Spot the effect of man-made CO2 in this graph.
Terror, terror I tell you — as the accumulated energy of cyclones in the southern half of the planet reaches a new low, far below anything seen in records that go back to 1971.
From the Daily Caller, and @Ryan Maue
Meteorologist Ryan Maue of Weatherbell Analytics noted tropical cyclone activity in the Southern Hemisphere for the 2016-2017 season is the “quietest on record, by far” based on records going back nearly five decades.
So far, the Southern Hemisphere has seen 13 named storms, including four hurricane-strength storms. Only two of those storms became major hurricanes, Category 3 or higher, according to data compiled by Colorado State University.
I don’t think Al Gore will be mentioning this in his inconvenient advertising.
h/t GWPF
Operational SST Anomaly Charts for 2017
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anomw.4.10.2017.gif
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anome.4.10.2017.gif
70
Al Gore inconveniently shot himself in the foot: Convincing the public that government scientists lie in exchange for public research funds.
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/04/11/study-manipulating-the-brain-to-create-honest-behavior/
131
Oliver. He sure did.
And, I am so thrilled that Algorical didn’t become our President and never will.
70
Now that the proverbial “cat is out of the bag,” more is quickly being revealed:
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/04/11/the-illuminati-goal-of-abolishing-private-property-reborn-in-globalism/
40
Yes, globalism = global communism
or…. also could be termed “latter day technocracy fuedalism”….with us as the serfs… presumably.
60
So how do all the warmists explain the absence of direct cause and effect with increased CO2 and storm activity?
No pressure guys…….. 🙂
244
Simple! The cyclones are hiding in that repository of inconvenient truths, the deep oceans, ready to leap out and engulf us all in an apocalyptic conflagration at the appointed time.
Do try to keep up, Yonnie!
100
Thanks Allen, I was more concerned no one got my low pressure quip 🙂
80
Yes.
It was seen.
10
Global warming/climate change/AGW has become a bogey-man; a catch-all reason for anything which not only goes wrong but which we are told is wrong or will go wrong. There is a list of all these things going wrong allegedly caused by AGW but the poor compiler has given up adding to it due to the exponentially increasing number of things blamed on AGW.
I suppose we can therefore add fatigue among satirists of AGW and it’s failed predictions to the list.
41
Cyclone Cook will go over all of New Zealand.
http://www.metservice.com/maps-radar/rain-forecast/rain-forecast-5-day
50
They are still mopping up after Debbie.
A “once in 500-year” flood is swallowing up large parts of the east coast of New Zealand, as the tail-end of ex-cyclone Debbie sweeps east ….
20
Two TCs in two weeks is just a bit wet. Debbie wasn’t so bad. We were hit by the tail rather than the cyclonic part. Those who were hardest hit were on the flood plains. Funny that. Well, not funny for those were washed out.
Cook seems as though it will be worse than the remains of Debbie. Rain warnings are out and schools across the northern half of the North Island are closed tomorrow (Thursday). Both have a coincident low pressure system arriving from the west to complicate matters. Rain, rain and more rain.
The last big storm to hit was Cyclone Bola in 1988, 29 years ago. According to the Met Service, Cook is not so strong as Bola, but it will still be wet. The Easter holidays are going to be a bit of a washout.
00
As I type this, cyclone Cook is washing the streets of Rotorua, and other towns in the Bay of Plenty. The west coast of the South Island will also get a deluge (from a weather front), but it always rains there, so nobody is likely to notice.
Where I am, in Wellington, we have had one whole millimetre of rain so far, and 13km winds, but nobody is panicking.
10
The really interesting thing is that another cyclone seems to be forming off the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, and is moving slowly westwards.
It may come to nothing – they often do – or it may cause some excitement in Sydney. Time will tell.
00
Rereke said:
Don’t need to wait, mate 🙂
The South Pacific gyre (sea currents and air flows) is anticlockwise. The Trade Winds at the equator are westerly and the Sapper-cific flows go South from Sydney, around (or over) NZ and up the west coast of South America. So it won’t go anywhere near Sydney.
Think about the Coriolis forces. The northern part of the southern pacific (the SP is from the equator “down” to Antarctica) nearer the equator, rotates at higher velocity than the southern part. It’s the same angular velocity as Antarctica, but because the planetary diameter is greatest at the equator, it’s got a higher linear velocity. It tries to drag the water and air with it but they resist (inertia) and fall off to the side (south). The northern wind and sea are under higher pressure than the southern and this pushes/deflects everything south.
This is why cyclones forming in NZ’s North West (Coral Sea, Queensland, Vanuatu etc) all like to come and give NZ a good wash, rinse, and blow dry. We can wish they wouldn’t but that’s what they do, and why.
It’s also why low pressure systems rotate clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere. The warm air over an area of, say thirty miles by thirty milse or so, rises. The northern edge is dtagged along faster than the southern edge which imparts a clockwise rotation. I see it all the time with summer thunderstorms forming above Auckland’s West Coast beaches.
I have never consciously checked which way the water rotates as it leaves a tub/bath and goes down the plug hole. That’s for teaching the grand-kids 🙂
So you can predict with reasonable certainty what direction these things will go in general, but not exactly.
Auckland had a good rinsing on the night of the 13th but there was not a lot of wind and today (14th) was mostly dry, while the Bay of Planty (Tauranga, Whakatane, Rotorua etc) were getting a good soaking and blow. Talk about leading a charmed life!
10
Sorry, I was being droll. One of the things that young Aucklanders and Sydneysiders seem to have in common, is a propensity to get vaporous and over-excited over weather events that actually pass them by; “… but could have been really catastrophic if it hadn’t …!”
10
It has been suggested a few times that global warming should cause a reduction in cyclone energy. As cyclonic energy is a function of temperature difference, not absolute temperature, as the poles warm a little more than the equator, there is less temperature difference.
161
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2017/anomnight.4.10.2017.gif
50
Robin, you are suggesting that man made CO2 induced climate change is real and in this situation “beneficial”.
Unfortunately for that argument CO2, man-made or otherwise, is not an active participant and is irrelevant to the science of the weather.
For the last 8,000 years of this interglacial period our weather has been relatively benign and stable although the recent winters in the northern hemisphere over the last few years have been severe.
The sun did it and will keep on doing it for a while yet.
KK
244
Agree. A steady 50% increase in CO2 over 100 years produces a sudden decrease in cyclone activity in one year? That is silly science. It shows people will just make things up.
142
Please do not put words into another’s mouth, KinkyKeith. What Mr Pittwood wrote was: “It has been suggested a few times that global warming should cause a reduction in cyclone energy.” Nothing whatsoever about it being “man-made CO2 induced climate change.” Let’s face it – extrapolating what has been written so that it looks like the complete opposite of what was intended is a trick that the alarmists rely on. Don’t follow their bad example.
00
Sorry to Robin.
I misread the last lines as a summing up and should have seen it as a continuation of the “it has been suggested”.
I seem to have become fixated on the “as the poles warm a little more than the equator” for a couple of reasons.
