I owe you!)
111
Unfortunately I find an internet search shows only one place sells this book (complete 6 volume set for US$240 or per volume $40) at http://www.infobasepublishing.com/Series.aspx?SeriesISBN=098788
If anyone knows anywhere else I would be obliged.
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The set you found looks very serious. I sourced Nigel Calder’s book (single volume) from amazon.co.uk as a second-hand hardback for 1p (plus postage). I haven’t got room on my bookshelves for the set you found! 🙂
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Ah-ha,
I now see many more cheaper versions on amazon, though nothing as cheap as your find sophocles.
Why the web search omitted amazon is a mystery to me. Thank-you.
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“Ironically today, the most immediate threat is not from natural cooling but from human-made global warming”
They were going ok, talking some possible sense that may have been actually supportable..
….. until the statement to get it through climate peer-review without question.
215
He is right in a way. Ironically. $1Tn wasted every year on man made Global Warming when we really need to spend that sort of money on energy research, not windmills. Yes, it is man made, runaway, tipping point, cities under the ocean, islands drowned, mad mad end of world scenarios manufactured by science fiction writers, journalists, political activists, Green politicians, communists and enemies of the free world and Western democracies. Utterly man made.
180
From the opening comments:
While these cooler water masses sank into the depths, warmer water from deeper ocean layers rose to the surface …
I need Richard Feynman (unhappily now gone from us) to explain that in non-circular English.
180
While these cooler water masses sank into the depths, warmer water from deeper ocean layers rose to the surface …
Who ever wrote that has never swum in an Australian dam/tank…….usefull idiot.
190
Please explain.
🙂
30
I confess, I have never been in a farm dam.
I can only guess that you are referring to some sort of layering effect.
Anybody?
10
HI KK…let me explain.
The main source heating oceans and farm water storages is sunlight which penetrates the surface very easily….up to about 1 metre in a farm storage and around 100 meteres in the ocean. Below these depths, the water in both farm storages and the ocean becomes increasingly darker and colder.
Only one type of current effects both farm storages and the ocean, the surface current which is primarily driven by wind….in the ocean wind effects about the top 400 meters, farm storages much less.
Oceans are also saline. Cold, salty water is heavy and sinks to great depths. This causes the circulation of millions of cubic metres of water in the ocean and primarily occurs in polar regions of the ocean where the cold surface water sinks by convection. Warmer water then flows in from the direction of the equator to replace the sinking water. This water is then cooled in the Arctic air and also begins to sink, so that the convection is continuous.
This is my understanding of how sunlight and ocean convection currents…. which drive the worldwide convection engine called thermohaline circulation (thermo – driven by temperature differences; haline – driven by salinity differences)…..
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Water/images/thermohaline_circulation_conveyor_belt_big_gif_image.html
10
Thanks Redress.
My confusion was with Ian’s comment at 4.0 and your followup at 4.1. Obviously the surface water can only sink into warmer water and I wasn’t sure what point was being made.
Thanks for clearing that up.
KK
00
Feynman was great and a realy nice guy. I was in room where he talked to physics students, and his public lecture on Quantum Electrodynamics was an eye opener.
40
Bill Illis put this up at Watts and reckons on the evidence it was an inferno, with heated debris falling back to earth. I’ll pay that.
https://s31.postimg.org/nw3v9jckb/Cretaceous_Extinction_Temp_CO2_Zoom_in.png
The unmistakable conclusion is that the extinction had nothing to do with CO2 or polar weather in the midlatitudes.
140
You’ve been banging on for years about the VFT, using Meglev technology. I see it is becoming closer to reality…good call! I tips me hat.
Buying tracts of land, inland cities, to enhance the project’s viability is a visionary move.
40
Thanks, too kind.
30
The gradual change over 30 million years up to the point of extinction 65 mya suggests something beyond a meteor impact.
It’s unlikely that a meteor impact is going to produce the permanent temperature reversal seen on the graph.
KK
41
The ancestor from which humans are believed to have evolved from that impact of 65 mya was a small creature the size of a mouse.
Interesting what a difference 65 million years can make.
41
Temporarily (say 30 years) the earth became uninhabitable because of the constant bombardment of heated rock.
http://s90.photobucket.com/user/dhm1353/media/Climate%20Change/Zachos_67mya.png.html
30
“In the tropics, annual mean temperature fell from 27 to 5 degrees Celsius”
In Canberra, According to the Bureau of Meteorology, temperatures dropped from 38.5C to 26.2C in the space of 15 minutes.
. . .
This this 12° drop in temperature happened whilst Australia’s emissions rose, carbon (sic) is @400+ppm, and Canberra will be supplied with 100% renewables within 3 years.
With renewables at almost 100%, when will Canberra prevent it’s first wild summer storm?
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After a scorching 39.6 degree day in the capital, the storm hit suddenly just after 4pm.
The Bureau of Meteorology had not previously issued an extreme weather warning for the area.
SMH – No warning: Freak windstorm takes Canberra by surprise as major clean-up gets underway
. . .
If BoM computer models do this poorly for 6 month forecasts, multi-decadal will be even worse.
101
More of these turkeys should look at Landsheidt et al.
20
Black Saturday proved the BOM could not forecast at 9:00am what would happen at midday, temperatures forecast on Wednesday were 16C below Saturdays maximum.
30
Thing is, Mark, that to prevent those summer storms, the renewables actually have to be in the ACT, not hundreds of km away, connected through the coal powered electricity grid.
When Canberra connects ONLY to renewable sources, then they can say the are 100% renewable..
Until then they are totally reliant on 100% coal/hydro for back-up.
94
But that is the problem, the 100% renewable goal of the ACT (and others); one needs 4 x the nameplate capacity with wind turbines to replace reliable generation, plus sufficient back-up capacity(gas turbines) to operate when there is little, or occasionally too much wind. I don’t think the costs of these are factored into the renewable energy equation. One can see how this operates on King Is. where the diesel generators are on approx. 70-80% of the time. Some days the wind turbines produce enough electricity for the demand, but mostly the diesels are not idle.
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JANUARY 15 2017:
“It may be those sorts of events that might precipitate that discussion,” Weatherill told Fairfax Media in his parliamentary office in Adelaide.
The events included a massive September storm that spawned at least seven tornadoes and knocked out a key transmission line, triggering a “system black” power outage for all of SA.”
Early skirmishes point to a war over renewable energy lasting well into 2017
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/early-skirmishes-point-to-a-war-over-renewable-energy-lasting-well-into-2017-20170111-gtpsd9.html
. . .
What percentage of renewable energy does South Australia need before South Australia prevents it’s first “massive September storm spawned tornado”?
30
7% but they have 40% so we will get more than the average number of storms. Because the SA Show Week is in September and associated in the public mind with rain I don’t think claims of tornados will go down too well with the locals, regardless of who makes them.
S.A. will get more blackouts but as the only way the (snip) (snip) (snip)*** “government” can avert these is by installing lots of diesel generators then there is little they will do, if at all. Suggestions that they hire the surplus generators in Tasmania will provoke a psychological collapse into catatonic inaction (distinguishable from their normal inertia by the absence of press releases) and no action until the next election in 2018 when hysteria at losing office will take over.
*** Certain expressions regarding the intelligence, common sense, sanity, honesty and parentage have been removed to spare the Mods blushes. NO reference involving female Red Setter Bitches, especially regarding parental heredity DOES NOT OCCUR (they’re much too intelligent).
10
Cold kills … Who knew ? It is absolutely shocking that a class action lawsuit has not been launched against governments that have knowingly and purposely raised energy prices that are the cause of 10’s of thousands of fuel poverty deaths each year mainly from cold . People unable to afford their energy bills for heat are being killed while NO ONE has died from atmospheric CO2,earth’s plant food .
Obama boasted energy prices would “skyrocket ” dramatically as a result of his governments climate crusaded against fossil fuels .
The UK and other European countries have sacrificed thousands of peoples lives unnecessarily through misguided and fraudulent claims about the dangers of higher CO2 .
When did they know ? Now that would be an Inconvenient Truth .
Some contingency based law firm is in for a $$ billion dollar payday that represents the families and loved ones who are killed and continue to be killed because of government sanctioned and encouraged climate change (global warming ) con game policies .
It has been a long time coming .
131
I can’t help wondering that if the average temperature data recorded during that period was recorded continuously by digital equipment instead of at 12 hourly intervals using a thermometer it would have been much warmer… conversely if the average temperature data today still relied on 12 hourly readings it would be much cooler.
131
James Bradley
It depends on which beastly version of history is holding the thermometer. If the beastly observer has the name Mr Dragon then he may breath fire on the thermometer in order to see it. If his name is Mr Dinosaur then it was the later version of history after the new name was given by fossil hunters who loved to invent the rest of the story from a single bone. Older versions of the observers name would be “Behemoth” (Job 40:15-24) and “Leviathan” (Job 41:1-34). Older again may be Mr Nephilim but Mr dragon is a bit of a Chinese snake through time.
What do you mean by back then? Who measured temps every 12 hours?
30
It was written partly in jest, but my observation is none the less valid – as to way back when – I believe that data prior to digital was recorded manually by observers twice daily and I also assume it was 12 hourly and probably about 06:00am and 06:00pm. Therefore rather than adjust historical data according to continuous digital readings a better method for modern temp data would be to take 6:00am and 6:00pm readings from the digital data to compare to historical data and lets just see what that trend reveals.
50
Hi James.
Sensible assumptions that i once made myself but wrong.
Observation sites in Australia had self registering thermometers more than one hundred years before your vague “digital” date. Long before the BoM itself existed. Each state did there own meteorology back then. These thermometers were purpose built and calibrated to do either the minimum or maximum an needed to be reset but would record the highest or lowest temperature reached.
Check this out from Adelaide. It shows some recording times and a lot of clues about the thermometer types there in 1896. Adelaide today is far far far less accurate.
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/history/section-1-meterological-obs-adelaide.jpg
Here is a picture of the continuously recording temperature equipment used before 1900 (Before the BoM)in Sydney.
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=166729
30
Now that is interesting. Thanks for the information.
30
Just looked at some of the outstation recording times and see Cape Borda in 1896 at Midnight, 3AM, 6AM, 9AM, Noon, 3PM, 6PM, and 9PM. This PLUS minimum and maximum thermometers. S.A. used well trained Telegraph operators and lighthouse keepers to rotate the Glaishers and take the readings. This was all at a very high standard until the BoM took over. Then down went the quality.
50
And yet- the last I heard was that the distribution of fossils concurs with the geologists’ opinion that the extinction of the dinosaurs took place over the course of a million years.
This simulation is clearly incompatible with that time frame.
It may well be part of the story, but it clearly is not the whole story.
110
Scientists have known for many years that some dinosaur fossils have been above the KT ( or these days the KPg) boundary. Only last year evidence was put forward for the existence of a Hadrosaurid alive at 100, 000 years after the impact (error ± 100,000 years).
This also ignores other “theories” about the demise of dinosaurs particularly the Deccan Traps. Since there is evidence of damage to the oceanic planctonic it seems likely those articles with similar bent are bieing shuffled off to the no naught reference waste paper bin.
60
Not a lot of tetrapods over 25kg survived. That’s not consistent with it being very cold all of a sudden but something did cause massive extinctions in a short time.
So small land animals were more likely to survive as were;
Fresh water animals.
Crabs and molluscs.
Ancestors of birds were the only dinosaurs to survive.
Rather than cold, it suggests a sudden drop in oxygen levels. Fresh water typically has 20% more oxygen than sea water but can vary a lot more. Crabs and molluscs are use to the low oxygen at the bottom of seas. Flying animals need to breathe efficiently or it might be about the transport of oxygen through the shells of eggs.
It wouldn’t be just due to a slow down in photosynthesis but also oxidation of newly exposed deep crusts.
50
That’s science.
30
Thanks.
30
Crocodilians were dinosaurs that survived apart from bird ancestors.
40
It think that crocodiles, although closer to dinosaurs than lizards, are considered different. Sea-turtles and crocodiles are the only large reptiles to survive and have a common trait (especially the leather backs) of having very small eggs for their sizes.
20
13 Jan: ClimateDepot: Marc Morano: Trump meets with Princeton scientist who called ‘global warming’ fears ‘pure belief disguised as science’
Trump meets with Dr. Will Happer who, in 2015, declared UN climate “policies to slow CO2 emissions are really based on nonsense. We are being led down a false path. To call carbon dioxide a pollutant is really Orwellian. You are calling something a pollutant that we all produce. Where does that lead us eventually?”…
Happer’s meeting with Trump gave rise to speculation about a role in the administration…READ ALL
http://www.climatedepot.com/2017/01/13/trump-meets-with-princeton-scientist-who-called-global-warming-fears-pure-belief-disguised-as-science/
VIDEO: 13 Jan: ClimateDepot: Marc Morano: Enviros attack Trump EPA nominee for ‘encouraging debate’ on climate science
In an attack ad released by the left-wing EDF Action Fund, Donald Trump’s pick to lead the EPA, Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma, is criticized for encouraging a debate in climate science.
EDF Attack AD: “He believes debate should be encouraged about the truth of climate science.”
http://www.climatedepot.com/2017/01/13/enviros-attack-trump-epa-nominee-for-encouraging-debate-on-climate-science/
140
Seems we have a study now that allows us to reduce T at will.
A small amount of sulfates in all plane fuel will dramatically reduce T by the usual feedback mechanisms.
Trump’s call for better relations with Putin will see great cooperation and a solution to Obama-scare with the Soviets being paid to use their air force to pump more sulfates into the atmosphere. They might even fly over Europe and the US! Putin to the rescue!
30
Just fantasy bullshit. Its written more like a story that a scientific study and I guess a story is what it is.
70
The dinosaurs cannot have been wiped out by the cold, as all the dinosaur flatulence kept the planet warm.
70
Alternatively, as methane is only retained in the atmosphere for a short period, the meteorite that wiped out many of the dinosaurs, caused the cooling that wiped out the rest.
It cannot have been due to a drop in CO2 levels are told that it is retained in the atmosphere for hundreds of years. In the few years that the sunlight was blocked out the levels would have not been much reduced.
80
Obviously the extinction was due to a regular rain of methane meteors. Facts should not stand in the face of a perfectly politically correct theory (so long as the theory remains PC).
50
An alternative idea is that the impact of all the aerosols in the atmosphere caused far more lightening strikes. These may have indirectly caused dinosaur deaths by far more forest fires. There could have been direct effects by the lightening igniting the dinosaur methane at the point of emission, causing very widespread fires.
This is just conjecture, that needs verification by a series of properly constructed scientific experiments. Do you know where I could get funding?
90
Should that be “fossil fuel” meteors?
20
The half life of CO2 in the atmosphere is 14 years. The undisputed fact is that C14O2 was doubled by atmospheric testing in 1965 and now is only 10%. As it cannot be destroyed, where did it go? The dog ate it? Perhaps the famous IPCC scientists would like to explain?