First is the issue of the poles warming. It is apparent that Robin’s comment about the pole warming was in a localized context of a few weeks for a storm cell to be formed. I misread it as referring to the longer-term, more permanent changes imagined with man made global warming. In the longer-term context, not related to Robin’s comment, I don’t believe that anybody can say that the poles are “warming” in any way out of the ordinary given the history of the normal that is known and understood for the last 8,000 years.
My apologies to Robin, I now read the comment in a different light and liked the very concise way of describing storm formation.
KK
10
The Arctic has warmed, but the Antarctic has chilled. The so-called “global warming” has been a mostly Northern Hemisphere effect. The Southern Hemisphere is governed by Antarctica and has warmed very little, if at all.
The Vostok ice core was the first to show this this Bi-Polar Seesaw effect.
11
Hi Sophocles,
You have inadvertently given a prompt for another line of thought.
By mentioning the Vostok ice core which relates to an extraordinary time frame, I was made to confront the timeframe of this latest storm in a tea cup.
We are discussing here storm records of just over a hundred years.
The period under analysis would not enable any statistically relevant assessment.
The elephant in the room that’s been overlooked is the operation of the diurnal bulge and the fluctuation of power input to our atmosphere.
There is solar input here.
Just where does CO2 fit into this picture?
Nowhere. We mustn’t lose sight of the fact that the very basic science says that CO2 has nothing to do with the weather.
If warmers believe otherwise then that’s the problem we need to focus on: getting that truth to them.
KK
01
Thanks, KK.
I’ve been watching Space Weather for the last year, but not religiously. There seems, so far, to be a rough correlation between solar events and terrestrial events. I’m not set up for any thorough data collection but enough things have happened, which could have been simply coincidence, to start me watching a bit more closely.
NZ was hit by Cyclone Bola in 1988. It was a very powerful storm and did a lot of damage, both physically and economically. 1988 was a year of a very active sun. Now we’ve been hit by cyclone Cook, which, when compared with Bola, was almost a non-event, just a storm, and a very inactive sun. Although those in the Bay of Plenty (southeast of Auckland) and the Hawkes Bay (south of the BoP and south of East Cape) may not think so. Cook brought some trees down, Bola laid forests flat. Quite a difference, although they both blew a lot of rain all over the place.
Some weeks ago, the NZ Met Office weather man pointed at a collection of thunderstorms to the north-north-west of NZ and said they were keeping a close eye on them because they could coalesce into a TC. I looked at the Solar “weather” and Old Sol was asleep. I thought those Thunderstorms weren’t going to go anywhere and they didn’t. A week ago, this was repeated with thunderstorms grouped around Vanuatu. We had a large coronal hole pouring out a higher speed solar wind. So I watched. It rotated away but Cyclone Cook had appeared as a Cat 1 at first. I noticed a hissy spitty sun spot had rotated into view. I forgot to check it out but Cook went Cat 3 shortly after. Umm, lazy me. I should have, maybe, watched more closely.
March last year was Cyclone Pam. On March 1st, it was a collection of thunderstorms to the East of Fiji. The Sun produced a big spitty sun spot and on Mar 5th, there was a Solar Flare and a CME. I forget where the CME went, it could have hit a glancing blow, but we had a magnetic storm and Pam was suddenly there, Cat 3. On March 9, there was a big (X-class) solar flare with a CME and we got slapped in the face. Next day PAM was Cat 5.
Coincidence? Maybe. Regular Coincidences, though, start seeming suspicious.
Piers Corbyn, of Weather Action, has made a good living out of weather forecasting and regularly makes fools out of the UK Met Office (the UK MO has a 10 million UKpound Super Computer and is the “home” of CO2 Rocks, Piers Corbyn has a desktop PC and thinks the Sun is behind it all). He is right more often than not but (predicting anything is fraught with risk) when he and the UK Met Office butt heads, I will accept Corbyn’s forecasts over the UK MO’s. Corbyn is an Astrophysicist and was doing some research into the Sun and the Solar Wind in the late 1980’s when he made a discovery which he says is the basis of his forecasting.
It got me interested in watching Space Weather, but that’s as far as I’ve gone, so far. It makes a lot more sense than CO2 increasing by only one molecule per 10,000 does.
31
Hi Sophocles,
I haven’t followed the weather much but you have prompted something there.
Must check it out after Easter.
00
Robin the general AGW argument is that there maybe less hurricanes and cyclones but they will be intensifying. Also the equatorial regions are expanding and that is why decayed cyclones are engulfing NZ.
“The research is suggesting that, in a warmer world, we’ll get more intense cyclones because there’ll be more energy in the oceans and also the atmosphere,” he said.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/cyclone-marcia-climate-change-is-expanding-the-tropics-20150220-13kdfi.html
70
More energy they say?
http://models.weatherbell.com/tropical.php
ACE (Accumulated Cyclone Energy)
Year to date for Southern Hemisphere – 34% of average
Year to date Global – 38% of average.
41
If I might make a wry comment on what RAH mentions here: (my bolding here)
Don’t you just love the way they reduce everything to an average, you know, an average whole of World Temperature, an average Australian temperature, an average Cyclone, an average number of Cyclones.
I’m saying all this as an ….. average Australian. It now seems I am married with two kids, I live in a three-bedroom mortgaged home, I have two vehicles, I am of English stock, and I’m also a female. As that female, I am also 38-years-old, born in Australia with Australian-born parents, and I have completed year 12 and speak English at home.
This is the ‘average’ Australian, according to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
And, on top of that, there are 24 million of us ….. average Australians.
This is outright laziness, to just reduce everything to an average.
Tony.
Postscript – Trust me on this. As a 66 year old male, I would not look good in a dress!
151
I would not look good in a dress!
We’ll take your word for it. What you are saying is you would look “pretty average” 🙂
90
Don’t forget his strike rate and which side he’s batting for…….
20
As the opening bowler, I use to bat a couple of minutes before the heavy roller!
As to my (TenPin) bowling, when I retired, I had a League Average of 186, so my strike rate was pretty good.
Tony.
50
Average, but not pretty (sorry Tony)
20
50% of all the people I have ever met were below average.
40
Keep in mind that I DID tell you it was not pretty!
Tony.
(October 28th 1979)
30
Bloody Hell! its Freddy bloody mercury! Tony you have a career waiting fronting a Queen cover band…..Killer Green?
10
Tony, I just had a frustrating morning with St George Bank because an algorithm decided that the $170 I paid by internet transfer to a local business was suspicious. It seems I had not used internet transfer (completed with ring-back phone check and all other security) for some weeks and so my payment was a departure from my AVERAGE behaviour. This shut me off from all my money.
I asked if a human being somewhere in the bank could check to make sure the whole long and exasperating process is not repeated. Sadly, no. There might be someone in their fraud and security section who might be able to help but Mr Algorithm, who doesn’t need lunch or annual leave, can be a bit stubborn over averages.