120
Sorry, superscript and subscript hardly do anything. CO2 based on isotope C14 which has a half life itself of 5400 years and does not occur chemically. There is no C14 in old fossil fuel, so you can easily prove there is no fossil fuel CO2 in the air. Like a reverse medical tracer.
100
When you say half life in atmosphere is 14 years there’s been almost three of them by now since 1965 so about 85% of that extra C14 has already been taken up by the plants & oceans. Where’s the problem ?
https://cams.llnl.gov/cams-competencies/forensics/14c-bomb-pulse-forensics
80
My point exactly. Man cannot change CO2 levels. They are set by the 3.4km deep ocean which has 50x as much CO2 as the very thin air above and covers 75% of the planet (including Antarctica). Ocean temperature determines CO2.
The IPCC have only two statements I can find in their reports. While they tacitly admit that all CO2 goes into the oceans in time, the first statement is that the half life of CO2 in the air is 80 years. The second is that CO2 hangs around ‘for thousands of years.’ Both are without any evidence. Made up science to cover an inconvenient truth, that man made Global Warming is based on a science fantasy that we can change CO2.
While we think we really significant without our jets and cars, we are not. Only by controlling water can we really change our environment but we cannot change world temperature.
The idea of Man made Global Warming is truly man made. The fake science of the IPCC is the problem.
60
The other idea is that plants amount to much in terms of rapid disposal of C14. Grasses, bushes, phyto plankton, insects, birds, animals do not as the C14 would reenter the atmosphere over 60 years. Only some trees live long enough to make a difference.
The other proof is that the decay is a perfect exponential (e-kt) curve, dead straight on a logarithm diagram. This shows that there is only one sink, a massive sink. The involvement of the biosphere would produce a compound curve as in the Bern diagram. Without evidence the IPCC argues without evidence that the oceans have little effect as the ocean only mixes over a thousand years, despite the fact that CO2 is a gas and not subject to the same rules as every gas explorer knows.
Finally, the final level is just 2% under the age old level. If the extra 50% of CO2 since 1900 was old fossil fuel, the final C14 level would be 2/3 of the 1900 level.
While the subsequent analysis of whether CO2 can actually warm the planet, the essential previous step is that man actually can change the CO2 level. The unequivocal and absolute answer from C14 evidence is no.
51
A very interesting piece TdeF.
There seems to be a very strong equilibrium wrt CO2 between the oceans and atmosphere.
98% of our Planet’s CO2 is in the oceans and the other 2% in the air we breathe.
Of that 2%, the first 96% is deemed to be of natural origin and the other 3 or 4% from human activity.
So, of all atmospheric CO2, humans created say 4% and while we continue to add to that there is natural sequestration via absorption by plant, animal, microbial and other life forms.
Unfortunately I am very familiar with one aspect of this “natural sequestration” because during summer I can regularly harvest about 20kg of grass clippings from about 150m2 of lawn and am impressed by natural sequestration.
Your comment above suggests that despite being dumped, the CO2 would be returned to atmosphere in 60 years.
A number of studies have been quoted on this blog which indicate that natural sequestration removes any given CO2 molecule from atmosphere in 7 years max with some indications that 4.5 years is more realistic.
The sixty years is a relatively slow return compared to the 7, so natural sequestration is still winning.
The whole system is extraordinarily complex and I must admit I don’t have a clue about CO2 turnover rates for the oceans and am curious about the relative turnover capacity of land and sea.
I’m interested in the comment that the analysis of the C14 suggests only one sink for CO2.
Measurements of CO2 levels around crops show enormous variations during a 24 hrs period and it would be interesting to see similar figures for 24 hrs over the oceans.
KK
40
KK. My point is that sequestration by vegetation does not change CO2 if the lifespan is 4.5 years. The plant rots or burns and the CO2 is returned by fire, termites, microbes. So the tagged CO2 with C14 isotope cannot vanish rapidly through short lived vegetation. You have to nominate a mechanism where all the C14 can disappear for hundreds or thousands of years. There is only one sink.
Also half the world’s vegetation is in the ocean, in the form of Phytoplankton which also harvests the sunlight and CO2 and is supposed to be producing half the world’s O2. Again C14 would not vanish in this way, unless into the ocean as dead matter which sinks. This is unexplored.
So total absorption into a giant body of CO2 is the only explanation possible for the rapidly vanished C14 tagged CO2. There is only the ocean.
A question then
What is the age of CO2 at the bottom of the ocean? If the circulation mixing with the atmosphere was thousands of years as stated by the IPCC, the CO2 at the bottom should have an age of say 2,000 years or even 5,000 years. Half the C14 of the surface.
Radio carbon dating can tell you the age of once living things as everything is made from Carbon Dioxide. So you can measure the age of CO2 in the air, in trees and in the ocean. The C14 evidence from the atmosphere is clear that the C14 has vanished quickly, back to the age old level and not 33% below. Then the age of the CO2 in the ocean will tell you if CO2 really takes thousands of years to mix as the IPCC ‘scientists’ postulate.
40
Thanks TdeF,
The second paragraph has what I was looking for in that half the world’s vegetation is in the oceans: this indicates a huge turnover capacity of the seas.
Another factor aiding turnover might be the solar heating of the oceans when gases would be expressed and the cooling overnight when gases would be absorbed.
I once read a comment that if you put all of the world’s cities side by side, they would fit into the boundaries of Spain. This probably doesn’t include farming but it shows how small the influence of humans is in comparison with the driving forces of the rest of the planet.
Your point that the oceans are the overriding factor in carbon recycling is important.
KK
50
“While the subsequent analysis of whether CO2 can actually warm the planet, the essential previous step is that man actually can change the CO2 level. The unequivocal and absolute answer from C14 evidence is no.”
Agreed! Now what? The inmates have overpowered all of the institution staff. Without. knowledgeable consideration of both inmates and staff. All that remains is the pilot screaming what the f**k over!
50
Im very suspicious of that continued graph (from Mauna Loa) that shows CO2 levels going up..up..up. Funny its at high altitude which as we know CO2 is heavier than O2 and N2 by atomic weight. Possibility its just warming oceans.
31
Not to mention that the very closely related birds survived the impact.
60
Scavengers and carrion eaters survived. Sharks, crocodiles and some dinosaurs now known as chickens and turkeys plus the hardiest omnivore scavengers, mammals.
70
Though I was in Astrakhan last year. The armoured Sturgeon must be a survivor too, like a rhinocerous with a tail and grows to one ton. Along with the Australian Moreton Bay bugs, which look identical to Trilobytes.
70
We’ll miss the Dinos when we’re expected to keep warm on only sun, wind and Unicorn f@rt$.
20
Jo,
Two points that “Scientists” have NOT considered…
Having much more water on our planet as you go backwards into the past fixes many timelines of measurements of carbon dating and water steam debris punching through our atmosphere by the massive velocity, density of the meteor.
The other point NOT considered…is a huge object or massive amounts of objects hitting a huge swath across the suns surface creating a cooling space that could last for a few years.
Your thoughts?
30
Persistent cloud more than cold makes it hard for descendants of dinosaurs. In long cloudy spells I’ve seen normally skittish goannas, for example, draping themselves over old tin and staying immobile, where any enemy could grab them, just to pick up extra glare to get the solar cells going. At least, I assume that’s what was going on.
You know, when you think of the cataclysms of the sudden plunge into the Younger Dryas and the sudden jump out of it, all just a few thousand years ago, you really have to ask yourself what is this “climate change” we are supposed to be fearing. A bit of warming on the medieval scale, or slightly short of that?
Crocodile Dundee: You call that a climate change? (Pulls out the Younger Dryas to Optimum period and waves it). This is a climate change!
90
Socrates: so are you saying that because stars can blow up and completely destroy planets that orbit around them, we should not worry about rocks from space?
15
No. I worry that medical science will not increase my lifespan enough.
20
What I’d like to know is where on Earth’s surface the asteroid actually hit? The impact crater is in Mexico now, but 66 million years ago all the continents were somewhere else and the ocean dynamics obviously different. Are the climate models THAT robust?
70
G’day Ian
Is any accepted history that robust? This may test more than just the models.
“It is possible to date the timing of this mega-tsunami
in the Kimberley using radiocarbon dating of shell.
Again, the same methodology as was used in the
Tasman Sea region was used to calibrate the ages.
Thirteen dates have already been reported for the
comet-induced mega-tsunami detected south of
the Kimberley”
http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1035&context=scipapers
30
Here is what the continents looked like then.
http://www.bobspixels.com/kaibab.org/geology/gc065mya.htm
20
David at what time did the tropical forests that have been found under the Antarctic ice grow?
Are we sure it was not like this?
http://youtu.be/oJfBSc6e7QQ?list=PL5A1097F4E958728D
30
Amazing video. What do people think of this theory?
30
Thanks David and Lance.
I had to watch it twice. I didn’t bother to read any of the associated comments.
I don’t believe the Earth is growing, as in increasing its radius except perhaps in minute amounts as it continually collects space debris. This guy says it has doubled in size, presumably meaning volume, since the dinosaurs were wiped out. Conservation of angular momentum would slow down rotation speed, increasing the length of the day far beyond the present 24 hours. Also this would disrupt the Moon’s orbit.
Obvious question – where did all the water come from?
He has many valid points though, such as the relatively young age of the ocean floor. But it seems he has eliminated past ocean-dominated climate as we know it.
30
Hi Ian
Space debris is not all we collect nor is that a minute amount.
The moon is slowly moving away from us and our rotation is slowing down.
Click here
The DC motor that keeps us spinning is not stable either.
Click here or here
The water question is much more fun. I will make it harder before answering it.
Antarctica once had a tropical rain forest but now has lots of ice. Where did that water come from?
Sea levels have been rising at a near constant rate even during the pause. Where did that water come from?
The Greenland surface mass balance has recently suddenly increased. Where did that water come from?
We lose hydrogen to space and for a very long time atmospheric oxygen levels have been falling. Where did that water come from?
50
To clarify, by going backwards in time Neal Adams seems to have kept the continents the same size and shape as they are now but reduced the size of the globe, so that Australia now looks enormous. All the water has been spirited away, so to speak.
I was not posing the question of where Earth’s water came from originally.
A quick back of the envelope calculation shows that if the Earth’s volume had doubled in the last 65 million years, its radius would have increased at a rate of about 2cm per year, which is not unbelievable when you think about it.
30
Thanks Ian As you say
Good lets just look at where it is coming from today and in the future. It seems to be arriving faster than ever.
The gains in sea level, Antarctic ice, Greenland ice and variable cloud cover all indicate an open rather than closed system.
That is we get water from space. Think about it we get solar and cosmic particles screaming in, in a variable non constant way. What happens to this stuff as it recombines into atoms and molecules?
We have plasma electric currents exchanging material with space that vary all the time. Plasma is just another state of matter so this is an exchange of mass. How much of this exchange is a gain of water?
More on average than in the past? If not why not?
10
http://sciencenordic.com/earth-has-lost-quarter-its-water
It would be great if my wallet did this. Spend money and end up with more.
Looks like another angular momentum problem!
20
He answers this in one of the other videos. It is very simple. More dry land now was once underwater than the other way around.
10
***Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture (SICSA) and the graduate program in space architecture. He is the author of “Scared Witless: Prophets and Profits of Climate Doom”(2015) and “Climate of Corruption: Politics and Power Behind the Global Warming Hoax” (2012).
9 Jan: Newsmax: ***Larry Bell: Trump Can Restore Government Science Sanity
In case that some of you are worried about Trump’s radical environmental science policy appointments, relax. Let’s consider how bad they really could be . . . and in fact already have been.
I can’t imagine how any Trump administration assault on science could top President Obama’s pick of John Holdren as his director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and high priest of climate calamity.
Consider that of all possible candidates, he selected the co-author (WITH PAUL EHRLICH) of a Malthusian 1977 book titled “Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment” which actually explored measures a government might take to forcibly limit population growth deemed excessive by an international body…
In 1986 Holdren predicted that global warming could cause the deaths of 1 billion people by 2020…
As (Scott) Pruitt stated in an op-ed in National Review, coauthored with Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, “Scientists continue to disagree about the degree and extent of global warming and its connection to the actions of mankind.” Accordingly, “That debate should be encouraged — in classrooms, public forums, and the halls of Congress.”
However radical, that cool-headed debate, based upon honest science, is long overdue.
http://www.newsmax.com/LarryBell/epa-holdren-scott-pruitt-luther-strange/2017/01/09/id/767492/
13 Jan: Breitbart: Vatican Invites ‘Population Bomb’ Hoaxer Paul Ehrlich to Address Biodiversity Conference
by Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.
The Vatican has invited the most notorious population alarmist in recent history to speak at an upcoming Vatican-run conference titled ‘Biological Extinction.”
The conference, sponsored jointly by the Pontifical Academy of Science and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, will address issues of biodiversity, “great extinctions” of history, population and demographics.
Dr. Paul R. Ehrlich—who has defended mass sterilization, sex-selective abortion and infanticide—will speak on “Causes and Pathways of Biodiversity Losses: Consumption Preferences, Population Numbers, Technology, Ecosystem Productivity.”…READ ALL
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/01/13/vatican-invites-population-bomb-hoaxer-paul-ehrlich-address-biodiversity-conference/
40
13 Jan: Campus Reform: Anthony Gockowski: Profs pledge to ‘use regular class time’ to protest Trump
A national “teach-in” movement is asking professors to set aside class time between Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and the presidential inauguration to “protest” oppression and challenge “Trumpism.”
So far, 17 American colleges and universities have signed on to participate in the campaign originating out of UCLA, including such prestigious institutions as Princeton UC-Berkeley…
The movement, known as “Teach, Organize, Resist,” is set to kick-off on January 18, strategically “poised between Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the presidential inauguration” as an explicit means of “challenging Trumpism.”…
“On that day, we intend to teach about the agendas and policies of the new administration, be it the proposed dismantling of economic and environmental regulations or the threatened rollback of the hard-won rights that form the fragile scaffolding of American democracy,” a description for the teach-in explains…
The movement, which has been spreading on social media under the hashtag “J18,” was started by “departments, centers, and collectives at UCLA,” but has since amassed the support of 18 other institutions, many of them public…READ ALL
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=8635
13 Jan: Breitbart: Joel B. Pollak: California Democrat Proposes Law to Teach Kids About ‘Fake News’
Gomez, who is also a candidate in the upcoming special election for U.S. Congress in the 34th district — to replace Rep. Xavier Becerra, who has been appointed California Attorney General — is exploiting Democrats’ obsession with “fake news” to make the most of the media’s sudden post-election interest in accurate reporting on current affairs.
The text of the bill, AB 155, is as follows (original emphasis):…READ ALL
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2017/01/13/california-democrat-introduces-bill-teach-kids-fake-news/
30
Marxists…..