Technocracy is here, but it doesn’t need to be evil, just dumb. Which would explain such institutions as the IPCC and the European Union. Of course, they also do evil, but dumb is their main gig.
30
Kosovo,
The way banks operate now is scary.
Have had one very serious incident about 18 months ago and now this morning an automated text/phone interaction with a fraud investigating algorithm.
Those AlGorithms are nuts and bank staff don’t have much input to the system.
00
The autocorrect has misdone Mosomo.
Comment in moderation.
00
If you look at the link they use the term “normal”. IMO there really is no “normal” for weather. So what is one supposed to do to denote a baseline? Average is my solution. The mathematical term Mean will serve but some folks never learned what it is or how it is derived. So I choose to use the term “average” more often than not.
10
You could try looking for a dress that appropriately offsets, or highlights, the moustache?
10
You have to love the way the utterly failed predictions of atmospheric warming has segued into warmer oceans with no mention of greenhouse gases, no mechanism for the oceans to become warmer, no greenhouse effect over the oceans. Just make it up. Warmer=CO2. Simple. Who needs science. Of course every natural effect is now due to CO2. Only CO2 matters. Plus a carbon tax plus the destruction of world democracy. For the greater good.
100
Back in the sixties, there was a concerted push to find out how to ‘tame’ hurricanes, so that poor countries like the West Indies and other places that are regularly hit, would be safe from their menace and nobody would have to die etc etc.
Nobody was able to explain what might happen to all that heat in the ocean which stayed there instead of being flung up to the poles by hurricanes and cyclones, where it could dissipate safely.
41
Tedious. Get a few things happening, and then magically it’s climate change and that’s what we predicated…except you didn’t.
In the UK when we had droughts, climate change meant we were all going to have to conserve water – I still have my free loo hippo from the state. Then we had floods and so climate change actually is going to cause floods. Then we had neither and now it’s floods sometimes and in some places and drought sometimes and in some places. When we had cold winters it was the Gulf Stream slowing. When we had mild winters it was the Jet Stream moving.
When you have models that are tweaked to hindcast, guess what? Your models “predicted” what is now happening. Except they didn’t.
61
“It has been suggested…”
Every possibility and a good many impossibilities have been suggested. This is politics, you know, not science.
110
Exactly! Every possibility and always ending badly. Send money and prepare your tithes.
The mark of con men…….or extortionists.
70
The trick is to leave multiple openings for the climatariat’s message to come through.
AGW causes more frequent and intense cyclones: front door.
AGW causes fewer but more intense cyclones: side door.
AGW causes fewer cyclones: tradesman’s entrance.
AGW causes quietest cyclone in the record: window left ajar.
Bit of a squeeze, but just as well they remembered about the window this year!
92
The one I loved from Tim Flannery was that Global Warming caused longer and more frequent droughts. Completely lacking in any awareness of the silliness of this statement. It is time there was a distinction in Science degrees to make it clear that someone who graduated in English (his native language) is not a scientist. If you can proceed to an MSc, PhD it says a great deal about the absurdity of science by opinion as if the enlightenment and rational science never happened.
40
When the droughts are longer and more frequent they join up into permanent drought and “Perth will become Australia’s first ghost town”. We’ll have to ask Jo how that’s going.
20
My point is just that, logically. If they join up to become one, they become dramatically less frequent.
00
The same has been happening relative to the Atlantic Hurricane season. Models? What models … Shouldn’t we be seeing dozens of cat 5 Hurricanes and Typhoons per year now?
83
The BOM does its best to upgrade cyclones to CAT 5 whenever possible. That is how their statistics will show them, even if they never make Cat 3. Global Warming, Climate Change by simple consistent exaggeration. It’s not just the temperature which is homogenized upwards.
62
Robin,
Cyclone and Hurricane energy goes as the temperature difference between the surface and space and as the tropics warm, more energy is available. Normal storm energy decreases as the climate warms because the heat engine driving ordinary storm systems operates between hot and cold, where global warming increases cold temperatures more than warm temperatures, decreasing the energy available to drive storms.
So while the temperature increases, we should see a decrease in non Hurricane storms and an increase in Hurricane/Typhoons.
52
There is possibly another explanation in that the amount of energy arriving from the sun has dropped as its surface becomes less active. Since the equatorial regions receive most it may be that they aren’t warming enough to develop lots of hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons, so less differential between the equatorial regions and the next.
50
CO2isnotevil, the term global warming is by definition inconsistent with the reality (as best it can be discerned from the tortured and fake figures) that the temperature difference between the tropics and the poles is reducing.
I mention that not to disagree with you but to make a gentle point that your use of the term global warming may be inadvertently ill-advised.
42
“The Poles”? This implies that they are somewhat similar, when they could not be more different. The average temperature at the North Pole in Summer hovers around 0C. It can get as hot as 23C! The South Pole in Summer is -25C and -50C in winter. They are worlds apart. The Southern Hemisphere is so much colder than the Northern, having so little land mass. You cannot count Antarctica as it is coverd in 4Km of ice, a ocean in the air. The poles could not be more different.
These generalizations have no basis in reality.
31
I mean this in reference to CO2isnot. The tortured logic is just absurd. The world’s best climate models are wrong. How any individual can lecture on the frequency of storms is just beyond science. If anyone knew the answer, they would have a real problem with cyclone frequency dropping by 60% in one year. Nothing is changing so quickly.
22
Tdef,
Yes the poles are different, mostly since one is over water and the other is over land at an elevation over 3km, but this isn’t terribly important to my point. BTW, there are no worlds best climate models. All we have are weather forecasting models that can go out a few days at most. GCM’s are basically weather forecasting models at a lower resolution and they just don’t work owing to an even worse divergence problem, not to mention the many baked in assumptions, especially about the effect of CO2.
The logic for how storm strengths vary with temperature is sound. All storm systems are heat engines of one sort or another and a Hurricane is the degenerate case where the heat engine is locally contained, the source of heat is at the bottom and the sink of cold is space. It stands to reason that as tropical temperatures increase, Hurricane strengths will increase as the water below supplies more energy, while space stays the same temperature.
As for other storms, the source of heat and cold are on either side of a weather front. As the planet warms, the colder regions warm more than warmer regions owing to the T^4 relationship between temperature and power, the temperature differences across fronts is reduced on average and overall storm intensity is reduced. However, precipitation increases at higher temperature as more water is evaporated, but to me, storm intensity is more about wind and not rain.
Note that a reduction in the temperature difference across fronts should also reduce tornado activity, although thunderstorms are somewhat of a hybrid between the front based storms and a Hurricane since some of the cold that sinks a thunderstorm comes from above.
Keep in mind that we are talking about averages here and one season does not make an average. But then again, Hurricane strength in the Atlantic has been on the decline for many seasons while the steep drop in cyclone activity in the Pacific may be an aberration. We need to wait and see.
21
Storms dependent on energy and temperature differences? Sure.
However you imply in context that the temperature difference is due to CO2. This is not a blog about meteorology, but the absurd proposition that a 50% increase in tiny CO2 over 100 years produces dramatic changes in the weather and increases in storm activity. That is the claim being discussed and disputed, not the fundamental cause of storms.
21
And therefore also depends on absolute air pressure, and the relative air pressure differential between where the storm is and where it is heading.
10
Tdef,
I never said any warming was caused by CO2, just how storms respond to temperature. The facts are that Hurricanes are down and other storms are up (at least where I am), which indicates potential cooling and not warming.
11
TdeF, am i correct in remembering that, no more than 10 years ago (perhaps later), we were told that more frequent cyclones were going to be the ‘norm’ because of Global Warming. Now the story is that, “as the models forecast”, there will be fewer cyclones but they will be more intense. Am I correct in believing that neither forecast was correct?
20
So presumably all that CO2-induced cyclonic energy is hiding in the deep oceans and when it comes out things will be even worse than expected?
122
Yes Alan. Earlier today I saw such an argument at Judith Curry’s site. It ran something along the line that as the probability distribution flattened the dangers of an extra, extra, extra extreme catastrophe increased because of the flat tail in the distribution.
There are so many alarmists who are plainly not scientists, but also have no real knowledge of statistics or probability, or logic, or apparently anything else. Yet, what they lack in worthwhile knowledge they make up for with applied ignorance.
61
You’ve really planted that one deep Mr Gardener.
A new term originating on the JoNova blog:
Applied ignorance.
KK
30
EXTENDED RANGE FORECAST OF ATLANTIC SEASONAL HURRICANE
ACTIVITY AND LANDFALL STRIKE PROBABILITY FOR 2017
We anticipate that the 2017 Atlantic basin hurricane season will have slightly belowaverage
activity. The current neutral ENSO is likely to transition to either weak or
moderate El Niño conditions by the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. The tropical
Atlantic has anomalously cooled over the past month and the far North Atlantic is
relatively cold, potentially indicative of a negative phase of the Atlantic Multi-Decadal
Oscillation. We anticipate a below-average probability for major hurricanes making
landfall along the United States coastline and in the Caribbean. As is the case with all
hurricane seasons, coastal residents are reminded that it only takes one hurricane making
landfall to make it an active season for them. They should prepare the same for every
season, regardless of how much activity is predicted.
(as of 6 April 2017)
By Philip J. Klotzbach1
and Michael M. Bell2
In Memory of William M. Gray3
http://webcms.colostate.edu/tropical/media/sites/111/2017/04/2017-04.pdf
50
Looking back we have a trend, but what is the cause of this benign activity.
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/4a32d-uslandfalls1900to2013.jpg
40
El Gordo,
The whole system is just too complex, scatty and randomly interactive to predict weather patterns or causes.
Many on this blog have pointed to the sun and solar cycles as being the most likely aid in predicting movements in weather patterns. Most recently Ren has raised this and it certainly looks like the answer.
KK
52
It seems that the BOMs of many lands have the predictive skills of the late Bob Ellis or the extant Tim Flannery.
Whatever the sages say, the Law of Opposite Consequences will manifest, no risk!
72
Its a complex system Keith, but we can work it out in the fullness of time.
We have to prove that global warming has come to an end and offer a simple explanation which people will understand. As Delingpole said, we have all the answers, right?
20
It would be interesting to get a more complete picture which detailed all hurricanes both landfall and ocean only. Just curious about how many weather events there are in total.
KK
10
KK,
Any cyclone data which did not fit a model could be simply homogenised – TO MAKE IT FIT THE MODEL (or else!!!).
31
For philosopher kings
theory rules
‘n data fitting’s
to fool the prols.
10
I’m going with the trend, its the end of the Holocene.
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c01b8d25c32e8970c-pi
A while back I saw a graph in comments at wuwt, he took ENSO out of the temperature equation and it had an identical trending down slope over the same period.
It feels related.
00
Thanks Jo,
” I don’t think Al Gore won’t be mentioning this is his inconvenient advertising.”
Did you get caught with a double negative?
I don’t think Al Gore will be mentioning this..
—
Ahem. Oops. Yes. Call it one-am-itis. Fixed. thanks. Jo
90
In fairness to Jo its difficult not to be overly negative about Man Bear Pig.
60
A cyclone is a hard blow and the dearth of them may be a hard blow to a well known blow hard. There’s a lovely symmetry to that, don’t you think?
191
Isn’t this actually the expected result of polar amplification?
We heard a lot about that 10-15 years ago, before the warmies decided that, as a beneficial effect of global warming, it need to disappear down the memory hole.
60
“Isn’t this actually the expected result of polar amplification? ”
Except the Antarctic hasn’t had any warming in the whole of the satellite temperature.
113
Low storm numbers, you say?
BBC, Guardian, C4, Independent, media manipulation handbook 101:
Amplify any bad news, ignore any good news.
This annoying little fact will therefore not see the light of day!
181
The BBC has recently re-broadcast on BBC4 a
mockumentary“documentary” from 2012, “Climate Weirding,” which includes a section on the dangerously high number of hurricanes, and that they are getting dangerously more and dangerously stronger. Odd that they shouldconcentrate onselect just one year, 2005, to demonstrate their message – had they expanded their database, they would have found the following information: “named” storms (including tropical depressions, labelled by number) in Atlantic Ocean from 2005:2005 – 31; hurricanes – 15; 5 cat 5
2006 – 9; hurricanes – 4; max cat 3 (2)
2007 – 17; hurricanes – 5; 2 cat 5
2008 – 17; hurricanes – 8; max cat 4 (3)
2009 – 11; hurricanes – 3; max cat 4 (1)
2010 – 21; hurricanes – 11; max cat 4 (4)
2011 – 19; hurricanes – 6; max cat 4 (2)
2012 – 19; hurricanes – 10; max cat 3 (1)
2013 – 14; hurricanes – 2, cat 1
2014 – 9; hurricanes – 6; max cat 4 (1)
2015 – 12; hurricanes – 4: max cat 4 (1)
2016 – 16; hurricanes – 7; max cat 5 (1)
Hmmm…. certainly puts things in perspective – and certainly make it more obvious that the BBC are not unbiased purveyors of truth they like to pretend they are.
00
The dearth of cyclones might be a problem for ocean temperatures as cyclones suck heat out of the ocean and “save the reef”.
82
The red thumber displays their gross ignorance by marking this simple quote from DonA:
Coral reefs need cooler water
https://blogs.csiro.au/ecos/coral-reefs-need-cooler-water/
40
Coral reefs also need stable or rising sea levels. https://pindanpost.com/2017/04/08/lower-tides-sea-level-caused-recent-coral-bleaching/
70
I dropped a comment in that site, questioning a lot of what was said. Needless to say, it didn’t get past moderation. Good to see them putting science in action
00
The 0-700m region of the oceans that affect the global weather cooled throughout 2016. Will be interesting to see if this trend continues as it is firm evidence that the cooling associated with the low solar activity is now well under way.
The satellite lower atmosphere temperature anomaly for March 2017 was 0.19C; down 0.6C from the El Nino peak last year.