20
[…] Posted 14 Jan. 2017; h/T JoaNova […]
10
Slightly off topic: Ahhh… After a week of grey skies and rain, the sky is clear and the sun is shining in Southern California. I was starting to feel the end of the dinosaur era was returning. Having lived in the Mojave Desert for almost 30 years, my mind knew that it was ordinary winter weather but it felt like the sun would never shine again.
I suggest the members of the climate catastrophist cult feel history started the instant they were born. Further, they feel reality would not exist if they were not there to create it. Yet the most persuasive evidence for me that their catastrophic man caused climate change terror is totally bogus is that man and his civilization still exists. This means no matter how much CO2 or whatever was in the atmosphere, the climate system never really collapsed. Yes, there were difficult times of ice ages and extinction events but the earth and life on it persisted. Their terror is nothing more than fear of monsters under their beds or in the dark corners of their closets.
Emotionally, they are nothing but neurotic children afraid of things that go bump in the night. No matter how many times you point out that there are no monsters there, they continue with their irrational fears and are unable to see the real problems that face us. Ultimately, they are not up to the task of living as human beings and don’t want any other human to live either.
120
Recall of Legislators and the Removal of Members of Congress from Office
http://www.senate.gov/CRSpubs/ee067ba0-db71-4394-9a37-453316aeb453.pdf
10
I’m a geologist. We used to determine things like temperature changes by collecting hard data, like oxygen isotopes or rare earth minerals incorporated into mollusk shells or coral. Now all we need to find “facts” is a computer program and speculation.
Who knew my job could become so easy? And to think of all the mosquitos that died unnecessarily.
140
Indeed.
And like the fictional computer ‘Deep Thought’ in ‘Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’, we shall eventually find an ‘Ultimate Answer’, only to be confused by what it and the ‘Ultimate Question’ mean.
In not investigating the empirical we risk moving science into areas of subjectivism, theology, and dogma, and IMO, to the detriment of all humanity.
80
We were told that the fish, coelacanth,
Was 65 million years not extant,
But can they explain,
How these ‘fossils’ remain,
Still living, quite unchanged, no they can’t.
120
‘How the darkness and the cold killed the dinosaurs’ reads more like a picturesque legendary story than a serious scientific study. When one comes to the pay-line “Ironically today, the most immediate threat is not from natural cooling but from human-made global warming.”, one realizes that it is still all about the funding and not the science.
60
I do wonder if somewhere like NASA, they might know of such a thing happening in the near future, would they tell the public?
Would governments’ elites allow such information to get out to the public with all the chaos that might ensue?
31
Speaking of darkness and cold…
Completely O/T but you guys have simply *GOT* the read this!
Those gold-plated idiots at GreenPeace thought they could challenge the Russians on a drill-rig in the arctic. Much entrainment ensued.
Absolutely priceless!
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/14/rainbow-warrior-arctic-30-greenpeace-captain-peter-willcox
Heh.
30
I am skeptical of any conclusions reached manipulating climate models. There would need to be other supporting evidence to make a convincing case that the earth cooled by 22C in the tropics over a few years. The oceans have thermal time constants of thousands of years. Ice forming on the surface insulates the ocean, dramatically slowing heat loss. Even with zero heat input from the ocean surface and heat output remained around the 250W/sq.m of the present ocean surface it would take 5 years to reduce the ocean surface temperature by 22C. Ice forming would slow the heat loss dramatically.
I could postulate that the animals all died from lung cancer and asthma – maybe vitamin D deficiency. Surely these possibilities are as plausible as anything coming out of a climate model. Maybe they all got depressed and committed suicide. I get depressed when I do not see the sun for a week so I could not contemplate not seeing it for years.
Is this research “peer reviewed”!!
50
‘Is this research “peer reviewed”!!’
Why research, when there is no searching in the first place?
41
I carelessly repeated the word “research” from the PIK name; correction something like – has this computer game play been “peer reviewed”
30
when it comes to believe in god , I am agnostic ,on the other hand I hate religion , its in my view just another ideology, an attempt to control the minds of people by a minority that wants to control a population and pacify descent , here is a clip from youtube since the election , give it https://youtu.be/SHG0ezLiVGcsome thought ;
34
The link doesn’t work here in Australia.
10
Worse that link wipes out my Firefox in the US! 🙁
21
when it comes to believe in god , I am agnostic ,on the other hand I hate religion , its in my view just another ideology, an attempt to control the minds of people by a minority that wants to control a population and pacify descent , here is a clip from youtube since the election , give it https://youtu.be/SHG0ezLiVGcsome thought ;
23
when it comes to believe in god , I am agnostic ,on the other hand I hate religion , its in my view just another ideology, an attempt to control the minds of people by a minority that wants to control a population and pacify descent , here is a clip from youtube since the election , give it https://youtu.be/SHG0ezLiVGcsome thought ;
14
when it comes to believe in god , I am agnostic ,on the other hand I hate religion , its in my view just another ideology, an attempt to control the minds of people by a minority that wants to control a population and pacify descent , here is a clip from youtube since the election , give it https://youtu.be/SHG0ezLiVGcsome thought ;
23
All guess work based on so many assumptions. Not worth the paper it’s written on.
30
” a specific kind of computer simulation normally applied in different contexts, a climate model coupling atmosphere, ocean and sea ice.”
No clouds in the model!!!!
Funny thing is while there is a layer of Iridium, there is no sulphate layer. They appear to assume the sulphate as H2SO4 came from the comet/asteroid. Yet more assumptions….
How did crocs and delicate dragonflies get through it all????
This is as credible as evolutionary psychology
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“Funny thing is while there is a layer of Iridium, there is no sulphate layer. They appear to assume the sulphate as H2SO4 came from the comet/asteroid. Yet more assumptions….”
Sears Roebuck sucked all sulfuric acid from the atmosphere for their ‘die-hard batteries’!
41
Also…
There were no ice caps 66 MYA
41
Oh Ya?!!
10
so is not believe in JESUS , based on fact , or just faith , we always ask that climate scientists should base their opinion on observable evidence . why not ask the same of those that are religious , is it one rule for them but not for the rest of us
11
It is based upon which you choose to make your primary: reason or faith. If reason, there is ultimately no room for faith. If faith, there is ultimately no room for reason. Trying to hold onto both results in the mess we have today: a timid dying technological civilization unable and unwilling to defend itself from an aggressively advancing brutal nihilistic cult. One side represents life the other death. Your choice?
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For a good view of one man’s struggle with balancing of his thoughts about science with those he felt about religion, look HERE
He may even convince you that science and religion are just a view of the universe as seen through the same prism of life but tilted at differing angles.
20
I remain unconvinced.
Faith is merely a belief without evidence or even counter to the evidence. It is nothing but a feeling that you know something without a process of knowing. Without said process, you cannot verify or validate what you feel corresponds to what actually is. It may or may not correspond to what actually is but you can’t know, you just believe.
In the final analysis, if you live by faith, you live by accident. It is even more accidental if you base your faith on the words of an ancient text. Text that was written by people of faith who merely believed but also had no process of knowing. They too had no way of verifying, or validating what they felt they knew but wrote it anyway. Since there are far more ways to be wrong about something than right, both they and you will fail far more than either of you will succeed. This is exactly why the ages of faith are ages of poverty, suffering, despair, famine, and death rather than abundance and flourishing.
How do you know what you know? “I just know” is not an answer, it is an evasion of an answer.
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Will Janoschka, I believe that you hit the matter squarely in as much as “All sincere POVs are correct, but sometimes weird. In science all POVs must be valid, else fantasy!” And yes I do have days scratching my watch…oh-hum.
IMO religious belief is deeply personal, and often weird. In so many ways religions attempt to teach how to live individually and co-operate socially with others without strife. This while admitting individually and socially that we are morally and intellectually imperfect but relentlessly strive for improvement. While yet still trying to find our place in the world, and for some in the universe. It is a mysterious spiritual thing.
Science on the other hand is about a co-operative effort to seek understanding about the true physical limits of our universe.
As Ernest Rutherford is reputed to have said “That which is not measurable is not science. That which is not physics is stamp collecting.” And from that I would say that science hasn’t the tools to resolve why life exists (at all) and what part humans have to play in it.
IMO science is poorly equipped to answer such questions as “what is ‘life’ for?” or “what is ‘life’ about?”, those are most assuredly, philosophically religious questions.
From the text linked above —
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Why are you so driven to preserve a fundamentally mystical (the just know mode without evidence or process) view of existence?
10
Because only living materially is not satisfying It moves my thoughts to wonder what life is for. Is it just a deity’s joke in showing life will, for a short period, run entropy backwards just to mess with us? Or is there more to it?
20
There is more to it but the catch is: the more is what you make of it.
Placing reason as one’s highest value, does not mean living only materially. However, since we do have a material body with material needs, we require appropriate material things to live and thrive. You material needs must be met first. Then you can consider what is called the spiritual. However, that does not mean you live only emotionally according to some ancient text or current “spiritual” authority without evidence or process of knowing.
Living spiritually means to live consciously and to strive toward achieving your self chosen purpose. To stay alive, you do need material things. It is living without a self chosen purpose that is unsatisfying.
Emotions are how we experience life but not how we gain knowledge of the universe in which we live. Imagine the exaltation you would feel if, at long last, you discovered the solution to a long standing problem that brought you one step closer to achieving your self chosen purpose. However, the discovery is not made by faith or blind belief. It comes from the willful and focused use of your powers of reason. The exaltation comes from your knowledge you have come closer to achieving your most desired value.
Yes, you can choose a purpose that is wrong for you. You can err in your effort to achieve your purpose. External events can interfere your achieving it. Even with all that, it is your power of reason that can discover your errors and discover ways around whatever interference you might experience. Simply believing does not make it so. It requires both mental and physical effort correctly executed.
You see, there is more within the philosophy of reason than you dreamed of. Your choices are far more than simply living materially or living in the fantasy of wishes for unicorns with wings.
30
If you feel that the old beliefs are not for you, and that’s fine. It’s your choice.
I know of few good, reasonable, and very intelligent people for whom religious belief is the major part of their lives. Imagine for them the exaltation they feel when their prayers are answered by allowing them to discover (via their unerring faith) what is needed. I personally do not hold their convictions but I see no reason that they, as clever and reasonable people, can not hold them.
I also see no conflict between all you have written and one’s ability to hold a religious belief. For me all that is required is the simple understanding that both are valid views from two very different perspectives.
Personally I’ve witness occasions when belief in religion appears to have helped individuals to find strengths well beyond what could be have been expected of them.
That is to say the strength they found was unreasonable to the point of mysterious.
Lastly what you have written is all well and good this is not just about my personal feeling of self-worth either emotionally or materially. It is that niggling question. The question that science and reason fails to answer adequately — “What is life for?”(in every sense of the question).
“You see, there is more within the philosophy of reason than you dreamed of.” Similarly there is more to religion than just blind faith, and for many, many people it works daily.
00
Assuming my posts dont wind up in their default position of “in moderation” *yet* again, maybe I can shed some light on the mystic vs the rational…..
Having done Engneering, mine was and still continues to be a rational, logical view of the world. Ironically, its often via your inherent core personality that I have found the biblical God will prove His existence. By this I mean events transpired that only I & He knew about came off at staggering mathematically 10,000:1 and higher odds. In my case, my logical core being appreciated that proof came by logic and reason. My thoughts would be that just like in Issac Newtons case, he found a happy co-existance of science and faith. In fact Newton was as much known for his religious work as his maths…..
By way of proof of Jesus’ existance, clearly his activity has impacted the planet. While this doesnt prove his deity status, its certainly a good starting point….I have found that through eventsin my life, God has amply demonstarted his capability and therefore His existance. Yes it sucks that people die, however the cause of that was outlined as a deliberate programming fault/time delayed kill switch that came from wilful disobedience. I also find that when you actually get into studdying the Bible, you get o understands Gods mind better, and a lot of stuff makes a lot more sense, but as its written from a System Admin of humanity point of view, it gives us at least understanding so we dont spend our life groping in the dark so to speak. To me its so logical its logical.
20
“For a good view of one man’s struggle with balancing of his thoughts about science with those he felt about religion, look HERE. He may even convince you that science and religion are just a view of the universe as seen through the same prism of life but tilted at differing angles.”
Interesting but I disagree. All sincere POVs are correct, but sometimes weird. In science all POVs must be valid, else fantasy!
Sometimes we know not to wind ass or scratch watch. Hummn!, I believe I will have another beer!
All the best! -will-
20
Perhaps one too many?
20
Which is why scientists, of any discipline, are required to “base their opinion on observable evidence”.
Which is why “observable evidence” is not required.
It is thus quite possible to be both relgious and scientific.
Of course, conflicts may arise between doctrine and observation, but these are for each individual to resolve (within their societal constraints). However, the outward acceptance of doctrine does not prevent the pursuit of science.
30
Many years later the Younger Dryas cosmic bombardment (still in dispute) had a sharp impact on temperatures, but just have a close look at the ending. These days they would call it a global warming apocalypse.
‘The analyses of stable isotopes from Greenland ice cores provide a more precise estimate for the onset and end of the Younger Dryas period. The analysis of Greenland Summit ice cores as a part of the Greenland Ice Sheet Project-2 (GISP-2) and Greenland Icecore Project (GRIP) estimated that the Younger Dryas started about 12,800 ice (calendar) years BP. Depending on the specific ice core analysis consulted, the Younger Dryas is estimated to have lasted 1,150–1,300 years.
‘Measurements of oxygen isotopes from the GISP2 ice core suggest the ending of the Younger Dryas took place over just 40–50 years in three discrete steps, each lasting five years. Other proxy data, such as dust concentration, and snow accumulation, suggest an even more rapid transition, requiring about a 7 °C (13 °F) warming in just a few years. Total warming in Greenland was 10 ± 4 °C (18 ± 7 °F).
wiki
20
I dont think that anyone yet has mentioned magnetic reversals effect on climate and especially the bombardment by cosmic rays and how it affects extinctions.
There were several ideas that Dino was on the way out when chixilub occurred. My guess that an impactor of that size didnt help their wellbeing, at least around what was part of N. America at that epoc, whether it ‘wiped them’ is another story, what about poor old Dino in southern Gwandana Land?
30
‘Most reversals are estimated to take between 1,000 and 10,000 years. The latest one, the Brunhes–Matuyama reversal, occurred 780,000 years ago, and may have happened very quickly, within a human lifetime.’
wiki
So we need to find evidence relating to the BM reversal (the situation on the ground) to see if a reversal could have wiped out the dinosaurs all those millions of years ago.
10
your all avoiding the point I made ,why do you hold climate scientist to a higher level of proof , than you do to your religious leaders
13
Being one of the “all” here i would like you to tell me how you came to that conclusion about me. Show your working please.
For starters tell me who my religious leader is.
I think it is obvious that climate scientists are held to a much lower level of proof than those religious leaders who predicted the end of the planet in 2012.
20
O/T
Dinosaur wipeout of a different kind? US EPA in a little court room trouble –
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/13/not-tired-of-winning-yet/
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Thanks for the good news Ian.
WOW!
That could be the start of a colossal move for the EPA!
Finally, the judge spoke directly to the heart of the matter, saying:
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Yes, but as usual, the real issue is how to MAKE the bureaucracy obey the law. At worst, a Departmental Head may eventually be moved sideways. Ministers, nominally responsible under the Westminster system, have successfully dodged accountability for decades now. Fining a Govt Dept simply adds to our tax bill. Fining a individual bureaucrat will cause an implosion of Govt … some of us may like that, but most people will not like the loss of public transport, public hospitals and so on for the sake of some principle or other. And again, in extremis, Govts can (and do) legislate new, but backdated, rules to get around the issue.
This isn’t a flippant issue, although people may be tempted to try and trivialise it.
A recent, enraging example occurred in Ireland. A persistent retired engineer Pat Sword with a full backsack of integrity, took the Irish Govt to an EU Court over the (Irish) Govt’s negligent refusal to consult local populations when deploying windmill farms, even though the enabling EU legislation clearly stated that such consultation MUST take place. The EU Court agreed with Sword and reiterated that such consultation occur.
The Irish Parliament had been 2 years or so tardy in ratifying the enabling EU legislation although installation and deployment of hordes of windmills had proceeded holus bolus in that period. Eventually, the Irish Parliament did ratify the law, also enabling the consultation provisions that the EU Court had ruled must be obeyed.
So then Sword went to the Irish Courts to FORCE the Govt and bureaucrats to obey the consultation law that the EU legislation required and the Parliament had ratified. The Govt’s defence (eventually successful) ? Because no one had complained in the two years it took for ratification, any complaints now made were to be regarded as impotent. QED.
The current court actions in Ireland against windmill noise damage give a sense of proportion to the above example.
40
tom0mason January 15, 2017 at 11:22 am
“Thanks for the good news Ian.– WOW!– That could be the start of a colossal move for the EPA!- Finally, the judge spoke directly to the heart of the matter”
The EPA assumed power over the States that is forbidden by the US Constitution! Money spent on coordinating efforts by individual Republics in good environmental policy along the republic borders may be well spent! Not so far!!! Only vast Washington leaning upon. Please get rid of the US Army Corps of Engineer! There are absolutely no engineers left in that despicable outfit!
All the best! -will-
41
14 Jan: BBC: Ski World Cup: Lauberhorn race cancelled because of too much snow
A famous downhill race in the Skiing World Cup has been cancelled – because there has been too much snow.
Saturday’s race at the Lauberhorn course in Wengen, Switzerland, was dropped after more than 40cm (16in) of snow fell overnight.
Crews worked through the night but were unable to prepare the piste in time.
After a dry start to the ski season in December, resorts are now dealing with heavy flurries as a cold snap grips Europe…
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38623669
13 Jan: BBC: Icy weather in Europe causes more hardship and chaos
Electricity supplies to nearly 350,000 homes in France were temporarily cut, while severe flood warnings were in place on England’s east coast…
Freezing conditions continue in the Balkans and Turkey.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said the cold weather was responsible for countless road accidents and school closures in addition to cancelled flights…
Freezing temperatures
Some countries are suffering some of the heaviest snowfall in many years, with the Danube river and Bosporus sea strait closed to shipping.
“Montenegro, Serbia, the republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria were much colder than normal, with temperatures as low as -15C over five consecutive days,” the WMO said.
“The surrounding countries – Italy, Greece, Turkey and Romania were 5 to 10C colder than normal for the time of year.”…
The Severe Weather Europe Facebook page (LINK) has images of vehicles enveloped by snow in Hungary, cars abandoned on the side of the road because of freezing rain in Italy, treacherously high seas in the Faroe Islands and video of a powerful blizzard in the Swiss Alps…
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38607862
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13 Jan: Seattle Times: Evan Bush: The West has been hammered by snow. Check out this satellite imagery.
From Washington to California’s Sierras to Colorado, the snow has been dumping, forcing some ski resorts to close. “I hope it stops snowing,” said one snow bum. “I can’t believe I said that.”
All across the West, it’s been falling by the bucket load…
In some places, it’s been too much. With avalanche danger looming, ski resorts were forced to close temporarily in Colorado, California and Nevada.
After 90 inches fell in Crested Butte, Colo., a lifelong ski bum told The Denver Post something that would normally be grounds for banishing in a snow-worshiping town. “I hope it stops snowing,” he said. “I can’t believe I said that.”…
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/weather/the-west-has-been-hammered-by-snow-check-out-this-satellite-imagery/
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Does this mean that ocean levels will be falling?
50
In combo with Australia’s huge flood, sea level should theoretically stop rising.
More importantly, William Happer is on Donald’s short list.
http://www.thegwpf.com/trump-meets-with-princeton-physicist-who-says-co2-is-good-for-us/
50
Something wrong at SBS tonight.
First time I have channel surfed in weeks and found an item on their sbs about the ice storms in the USA.
Cars shown skidding on the icy roads.
Don’t they have to get permission from the Greens _ Sara HY to show this controversial stuff.
Heads will roll.
KK
50
The ABC just ran a story on the GBR, looking at the previous interglacial, and said it survived sea level rise and global warming. This is heresy, nevertheless they are hoping for more grant money.
60
Further they mentioned that Europe was cold with lots of snow. Focussing heavily on the plight of Syrian “refugees” in the Balkans.
Also that the UK was being battered by storms.
60
Things are looking up.
30
We live in hope that 2017 will be the end of the Modern Climate Optimum.
21
el gordo.. the only reason for wishing that would be demise of anti-CO2 scam.
A bit more warming to, say, the temps of the MWP or even the RWP would be absolutely beneficial.
12
Someone, Sophocles I think, said that the Earth orbits the Galactic Centre.
Allllrighty, I’ll go with that.
But then he says the Earth passes through the various arms of the Spiral, and a drawing I looked at shows the orbit as doing the same thing. That is, around the centre with everything else standing still. tis does not connect with me, despite my several Degrees and Doctorates in Astronomy, and the 15,240 papers I’ve published, all reviewed by 4021 Peers without question, and based on conclusive modeling done on my AppleII. All fully funded by the Society for the Prevention of Grape Stains on Tablecloths – Kabul chapter.
My question is, would not the arms themselves – and all the bits that the arms are made up of – also be orbiting? Would not the Earth merely orbit along with it’s neighbors in the arm?
50
What if only the reference point rotates?
20
As the reference point spirals into a black hole.
10
“What if only the reference point rotates?”
What may you mean by ‘only’ the reference point rotates white man? Please explain your “rotating point”! Cyclic or helical ‘stuff’ about a reference is most intellectually gruesome!
All the best! -will-
12
Remembering that I was mocking mockery, call me a Barrycentrist relativity skeptic out to destroy all forms of stable reference other than the only constant which is change.
50
🙂
30
A good point. When I first read this some time back I assumed that the orbital planes of our solar system and the Spiral arm interacted in some way that gave periodic contact. Not really convinced I let it go but now you have brought it up it would be good to have an explanation.
KK
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KinkyKeith January 15, 2017 at 1:44 pm
“A good point.”
KK,
Please understand that all we have is ‘opinion’, never ‘reality’, ‘physical’, fantasy, religion, or politics! Opinion is some fantasy that has no ‘mass’, no ‘power’, but much ‘attraction’. Is their any escape from such confusion?
40
Yes Will there is an escape through real science.
There must be someone on this blog who can shed some light this.
Shirley.
And as the Northern hemisphere disappears under a pile of snow again for the howmanyeth winter in a row we are discussing a scientific nonsense called Man Made Global Warming.
Are these human critters fur real?
KK
60
Who the hell is Shirley.
50
Surely you know that Will.
🙂
Yours in Science
KK
70
Greetings to you Cynic:
While I cannot reference what Sophocles might have said or meant, I hope I can shed a bit of light on the dilemma of galactic orbits and spiral arms. I am quoting wholesale from my freshman Intro to Astrophysics text, written by Zeilik and Smith:
Begin quoted material:
Evolution of a Galaxy’s Structure
Why do galaxies such as ours exhibit a spiral structure? How stable are the spiral arms? Spiral structure may arise from an instability, or perturbation, so that some density irregularity is pulled into a spiral form by the differential galactic rotation. The difficulty with this explanation is that such a feature is expected to persist for only a short time (about 5 E 8 years) before being pulled apart again by the differential rotation. An additional problem is that the initial spiral-like distortion would not extend over the entire galaxy but would occupy only a small part of it. Yet we observe spiral structure throughout the entire plane of a galaxy, and such spiral galaxies are sufficiently common to suggest that they are in fact stable.
One very promising approach to this problem is the density-wave model developed by C. C. Lin and Frank Shu. The spiral structure of a galaxy is regarded as a wave pattern resulting from gravitational instabilities. The wave extends far beyond the initial localized perturbation. The presence of a density wave means that the distribution of mass is nonuniform; therefore the gravitational potential varies over the galactic disk. Stars and gas are concentrated in the regions where the gravitational potential is low, and these mass concentrations in turn influence the orbits of other stars and clouds of gas. The density wave is a self-sustained phenomenon and is stable. The spiral pattern produced by the density wave is not tied to the matter, but instead moves through it. According to this idea, the angular velocity of the pattern may differ appreciably (by a factor of one-half) from that of the material. [Stop quote: the emphasis is mine; begin quote] Hence, stars formed from the gas and dust concentrated at the arms eventually migrate out of the arms. Gas concentrated near the potential minimum largely defines the spiral arms; this is ever-changing gas, for some is consumed in star formation and some is ejected from stars by some form of mass loss. Stars traveling in orbits that differ greatly from ‘circular’ orbits come under rapidly varying gravitational attractions. Density waves certainly influence their motions, but not systematically, and therefore no structure will persist for these eccentric-orbit stars.
End quoted material.
Now, keep in mind that this is coming from some 40 more more years ago; I know I’ve seen some more recent stuff from Shu, and there was a good treatment in Binney & Tremain, Galactic Dynamics. I no longer have it, but I also recall a rigourous treatment of the subject in Mihalas & Binney.
Personally, I’m not a fan of Wiki, but on occasion there is an adequate treatment of a subject there. I would refer you to some general discussions there, and check their references.
Also, if you would, keep in mind that the motion of our own solar system about the galactic center is such that we also move in a vertical motion in relation to the galactic plane, such that sometimes we are slightly above the plane, and other times, slightly below the plane. This, again, is a consequence of the propogation of the density waves (if the hypothesis is correct) through our solar system. Dr. Janke is a strong advocate of the hypothesis, and while I generally tend to think it has more truth than poetry, I think the idea needs a lot more evidence before it can be advanced into a theory.
Hope that helps, and I’ll try to hit you back if you have questions.
Best regards to you and yours,
Vlad the Deplorable Impaler
40
Posted this upthread
Do I still have the wrong end of the stick?
30
Yes, it is thought that the Solar system is moving away from the centre of the galaxy as well. There is also a thought that it wasn’t formed in this galaxy but was ‘acquired’ by the Milky Way in an intergalactic collision. I don’t wish to frighten you but there is also a prediction that the Milky Way and Andromeda will collide in about 2 billion years. I hope you don’t lose any sleep over that.
30
Greetings to EricHa and Graeme:
Indeed, one should be skeptical of this idea; it is, as of now (as far as I know) just an hypothesis, in need of verification.
Graeme, as far as our system moving away from the centre, that could be the aspect of ellipticity of our orbit around the galactic focus (a la Kepler), or it could be that there exists some gravitational pull moving our system for a short period of time (and in this case, a ‘short period of time’ would be a million years or so).
How to envision this hypothetical ‘density wave’ for Mr. Eric; that is a difficult one.
Try this: you may have seen or are aware that ordinary sound waves consist of a compressional part, and a rarefaction part. Now, if we were in a sealed room, with no circulation whatsoever, we could still talk to each other, because the sound waves would propogate through the medium. The molecules of air are not in motion [and please, do not get into molecular physics; I’m only trying to illustrate how this possible ‘density wave’ might work], so that when you or I speak, the molecules of air are compressed and rarefacted, but do not actually move as a result of one of us speaking.
The way the density wave it thought to work (see the bold part above) is that the wave itself is moving faster than the stars, gas, and dust (by up to a factor of one-half), which causes a compression at the leading edge, and a rarefaction along the trailing edge. The leading edge, being compressional, is also a location of star formation, hence the leading edge tends to be ‘brighter’ than the trailing edge, as the newly-formed stars begin their individual orbits around the galaxy.
One main weakness of the density wave idea is the formation of “barred” spirals; recently it has been suggested that our own galaxy might be a barred spiral, though not everyone is accepting of this. As difficult as it is to form a spiral, how does a barred spiral form, and maintain its shape?
The true hallmark of science: One good answer always leads to more questions … … …
Regards,
Vlad
20
Thanks Vlad.
While not actually resolving the issue there is now a very good picture, the room, on which to base our understanding.
I still can’t get the pictue of our solar system intersecting with another part of the galaxy on a regular 250,000 year period.
For the moment, for me, the most concrete and understandable mechanism that is likely to influence our planet is Milanchovic’s orbital mechanics.
With the last few years of northern hemisphere deep freeze we could be forgiven for thinking that the current interglacial was ending.
But then again, it might just be normal variation.
KK
20
I could not agree more: the amount we do not know that we do not know is astounding. Resolved, therefore, that we do know that a trace gas in the atmosphere cannot be the sole controller of global climate, and probably has no role whatsoever in global climate.
The whole of the system is too complex to be the result of a single factor.
My best regards to you and yours,
V.t.D.I.
20
A tous les deplorables.
00
Hi Vlad,
I get the smoke in the room and the idea that the pressure wave moving around what would be a fairly homogenous flat pancake of a galaxy causing what only appear to be spiral arms.
I still don’t get it 🙂
I know these are only analogies but in a smoke filled room the sound waves are not visible. What about a big vat of milk with rotating paddles to make cheese. Looking at the surface we can see only milk but also on the surface the rising wave of milk as the paddle ploughs through. The leading edge causes the milk to bunch together and rise in height and as it passes the milk relaxes waiting for the next paddle. Or imagine a membrane of latex stimulated by same paddles. The atoms (milk or latex are similar to the stars) at the leading edge are bunching up which causes lots of cheese (or star) formation and as they relax they must be moving apart faster than the ones at the front.
So the question is, are stars at the trailing edge of a spiral arm moving apart faster than the stars at the leading edge? Can redshift be used to measure this or are the stars too close to us to measure the difference in redshift?