52
So over the past 20 years during which CO2 has been steadily increasing the global temperature has stalled and the cyclones have been diminished. So what’s the problem? Going by those observations we should be glad that CO2 is increasing assuming there is a link. If there is no link it still remains a benefit to have CO2 increasing because of the increased crop yields. Global warming alarmists yet again have been exposed as the fools.
83
Yeah, but, yeah, but, no, but, yeah, but… Climate change!
50
I think this should be sent to Adam Bandt.
Perhaps it would make him reflect on his ” blood on your hands” comment relating to cyclone Debbie.
But then. I don’t believe greens have mirrors.
81
” I don’t believe greens have mirrors”
Really? you seriously think Bandt doesn’t have mirrors all over the house?
They only show him what he wants to see, though.
83
As the legend goes mirrors are of no use to vampires.
30
The ‘Pacific Ocean’ was named after its’ peaceful nature by Magellan, because he noted how much more peaceful it was compared to the storminess of the Atlantic.
The reason for this is because it is much bigger and therefore has more uniformity in its’ temperature differentials. Less land and more evenly distributed heat between the poles and equator, means less storms, because the air temperature is generally more uniform. Moreover, because the poles warm faster than the tropics, under a warming world it is expected that the temperature differential will decline, and there should be LESS storms and cyclones, which seems to be the case.
Also note that in the year of the strong 1998 el nino, the SW Pacific was also particularly calm, this should have told scientists something.
The same goes for tornados in the USA, these are common there because of the mixing of cold from the north and warm air from the south in the USA SE in particular, however as the climate warms there is more warming towards the northern parts of the USA, and therefore less temperature differential, and consequently, less tornados. This seems to be confirmed by the declining rate of tornados (and hurricanes ) about the USA.
72
How do you plan to scare people with that crap? Climate change was supposed to be increasing insurance company liabilities.
Has that happened or not?
60
thingadonta, you say the world is warming.
Do you have any evidence for that claim?
21
The first bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef was in 1998.
There is no “cycle” – Prof. Terry Hughes
https://twitter.com/ProfTerryHughes/status/722653679841624064
BoM: Bleaching has been observed on the Great Barrier Reef since 1982 …
http://www.bom.gov.au/oceanography/oceantemp/GBR_Coral.shtml
Convince me that the GBR hasn’t bleached hundreds of times in the last 1000 years.
101
In all fairness to Hughes, he does acknowledge the 1980s bleaching here:
“In 2015-2016, record temperatures triggered a massive pan-tropical episode of coral bleaching, the third such global-scale event since mass bleaching was first documented in the 1980s.”
https://natureecoevocommunity.nature.com/users/31192-terry-hughes/posts/15551-global-warming-and-repeated-bouts-of-coral-bleaching
10
Coral Bleaching – El Nino did It.
Terry Hughes says:
However Jim Steele puts the bleaching down to a tempoarary drop in sea level, casused by the 2016 El Nino, which exposed the shallow coral at low tide and exposed it to the hot drying sun.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/04/05/falling-sea-level-the-critical-factor-in-2016-great-barrier-reef-bleaching/
A much more likely explanation in my opinion.
52
Mark M.
I first heard of colour fading in 1961 while on a school trip to the Barrier Reef. Even then the locals recognised that it was a cyclic phenomenon.
120
Those locals are/were a darn sight smarter than our current group of boffins from ANU, JCU, BOM, CSIRO and the left wing media.
The latest is that Cyclone Debbie has damaged the reef. The GBR would have experienced MILLIONS of cyclones over the last several hundreds of thousands of years- and it is still there in all its splendour.
And now the ABC is telling us that the runoff from Cyclone Debbie will destroy the sea grass and dugongs. Amazing, runoff after a cyclone has never occurred before!
21
heard someone on radio last nite saying they’ve already had light snow in Orange, NSW, but can’t see the snow documented anywhere:
PICS: 10 Apr: ABC: Snowy Mountains get blast of pre-winter snow well ahead of official ski season
By Jesse Dorsett
(LARE SUB-HEADING IN ARTICLE) Snow fall ahead of ski season not unexpected…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-10/snow-mountains-in-nsw-alps-gets-snow-before-ski-season/8430702
10 Apr: news.com.au: Coldest night of the year and snow in NSW
by Greta Stonehouse, AAP
Down the road at Charlotte Pass Resort residents woke to 15cm of fresh snow with more falls predicted throughout Monday and eager skiers hoping it’s a good sign for the winter season.
“We saw similar falls on the same day in 2012, and if 2012 is anything to go by, we should be in for a great winter,” Charlotte Pass general manager Lachlan Maclean said.
10 Apr: news.com.au: Snow arrives early in High Country, and brings NSW a wintry blast
IT puking snow in the NSW High Country, with the big ski resorts waking to a winter wonderland this morning. And it’s only Autumn.
Up to 20cm of snow in the Snowy Mountains overnight heralded Sydney’s first wintry blast for 2017: temperatures in the city dropped to 12C overnight, with the chill coming straight off the snow down south.
It’s two months until the official start of the ski season, but ski resorts in Victoria woke up to 20cm of snow, and this morning the dusting that had begun to cover the NSW Snowy Mountains had turned to full-on snowstorm.
The cold is biting in the NSW Central and Southern Tablelands and the Southwest slopes, with a sheep graziers alert warning of cold temperatures, heavy rain and showers and strong south-westerly winds today.
Severe damaging wind warnings for those areas warn of gusts up to 90km/h this afternoon around Orange in the central west and Katoomba in the Blue Mountains.
Sydney residents will be busting out the scarfs for a few days yet with the Bureau of Meteorology forecasting cloudy weather, chilly winds and possible rain until Thursday.
It will stay chilly down south, with the snow tipped to turn to rain overnight. Once that eases, the temperatures will stay low, with a minus of minus 2C forecast for Perisher Valley on Good Friday.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/snow-arrives-early-in-high-country-and-brings-nsw-a-wintry-blast/news-story/00c3b46f8b3fcfdcf9fabb86312ae7ee
51
Careful, BOM might say the early snow is fake news.
11
one of Macquarie News Network headlines (on 4BC) this morning was incoherent.
it simply said electricity prices going up again, but wind and solar, in eastern states, were now providing the cheapest forms of electricity generation. there was no context, no source to check. cannot find anything online.
read all. would the public understand a word of this?
12 Apr: AFR: Ben Potter: Energy market rule change to boost batteries and hamper gas
A shift to a five-minute settlement in the National Electricity Market will help battery companies and may reduce price volatility, an increasing concern as intermittent renewable energy replaces coal and gas.
But it will disadvantage gas generators, which depend on the existing 30-minute settlement period to get into the market at times of tight supply, and some retailers fear this could also reduce the availability of hedges – “$300 caps” – which they rely on to manage wholesale price volatility…
AEMC chairman John Pierce said the proposed change would signal more accurately the value to consumers of “fast response” technologies such as distributed battery storage, new generation gas peaker plants and rapid “demand response”…
Demand response describes an automated system under which large numbers of customers agree to reduce their own demand on household batteries, solar panels and energy hungry air conditioners, pool pumps and electric vehicle charges to meet critical supply shortages and avoid blackouts.
“It’s essential that we have mechanisms that appropriately value the contribution of different generation sources to the long term interests of consumers, not only using the technologies of today – but the technologies of the future,” Mr Pierce said…
The AEMC has previously been criticised by US firm EnerNOC for holding up rule changes to facilitate demand response but it is strongly favoured by the Australian Energy Market Operator under its new chief executive Audrey Zibelman.
Battery companies have long called for the change because batteries can switch on virtually instantly to meet shortfalls, but under 30 minute settlement they fear being pushed out by gas peakers…
“There is no public interest case for any delay in implementation of five-minute settlement,” said Ross Garnaut, chairman of Adlaide-based ZEN Energy, which us bidding for the 100 megawatt South Australian and Victorian battery tenders…
Because of one off metering and IT system upgrade costs, the AEMC said its initial view is that the transition to a five minute rule should take place over three years to minimise costs. It is seeking industry and stakeholder feedback to test its view before publishing a draft determination on 4 July.
http://www.afr.com/news/energy-market-rule-change-to-boost-batteries-and-hamper-gas-20170411-gvj4q1
51
And Ross Guarno, of course, is totally unbiased, in spite of his stake in green energy tech!! (sarc off)
40
read all:
12 Apr: ABC: Darwin weather: Territorians experience coldest April temperature since 1968
By Xavier La Canna
At 8:15pm on Tuesday the weather in Darwin reached 18 degrees Celsius, with a feels-like temperature at 6:00pm of 14.6C, making it the coldest April temperature recorded in the city since 1968.
The average daytime temperature in Darwin for April is 32.7C…
Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) senior forecaster Craig Earl-Spurr said the cold weather related to the low pressure system off the NT coast that it was originally feared may have developed into a tropical cyclone.
“The south-easterlies on the southern side of the low were still bringing in quite a bit of dry air near the surface but we had rain coming in from higher up, which kind of worked like an evaporative air-conditioner where the rain coming into the drier air cools that air,” Mr Earl-Spurr said…READ ALL
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-12/darwin-weather-april-coldest-day-since-1968/8436068
41
Since solar apart is decreasing and the world is likely cooling, won’t that mean less energy to drive cyclones?
This seems to be another bit of evidence suggesting the earth is now cooling.
32
Output not apart.
40
A guest post at Notrickszone by Kenneth Richard illustrates how the tide is turning.
Modern Solar Grand Maximum Ends
‘Little Ice Age’ Cooling On The Way
– See more at: http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.iTbuQRHt.dpuf
10
The wonderful thing about “global warming” is it can explain any desired event.
More cyclones, fewer cyclones.
More rain, less rain.
Higher temperatures, lower temperatures.
Etc…
41
Global Warming means what it states. However that terminology is past its use-by date. The correct terminology is Climate Disruption.
There is no exact definition of CD but the commonly used meaning is Extreme Weather events caused by humans adding CO2 to the atmosphere.
EW is defined as follows:
Temperature lower the 5C below the daily average of the last 40 years or temperature 5 degrees above the daily average for the last 40 years.
Precipitation 50% higher or lower than the monthly average for the last 40 years in a particular location.
Wind less than 20kph for more than 24 hours or wind above 100kph at any time anywhere at ground level.
Solar insolation less than 20% of full sunlight day for the particular location.
It is apparent that there is evidence of CD (as defined here) every day somewhere on Earth. It is a serious threat to the output of renewable energy as that form of energy needs unhindered sunshine throughout the day and steady winds around 50kph.
53
There has been CD ever since the earth came into existence. The issue at hand is whether mankind is causing enough ADDITIONAL CD to warrant action. Thus far there has been no such evidence.
61
Clearly we need a better understanding of what drives these weather events. However that lack of knowledge does not stop the Flannery/Obama/Gore FOG team giving themselves permission to obstruct the pursuit of the facts by pretending that their conclusions drawn from incomplete knowledge are meaningful/final. Perhaps the bigger problem is why our society tolerates the rantings of these conmen and their ilk.
61
Society (politicians included) trusts global warming climate scientists believing they are infallible. Of course they are not infallible as they are human like the rest of us. They can and do make errors of judgement very often – that’s the nature of science and in some cases they falsify the evidence to peddle their agenda. There are bad apples in any group. In the end though the scientists responsible for perpetrating what is clearly the biggest scam in history will get their just deserts. It’s only a matter of time. First we will have to suffer much more pain unfortunately in order for the public to be woken up from their slumber. Such is life.
00
Compare the last 60-70 years or so to the previous 60-70 years, and the planet’s weather has gradually become less extreme, however during the same time period the modern fashion of sensationalized reporting of any weather event(s) has become more extreme.
What would today’s press say if an event like the destruction of Galveston TX happened today? Or if catastrophes such as happen in the US during 1936? They would of course be foolishly ascribed to CO2 and the mythical warmth it can generate.
¯
If this calming of the weather systems are cause by the slight warming the sun has given us then we should celebrate it not vilify it; for so often high peaks in global temperatures are swiftly followed by sudden temperature falls to extreme cold and stormy times.
Meanwhile CO2 works it’s natural wonder by offering us better crops and helping to green the deserts. It is pleasing to note that no observed evidence in the field of increased CO2 has causing harm to aquatic life be it plant or animal.
Of course accurately predicting our weather and climate relies on being able to reliably predict what our sun will do.
41
???
11 Apr: RapidCityJournal: Mike Anderson: Colorado researcher plots path for adapting to climate change
But Cindy Bruyère of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., wants to shift the conversation into the here and now.
“Science you can use,” Bruyère said Monday afternoon. “Something the guy on the street can make use of.”
Speaking to an audience of students at South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, Bruyère — the deputy director of the Capacity Center for Climate and Weather Extremes at NCAR — showcased a set of online tools for predicting, assessing and adapting to the practical impacts and costs of climate change.
As the global climate changes, Bruyère said, so too increases the ***frequency and severity of extreme weather events such as ***hurricanes and droughts, causing even more deaths and damage to infrastructure…
That’s where the Global Risk Resilience and Impacts Toolbox, or GRRIT, comes in.
Developed by Bruyère and other NCAR scientists…
http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/colorado-researcher-plots-path-for-adapting-to-climate-change/article_431c4aca-809a-5646-bfff-acc488f8f3cb.html
11
Does that influence the social cost of carbon?
00
I have very little respect for lists of supposedly major weather events that begin as late as 1974.
I was after all 35 years old, married and had three kids by then so l view those claims of how different the weather and climate were or was supposed to be to have been as just so much complete hogwash as far as I am concerned .
I lived, loved, played, bred and worked hard and long and staggered about financially as is usual in farming through all of those supposedly different weather and climate conditions of the years from 1938 when I was born to the beginning of that list in 1974.