It seems to me that the stars in the gaps would have to be moving a hell of a lot faster apart than the stars at the front of the bow shock.
20
Hi Eric,
Hmmmm. I’m not sure I can do much more with this. I fear that (IF) the density wave hypothesis (is valid) may require conceptualizing it on an intuitive level.
Each star within a galaxy has an individual orbit around the galactic centre (and like our solar system, if one is ‘closer’ to the centre, then the orbital velocity is higher), subject to some perturbation by gravitational tugs from other “nearby” objects, but the density wave is moving, or propogating, independently of the matter making up the spiral arm(s). This density wave, as in the bold above, is moving at a higher velocity than the individual stars in the galaxy. The wave itself is not a material thing (as in your paddle stirring a medium) but is instead a non-matter phenomenon. As stated above, the wave itself may “move” through the interstellar medium at a rate of up to 1.5 times the velocity of any individual star in that galaxy.
The density wave idea is a good working hypothesis, but as you have so eloquently pointed out, still a work in progress; not all of the kinks in the idea have been worked out.
Hope that helps,
Vlad (becoming more Deplorable and Despicable as we approach 20 Jan)
20
hello, could a barred spiral galaxy be just a spiral galaxy with a centre disk tilted so it looks like a bar through a telescope?
00
Papers in journals are peer reviewed..we know.. thats what they say nowdays..we know (everything) that our models are correct..therefore ALL observed data that doesnt agree OR relate to our model MUST be bad data or a flaw in the instruments. Our models are never wrong or can be challenged, not certainly by actual observations.
If you think this only applies to ‘klimate’ (fake) science, then think again. It applies very well in ATROPHYSICS, GEOPHYSICS, Nuclear (probably) etc. and the list goes on…
50
climate dinosaurs:
15 Jan: Bloomberg: Ignoring Trump’s Skepticism, Davos Elite Bets on Climate Change
by Javier Blas and Jess Shankleman
World Econonic Forum to heavily feature clean energy in 2017
Special session at Davos on climate change to include 60 CEOs
The World Economic Forum is devoting 15 sessions of its 2017 annual meeting to climate change, and nine more to clean energy — the most ever on the issues.
It reflects how much is at stake. For global business leaders, it’s not just a question of burnishing their green credentials, but about billions of dollars — maybe even trillions — in potential profits and losses…
With money-making opportunities rising, traditional climate change advocates — Al Gore and Greenpeace executive director Jennifer Morgan — will mingle in panel discussions with executives such as HSBC Holdings Plc Chairman Stuart Gulliver and Patrick Yu, president of Cofco Corp., the largest food company in China. They will discuss the nexus between the fight against global warming and business — both how to stop climate change and how to profit from it…
In the Alpine resort’s congress center, the World Economic Forum has built an exhibition highlighting climate change, “from rampant emissions to rising sea levels.”
Global Fight
Michael Oppenheimer, a professor at Princeton University who will help to explain the exhibit, said despite the arrival of Trump, the fight against global warming will continue…
China, which for years sought to derail global efforts to tackle climate change, has flipped its role and is now lecturing the U.S. and Europe on the importance of the issue…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-15/ignoring-trump-s-skepticism-davos-elite-bets-on-climate-change
lol:
14 Jan: Bloomberg: Trump Team Shunning Davos Meeting of World’s Economic Elite
by Kevin Cirilli Updated on 15 January 2017
Former Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, a regular attendee in the past, told the group he would skip 2017 after being named in December to head the National Economic Council, said people familiar with the conference. Other top Trump appointees will also pass up the forum…
A senior member of Trump’s transition team said the president-elect thought it would betray his populist-fueled movement to have a presence at the high-powered annual gathering in the Swiss Alps. The gathering of millionaires, billionaires, political leaders and celebrities represents the power structure that fueled the populist anger that helped Trump win the election, said the person, who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter…
While the Trump team stays away, Xi Jinping is set to become the first Chinese president to attend the forum, bringing with him a contingent of China’s wealthiest executives. China is casting itself as an advocate of globalization, in contrast to Trump’s “America First” platform critical of free-trade deals…
Xi will join about 3,000 others, who will include U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, outgoing U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and South African President Jacob Zuma. Past attendees include singer and philanthropist Bono of U2, and actor Leonardo DiCaprio. The forum wraps up on Trump’s Inauguration Day.
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-01-13/trump-team-shunning-davos-gathering-of-world-s-economic-elite
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Guardian obviously not falling for the Davos faux/FakeNews CAGW concerns!
14 Jan: Guardian: Rupert Neate: Army of staff descends on Davos to serve WEF super-rich
Amid sessions on inequality, hastily bussed-in hotel workers will pack five to a room on bunk beds to serve the super-rich and powerful delegates
Despite the contrasting sleeping arrangements, a key theme of this year’s conference will be rising inequality, which the WEF has warned is the biggest problem facing the world…
The Belvédère will host more than 300 functions over five days, with the first executive coffee bar meetings starting at 6am and the last of the late-night parties not turning out until 3am. “We have all kinds of functions from breakfast meetings, politician lunches to nightcaps and cocktail receptions in every corner of the hotel. Every company and every single party has its own individual needs,” he said. “Ice sculptures are always part of it.”…
The most exclusive invite in town is to an uber-glamorous party thrown jointly by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska and British financier Nat Rothschild at the oligarch’s palatial chalet, a 15-minute chauffeur-driven car ride up the mountain from Davos…
A former assistant to economist Nouriel Roubini has described Deripaska’s parties as “endless streams of the finest champagne, vodka, and Russian caviar amidst dancing Cossacks and beautiful Russian models”…
Many of this year’s guests, who include outgoing US vice-president Joe Biden, China’s two richest men, and London mayor Sadiq Khan, will travel on private jets to nearby airports before transferring by helicopter to escape the traffic on the approach to the picturesque town. So many jets are expected that the Swiss government has opened up Dübendorf military airfield, an 85-mile helicopter flight away, to accommodate them…
Adam Twidell, chief executive of private jet booking service PrivateFly, said there were 1,700 private jet flights in and out of nearby airports last year, and he expected about 10% more this year.
The increase in private jet flights – which each burn as much fuel in one hour as typical use of a car does in a year – comes as the WEF warns that climate change is the second most important global concern…READ ALL
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/13/army-of-staff-descends-on-davos-to-serve-wef-super-rich
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ignore the CTV video, better to watch the video of the confrontation further down, posted by Robbie Picard:
11 Jan: CTV: Josh Elliott: Jane Fonda calls Trudeau ‘a disappointment,’ defends Alta. oilsands visit
Fonda accused Trudeau of betraying the “heroic stance” he took on at the 2015 Paris climate talks, following the Liberal government’s approval of two contentious new pipeline projects.
“I guess the lesson is we shouldn’t be fooled by good-looking Liberals,” Fonda said at the University of Alberta Wednesday, during a news conference with First Nations leaders hosted by Greenpeace Canada…
She also acknowledged she’s had an “interesting couple of days” in Alberta, where many angry locals have condemned her for criticizing their livelihoods. “We’re not here to trash Alberta, to trash Fort McMurray or the men and women who work the tarsands,” she said.
The 79-year-old actress faced two angry Fort McMurray residents on Tuesday, in encounters caught on video and posted online…
“Are you aware that Jim Boucher from the Fort McKay First Nations just invested $250 million into the oilsands?” Fort McMurray local Robbie Picard interjected during the interview.
One of Fonda’s handlers immediately told Picard they did not have time to speak with him, and her whole entourage started walking away with her.
Picard accused the handler of “not telling the whole story about aboriginally owned businesses.”
Fonda did not respond to the question…
Fort McMurray local Susan Plamondon also challenged Fonda, asking if she flew over the reclamation areas as well, and urging her not to bash the community…
The backlash against Fonda has also played out online in Alberta, where many have condemned her as an out-of-touch Hollywood celebrity…
Wildrose Party Leader Brian Jean: “Our city has been through enough this year and we don’t need folks like Jane Fonda and Leonardo DiCaprio kicking us when we’re down.”…
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/jane-fonda-calls-trudeau-a-disappointment-defends-alta-oilsands-visit-1.3236867?autoPlay=true
14 Jan: Toronto Sun: Lorrie Goldstein: Trudeau’s cheap talk on climate change
If the PM expects Canadians to sacrifice to fight global warming, let him lead by example
If you want to understand the impact of climate change polices on ordinary Canadians and how detached our political leaders are from what they are doing by imposing them, think of this every time they say “carbon pricing.”
Think of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau flying in on the Aga Khan’s helicopter to the billionaire’s private island in the Bahamas, part of his greenhouse-gas spewing winter holiday with his family and Liberal friends.
Then think of him returning to Canada to hear a tearful mother and grandmother on his “meet the people” damage control tour in Peterborough Friday tell him her skyrocketing electricity and fuel bills have driven her into energy poverty.
This even though, partially disabled, she said she works 15 hours a day and makes almost $50,000 a year…
Now think of the rich, globe-trotting gurus of global warming from Al Gore to Leonardo DiCaprio.
Think of the United Nations’ never-ending global warming roadshow that seems determined, on the public’s dime, to invade every tourist mecca, five-star hotel and Michelin restaurant on Earth, spewing the very greenhouse gases the UN says are endangering the planet…
Ask yourself whether they act like people who really believe the Earth faces an imminent, existential threat from the overconsumption of fossil fuel energy.
Don’t their actions suggest their real attitude is “energy poverty for thee, but not for me”?…
http://www.torontosun.com/2017/01/14/trudeaus-cheap-talk-on-climate-change
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And Jane the Just also had form during the Vietnam war.
30
Jane’s form was pretty good in Barbarella though. 😉
30
14 Jan: Times of India: US must be punished if it goes back on climate change: Nobel Laureate
by Chethan Kumar TNN
BENGALURU: Arguing that decisions on science policies must not be left to “pure politicians”, Nobel Laureate, Randy Schekman says that the world must punish the US if it goes back on its commitments to climate change under the US President-elect Donald Trump tenure.
In an interview with TOI, Schekman, a professor at the University of California, said: “Climate change is an alarming issue, and the rest of the world must punish the US if it fails to honour its commitment to what has been a global understanding.”
From export-and-import sanctions—the US imports petroleum, and it also has control over some reserves—to additional taxes, Schekman said the world must force the US to comply with the commitments…
Arguing that Trump’s statements are based on ignorance, given the alarming situation across the world, Schekman said: “The world has come around this issue and agreed that this is an alarming concern. Even China has invested $350 billion on renewable energy.” …
“…I know that many more scientists would agree with me and support the fact that the US needs to be punished if it changes its stand on climate change and I only hope that we are able to apply enough pressure to put some sense in the minds of the ruling class,” he said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/us-must-be-punished-if-it-goes-back-on-climate-change-nobel-laureate/articleshow/56542546.cms
Wikipedia: Randy Wayne Schekman is a Nobel Prize-winning American cell biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, and former editor-in-chief of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…etc
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pat January 15, 2017 at 2:24 pm
“14 Jan: Times of India: US must be punished if it goes back on climate change: Nobel Laureate”
Pat, Can this have significance to any group of Earth’s varmints, creatures, critters, or even the self appointed ‘Top predator’?
30
As former editor-in-chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nobel Laureate Randy Schekman lost credibility with many of us who had concluded NAS betrayed public trust by supporting highly questionable evidence of AGW by Al Gore and the UN’s IPCC.
40
Oliver K. Manuel –
here’s someone u can believe! lol:
15 Jan: UK Daily Mail: Charles, the Ladybird eco-warrior: Prince writes a 52-page book about global warming with a cover that is based on one dramatic video… but looks a LOT like another rescue photo!
Outspoken heir to the Throne has made no secret of his views on climate change
The book offers a ‘bite-sized understanding’ of a ‘challenging subject’
Book has been extensively peer-reviewed by scientists, including the Royal Meteorological Society
By Jonathan Petre and Simon Murphy for The Mail on Sunday
Prince Charles has taken the extraordinary step of writing a Ladybird book warning of the threat of global warming.
The outspoken heir to the Throne, who has made no secret of his views on climate change, is co-author – along with two prominent environmental campaigners – of the 52-page guide.
Details of its content have not been revealed but The Mail on Sunday understands that the slim, hardback volume claims there is overwhelming scientific evidence that largely man-made global warming causes catastrophic events, including the recent flooding in parts of Britain and rising global temperatures…
Last night critics said the Prince risked being too partisan on the controversial issue when there was still disagreement among experts
Former Government Minister Peter Lilley said: ‘Prince Charles is sadly reflecting the view fostered by organisations like the BBC and others that anyone who exercises their critical faculties on global warming is beyond the pale.’…
Prince Charles penned the introduction and co-wrote the 5,000-word book with former Green Party Parliamentary candidate Tony Juniper (former director of Friends of the Earth and an adviser to the Prince)and polar scientist Emily Shuckburgh. It is the first of a new series from Ladybird aimed at explaining complicated subjects to a mass audience…
The new ‘expert’ range from Ladybird, part of Penguin Books, deals with topics from Quantum Mechanics to Evolution.
Other titles on subjects such as the Battle of Britain and the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album will follow…
FIRST COMMENT: mike: The guys a nutcase. Should be locked up.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4120946/Charles-Ladybird-eco-warrior-Prince-writes-52-page-book-global-warming-cover-based-one-dramatic-video-looks-LOT-like-rescue-photo.html
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“From export-and-import sanctions—the US imports petroleum, and it also has control over some reserves—to additional taxes, Schekman said the world must force the US to comply with the commitments… ”
Does this distinguished professor, and the rest of the world ,recognise that the US (ie the US taxpayer) funds 22% of the United Nations basic costs , and 28% of its peace keeping operations. Do they want to put that at risk?
The distinguished prof’s comments bring to mind the old phrase : “bringing a knife to a gunfight”
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Hi Jo
Just to let you know that not all Paleontologists subscribe to the big rock from space theory for the KT extinction event. It may be the “official” line arrived at by a committee of “experts” but surly we have had enough experience of expert committees in the last few years to be at least questioning of value of such pronouncements to science.
The cooling effects described in the paper can as easily be explained by the massive volcanism that also pumped sulfonates into the upper atmosphere and occurred at very close to the same time. I accept the evidence that an asteroid did impact the Earth at that time but I also know that there was a period of large scale and long lasting volcanic activity. The question is which would have had the greater effect, 30 years due to asteroid impact, or 100’s maybe a few 1000 years of volcanic activity? I know which one I think would more likely produce the widespread extinctions at the end of the Cretaceous.
I am also bemused by the use of a climate model to try an figure out what was going on 75 million years ago, as if by using a model somehow will provide their argument with more gravitas. Given that the climate models used to model todays climate are next to useless even with all the real world data available how can they possibly suggest that their model, which by nature will be full of assumptions and guesses, could be of serious use. I suppose they could try it out with modern data sets and see if it still works. Chances of that happening = 0.