And damned if I can detect anything that is different between all of those years and today except to say that as was completely usual back in those days of half a century ago, we still have had rain and drought and wind and calm and good seasons and bad to very bad seasons right through every one of those decades and through the nearly eight decades of my life.
Such lists are so short term in terms of trends and potential climatic changes of any sort of importance that they are basically almost completely irrelevant compared to the historical and natural changes that eventually become significant weather and climatic factors which will only be seen and identified as such by those still in the distant future.
Just like today we see the Maunder and Dalton minimums and the LIA and the hot years of the 1930’s, those hot years of the 1930’s being conveniently adjusted out of the records as they don’t fit the “catastrophic climate change” alarmist’s agendas and cultish belief systems of the present.
We see the impact of the still to be scientifically explained as to why, the Great Pacific Climate shift of 1977-78, discovered not by fixated with their useless climate changing hypothesis and models, climate researchers but by fisheries researchers in the mid 1990’s trying to figure out where the fish had gone in the past years and why were they being found where they had never been fished before in the records of the fishing fleets.
We, from our position from what was in the 1970’s , still long into the unknown future on mankind’s scale of time, can now see the cold years of the early 1970’s.
But we can also see that all those short term variations and supposedly major climate and weather shifts at the time that were supposedly major climatic events but which on a not that much longer time scale, can now be seen to have made little or no impact on the long term global and regional climate as measured in a multi decades long climate system.
As seen and experienced today, all the supposed and claimed, spuriously in my opinion, significant shifts in weather which are then projected as some sort of evidence by the alarmists of some major climate changing factor is merely the bog standard oscillations and the entirely usual jittering of global weather systems in their ever shifting and ever changing evolutions around what is a common and long term trend climatic point.
What that long tern trending climate point is or will be , we simply don’t know and probably never will outside of a few years ahead.
.
To quote the famous Danish Physicist and Nobel Prize winner of the 1930’s, Niels Bohr; “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.
.
A WW1 slogan which many climate alarmists and climate alarmist researchers should take on board and personally practice
.
A wise Old Owl lived in an Oak .
The more he heard, the less he spoke.
The less he spoke, the more he heard.
People should be like that Old Bird.
——————————————–
No idea if the following link is a complete list as I suspect that back in the days of 1864 on from when the following list of Queensland cyclones begins, there may have been a few small perhaps cyclones that sneaked through and across the probably very sparsely settled northern Queensland coast.
Although we of this age are inclined to unfairly downgrade the truly impressive capabilities of those early Australian settlers and their range of skills as well as their propensity to write down lots of informative items about their times and experiences in a new and barely known country.
CYCLONES TO HAVE IMPACTED ON QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA FROM 1864
10
It is worth looking at the current ocean temperature. Where it is too high in the area of the equator?
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/contour/global.fc.gif
00
I just saw this most disgusting attack against the Heartland book.
http://gizmodo.com/the-most-insane-claims-from-the-climate-conspiracy-manu-1794170334?IR=T
20
Wow, that article was really lame.
30
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2017/04/10/a-swelling-volume-of-scientific-papers-now-forecasting-global-cooling-in-the-coming-decades/
10
The lack of cyclones (and Northern Hemisphere hurricanes and tornados) is due to global warming which is solely due to man made CO2 – the science is settled.
The cold day in Darwin yesterday is also due to global warming which is solely due to man made CO2 – the science is settled.
Here endeth the reading.
30
Into autumn now. Not yet cold in Adelaide but calm today. Wind and solar are contributing 23MW to the grid. That is a disappointing 1.7% of the demand. Right now the Vic interconnector is approaching its limit. Will be interesting watching the evening peak.
SA$153.83
Demand 1,341
Generation 672
Wind and Other 23
V-S-MNSP1 63 (-18 to 142)
V-SA. 584 (-500 to 600)
I will be surprised if SA gets through June without load shedding.
Could be interesting as the capacity of the interconnected is being regularly tested so would not take much of a system bump to trip it. That would take at least half of the load off line in one hit. Maybe complete blackout if the automatic shedding has not been improved.
Interestingly AEMO have withdrawn a lack of reserve notice that was forecast for 18 April in SA:
There is no reason given – maybe wind forecast changed!
40
China has just cancelled large shipments of coal from North Korea. The ships have been told to return back to North Korea. This is virtually what the Greens what to do here – stop coal exports. How about we export all the Greens to North Korea? It only fair as they would be a good match.
Ref: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-northkorea-coal-exclusive-idUSKBN17D0D8
20
The Greens would just love life in North Korea. They could even eat the ultimate vegetarian diet of grass just like starving North Koreans.
And they could also freeze in the dark.
Here is a night time satellite image comparing N and S Korea showing how the North is mostly dark. http://www.earthweek.com/2012/ew120106/ew120106xLARGE.jpg
40
Every night is Earth Hour.
00
I see they have also been buying US coal since February.
20
11 Apr: Daily Mail: Shivali Best: UK wind farms could be paid to switch OFF their turbines this summer as National Grid warns of a huge excess of energy
National Grid released its annual Summer Outlook Report last week
As more people turn to solar power, there is an excess of energy on the grid
Wind turbines could be closed this summer to prevent a build-up of energy
But the huge costs of paying wind farms to switch off will ultimately be passed through to consumers in their energy bills.
Other energy outputs, such as nuclear plants, may also be advised to switch off – which is a more difficult process…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4398828/Wind-farms-paid-STOP-producing-energy.html
10 Apr: UK Telegraph: Jillian Ambrose: Energy suppliers’ market costs hit two-year high as political crackdown looms
The energy sector is braced for a political blow as the Government mulls stepping in to cap prices after a flurry of energy tariff increases from some of the largest suppliers raised prices for millions of households.
The backlash is expected to leave energy companies badly bruised after fresh figures revealed that the cost of power and gas has jumped by a third since last year to its highest price since late 2014…
In gas markets the price has climbed even higher, up 42pc to its highest price since late 2015, in part due to problems with the UK’s main gas storage facility…
However, Ofgem has warned in its latest supply cost index that costs are set to rise further this year…
“From October this year suppliers will also be required to make capacity market payments to help ensure that there is sufficient generation capacity.”…
Ofgem said the costs associated with supporting renewable and low-carbon electricity generation is also expected to rise further this year, and there may be further pressures on the costs of supplying domestic customers because some heavy industries are exempt…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/04/10/energy-suppliers-market-costs-hit-two-year-high-political-crackdown/
00
comment is in moderation.
mob rules:
11 Apr: ClimateChangeNews: Pippa Gallop: Balkans are gambling on coal as EU utilities opt out
(Pippa Gallop is a research coordinator at CEE Bankwatch Network)
EU utilities lobby group Eurelectric last week released a statement that its members would not build new coal plants after 2020.
This pledge simply describes the status quo in most of the EU, as the bloc transforms its energy sector. Eurelectric’s Polish and Greek members refused to sign on, cementing the marginalisation of these coal-dependent countries.
Eurelectric’s affiliated members in the Western Balkans – Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS) and Elektroprivreda Bosne i Hercegovine (EP BIH) – have stayed quiet. No wonder – they are in the awkward position of planning new coal plants even as their peers in the European electricity industry publicly acknowledge that there is no place for coal in the future…
EPS plans several coal plants in the medium term and is concentrating on a lignite-fired 350MW unit B3 at the Kostolac power plant in Serbia…
Among other weaknesses, the project’s feasibility assessment does not include the costs of participating in the EU emissions trading scheme once Serbia joins the EU, and the plant is not designed to meet the new Best Available Techniques standards that are soon to be adopted at EU level, rendering it out-of-date before it is even built…
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/04/11/balkan-utilities-gambling-coal-eu-opts/
00
12 Apr: Australian: Jennifer Westacott: Time to pull the plug on culture war over energy generation
(Jennifer Westacott is chief executive of the Business Council of Australia)
Competitively priced electricity has provided the backbone of our manufacturing sector and positioned Australia as an energy-bowl for power-hungry economies around the globe. From such abundance, how can we now be fearing blackouts, such as those in South Australia, and face wholesale electricity prices nearly three times higher than a year ago? What’s let us down? Where did we go wrong? And, most importantly, how do we get out of this mess?…
New investment is required, without which we cannot deliver the security, reliability and affordability of energy supply that Australians expect…
Just the planning, permitting and construction of a power station — wind, solar or gas — can take several years, and any new coal-fired plant would take much longer.
Against this backdrop, every sudden policy shift or government intervention in the electricity market risks jeopardising, or at least confusing, private investment. Providing policy confidence is key.
This is why calls to repeal or extend the RET must be resisted. However imperfect, this target underpins significant investments and should be left alone. Any more changes would further chill investment right across the sector…
Wind and solar need a cost-effective partner that can be available 24/7. In time, that will hopefully be storage technologies such as batteries or pumped hydro. But for the next decade, we had all assumed the critical partner to renewables would be gas-fired generation…
Lobbied by the very same activists who want a rapid transition to lower emissions electricity, state governments delayed or restricted new gas development…
Ridiculously, thanks to misguided climate activists, for the first time in 15 years we’re back to talking about prospects for new conventional coal-fired stations…
However, we cannot ignore the need to transition to a lower-emissions future…
Without new investment, the supply-demand balance will be tight, prices will remain needlessly high, and the increasing penetration of renewables will mean the system may not be both secure and reliable…
Several modelling exercises, and those very companies that would invest in next-generation power stations, favour an “emissions intensity scheme” for the electricity sector as the lowest-cost option. An emissions intensity scheme — through which heavier emitters subsidise lower-emitting technologies — has the added benefit of not putting pressure on consumer prices…
In the absence of an emissions intensity scheme, an emissions standard or emissions cap could be applied to coal-fired power stations based on the end of their 50-year technical life. The requirement to close could be subject to a national interest test if the generation capacity is required for system security or reliability…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/inquirer/time-to-pull-the-plug-on-culture-war-over-energy-generation/news-story/75ba3b75062f0cdfb33934ff682d8177
11
Political doublespeak.
I can’t work out the true meaning or intent of this article.
It is deliberately confusing.
KK
00
Ironically, as storms are related more to temperature differences than to temperature, and as poles are warming slightly faster than the equator, this may be one of the benefits of a warming earth. Note that ‘poles are warming slightly faster than the equator’ contradicts the IPCC model predictions.
01
‘….as poles are warming slightly faster than the equator…’
Antarctica has been getting cooler, while at the equator temperatures are normal.
Steve CO2 does not cause global warming and the pause in temperature over two decades proves the point. It contradicts the IPCC model predictions.
21
7 Apr: ClimateChangeNews: Megan Darby: Weekly wrap: the fraught politics of climate finance
The mood was sour in Songdo on Thursday as a meeting of the Green Climate Fund board ended abruptly at 6pm.
While the UN’s flagship climate finance initiative approved eight proposals – including big hydro schemes opposed by NGOs – rich and poor countries disagreed vehemently on a ninth.
Donors were not sold on the Ethiopian bid for US$100m to prepare communities for rising drought risk…
Even co-chair Ewen McDonald could muster little positivity about the meeting’s outcome: “The GCF has a busy agenda for 2017 as it matures as an organisation,” he said in a statement…
Mumbai petrolheads
Environmentalists are warning Mumbai could be the next Indian city to hit the air pollution charts if a planned new coast road is built.
The authorities are pressing ahead without consultation instead of investing in public transport, Darryl D’Monte reports from the island city.
http://www.climatechangenews.com/2017/04/07/weekly-wrap-fraught-politics-climate-finance/
7 Apr: EcosystemMarketplace: Steve Zwick: Here Are The Eight New Projects The Green Climate Fund Is Supporting
The projects are valued at $755 million, and most are focused on hydropower and renewable energy, with one – in Tanzania – focused on sustainable land management
The Fund’s portfolio now consists of 43 projects and programmes amounting to $2.2 billion in GCF funding for a total value of $7.3 billion, with co-financing included.
Video recordings of the GCF Board meetings are available on the Fund’s website (LINK).
The 17th meeting of the GCF Board will be held from 4 to 6 July of this year, with the 18th meeting taking place before year-end…READ ON FOR THE APPROVED PROJECTS
http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/articles/here-are-the-eight-new-projects-the-green-climate-fund-is-supporting/
00
11 Apr: Reuters: David Stanway: China solar, wind to attract $780 billion investment by 2030 – research report
China’s wind and solar sectors could attract as much as 5.4 trillion yuan ($782 billion) in investment between 2016 and 2030 as the country tries to meet its renewable energy targets, according to a research report published on Tuesday…
To do that, China would need to raise wind and solar power’s share of primary energy consumption to 17 percent by 2030, up from 4 percent in 2015, according to the report, published by environmental organization Greenpeace and involving research by a government institute, a Chinese university, and other groups…
However, the agency warned the country’s electricity distribution system was still not flexible enough to handle renewable power, and there were still technological obstacles when it came to connecting wind and solar to the grid, leading to large amounts of waste.
According to figures released last month by China’s Electric Power Planning and Engineering Institute, 49.7 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of wind power failed to make it to the grid in 2016, up from 33.9 billion kWh in 2015 and amounting to 17 percent of total wind power generation.
Greenpeace said it worked with the China Wind Energy Association, the NDRC’s Energy Research Institute, Tsinghua University and an environmental research group called ***Draworld, and then submitted the findings to independent experts.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-energy-renewables-idUSKBN17D0QV
***Draworld Center, DERC
Draworld Environment Research Center (DERC, Beijing), founded at June, 2012…
Conducted the project on Investment and finance, and operation mechanism of natural gas utilization in Beijing, Economic impacts of large-scale bioenergy development in China etc.(sponsored by ***World Bank)。
Group leader: TBD
Group 2: On China’s power sector reform, smart grid, and technology, economic, policy and projects regarding renewable energy integration into the grid.
Group leader：To be hired…
http://www.draworld.org/institute.html
00