As the old Circle Jerks song said: Question all authority! question all authority!
Cheers.
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***seems they don’t know much about anything! but the CAGW trillions are cleary on their minds:
4 pages: 15 Jan: Reuters: Noah Barkin: Davos elites struggle for answers as Trump era dawns
DAVOS, Switzerland: The global economy is in better shape than it’s been in years. Stock markets are booming, oil prices are on the rise again and the risks of a rapid economic slowdown in China, a major source of concern a year ago, have eased.
And yet, as political leaders, CEOs and top bankers make their annual trek up the Swiss Alps to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the mood is anything but celebratory…
Last year, the consensus here was that ***Trump had no chance of being elected. His victory, less than half a year after Britain voted to leave the European Union, was a slap at the principles that elites in Davos have long held dear, from globalisation and free trade to multilateralism…
Trump is the poster child for a new strain of populism that is spreading across the developed world and threatening the post-war liberal democratic order. With elections looming in the Netherlands, France, Germany, and possibly Italy, this year, the nervousness among Davos attendees is palpable…
Moises Naim of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was even more blunt: “There is a consensus that something huge is going on, global and in many respects unprecedented. But ***we don’t know what the causes are, nor how to deal with it.”…
Suma Chakrabarti, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), believes a “modern version of globalisation” is possible but acknowledges it will take time to emerge.
“It is going to be a long haul in persuading a lot of people that there is a different approach. But you don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water,” he told Reuters…
The problem, says Ian Goldin, an expert on globalisation and development at the University of Oxford, is that on many of the most important issues, from climate change to financial regulation, only multilateral cooperation can deliver results. And this is precisely what the populists reject.
“The state of global politics is worse than it’s been in a long time,” said Goldin. “At a time when we need more coordination to tackle issues like climate change and other systemic risks, we are getting more and more insular.”
http://ca.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idCAKBN14Z07V
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Brisbane Floods, 2011: Update!
ABC, Brisbane, 12 Jan, 2017: Researchers study old flood records to help predict when Brisbane’s next big wet will be
“UQ Associate Professor Jacky Crocke said the study discovered floods of that size could be more common than first thought.
“We discovered major floods occurred on the Lockyer Creek in 500AD, 1300 and in the 1700s — well before historical and gauging station information was available — and in the 1890s and 1970s.
“The record itself goes back many thousands of years and we’ve published the record for the last 2,000 years, and that record shows that seven floods like 2011 happened in the Valley over that time period.”
~ ~ ~
Man Made in 500AD?
2011 SBS: Qld floods ‘linked to
climate change97% man-made Doomsday Global Warming’“I think people will end up concluding that at least some of the intensity of the monsoon in Queensland can be attributed to
climate changeman-made Doomsday Global Warming,” said Matthew England of the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.”50
Apparently that is how powerful man made CO2 is. It turns a 500 year event into a less than 300 year event. It can even reach into the past and cool temperatures, cause catastrophic floods, and all kinds of other unsettling weather. What will it do next? Cause 2017 to be the hottest year ever after an unending chain of hottest years ever? Woe is us if 2017 is hotter than 2016 by the astronomical amount of 0.002 degrees. What will we ever do?
Alice’s Through the Looking Glass world makes more sense.
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AN ABSOLUTE MUST-READ FROM START TO FINISH:
14 Jan: Bloomberg: Bone-Chilling Winter From Berlin to Davos Causes Energy Scramble
by Kelly Gilblom
Coal, gas and power supply running short across Europe
French gas surging to a record as LNG cargoes urgently sought
From the rivers criss-crossing eastern Europe to the Mediterranean ports of Greece and France, everyone is hunting for energy supplies.
Blizzards, gale force winds, arctic temperatures and river ice thicker than a house has left the stewards of the European energy business frenzied. Prices of natural gas, primarily a heating fuel, has soared to the highest in more than two years. Blackouts across Eastern Europe caused electricity rates to spike to record levels…
It’s chaotic, but yet familiar. While energy grid operators, producers and traders prepare for winter’s chill every year, they tend to rely on meteorological forecasts that sometimes turn out to be dead wrong. So when a winter that’s expected to be mild develops into an extended deep freeze, a mad dash to meet demand ensues…
“Those who became sure that such a cold spell was unlikely given the overall trend in global warming are like those who get drowned in a stream that averages three inches deep,” said Zach Allen, president of Pan Eurasian Enterprises, an industry consultant in Rhode Island. “The Black Swan is your constant companion.”…
January will be one of Europe’s coldest months of the past five years and the chill will linger for at least another two weeks, according to Giacomo Masato, a meteorologist at energy broker Marex Spectron Group Ltd. in London.
“The more you go inland, the more likely it will be that even maximum temperatures will be around zero,” Masato said. “That’s cold.”…
When Andreas Speer, a commodities analyst at Bayerische Landesbank in Munich, last month looked at the long-range weather forecasts for January, he saw mild weather.
“That’s not what I see when I look out the window,” he said on Friday, referring to winds of 110 kilometers an hour (68 miles per hour) and freezing temperatures. “Models are a waste of time and money beyond three weeks. The cold snap caught people by surprise.”…
As the world’s power brokers gather in Davos, Switzerland, this week, they’ll need to wrap up warm as a low pressure system is forecast to send temperatures to below minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit). The country may get its lowest seasonal average in a decade, with a mean of minus 8 Celsius across the country…READ ALL
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-14/bone-chilling-winter-from-berlin-to-davos-causes-energy-scramble
below the above is what Trump spokespeople are saying is a totally FakeNews story from UK Times, claiming Trump wants to hold summit with Putin in Iceland within weeks of taking office!
Trump aides deny summit with Putin planned
Reuters – 5 hours ago
Incoming White House Press Sec & Comms Dir for Donald Trump, Sean Spicer, tweeted:
TWEET: Sean Spicer: not true – report is 100% false #facts
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“Models are a waste of time and money beyond three weeks. The cold snap caught people by surprise.”…
We’ve got the modellers on the run and after this unprecedented NH winter only small pockets of warmists will need mopping up.
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I fear for the survival of the Twinotter species as the globe cools.
Trump will have a lot to answer for regarding the loss of the money sucking class through his lack of belief in global warming that is causing this cooling.
There is a real threat to life caused by over hyping of warming leading to poorer eastern European countries underestimating their energy needs in bitterly cold weather. Germany may even struggle to meet energy needs if the cold weather persists.
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Rick Will.
“I fear for the survival of the Twinotter species as the globe cools.”
And when was the last time the globe cooled? There hasn’t been a cooler than average year for a long time now
You probably want to look at the various global temperature charts before making statements you cannot justify.
03
“There hasn’t been a cooler than average year for a long time now”
Yes there has Twotter. EVERY year in the last 700 or more has been COLDER than the MWP, the RWP and the previous 7000-8000 years of the current interglacial.
We are currently FAR below the Holocene average.
Or do you really think the world has only been here for the 15-18 years of your insignificant life?
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Harry
The cooling has started – here is the data that matters:
https://data.nodc.noaa.gov/woa/DATA_ANALYSIS/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/DATA/basin/3month_mt/T-dC-w0-700m1-3.dat
https://data.nodc.noaa.gov/woa/DATA_ANALYSIS/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/DATA/basin/3month_mt/T-dC-w0-700m4-6.dat
https://data.nodc.noaa.gov/woa/DATA_ANALYSIS/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/DATA/basin/3month_mt/T-dC-w0-700m7-9.dat
Still waiting for update on last quarter 2016.
The anecdotal evidence is also mounting:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/markets/commodities/news/bone-chilling-winter-from-berlin-to-davos-has-caused-a-energy-scramble/articleshow/56557645.cms
http://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi
http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png
Those in government responsible for energy security who have been conned by the global warming alarmism are putting their citizens at serious risk of freezing to death. The subsidised race for renewables without comprehensive energy planning is a mounting disaster unfolding in parts of Europe, Canada and Australia.
The Twinotter will just fade away as reality of global cooling can no longer be denied. Although living in Sydney will be OK as long as the place continues to grow its energy intercity.
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Rick Will.
I will leave you to your delusion. You Gish Gallop will take me too long to get thru; I don’t spend that much time on Cranks.
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Harry
There you go, attack me and not address the data when it is overwhelming and compelling. It is the way of the Twinotter species.
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Rick, Twooter will NEVER produce anything resembling data or facts.
He has proven doesn’t have any and cannot argue on that basis.
His posts are universally just empty, baseless juvenile rhetoric.
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Andy
That statement about Harry’s inability to find data is incorrect. If you go back a few threads you will see he was able to produce a link to the Sydney Observatory Hill temperature record. It does show a warming trend over a long period of time although he is horribly confused about the cause. He firmly believes it has something to do with increasing CO2 in the atmosphere rather than more obvious reality, that any critical observer would arrive at, by appreciating the massive scale of energy intensive development that has occurred in the vicinity of the temperature guage.
12
Ok, 1 out of 400+
12
12 Jan: The Atlantic: J. Weston Phippen: The Hermit Who Inadvertently Shaped Climate-Change Science
Billy Barr moved to the Rocky Mountains four decades ago, got bored one winter, and decided to keep a notebook that has become the stuff of legend…
Barr’s data would likely have remained the tinkerings of an amateur scientist were he not so close to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL), one of the most important phenology research sites in the world…
PHOTO CAPTION: Billy Barr stands in the ***snow at his home below Gothic Mountain (THIS CAPTION IS NOT ON THE PHOTO, BUT IT COPIED WITH THE ‘SNOW’ REFERENCE WHEN I COPIED THE HEADLINE, SO IT MUST HAVE BEEN CHANGED)
Sometimes Barr is credited as a contributor on reports that use his data; sometimes not. This year, however, he’s won some much deserved recognition. He is a character in a not-yet-released documentary called ****End of Snow…
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/01/billy-barr-climate-change/512198/
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Billy’s story is interesting but linking it to climate change.
We’re all gonna fry.
Maybe not.
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Ok, Late to the party again as I had other projects underway but this subject has always intrigued me
From the fossil record there have been five major extinction events in the history of life over the last half a billion years.
We don’t know of any major extinction events prior to the present fossil record due to the lack of dateable sequence of fossils due to both the soft tissues and very small size down to viral and bacteria sized specimens of the early life forms.
As well there have been the immense changes in the constant shifting and subsuming of the continental plates, the emergence of new continents, the break up of old continents and the drift of the continental rafts around the planet.
But there is little doubt that there must have been a whole sequence of potential extinction events during the earth’s first couple of billions of years soon after life finally found a firm footing on the planet.
The five major extinction events; [ Cosmos ]
……………
End Ordovician, 444 million years ago, 86% of species lost
…………….
Late Devonian, 375 million years ago, 75% of species lost
…………….
Permian – Triassic extinction , 251 million years ago, 96% of species lost
[
]
……………….
End Triassic, 200 million years ago, 80% of species lost
……………..
End Cretaceous, 66 million years ago, 76% of all species lost
——————
As Jo’s headline suggests and generally seems to be accepted unless and until another major factor appears to offer alternatives to the asteroid impact, the KT event of some 66 million years ago was the prime reason for the disappearance of the dinosaurs and related animals that were primarily exothermic, they relied on outside heat sources to a greater or lesser extent to maintain their body temperatures eg; lizards and etc as compared to endothermic animals such as ourselves who use internally generated energy to maintain our own internal body heat.
However there is a doubt about some aspects of KT extinction event as fossil of species known to have existed prior to the KT event have also turned up in fossil bed formations that are above the high irdium band marker of the KT event and therefore after the extinction event, iridium enrichment being an accepted marker of an asteroid impact and therefore a dateable rock system.
There are in fact some two or three other major impact craters such as the Shiva Crater / depression off India’s west coast which is about 500 kms in diameter and is dated at around 66 million years ago.
Then there is the 24 kilometer wide Boltysh Crater in Ukraine also dated at around 65 million years BP.
Possibly there were multiple impacts during this couple of millions of years long period which was the result of the breakup of a major asteroid leading to a whole group of boloids passing through earths orbit at that time leading to the Chicxulub impact, the emergence of the million or so years of activity of flood basalt Deccan Traps [ below ] and the colossal emmissions of highly toxic volcanic gases and aerosols which eventually led to the end of the Permian extinction event.
Some of those fossils appear in rock formations that are up to a million years after the KT extinction event although a number of explanations, not dissimilar to climate science in doubtful content, have been made to explain the fact that some species only appeared to have died out many hundreds of thousands of years after the Chicxulub asteroid impact.
The other very large factor in this extinction event is that on the opposite side of the planet at the antipodes of the Chicxulub impact, there lies the vast igneous province of the Deccan Traps in India.
The Deccan Traps consist of a lava flow, flood basalts of some half a million cubic kilometres of lava that was up to some 2000 metres deep and covered a half a million square kilometres.
The Deccan Traps may have been active or extremely active for short periods for well over a couple of million years.
There is a theory [ which I wrote a letter on to the New Scientist in the very early 1990’s when it still had some credibility left but they refused to print the letter after some to-ing and fro-ing ] that the Chicxulub impact like those very high speed pics of bullets striking an egg and the opposite side of the egg exploding out from the shock wave long before the bullet actually reaches the opposite side of the egg.
Similarly, the impact shock waves of the Chicxulub asteroid may have set off the Deccan traps on the opposite side of the planet into a major eruption phase due to the shock wave of the impact triggering aa major eruption event in what was already an unstable volcanic province.
However the discovery of the immense potential impact depression of the Shiva crater off India’s western shores and with an estimated dating of around 65 million years ago similar to the Chicxulub impact timing might have also weakened the earth’s crust in this region leading to the massive volcanic outpourings of the Deccan Traps and the major Cretaceous extinction event.
——————
As you can see from the list of the five major extinction events, the Chicxulub extinction event still had some way to go extinction wise to match the end of the Permian- Triassic extinction event of some 251 million years ago
And it is the colossal in size, volcanic igneous flood basalt 3 million cubic kilometre Siberian traps , the largest lava flows ever found on earth that flowed for under a million years that coincides with Permian – Triassic extinction event where it is estimated from the fossil record that up to 96% of all the species on earth became extinct in a quite a short time.
And that letter to the New Scientist of the early 1990’s [ or thereabouts as I have now lost the letter ]
After suggesting the Chicxulub crater impact shock wave through the planet was a possible cause of the triggering of what was an already unstable volcanic province, the Deccan Traps outpouring of lava and a major contributing factor to the end of the Cretaceous extinction event.
After some rather putdown comments from a New Scientist person, I suggested that a major impact crater would one day be found in the Antarctic region of the planet, the antipodes of the Siberian Traps that would be dated at around the appearance of the vast Siberian Traps outpourings of flood basalt and the Permian-Triassic extinction event of some 251 million years ago and that would appear to co-incide with those Siberian traps volcanic flood basalt outpourings.
Needless to say no further correspondence was entered into as I got the very firm brushoff.
I think it was less than six months later the Americans announced that using ice penetrating radar they had found an impact crater under a couple of kilometres of ice in Wilkes Land in Antarctica , the now known as the Wilkes Land impact crater which is TWICE the size of the Chicxulub crater and co-incides very closely in estimated timing with the appearance of the immense Siberian Traps which combined with the impact of the Wilkes Land asteroid and the release of thousands of cubic kilometres of highly toxic volcanic gases and aerosols quite possibly was the reason for spelling the end of nearly all of Earth’s then life forms.
Giant Crater Found: Tied to Worst Mass Extinction Ever
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ROM,
“the KT event of some 66 million years ago was the prime reason for the disappearance of the dinosaurs and related animals that were primarily exothermic, they relied on outside heat sources to a greater or lesser extent to maintain their body temperatures eg; lizards and etc as compared to endothermic animals such as ourselves who use internally generated energy to maintain our own internal body heat.”
Firstly Dinosaurs were not large lizards! And our understanding of their bodily functions are at best guesswork.
Take for instance the polar dinosaurs
From http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-strange-lives-of-polar-dinosaurs-180347471/
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tomo0mason @ #53.1
Agreed that nobody really knows [ as yet ] whether many of what is commonly called the dinosaurs were warm or cold blooded or actually had a range of exothermic and endothermic characteristics according to the climatic conditions in which they lived as well as the various foods the various species that evolved through the 80 million years long Cretaceous epoch consumed.
Given the incredible adaptability and range of characteristics that exist in the animal kingdom today, I certainly would go for a whole range of adaptability and varying exothermic and endothermic characteristics of the animals of the Cretaceous epoch.
When we read and comment on the extinction of the end of the Cretaceous period we nearly all think of just the animals that went extinct.
But the major extinction events, all of them also involved the colossal loss of plant species as well as insect species and their associated parasites and viral infections and etc.
Nearly every one of those will never be seen or found in the fossil record as they were too ephemeral in body structure to leave any identifiable fossils except very occasionally in examples of the extremely rare amber fossils
With the loss of plant species there went the whole food chain system that is a basic underlaying support for the food chain pyramid that is a characteristic of all life on this planet.
The plant life didn’t need to be burnt to a cinder to cease to exist.
Anybody who keeps plants under shelter or within a home or office [ we have a 40 plus year old indoor palm whose origins are somewhat cloudy . It resides in the bathroom where it has thrived so for some completely unknown reason I just named the bathroom dwelling palm “Olive” which in the next ten minutes was renamed by my wife as “Palmolive”. And that is now the name our palm is now known as within our household ] will know that cleaning a layer of dust off the leaves leads to a new spurt of growth and a much fitter looking plant.
So a million or so years of heavy and regular dust and aerosol precipitation onto the plant species leaves thereby inhibiting the plants photosynthesis processes and limiting growth as well as killing plants through the toxic chemicals on the plants leaves and being leached into the soils to be taken up by the root systems , all of which the plant eating animals of the epoch at the base of the food pyramid depended on for food would have eventually led to the starvation and steady decline in both the numbers and the physical strength and health of any surviving animal and insect species from the original fireball.
The Permian – Triassic extinction event , the Great Dying and the Cretaceous extinction of some 66 million years ago were not just caused by massive fireballs incinerating everything around the globe .
As well as the instantaneous heat effects there was the million year long volcanic eruption , both of which must have created immense loads of atmospheric pollution , far, far beyond anything that we can imagine and for tens of thousands of years at a time which eventually killed off the plants and their spores and seeds along with the plant eating animals at the base of the food chain and from there on up through the food chain until the whole system of plant and sentient life on the planet came very close to total extinction.
Had the total extinction ever happened and it may have back near when life became established on the planet, then it would have been another couple of billions of years before the bacteria who would have survived the extinction events relatively unharmed in their totality, would have again evolved over the aeons of time to once again begin the rise of plants and animals and the drive towards ever higher intelligence as it exists today.
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Bad luck that you don’t have the letter. You could claim priority with the bullet hits an egg theory! It unifies the impact and vulcanism theories of extinctions.
Here bullets hit lots of stuff including a watermelon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgS6nU4Ro6Q
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Hi Peter;
Thanks but we only had the fax in those days and were still a couple of years away from the internet so my thinking was original such as it was.
However with the advent of the internet and its incredible access to information [ thats if you are prepared to apply a good set of highly skeptical filters to everything you find on the net. I Always check the URL of a potential source before using any information from the source such as here on Jo’s blog. ] I have looked up the impact /shock wave hypothesis leading to the Deccan Traps volcanism some years ago and it had been suggested by a handful of scientific sources in the decade or so before I independently came up with the suggestion.
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It is ‘fanciful’ to think an asteroid impact rendered the dinosaurs extinct. A more likely scenario would be prolonged Solar-induced orbital drought.
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The iridium fingerprint is hard to ignore.
21
“And we worry about a warming of one degree in a century.”
“The real threats are not fertilizer and balmy weather, but rocks from space, and cold, cold, cold…”
A dishonest argument. I do not know why I even bother. It is difficult to have a discussion when one side decides to be dishonest.
The Global Mean Temperature has already gone up around 1C. It is likely to have gone up by 3C by 2050, and more by the end of the century.
Cold does kill people. But that does not change the fact that heat also kills people. Not to mention flooding from rising sea levels, and disruption of the world’s food supply.
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In the same hundred years no one has died from 1C. Rising sea levels have not drowned anyone nor any city nor island. Around the world airports and whole cities are being built in the oceans. The world’s food supply is at a record high and world population has quadrupled. Why do you bother pushing these end of world scenarios? When will you start to question what you are told?
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There are a lot of people who think a drop in temperature of 1℃ is likely by 2050.
And by the way, where did you get that 3℃ figure from? At current rates of increase that won’t occur for at least 600 years.
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Actually Graeme, there is no CO2 warming signal at all in the satellite data,
The slight warming since 979 has come purely from NON-CO2 forcings, almost certainly the sun’s grand maximum during the latter half of last century.
That solar maximum is now in the past, gone…
There’s no reason to expect any more warming at all, unfortunately.
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Graeme No.3
“There are a lot of people who think a drop in temperature of 1℃ is likely by 2050.”
Citation, please.
“And by the way, where did you get that 3℃ figure from?”
It’s around about the center probability for ECS estimates.
15
“It’s around about the center probability for ECS estimates.”
So its almost certainly a totally bogus number..
Is that what you are telling us, Twotter?
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Afterall, Twotter.
You already KNOW that there is absolutely ZERO proof or evidence of any sort of CO2 warming in the last 38 years, while highly beneficial atmospheric CO2 has continued to rise at nice steady rate.
So really, you are left to figure out where this ridiculous ECS value comes from except from the fevered imagination of a bunch of paid AGW apostles.
REAL EVIDENCE , Twotter.
No CO2 warming in the satellite record.
No acceleration of sea level rise
Absolutely NO CO2 warming signal anywhere !!!
If there were… you could produce it…
… but you have proven time and time again.. THAT YOU CAN’T
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“The Global Mean Temperature has already gone up around 1C…”
From the COLDEST period in the last 10,000 years
Get some perspective.
The current temperature is but a minor bump above that COLD, nowhere near the MWP, or the RWP, or the Holocene Optimum.
And unfortunately, the Grand Solar Maximum of the latter half of last century has dropped off.
That means there is nothing to driver further highly beneficial warming.
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“Not to mention flooding from rising sea levels, and disruption of the world’s food supply.”
Yep, Twotter, probably best you don’t mention them, and show your feeble-mindedness
a. 1.5mm/year sea level rise, not accelerating.. SCARY.. NOT !
b. The world’s food supply is ENHANCED by warming, which would mostly occur in the higher latitudes, opening up vast tracts of currently frozen agricultural land, and by increased atmospheric CO2 which, along with H2O, provides food for ALL life on this carbon based planet of ours.
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“It is difficult to have a discussion when one side decides to be dishonest.”
Then stop being continually dishonest, Twotter.
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Here Harry,
Have some News from the people that operate the climate models for you. They know and tell, saying in effect the models are incorrect.
So much for settle science, eh?
Modeled hogwash!
My bold.
From https://www.wcrp-climate.org/ page about their perceived Grand Challenges as they theatrically put it.
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There is a force on the surface of a rotating planet called the Coriolis force, the faster it rotates the stronger the force. It is related to inertial frames on a rotating sphere, the force is proportional to the velocity of a particle on the rotating surface. This drives the circulation of the atmosphere. Hence hurricanes, typhoons (NH) and cyclones (SH) have opposite circulation. The rest is thermal from the Sun and solar proton flux altering the geomagnetic field and the jetstream, hence large storms etc.
10
‘A dishonest argument. ‘
The irony burns.
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Irony? Hypocrisy.
I do not believe anyone could establish a world temperature for 1900. That is absurd.
Most of the world was unpopulated, unexplored in 1900. Certainly the 1/3 which is below the tropic of Capricorn which is still only 2% of world population. Before aircraft and satellites, we had no idea what was in the Amazon, Himalayas, Antarctica even most of Tasmania. We discovered millions of people in New Guinea the world did not know existed.
How on earth could anyone know the temperature to 0.1C let alone across the vast expanse of the world’s oceans, especially in hindsight? Then what was the temperature in 1850? Ttree rings do not give this sort of accuracy and even thousand of individual accurate thermometers cannot measure a continent like Australia without fiddling, massive extrapolation and interpolation. Homogenization. Forget the urban heat island. You have the Kimberlys. It is all extrapolation, guesswork and make believe and working backwards a hundred years across unknown lands.
Even so, this global warming is not dangerous in any way and as I walk to the beach today, I cannot say that the water level is any different in my lifetime, the piers any lower or the structures on the beach. Besides when all the ice melts from Canada to Siberia to Athens and Texas, does anyone drown? Is the water any higher? Is Copenhagen under water? The only spring flooding is in rivers which represent 2% of 2% fresh water or 1/2000th of the world’s water and in England, all the fault of activists who want their flooding back for water fowl and have passed laws to block the clearing of canals.
Why does anyone push Global Warming disaster scenarios? The last thirty years of satellite measurements has shown great stability, so where it is hot in once place, it is cold in another but only one is reported. Natural variation banned as an explanation, unless the predictions are quite wrong, in which case it is the entire explanation. El Nino and La Nina have no explanation in Climate Models, so how complete are the models? Thirty years later, the models are wrong and its not as if they lack data.
Man Made Global Warming is a man made political idea, socialism posing as environmentalism and now in hindsight the dire predictions are just wrong. For some a failed religion. The Rapture did not happen. For others a shrinking opportunity to make money and cripple Western democracies. As for South Australia, they have demonstrated that too high a dependence on undependable wind power is nearly as dangerous as having a state where too many are public servants out of touch with reality.
I have no idea whether the Twotters of the world are genuinely worried or simply bored and looking for attention or political activists.
The gratuitous accusation of dishonesty indicates Twotter has a real problem with the facts. The era of man made Global Warming is coming to an end and he will take his otters and go home.
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I’ll second that.
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Except that its not hypocrisy if Mr Otter believes it to be true.
In his case its simple ignorance and not Socratic irony.
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So true. It’s bad enough trying to come to some sort of agreement as to the global mean temperature right now let alone some 100 years ago. As for 100 years from now – well anyone who can predict that even to withing a few degrees is a charlatan. Also if anyone says they can and makes money out of it via any means belongs in prison.
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slap slap:
15 Jan: SMH: Michael Gordon: Tony Abbott ***slapped down as Malcolm Turnbull opts for ‘minimalist’ reshuffle
The Turnbull government has ***slapped down Tony Abbott’s call for it to ditch its renewable energy target for 2020, declaring there are “no plans” to change the policy that was settled when Mr Abbott was prime minister…
In a direct repudiation of Mr Abbott’s assertion that the existing policy would increase prices, reduce reliability and threaten heavy industries, Mr Frydenberg said: “The government has no plans to change the 2020 RET which was settled just 18 months ago providing investor certainty.”…
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/abbott-slapped-down-as-turnbull-opts-for-minimalist-reshuffle-20170115-gtrtgh.html
16 Jan: ABC: Mark Butler on the Renewable Energy Target
The Turnbull government has rejected Tony Abbott’s provocative intervention on renewable energy…
Tony Abbott says that if left in place the target will push up power prices and will be the death knell for heavy industry. The Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg has since dismissed those ideas.
But Shadow Minister for Climate Change and Energy Mark Butler says that doesn’t ensure the RET won’t be axed.
‘We saw Josh Frydenberg in December himself be ***slapped down by the Prime Minister because of some movings from Tony Abbott and others in the hard right of the Liberal Party over a very important element of electricity policy, which was the emissions intensity scheme being considered by energy ministers at the time’, he says.
‘We’d like to see the Prime Minister come out and confirm that the existing renewable energy target would remain in place’.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/mark-butler-on-the-renewable-energy-target/8184456r
google even throws up this letter as a “news” result on the subject, with the headline plus “… climate change denier and undercut Turnbull’s sensible linkage between renewables and network reliability. Once again, it is clear that it is time for Abbott to go.” showing up in the summary:
16 Jan: Australian: Letters to the Editor: Abbott’s comments could be interpreted as white-anting Turnbull
It is appropriate for The Weekend Australian to criticise Tony Abbott for his self-serving opinion piece that could be seen as white-anting the government (“Turnbull wrong to abandon my tax reform policies”, 14/1).
But suggesting Abbott’s piece was “an intelligent contribution” and that he displayed chutzpah is too kind. I suggest that he has a brass neck.
As for Abbott boasting of the merits of the first Hockey-Abbott budget, one must ask if there has been a more financially illiterate PM than Abbott since Whitlam…
And Abbott’s comments on renewables simply reinforce the view that he is a climate change denier and undercut Turnbull’s sensible linkage between renewables and network reliability. Once again, it is clear that it is time for Abbott to go.
Harry Kinread, Brighton, Vic
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“one must ask if there has been a more financially illiterate PM than Abbott since Whitlam”
Really? It may have very unpopular with the usual mendicant crowd, but it was the belt tightening we needed and still desperately need, not more windmills and shutting down our cheap coal power. At present we are borrowing a billion dollars a week and the interest bill is back where Keating left it. We also pay record world prices for gas, which is mad. Soon we will be importing gas!
Unlike Swan Abbott does have a degree in Economics from Oxford, plus his LLB and his Masters in International Politics plus his real world experience in the concrete business as MD.
So it seems Wayne Swan, the world’s greatest treasurer was a genius, spending our way massively out of a problem we never had.
As Abbott says, the killer is the RET. It’s carbon only LGC (Large Generation Certificates) are destroying the cheap coal power suppliers on the absurd basis that Carbon Dioxide is deadly pollution. Our electricity is skyrocketing and it has been designed to not even show as taxation. Everyone is paying for windmills around Australia, even if they are near useless.
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It’s a bit rich accusing Tony Abbott of white-anting Turnbull after what TB suffered before he was spilled.
60
And Abbott is not a minister, unlike Turnbull, Bishop and others. He is supposed to speak and allowed to express his private opinion, unlike ministers. Turnbull even crossed the floor as a minister.
50
16 Jan: Australian: Graham Lloyd: Security fears spark call for wind farm shutdown
The Trump administration is facing its first renewable energy test, with demands a $US400 million ($534m) wind farm development be shut down because of national security concerns.
The 104 turbine Amazon wind farm in North Carolina is within the 45km exclusion zone for a military radar that monitors drug smuggling from Central and Latin America.
Concerns over the Amazon project emerged several years ago after it was estimated that interference from the wind farm could degrade the surveillance radar signal by up to 15 per cent…
The Amazon project has yet to begin operations but the legislators want the facility to be stopped and developers compensated only for money spent.
The wind farm is being built by Avangrid Renewables, a US subsidiary of the Spanish company Iberdrola.
Online retailer Amazon agreed to buy the electricity and the naming rights to the plant to offset electricity use at its data centres in Northern Virginia…
A spokesman for Avangrid, Paul Copleman, said the legislative opposition had come after all 104 towers had been constructed, about $US400m invested and full commercial electricity production was weeks away…
“In its zeal to promote renewable energy, the current administration appears to knowingly have agreed to compromise our national security,” anti-wind farm activist John Droz said.
“They were aware of the serious potential risks the Desert Wind/Amazon project could have on the radar facility, yet choose to play them down.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/security-fears-spark-call-for-wind-farm-shutdown/news-story/7970d06a683ef671d9d2d23c3cfe8920
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15 Jan: CBC: Homeowners hot under collar at high cost of electric heat
Two-tier rate structure means homeowners who heat with electricity pay more
By Gregor Craigie
It seems a lot of people in B.C. are paying attention to the high costs of low temperatures this winter.
BC Hydro appeared to notice as well, offering a bit of help to customers in the form of an extended six-month time period to pay off expensive winter bills…
Frances Hunter estimated she would spend $3,000 on heating this winter, even though her house is well-insulated and she keeps the thermostats low.
“If heating with electricity is such a good idea,” she writes, “why are we being punished with the high two-tier pricing?”
BC Hydro addresses the question briefly on its website: “the stepped rate structure provides a price incentive to encourage conservation — which is the cleanest, cheapest and simplest way to meet growing electricity demand.”
It is difficult to argue with the logic that making electricity more expensive will encourage people to use less of it…
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/homeowners-hot-under-collar-at-high-cost-of-electric-heat-1.3934542
16 Jan: Courier Mail: Aircon overload sparks fears spike will justify electricity price increase
by Matt Killoran, Chris Honnery
CONSUMERS are bracing for a potentially dramatic surge in electricity prices after a spike in the wholesale market during the weekend’s heatwave.
The spot price for electricity jumped to $12,641 per megawatt hour at 4pm on Saturday, well above the rest of the day, which tracked between $50 and $2500 per megawatt hour, according to Australian Energy Market Operator figures.
The time of the surge coincided with the temperature in Brisbane hitting mid-30C.
While the price paid by electricity companies is not passed directly on to consumers, electricity price advocates say spikes can be used to justify annual increases…
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/aircon-overload-sparks-fears-spike-will-justify-electricity-price-increase/news-story/9e73ea3485251d96884ec68fe986c45d
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this tale gets sillier by the para…read all:
15 Jan: NYT: It Can Power a Small Nation. But This Wind Farm in China Is Mostly Idle
By JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ
JIUQUAN, China — On the edge of the Gobi Desert, the Jiuquan Wind Power Base stands as a symbol of China’s quest to dominate the world’s renewable energy market. With more than 7,000 turbines arranged in rows that stretch along the sandy horizon, it is one of the world’s largest wind farms, capable of generating enough electricity to power a small country.
But these days, the windmills loom like scarecrows, idle and inert. The wind howls outside, but many turbines in Jiuquan, a city of vast deserts and farms in the northwest province of Gansu, have been shut off because of weak demand. Workers while away the hours calculating how much power the turbines could have generated if there were more buyers, and wondering if and when they will ever make a profit…
More than 92,000 wind turbines have been built across the country, capable of generating 145 gigawatts of electricity…
One out of every three turbines in the world is now in China, and the government is adding them at a rate of more than one per hour…
But some of its most ambitious wind projects are underused. Many are grappling with a nationwide economic slowdown that has dampened demand for electricity. Others are stymied by persistent favoritism toward the coal industry by local officials and a dearth of transmission lines to carry electricity from rural areas in the north and west to China’s fastest-growing cities…
Wind power now accounts for 3.3 percent of electricity generation in China, according to the nation’s National Energy Administration, compared with 4.7 percent in the United States…READ ALL
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/15/world/asia/china-gansu-wind-farm.html?_r=0
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can’t copy…read all…
scathing critique:
15 Jan: Financial Times: Tidal power swamped by dubious mathematics
Cost numbers around Swansea lagoon project are wildly misleading
Tidal power is just the latest in a lengthening line of costly and unproven technologies whose sponsors are seeking to latch on to the public’s wallet…
https://www.ft.com/content/da4baf02-db14-11e6-86ac-f253db7791c6
Guardian reports no “coherent plan” on how to meet renewable targets, but spruiks the tidal lagoon anyway:
15 Jan: Guardian: Robin McKie: Two cheers for Swansea’s tidal lagoon
The go-ahead for the Swansea Bay project could help end fossil fuel reliance. But ministers have pulled the plug on other inventive schemes.
If renewable energy advocates get their way, swaths of shoreline will soon be peppered with giant barrages designed to turn the power of the sea into electricity for our homes and factories. These tidal lagoons could supply more than 10% of the nation’s electricity, it is claimed…
Not everyone is happy, however…
The differing views underline the stark dilemma that Britain now faces. Thanks to the 2008 Climate Change Act, the nation is now committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by the year 2050: an enormous task. Old coal, gas and oil power stations will have to be closed and replaced with renewable plants capable of generating billions of watts of electricity.
The trouble is that very little has been done in the past decade to trigger changes that might wean us of our fossil fuel addiction. And time is running out. As Chris Binnie, a visiting professor of engineering at Exeter University, put it: “None of the governments we have had since 2008 have had a coherent policy on how to meet our requirement to make such cuts in emissions by 2050.”
Hence the excitement about tidal lagoons…
*This article was amended on 15 January 2017. An earlier version referred to “renewable plants capable of generating billions of gigawatts of electricity”. This has been corrected.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jan/15/energy-tidal-lagoon-renewables
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I notice that if built the Swansea lagoon will supply 0.012% of the electricity for the UK. That is if it doesn’t silt up.
There are several posts by Paul Homewood e.g. https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/01/13/the-mails-misleading-claim-about-swansea-bay/
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16 Jan: Australian: Robert Gottliebsen: Canberra must stop blaming states over gas prices
With the exception of Western Australia every state in Australia is going to suffer from much higher gas and electricity prices.
Investment in energy using industrial plant will be curbed and consumers will be forced to cut back on retail expenditure because of rising gas and electricity costs. Inflation might break out.
Federal Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg blames NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and the Northern Territory for virtually stopping gas exploration — particularly as there is plentiful gas to be found.
Yet, in my view, solving the problem does not start with the states. Its starts in Canberra with Frydenberg and Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce the two ministers who must act first.
Neither at this stage has grasped the fundamental problem — farmers must be entitled to a share of the revenue for the gas that is under their ground. I know this right to minerals revenue goes against our national fundamental assumptions, but the game has changed…READ ALL
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/robert-gottliebsen/canberra-must-stop-blaming-states-over-gas-prices/news-story/b2379edec0456dc49920c893ecd79283
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Neither at this stage has grasped the fundamental problem — farmers must be entitled to a share of the revenue for the gas that is under their ground. I know this right to minerals revenue goes against our national fundamental assumptions, but the game has changed
It’s not clear whether that is Gottliebsen or Pat talking. On the basis of earler threads, I suspect it is Pat. He does a lot of unacknowledged editorialising – fake news stuff.
So, if it is Pat – you are talking through your a..se here. The onshore mineral deposits, with the exception of those deposits in the the ACT and the NT, belong to the State Govts. This has been consitutionally confirmed by many High Court decisions over decades. Whether this is a likeable fact or not, it’s the truth. It’s what brought Rudd, Swan and Henry down in regard to their stupidly-designed Mining Tax.
If the Feds want freeholders (does that include suburban backyards and leaseholders ?) to receive some of the revenue from sale after mining (and are freeholders required to accept part of the initial capital risk in exploration and mine development ?), then the Fed Treasury has to compensate the States for the loss of Royalty revenue – no excuses, ifs or buts. Of course that’s likely to happen … sheesh.
It’s persistently ignorant comments like the one this reply is referring to that help convince me this coubtry is waaay gone. Mining has rescued its’ economy more times than has ever been counted in the past 200 years, yet it’s still a favourite “give me the money at no capital risk to myself” target. Ho hum …
To make my point clear:
… right to minerals revenue goes against our national fundamental assumptions …”
It’s not some “fundamental national assumption”, it’s Constitutional Law. Bob Carr, when NSW Premier, opined that he (as the Head of the NSW State Govt) owned the minerals right to the centre of the earth – and when we finally recovered from laughing at his hubris, he’s quite right. To change this, a referendum or two is needed.
11
***welfare for all:
15 Jan: Guardian: Graeme Wearden: Robotics, Trump and Brexit turn up the heat amid the snow of Davos
The world is full of scary new problems for delegates at this year’s World Economic Forum – not that old ones like climate and poverty have gone away.
***Davos will also examine whether it’s time to give all citizens a basic income, to cushion them from the impact of technological change.
“Machines, the argument goes, can take the jobs, but should not take the incomes: the job uncertainty that engulfs large swaths of society should be matched by a welfare policy that protects the masses, not only ‘the poor’,” said World Bank senior economist Ugo Gentilini. “Hence, basic income grants emerge as a straightforward option for the digital era – one seemingly backed by Silicon Valley and trade unions alike.”…
Being lectured on the importance of “inclusive globalisation” by a communist leader will be a new experience for Davos delegates. Trump’s election is expected to create a vacuum in global leadership, and Xi Jinping could be the man to fill it…
A group of scientist are setting up an “Arctic Basecamp” summit in Davos, to lobby delegates about the dangers of climate change. Temperatures at the top of the world were “alarmingly high” last Christmas, they say, with some parts of the Arctic region 20C warmer than usual…
A year ago, it was hard to find many people at Davos who though that Britain either should, or would, vote to leave the European Union. Like Trump’s victory, the Brexit vote dealt a blow to WEF’s underlying principles – and fuelled the argument that they don’t really understand today’s world…
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/14/davos-issues-trump-capitalism-china-brexit
21
Umm…where is the money coming from to pay for this basic income for all?
40
From the taxpayer?
60
What Really Killed the Dinosaurs & When?
“Absolutely certain!” he exclaimed. “It was an asteroid that killed the dinosaurs!”
“Submit your evidence,” I challenged.
“Evidence?” Jim rubbed his chin. “Well, you know, the earth’s rocks do show that asteroids have fallen in the past. And it could have happened… And, you know, the dinosaurs have become extinct. So isn’t that enough?”
Nice theory… Dramatic… Exciting… but don’t bet your life on it!
HOW TO GET THE TRUTH
Look, it all boils down to connected facts. Suppose you ask me why I have taped garlick onto my letter box, and I reply, “Because it keeps the wild elephants out of my street.”
“But,” you point out, “There are no wild elephants in the whole country.”
And I beam, “See? The garlick is working!”
You might recommend a psychiatrist.
Can you see what is the problem with my theory? After all, haven’t I given you two facts? (a) Garlick on my letterbox, and (b) no wild elephants in my street. But you will point out that these two FACTS bear no relationship to each other whatsoever. These two UNRELATED FACTS do not give me the TRUTH! I must stick to DIRECT RELATIONSHIPS.
Assumptions, speculations and conjecture are OUT! For a correct understanding of the past, conjecture, assumption, opinion, speculation, and guessing, are all forbidden. There are 101 theories about dinosaur extinction. But they all fail. Why? Because they overlook directly-linked relationship evidence. And one fact that is generally overlooked is this: That it wasn’t just the dinosaurs that died suddenly.
IT WASN’T JUST THE DINOSAURS
There is a most crucial circumstance concerning the earth’s strata and the fossils that is not generally disclosed to the public, and which many geologists apparently do not recognise. On every continent, and in numerous places on each, are vast “fossil graveyards”, where masses of flora and fauna have been swept to a sudden death in their millions. These areas are often packed with both land and sea creatures from different habitats and even different climatic zones – all mixed and buried together in a completely unnatural way.
There is evidence that a great disaster took place, in which creatures of all types perished together – mostly fit, young and old, with fleet legs, strong muscles and sharp teeth. And with plenty of food around. Artifacts of man are found among them. They all died together, suddenly and violently, high up on hills and mountains. Gripped by the same terror, wild beasts and tame struggle together to higher grounds.
Some of the people bind their children and themselves upon powerful animals, knowing that these will climb to the highest peaks to escape the rising waters. Some fasten themselves to tall trees on the hills or mountains, but the trees are uprooted and hurled into the billows.
As the waters rise higher, the people flee for refuge to the loftiest heights. Often man and beast struggle together for a foothold… in the blinding rain.
AUSTRALIAN CATTLE FLEEING BRISBANE FLOOD!
In amphitheatres in the hills, they find themselves trapped. In great numbers they throng together, pushing into caves, swarming over the ground in front.
Until the waters rise and cover them. Strong animals, without a sign of degeneration, come to an end. This is not the survival of the fittest. Fit and unfit, and mostly fit, old and young with sharp teeth, with strong muscles, with fleet legs, with plenty of food around, all perish.
The earth is even at this moment convulsing, opening up fissures to swallow many of them, as they collect on the tops of these hills. Then the huge waves smash over them large rocks and debris, until their bones are crushed and smashed. Here, often thousands of feet up, they are washed into crevices and held tight.
Just in case you were not aware, here is an intriguing fact.
When in great panic, flesh-eating animals and the animals that are usually their prey, flee together. They do not attack each other or fear each other. All gripped by the same terror, they pay no attention to one another. Their mutual animosity is lost in a common fear.
NO! THE MEAT- & VEGGIE EATERS WERE FLEEING THE FLOOD TOGETHER!
DINOSAURS DROWNED WITH OTHER CREATURES
CONTINUE READING AT THE SOURCE
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oh my… is pasting large chunks of drivel part of the community standards here?
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Not necessarily, you seem fairly good at small chunks.
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